Reverberations

by Aaron Frale

  “They were fighting to end slavery. They were close to doing it too! Now, none of those people will know freedom. They died slaves. Their fight was for nothing!”

  “I’m sorry, man,” Meathook said.

  After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Patel asked, “Do you think Hector was sending a message about 78f?”

  “That’s my home verse,” Alex said. “That’s where I come from.”

  “Great,” Jon said. “So we are not supposed to fight you. We already figured that out on our own. Thanks a lot, Hector.”

  “He is doing the best he can,” Hailey said. “At least we know it was my TF3. They must have picked him up in 61g.”

  “Maybe there is something in 78f. Something that can help us,” Patel offered.

  “There’s nothing,” Alex said. “It’s a wasteland with a cesspool of humanity.”

  “Well, maybe we should go look,” Patel said.

  “Maybe you should,” Alex said. “Make sure you pay me the other half before you go.”

  “All you care about is money!”

  “Whoa!” Meathook said. “Maybe we shouldn’t fight each other.”

  “How about we try to take the farmhouse back?” Hailey said. “There are people who we can save right here in this universe.”

  “What does it matter?” DeAndre said. “The cultists are just going to kill them anyway. Just like they killed everyone else.”

  “Enough!” Jon yelled. Everyone quieted down. Jon turned back to face the car. “The cultists have not won. Not by a long shot. That was only for the universes who know about the Tuners. How many are clueless? Do you think they will just give up 1/3 of their kids to some crazy people who show up at a mall one day? No, they are going to have to fight a war, not just here in 42, but everywhere that people think their universe is the only one. Why do you think they had Hector do that? They are building an army. They’ll start with the ones they can easily intimidate then force their way into the others.”

  “So, what are we going to do about it?” Magdalena said. “We are just a group of kids.”

  “Take back the farmhouse, for one,” John said.

  “You just said that because your girlfriend did,” DeAndre said.

  Jon ignored him and continued. “Send a few of us to 78f and see if there is anything worth our time.”

  “You can count me out of that one,” Alex said.

  “But you are the best guide,” Patel said.

  “They won’t be able to help you, Patel,” Jon said.

  “But why?”

  “Because Alex is coming with me.”

  “Where are you going?” Hailey said.

  Jon turned to Hailey and said, “I’m going to HQ to get Hector. And Alex is the only one who knows a way in.”

  “No, Jon,” Hailey said. “You can’t go alone. At least take Meathook with you.”

  “Sorry, sister,” Alex said. “Portal opens once every twenty-four hours, and it only lets one person through.”

  “How are you going to bring back Hector?”

  “That’s a good point. Hector is a little too old to tune, and you can’t bring too much baggage through the back door. The most I could steal is a backpack full of medkits.”

  “That’s what happened to the medkits,” Patel said.

  “We’ll go out the front,” Jon said.

  “That’s crazy, Jon,” Hailey said. “You’ll be surrounded by cultists.”

  “The same thing happened when I went to their homeworld to rescue you.”

  “Hey guys,” Alex interrupted the argument. “You forget the obvious. We can always turn ourselves in to the processing centers.”

  Everyone gave Alex a look. Meathook tightened his grip around his hammer.

  “It’s a joke,” Alex said. “Come on. I had you going for a few moments there. No sense of humor.”

  “Do you think it is wise to split up?” Patel said.

  “If they get one group of us, at least they won’t get us all,” Jon said.

  No one responded. Alex spun the car around and said, “All right. It’s decided then. Let’s go back to Azerius’ place to get Hailey a TF2; I got a spare in my stuff. It’s a loan, by the way. I can also bill you for it.”

  They had driven relatively far out of Billings. It would be a while before they would get to a road that could take them to the bottom of the Rimrocks and into the city. The rest of the way was spent in silence.

  13

  Magdalena opted for being on the 78f team with Patel and DeAndre. If Hector wasn’t going to give her essential mission duties, then she would take the opportunity for herself. Not only had she survived the cultists' homeworld, but she was also stronger than the average person in most universes. Since Alex seemed to have come from an ordinary world, Magdalena bet that she would be the strongest person in the world once they tuned.

  It was crazy to think the multiverse granted her a superpower just because of a variation in gravity. It wasn’t that planet Earth was bigger or denser. It was just the laws of physics were tweaked in just the right way to change the physical constants of her place of origin. Due to the luck of her birth, she would get to be the one out of the comic books.

  For her, that was a big deal. In her homeworld, she was average and almost entirely forgettable. The boys from her school didn’t seem to notice that she existed, and the girls who did notice picked on her. The worst part was that she almost liked it because at least people were paying attention to her. Being the butt of a joke was her way of belonging. The girls who picked on her kept her around as if she was the tragic example of what not to do.

  Sienna, the mean girl leader, always put her down. “You don’t want to do your hair like Mags here” or “That’s a fashion disaster like Mags.” Magdalena would laugh it off as if she was in on some inside joke and not the joke itself. If there were only a way to restart school with her superpower, maybe things would be different. She’d be the star athlete and take their soccer team to the next level with her ability to make goals clear across the field.

  However, if she did go back, she’d be average again, so she lied to Hector. She told him that the cultists had killed her family when the reality was that when she was at the mall one day, some freak in a hood appeared out of nowhere and took her away. For all her family back home knew, she was a runaway or a cold case where the body may never be found. Not that she had cared what her family thought.

  While her dad never hit her, he was mentally abusive. He’d slut-shame her every time she left the house even though she hadn’t even ever touched a boy’s hand, much less kissed one or anything that would be considered remotely promiscuous. Her mom was worse because she’d just say things like, “Your father is just worried about you” or “He is looking out for your best interest.”

  On top of that, her brothers could do anything they wanted. They stayed out late, had rendezvous with women, and always had Dad stick up for them when the principal called or the pastor from their church voiced his concerns over their behavior. It was like her brothers were the chosen ones, and she was just an embarrassment to the family.

  However, it all changed the day the Tuners rescued her from the cult. She was a new woman who was more in touch with her new self than she ever had before. Sienna would never be able to make comments about her again. She’d confront her mom the next time that woman would defend the jerk. Most of all, she would never let her father say anything wrong to her again. At least that was the fantasy she had with her new powers.

  So, she lied to Hector, but at least there was a good reason behind it. That’s why she was the only one who didn’t complain about Alex not wanting to show them 78f. She understood never wanting to go back. She realized how much better she had become and was probably one of the few people in the universe who was better off for being taken by the cultists.

  Even though Azerius had escaped, he was so messed up compared to her. The guy couldn’t do anything without watching over his shoulder. She was
happy to have survived with her head screwed on straight. Knowing how eager she was to please the people who had abused her all her life, it wasn’t so farfetched that if the Tuners didn’t rescue her when they did, she would have broken and become a member of the cultist themselves.

  She had no idea why she was drawn to people who were mean to her. She had thought about running away a couple times, but in the end, she was too scared to do anything about it. Now for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to run away. Even when the other Tuners complained about Hector being too hard on them, she knew they had it easy. That’s why she wanted to go to 78f.

  They appeared in a mall in 12c at a small food court area. They had gone through seven universes before this one. The place was empty, and a lot of the workers stood around chatting with each other. There were rows of chairs and tables. They all listened to their headphones for 78f. Magdalena thought she heard it a couple of times but Patel and DeAndre shook their head. Finally, when they had wandered all the way to a store called Goth News, she heard it. She pointed inside the store, and DeAndre nodded for her to lead the way.

  Her heart pumped as they went into the store. Not only was she on the mission, but they had let her take the lead. A clerk with black and green hair and pale makeup startled her, and she mumbled some excuse about just browsing. The clerk didn’t seem to care and looked back down at her heavy metal magazine, having fulfilled her corporate duty.

  If there was one thing they could count on for mall employees, it was that they didn’t care that much. Magdalena could be walking out wearing five of the same jacket and would probably only get a halfhearted, “Can I help you?” That’s why when three teens were about to go into the back of the store and disappear entirely, the clerk wouldn’t have even looked up from an article about Norwegian Black Metal.

  Malls were dying all across this universe. She read in her wikiuniverse app that online shopping was where people spent their time and money. People seldom left the house because they had endless supplies of music, movies, and video games. It was a stark contrast to the malls of her homeland that were vibrant and full of people. Magdalena wondered how’d they tune when malls would shut down entirely.

  She eventually found the spot where it was the loudest. It was next to women’s tops that bordered more on lingerie than actual clothing. She turned to Patel and DeAndre. They both nodded. She hit the tune button and winked out of U-12c.

  ∆∆∆

  She appeared in a post-apocalyptic marketplace. There were carts set up in rows that ranged from wagons to cars with the tops cut off. Makeshift tables, and even a few permanent buildings that looked like they could be locked up tight in the night. The people were all dressed to some degree like Alex. They were wearing garments that were stitched together from salvaged clothes. They all had some version of a utility belt, whether they were comprised of shoulder straps, pockets on their vests or actual belts. People had goggles and headpieces, armor, weapons, and a lot of them were wearing black, whether it was dingy clothing or preferences.

  Three thugs had seen her appear behind a kiosk of a scavenger who was selling anything from dead birds to more coveted items like batteries that were behind a display case. The men all wore black armor, had bald heads except for a ponytail of multi-colored hair that was sticking straight up. One sharpened his blade on his teeth and walked toward her. The others gathered their weapons and followed the first. Magdalena pulled a cylinder from her hip. With the touch of a button, it extended into a quarterstaff. She didn’t enjoy the prospect of drawing blood and had elected to train on a staff. Meathook was excited by her choice and had said, “Bodacious little lady. We got this cool staff that can extend to the full size we got from 93.”

  This would be the first time she used it on another human. The man selling dead birds shooed her away when he saw the fight about to break out. When her stance was clear that she wasn’t budging, the man dragged his cart away from the oncoming battle. The men were about five feet away from her when she saw Patel and DeAndre appear next to her.

  They readied their weapons. Magdalena was glad they didn’t miss the tune or go to the wrong world. She didn’t want her first fight as an official Tuner happening on her own. While she had been training every day for months on end, she knew the real thing would be different.

  Now that the odds were even, the first thug stopped within striking distance and said, “You are versers? So let me explain it. To get into this market, you pay me a fee. It don’t matter that you come from another universe. Everyone pays.”

  Magdalena asked, “How much does it cost?”

  The man looked her up and down and said, “One of your TF3s.”

  “We can’t do that,” Magdalena said.

  “We have two more,” Patel said. “We can worry about the preservation of universe tech later. We have more important things at the moment.”

  That would have been the end of the discussion if she were her past self. If one of her peers had a more forceful and confident opinion, she would acquiesce and not push the situation. Her newfound Tuner self didn’t like bullies, and these guys were the worst kind, “No, do you think people are going to give up the most valuable thing they own to buy some dead birds? There are batteries you can buy at Walmart inside a cage like it’s a diamond necklace or something!”

  “You either pay or we end this right now,” the guy said and ran the blade on his teeth once more.

  “Fine, but we pay what everyone else pays, or we end you right now,” Magdalena said. Patel gripped her swords, and DeAndre put his hands on his nunchucks.

  “You versers have no money,” the man said.

  “So give us the time to get the money,” Magdalena said. “I don’t want to kill you. I’ve killed enough people in my lifetime that I hear their screams at night. But you know what? I won’t hear yours. It will be just one voice among the countless who have tested my honor. Give us time to come up with the money, or you’ll just be another voice to me.”

  The man scratched his knife along his teeth and said, “You have one hour. Don’t be late.”

  The thugs turned around, and DeAndre rubbed her shoulders, “Dang, girl, you have a set of brass on you.”

  Patel said, “We still need to get money.”

  “How hard can it be? Let’s just find out how much they charge, and I’ll sell my earrings or something,” Magdalena said.

  She pulled out her earrings. They were turquoise stones that didn’t look like anything from her world. She liked them a lot, but they seemed ubiquitous in U-42. She turned to the vendor with the dead birds who had shooed her away and said, “How much will you give me for this?”

  The man waved her away, and she shrugged; someone would buy them. She was sure of it.

  ∆∆∆

  There were 58 minutes on the timer that Patel had started after the thugs laid out their demands, and they couldn’t sell any of their possessions, much less even find out how much the market cost. No vendor would talk to them. People avoided them on the street. They were even kicked out of a bar where the dregs of this society were asleep in pools of their own vomit.

  It was like they were branded with some sort of scarlet letter that made everyone they met afraid to downright hateful of them. The place was sizeable for a post-apocalyptic market. It was comprised of several city blocks. Most of the structures were husks of buildings and packed with carts of traveling merchants. The few places that were standing were a bar, doctor’s office, and a general store. There was a church that survived whatever had ravaged the land and a larger unmarked building that was presumably home to the thugs who ran this market.

  From the barren hills in the distance and the dry, hot air, Magdalena could tell they were in a desert climate that may have been exasperated from the scourge that ravaged this world. They considered hopping the fence, but it had razor wire and more of the bald guys with topknots guarding it. The entrance to the place was busy and the exit was well guarded.

 
DeAndre made a comment about needing Alex, and Patel said they should probably find a more defensible position if a fight was inevitable. They turned around, and there was a group of thugs; several came from every direction. They were surrounded, and Magdalena counted about thirteen in all, not including the one who had given them the demand.

  The thug said, “Time’s up. Show me the payment.”

  “Give us a little more time,” Magdalena said.

  “No can do,” the thug said and scraped his knife on his teeth.

  “Just take the TF3,” Patel said, reaching for hers.

  “Sorry,” the thug said. “That deal was a onetime offer. The price has gone up to three.”

  “Three!” DeAndre said, “You can’t expect us to pay that. How would we get home?”

  “Not my problem.” The thug nodded, and the circle tightened around them. The Tuners pulled out their weapons, and right before it broke out in violence, a woman stepped into the ring with her hands held up and stood in between the two groups.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” she said, “Jacque, this is just a big misunderstanding.”

  DeAndre leaned into Magdalena. “That guy’s name is Jacque?”

  Magdalena recoiled a little, not because of DeAndre. She was happy to be in a group for once where the side comments weren’t made about her. It was because most people who leaned in too close to her didn’t have good intentions. It was hard to drop her old protective habits even though she was in a group that would literally die for each other.

  The woman facing the bad guys continued. “Here, Jacque, triple payment for each of them. Heck, I’ll throw in quadruple that doesn’t need to go on the books. You know what I’m saying.”

  She pulled out what looked like a Pokémon card and greased his palm. She even put an extra one in his breast pocket that looked like it was holding a grenade and patted it. “That’s a little something extra for you. The boss doesn’t need to know they were visited. Let’s keep this between us.”