by K Alexis
He rose to the top of the well and stayed there for a while, seemingly assessing Mea's statement. He sunk back down. "I'm sorry," he said. "You didn't deserve my outburst. It's rare to meet a real refugee these days."
Mea was too exhausted to be upset. Her feet and shoulders hurt. She wanted to relax near a campfire and listen to Tath and Agra bicker about whether or not books were better than imaginations. "May I sit on your wall?" she asked Hamellé.
He made an elated sound. "Can you ever," he replied.
Mea slid off her bag and sat on the stone wall surrounding Hamellé. Her feet hung over the side and dangled into his bowels. "Could you please explain what this place is?" she requested. "Vesper said that it was my right to be teleported anywhere I desired but then wouldn't teleport me to where I wanted to go. Why?"
"That's one long and helluva a story to tell," Hamellé replied, his tone low and sympathetic. "The short summary is that Navigators have a treaty with the Library of Oblivion, and it promises them safe passage to any world of their choosing … except their home universe."
"That makes no sense," Mea said. "Why can't I—"
"Because you're not a Navigator anymore," Hamellé responded, cutting her off. "You're a refugee. A lost one. That's why you have a human body. The Navigator Council has stripped away your "citizenship" because you let your personal desires interfere with the assigned task. You no longer have a home. You are a nomad with the gift of being able to select where you would like to live the rest of life. That's the rotten deal, honeyfeet. And there isn't anything anyone can do about it unless the Navigators stop being so damn powerful in the next few cycles."
Mea bit down and ground her teeth. What Vesper had refused to tell her snapped into focus. She had been discarded. The might of the Navigator army was not hers to call on anymore. She would never again hear the sound a universe breaking its first dawn nor have a chance to witness her mother's smile or scowl. All she had left was the memories of her home, and those would have to do for the rest of her life. "I'm guessing Vesper doesn't like us … immigrants," Mea said, trying to use her anger to distract from the pain she felt about her eternal loss.
"Bang on the six-dollar coin," Hamellé said. "Vesper hates 'gees in general, but especially Navies. She doesn't see why anyone should get a second chance at fixing their lives." The red swirl morphed into a smiley face. "If you stay here, cheesecake, you'll be a walking corpse."
Hamellé chuckled at Mea's eyes turning yellow from the fury boiling inside of her. "I know it's easy to hate on Vesp for her bigotry," he said. "But she's got good reasons for her resentment. You lot give her headache after headache. She has to find you a job and a new universe. She might have to negotiate with the Navigator Council if they've put additional limitations on where a lost one can travel to. That's months, years, maybe even decades of looking after someone who is often bitter and angry. To her, it would be better if every 'gee offed themselves by falling into a sun or slipping into a creation portal." The face in the ooze smirked. "I'm actually surprised you've survived this long."
"She had an audit," Mea replied, understanding why that was so important now.
The ooze lifted an inch and then fell. "Hah. That explains why you're still kicking, breathing and heaving those glorious fun-bags. Ooh, I shouldn't have gorged myself on all of those Earth books. What I would do with a warm-bodied, female human …" He began to pant.
"Can you keep your urges to yourself?" Mea asked.
"I'm sorry." The ooze rocked back and forward as if it was shaking its head. He stopped breathing heavily. "I can do this," he mumbled. "Okay, I'm good. About Vesper, if she has an audit, she's not going to try and outright murder you. You mess up an inspection in the Library and … awful things happen." Hamellé's eyes unexpectedly rotated around the pool so they were directly under Mea's trousers. "Sorry, I really can't help myself. I've got to know if human women are as luscious as the tales I've read. You wouldn't have a skirt by any ch—"
Mea ignored him and asked, "If you can't mess-up an audit, why did Vesper send me here?"
A thought bubble appeared above the face, and a question mark blinked inside it to indicate Hamellé was processing the query. "It is unusual," he said. "I would've expected her to send you on your way posthaste. Unless … you demanded Vesper transport you somewhere overly challenging. After all, her generosity is limited even at the best of times."
Mea crossed her arms. "'Demand' is a strong word."
Hamellé's eyes became single, horizontal lines. "You ordered her to recreate your old universe."
"I requested she help me save the woman I love … loved."
The pool breathed out again. "Oh gods and goddess above. There was another one of you. And you must have caressed each other, felt each other's …" Hamellé began to warble in a consistent rhythm and gurgle happily. Mea coughed, but Hamellé did not stop and kept sloshing up and down until he let out a satisfied sigh. Some of his goop shot straight into the air.
"You finished?" Mea asked Hamellé.
"Yes, and after that 'gasm, I'll send you anywhere. Practically though, it depends on what's in your bag. Creating a new world takes a lot of energy, and my perceiver isn't in any state to channel anything. So, I need to 'borrow' the residual power in already existing tales." Hamellé beckoned to the bag.
"What happens to the stories?" Mea queried.
"If you're asking, you can fill in the dots. They fade into nothingness and can never be re-written. They can never be pulled from the Soup of Imagination by another author. Only you will remember them—for a time."
"I assume a second-grade Gan Tucker novel won't be enough to re-create the Milky Way," Mea said.
"No, my little temptress," Hamellé confirmed. "You could lower yourself into my liquid and let me consummate my desires as payment, but it would be ineffective—if not enjoyable. I need creative power to build worlds, and rare, once popular novels are the types of books that have the most energy.
Mea pulled her bag up and onto the wall. "What happens if I give you the novel at the end of a series?" she queried.
"Ooh, you are quite the leggy devil. In that case, only that story would disappear. The previous books and character arcs in the trilogy or heptalogy would still be intact. And Earth had some good ones. Do you have Skin Crawlers in there? The Queen Killers? It only took seventeen years for Pat Fuss to finish it.
"Hemi ngèr, all of it," Mea answered.
Hamellé snorted and spat another gob of ooze at her. "You better go and find a skirt—a short, tight one—and then be prepared to take it off during a lap dance if you want me to eat your lie. Maybe you have book one; that's not too rare, although still difficult to locate nowadays. If you put The Sophist's Baubles in though, the whole series would disappear." When Mea said nothing, he continued, "Fine, book two. I can stretch my mental faculties that far."
She opened the bag and withdrew the first six novels of the Hemi ngèr series, dropping each one loudly onto the floor beside her. At the end, she held The Lascivious Consecration in front of her so Hamellé could see it.
He rumbled and laughed. "Well, women in fishnets with lacy brasseries, you are one surprise after another. If you want the best universe I can create, I'll need the last two."
Mea picked up The Lascivious Consecration and The Moderate Monarch and hugged them. One day, maybe after Tath had passed into the ether, Mea would visit Hemi, Arry and Nor. However, they paled in comparison to the chance of being able to rest her head on Tath's shoulder and watch a sunset together. She dropped the books into the ooze. Hamellé exploded and the Milky Way was reborn.
Millennia shrunk to seconds, and events scientists had theorized about for decades unfolded before her. She learned the names of all the extraterrestrial species in the galaxy and why they avoided Earth. She witnessed how fortunate humankind had been to become the top of the food chain and how they had squandered their luck by spending their most prosperous years on higher and higher stock prices while delib
erately inventing racial castes. She discovered who was responsible for the Cataclysm and witnessed every torture Steh had endured. She felt for Agra each time Junko betrayed him and reported him dead to her Corsair superiors, only to have to reverse her position after he had escaped from yet another death trap. Finally, she heard Tath's voice once more and saw her lover stare at the stars while telling Agra they had plenty of time. She had been wrong. They all had been.
Hamellé wound the Milky Way's timeline almost to its complete destruction: the final Starfire ray was about to pierce a black hole. Then, he rewound it to a few seconds after Ulrich and Giselle had been killed. "Here," he said. "This is the closest I can drop you." The Milky Way expanded in size until the proportions were a perfect recreation of the original. Steh stood in front of her.
"How could you do all that without the book I saw Vesper carrying in the library?" Mea asked.
"The same reason there's three death traps waiting for any intruder and Vesper is handling refugees: Leloia," Hamellé answered. "The next time you visit, I'll tell you the story."
"I … It doesn't matter. Why am I looking at Steh?"
"Well, I thought you might want to live. If you don't change anything …"
"It'll end the same way," Mea continued, completing Hamellé's statement.
"I can't take anything out of the universe," Hamellé explained. "But I can swap some history and events around. There's a catch though, Valentine of the Blue Seas, changes happen once you tweak something. Sometimes they are small things; sometimes they are big. And I will have no control over them. This is your disco dance, as they say. What would you like me to do?"
Mea stared at the source of her misery. Steh had been the reason she had been sent to Earth. His inability to control the universe's power had made her act of mercy pointless. Even in death, he had found a way to rip Mea apart from Tath. Why did he have to be the one who would be free from Ristie's curse and be able to live a normal life?
"Could you put him in a situation where he would die after we re-started time?" Mea asked.
"Yes," Hamellé confirmed. "But there'd be a lot of drift from the original Milky Way in that case because I wouldn't be substituting events, I'd be creating them. If we go that route, we should start rolling dice with bingo cards to determine what your friends will be like when you met them again. Assuming, of course, they haven't been killed yet."
"What's your plan then?" Mea queried, unhappy she could not punish Steh for his failings.
Hamellé smiled and produced a three-dimensional image of Jetta. "We're going to swap her with Steh. She'll have all her powers intact, but she'll be a prisoner in the same cell as Steh and the one they embed the Starfire powers into. Psychologically scarring for her, yes, but we don't have much choice. There are very few people who can control a galaxy's creation flame on Earth."
Mea looked at the magnified Jetta and read the short biography that Hamellé had projected next to her image. Her story was too expansive for her physical age, and she seemed to have popped into the Milky Way fully grown. Her lack of a moral compass, however, was more disturbing. There was no consistency in her actions. One week she would decide to react one way to an event—and then a week later, she would make the opposite choice in a similar situation. Mea did not like the instability she might bring to the group … or the conflicts she might create. She seemed too cocky and rebellious while also being too indifferent and uncaring. She was a person who could rally others to her cause but would then refuse to help them in their time of need. Not that Mea was alone in her suspicion of this mysterious woman. No-one on Earth had seemed to like Jetta. They had respected, tolerated and faked an interest in her for their own gain, but never liked her. She was a loner and alone.
"There's no death date," Mea said after finishing the file.
"Because she's a universe transverser," Hamellé responded. "She's out there in the cosmos somewhere. And she's not going to be happy about us taking her freedom away."
"Will your plan save Tath?" Mea asked, uncertain but also hopeful. If there was even the slightest chance …
"Yes," Hamellé confirmed.
"Can you bring her up?"
Tath—Telia Morehouse—suddenly stood next to Mea. She reached out and caressed the flickering image's hair. If she agreed, she would be able to touch her lover and hold her. Steh might be given a freedom he did not deserve, but Mea would not have to choose between her duty and her princess. With this, everyone got a second chance. She could prove she was not Tath's father nor her mother's daughter. She was Navigator and human, and she would feel worthy of Tath's love.
"You have my permission," Mea said.
"Ah, sweet cheeks, I'm going to miss you," Hamellé said. He sunk deep, deep into the basin and beamed a searing white light to the ceiling. A second later, he shot up, hit the roof and splatted back into the well. His ooze convulsed as if he was trying to dislodge something in his throat. After a number of hacks and coughs, he spat out a book; it looked similar to all the others in the library. "If you mess this up, I'm not doing it again for any less than a mini-skirt and knot-tied T-shirt so I can suckle on your abs," Hamellé told her.
"I hope it never comes to that," Mea replied. "You disgust me."
"I'm a product of patriarchal media. Don't hate me; hate what produced me."
"What do I do now?" she asked.
"It's like Hyze," he said. "Step on the last page to travel to the world."
Mea bent over to flip the tome open. She could hear Hamellé begin to gurgle excitedly. Lifting her backpack off the wall, she put it on. From the text on the page, it seemed like the group had just killed Ulrich and Giselle, and Junko was about to betray them. Mea knew it was going to be a tough fight, and they could still die. Yet, it was worth the risk. She had earned her chance to make things right and give Telia the life she deserved. She stepped onto the book.
Thirty-six: The Odds
"AND 'WAS,' I believe, is the most important word in your sentence," Mea heard Agra say as she attempted to adjust to the world around her. The chamber she had arrived in was the same as it had been ten cycles ago—its murkiness desperately trying to suck out the light of the room. However, Agra was different. His closely cropped hair had been replaced with a collection of curls that had yet to be shaped into anything resembling a hairstyle. And his traditionally bland, cheap T-shirt was now a brand-name one with a popular pre-Cataclysm superhero splashed on the front.
The only noticeable change to Tath was that she used a regular wooden bow rather than Steh's magical one. Her hair was still wavy and chin-length. Her sleeveless shirt and hiking pants were baggy enough to move in while being tailored sufficiently to accent her bodyline. She notched an arrow on her bow's string. "Jetta, what's our play?" she asked.
Jetta stepped in front of the group. Her fists glowed brightly in a multitude of colors. Their glimmer popped and crackled—shooting streaks out into the dim light as if they were excited to be released onto Earth. "I'll take the golem," she answered Tath. "You and Agra get Junko. And Mea, you've lucked out and pulled the short end with the administrators. Think you can handle five of them?"
Mea stared at the back of their, her, new team member. Jetta's height was a diminutive four feet eleven inches, but she felt overpowering. Despite her hourglass-curviness, her frame appeared lithe and fighting-ready. Jetta's pearl-colored, cotton blouse and black pants did nothing to indicate sexiness but everything to perpetuate an aura of authority. Asides from her worn brown boots, there were no signs she was a meandering adventurer or belonged to their group. Jetta had the markings of a security guard or fleet admiral.
"Mea," Jetta repeated after Junko had made it safely to the golem and administrators. "Talk to me."
"I can handle them," Mea confirmed.
"Alright then," Jetta said, teleporting. An instant later Mea saw Jetta shoot fire straight at the golem from her palms.
Tath and Agra ran toward the altar. "You alright, M?" Tath called out. "You
look like you downed too many wild fires last night."
"I'm fine," Mea replied. She conjured multiple balls of void energy and started shooting them at the administrators. When the ones farthest away did not take the bait and headed for Tath and Agra instead, Mea summoned a cube the size of a standard step and placed it in front of her. She strode onto it and repeated the process until she was thirty feet in the air. Bending down, she laid both her hands on the purple stair she was standing on and pressed down while uttering an incantation. A long void path extended from the step and ran the length of the room. Behind her, Mea heard the sizzle of an administrator discovering it could not use the staircase she had built.
Once her spell had finished, Mea ran along the makeshift walkway and fired at the administrators below. Her plan did little to change the situation. The administrators continued to attack Tath and Agra, halting their progress to Junko. Accepting her initial strategy had failed, Mea decided to change tactics. She launched herself off the platform and toward the nearest administrator, aiming for its head. As it was too distracted fighting Agra and Tath, it did not notice Mea and so her fist went clean through the harmonizer abomination, splitting its body in half. The ground rumbled as Mea landed, making everyone, except the golem and Jetta, lose their footing and tumble onto the floor.
"For fuck's sake," Tath said, grabbing Mea's outstretched hand. "Are you trying for flashiest kill or something? Because I'll take that bet." Tath grabbed an arrow from her quiver, none of them were colored or appeared to contain any type of magical enchantment. She shot it straight at another administrator, missing as it teleported to a safe distance. "Run, little monster, run," Tath said, letting two more arrows fly in rapid succession. The first went wide, but the second hit its target in the leg. Before Tath could try again, the other administrators had gotten up and re-commenced attacking the three of them.
Mea grabbed the first one to teleport in front of her and threw it over her shoulder. She sprinted away from the group and channeled her magic into her legs. With two hops, she bounced back onto her void path. Holding the wriggling harmonizer by the throat, she pressed it into the purple skyway and watched as its clothes, skin and face melted when it touched the void road. Out the corner of her eye, she could see the three other white-robbed assassins had stopped engaging Tath and Agra.