by J. A. James
Alice started nodding off, her head swaying off to the side. The couple beside her pretended not to notice.
The auction was filled with donations from local businesses. Hairdressers, the local lumber goods store and even the dentist came to contribute gifts ranging from $300 to upwards of $1,000 in value.
The Silver Spoon donated a corporate dinner catering package. As the auctioner announced it over microphone, Griesen saw Halva lean over and whisper to something to Edith. He could lip read her words: “If Stan wins it, I’m going to declare it null and void.”
Edith looked over, rolling her eyes as the bids started going up.
There were several bidders who were enthusiastically vying for the package. Griesen smiled. It was nice to know their company was so well appreciated in town. They were consistently voted amongst the top three, despite their higher costs and their other competitors. The last bid landed at $650.
Griesen glanced over at the man who was waving his white paddle in the air. He had a hefty build and dark blonde ringlets.
“…Sold! To the man in the back for six hundred and fiftyyyyyy dollars!” the auctioneer shouted with a bang of his gavel.
The auction finally came to a close. The auctioneer came up to do his final thank-yous. "Thank you everyone, for coming in this evening," she said. "With the total of $560,000 raised, a record! all of which will benefit women’s cancer research…”
Griesen had been sitting behind Halva, three tables down as everything was happening. So far, so good – Halva was safe. Nothing was amiss...The sound of applause roused him to follow suit. As he clapped, everybody began to slowly get up to leave.
Out of the corner of his eye, however, he spotted an odd blue flash of light. It had happened quickly - infinitely quickly. A flash like that was undetectable to the Human senses. But he felt his small arm hairs raise. It was them. They weren’t going to just go quietly tonight.
Ithes' men were in the room. His eyes darted quickly from corner to corner in the room. That blue flash was a forewarning; the tester. They were on the hunt. He felt unease form in the pit of his stomach.
What are you up to, Ithes?
Now the entire room was full of people standing up. Griesen stood, trying to look inconspicuous as he continued to scan the room for signs. Any signs.
A high-pitched sound suddenly spiked through the air, and then another flash of silver light.
The second flash – he recognized it. They had detonated a flash time bomb. Suddenly, waves of striated yellow light began pulsating through the ballroom.
Oh! Everything and everyone were suddenly frozen. The time bombs froze everything - all humans, all movement - for an imperceptible amount of time. His eyes widened, realizing the magnitude of what they were doing. The detonated bomb was intended for Halva – to cut her out of the fabric of the event. They would, in short measure, have to conduct an erasure of memory from all the people who had come into contact with Halva tonight, to have them forget they had seen her. For how long? The erasure would be conducted in rapid order, but given the amount of people that would be impacted -
The bomb was a Class Six move - one of the most formidable and dangerous to orchestrate. There were too many people who had seen Halva tonight. There were too many memories that would have to be altered; adjusted.
Why did Halva threaten the Institute? What personal agenda does Ithes have against her?
The bomb's effects only took a second. The loud chatter, the violins drawn in the background, and half-poured wine froze in solid-state in the air. Everybody was frozen - except them. The Acruvae. When the bombing and memory erasure was complete, only the most sensitive of humans would have a fleeting sense of déjà vu – that they had seen her somewhere before. But it would never amount to anything concrete. Even for Edith.
He saw them - the men come slowly towards Halva - there were three of them, each coming in from three corners of the room. There was a moment of deafening silence, and then a rush of sound that gave way to a torrent.
Griesen saw it coming as all the windows in the room suddenly broke on impact – the waves of cosmic light rushed in, thudding against his body as they broke in, first through their own dimension, jarring into time and space in this room. They were beginning to swim in it, amidst the broken glass and crashing waves as everything began levitating. They were no longer on Gaia; the bomb had brought them to a different dimension, where they could easily do their work and deal with all the Lifelines in a singular event.
He felt himself being lifted. Gravity no longer applied.
No. No. I have to stop this.
Griesen only reacted. He shot towards them, flying at the first Acruvae closest to him, who was caught unawares. He was aware his human body made him slower than what he was used to. But without gravity, it almost didn’t matter. He quickly drew the weapon he had concealed beneath his shirt.
Griesen fired a sphere of blazing light at him before he could move, sending him flying through the air towards the back of the ballroom.
The other two Acruvae immediately reacted. “Get him!” one roared. The one on his left raced towards him as the other one closed in on Halva, who was frozen and lifeless, her eyes still open.
The Acruvae began tying her down in her chair with a sharp coil laced with gleaming, canine-like teeth. These were the teeth which would grip her and funnel the body’s energy out of her, once he’d finished tying her down properly.
First they tie you down, then they cut you out. Griesen could hardly tear his eyes away. Those stories that his parents had told him at nighttime, all of those myths were grounded in something. Grounded in truths.
The man coming towards him blasted a stream of fire towards Griesen.
Fire and ice. The two most natural elements in existence were the weapons of choice for the Acruvae.
Griesen ducked, blocking it, throwing up a shield of ice, blocking the pounding flames as the flames hammered down at him.
With his other hand, glancing up, he shot a blue flare upwards, severing the copper chandelier wire attached to the ceiling. The Acruvae looked up and narrowly missed it as it came crashing down, diverting his attack from Griesen for a precious moment.
His opponent laughed as he got up. “You want this to get real messy, don’t you, boy,” he growled, flicking his hand as he drew up a flame from his extended hand. He walloped the heat sphere directly at Griesen. He dove behind the makeshift bar, sending liquor bottles in a rattling explosion - but not before taking another look at Halva.
The Acruvae had finished tying her up. All he had to do was give the rope a good pull and it would start…
The cabinetry exploded behind him as the fireball impacted. Glass shattered around him as soot suddenly stained everything around him a dusky black.
Griesen fished frantically through his interior pocket. There it was. It was the size of a large, circular mint. A bomb he hadn’t wanted to detonate - but he was out of options.
He flipped up the small blue disc sitting atop the small onyx ball, which was beginning to spark a dark, angry red. Reversion. It would be a mess, but he wasn’t the one who had started it all, he thought grimly.
He flicked it high into the air, and an eerily similar silver light began to pulsate through the room. He ducked as he heard the Acruvae scream: “Cover!”
Griesen drew out a stream of ice, shooting it at the falling disc, pushing it towards the centre of the room.
It had its own high-pitched tinny sound, which was impervious to human ears. It strobed a bright silver light once more. He heard one of the men amidst the pandemonium: "Cover, get cover right NOW!”
The magnetic pulse of the silver light suddenly lent itself to an ear-splitting groan, followed by another explosion. It reverberated, and the whole room shuddered. Griesen gasped and ducked for cover as he saw the waves of light around him crest, and then freeze. One more moment – and then the waves shattered, splintering into glass shards as the Acruvae holding Halva screamed
in fury.
The shards hit Griesen like a guard dog burying its fangs into prey.
MOMENTS LATER
Griesen blinked rapidly as he felt his way up from the floor. He looked around frantically – he heard the chatter of people.
“Sir… I’m so sorry, but you’re cut off from the bar.” He looked up quickly to see a man dressed in all-black.
Where are they? His first thought as he scrambled upwards from the floor, littered with broken glass. The man look at him strangely, as Griesen glanced around.
Good god, everything was back to normal. And Halva? He looked frantically around – there she was. Sitting woozily on the same chair; her head in her hands.
“I don’t feel so good,” he overheard her saying to Edith. “I think I had a little too much to drink.”
“Well, no time like the present,” Edith said as she patted her on the back. “Let’s go.”
The bomb had reverted everything – back to normal. Griesen scanned the room for the Acruvae, who were nowhere to be seen… but the chandelier. It remained shattered on the floor, and people were milling about, perplexed as some staff bustled about, clearing the path around the broken pieces.
“Um, right. I’m so sorry,” he said sheepishly to the man in front of him. “Cut me off. Definitely the right thing to do.”
He looked down at himself. His clothes were charred and stained with ash. Some of the shards of glass had cut into his arms as he saw marks of red. A testament to what just happened.
His bomb had successfully reversed the effect of the first one. The crowd milled about, as if nothing had happened. Because he had turned back the clock, just enough. Halva, mercifully, was still here. Griesen let out a sigh of relief.
The Acruvae had detonated a time bomb. Time bombs had to be used sparingly, lest they risked altering the fabric of time too much. A wrinkle in time meant countless adjustments had to take place, impacting thousands of Timelines; thousands of Lifelines.
They had done it in a room with over two hundred people. A time bomb like this - detonated for the time they needed to extract Halva properly, would have altered the Lifelines of so many. Yet they were willing to do it.
They want to get rid of her - badly.
Something was blazing hot in his pocket. Griesen reached inside, fumbling quickly. It was his Orb - it was sparking blue waves of light as he pulled it out.
Gretchen. The bright blue beam shot out momentarily before Griesen shielded it with his other hand, glancing furtively around before darting away into the coat room.
He took his hand off the stone, and Gretchen was looking back at him through the blue beam which projected outwards.
“Hey,” he exclaimed. “You got through!” He’d never been so glad to see her.
“What the hell is happening down there, it’s been ab-so-lutely bananas!” she exclaimed, wild-eyed.
He frowned at her. “Bananas? Meaning what?”
She shook her head at him. “Like, nuts, Griesen! It’s been nuts!”
Aha. Earth slang. “The bananas and nuts, yeah. They came from here.” His hands began to shake momentarily. “They – they came after her, and then me, and they detonated the time bomb –“
Her eyes were wide. “Oh. Wow that explains it - we just had a huge number of Case upsets – reported back through the Omnichannel. The Institute claims it was some kind of apparition –“
He laughed in disbelief. “Apparition? No. It was Ithes. It was his guards. They threw the bomb.”
She paused at his statement. “No way. How is that possible? That’s a Class Six move!” she said, a horrified look on her face.
He only nodded, wordless otherwise. “I detonated the Reversal bomb afterwards. It should have reversed the original bomb they threw.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “We’re feeling crazy vibrations from what just happened. It might look like everything is fixed but the Elders are running around like madmen, freaking out. I’ve never seen anything like this. You’re right though…”
He saw her glancing away from him and onto several screens. “The Lifelines look like they’re back on track. The Adjustments though…they’re going to take up a ton of time. A ton of energy.”
Her eyes turned back to him as she spoke rapidly. “Look, I’ve been trying to get through to you for days now. I only got through because the channel broke off from the secured track; everybody’s running around trying to save case lives and course trajectories. The Chrysalis – it has a huge crack in it.”
The Chrysalis was in the Inner Sanctum at the heart of the Institute’s chambers. The fact that it had cracked showed the severity of what had happened.
You – you’re alright?” she asked softly. “Griesen?”
He nodded quickly. “Yeah – still alive.” So far, he thought.
Gretchen looked away, scrolling rapidly through another screen. “From what I can gather, it did reverse the damage but the two bombs so closely detonated together wreaked a lot of unintentional havoc on the System. They didn’t totally neutralize each other, given the first one thrown was so severe - the damage I’ve heard about up here and seen - everybody’s trying to mend the holes. The Institute – wait.”
She squinted at the screen. “Wait – Omni’s saying it was an unknown energetic entity that blew a hole through Earth’s-time continuum. The Institute’s going to have to deal with a lot of freakin’ cases and reversions over the next two days.”
“Okay,” Griesen said. “Look – Halva and I are still here. They’re out to kill her, but the damage – it’s got to have bought us some time. Right?” He asked her pensively.
Gretchen frowned as she got up and started leafing through a thick book. “Yeah, if there was a silver lining out of this…” she looked at him. “I think you’ve got some time now – they can’t risk going after her right now. Or you. The Chrysalis was impacted, enough that they blacked out the channel for minutes. They’re going to have to do some major damage control before they try to cut her out again.”
Griesen slumped back into the back of the coat rack. “I’ve been grappling with this, Gretch. They’ll be coming after us in days. They’ve got an army, and I don’t. I can’t hold them off for much longer and bridging can take some time…”
Suddenly, inspiration hit him. Myths had their roots from somewhere. Truths. “Gretchen. Do you remember that myth? About the Acruvae who actually became human?”
She turned away from the screen momentarily, then pulled up a thick padded book opened about a thousand pages in. “Wait. Actually, yes.” Her eyes suddenly focused. “It’s funny you mention it. I might have something on it.”
She leaned forward. "That minority group of Acruvae – who actually elected to become human. I don’t think it’s just folklore.”
Griesen raised his eyebrows. “You looked into it already? Your timing is impeccable.” He wondered what had compelled her to do so.
She shrugged. “Well, when you disappeared I knew it had something to do with your case. I was trying to find some way of communicating with you and started digging…”
"So. This group,” Griesen said. “How – how real are they? What if they've all been exterminated? And what about becoming human?” he asked, dread filling him. He wasn’t used to this body, but he was hanging onto the fact that he would at some point return to his original one.
"I don't know." Her brows furrowed. "But from a logical standpoint, if they were able to find a way to convert to human form, surely they must know how to get back.”
That made sense. Griesen gulped. What did he have to lose? If he were somehow to remain an Acruvae, he would be hunted down here until they found him. Home was already lost to him… He was being hunted … a far cry from where he started, an eager student, ready to take on his case study. It seemed like eons ago.
"I have a name, and a location not far from you. You have to at least try." She scrawled some details on a piece of paper. “Here.” She held it up for him.
/> "This group," he said softly. "How did you find them?"
"I was digging through the archives," she said. "I was looking for some cases that had the outcome of the potion I was brewing. The deeper I looked, the more dead ends I found – everything was classified. I finally found a footnote that mentioned a book reference. Long story short… there was a classified database in the system. I hacked it."
Griesen sucked in a breath. Much like Gretchen to do such a thing.
"I found things, Griesen. After you disappeared, I just started digging. I couldn’t sit around.” She leaned in towards him, her eyes wide. "There are secrets in this Institute, Griesen. The way they've told us how transparent they've always been to us, how magnanimous…I won't write it all off, but given the amount of classified documents I found within some of these files and how many books were on the Blacklist…" she looked around, as if suddenly petrified to say more.
“Gretch – it’s not safe,” Griesen hissed. “You can’t afford to get in trouble up there – these are buried secrets, buried intentionally so. Leave it bloody alone -"
"They’re covering things up, Griesen,” she retorted. "You know this. You told me yourself. The Institute always swore to us that they were nothing but transparent and as good as the God these mortals believe in and as soon as I dig deep enough, I find so many loose ends. And with you – it’s just… nothing adds up. And I have to help you. You’re my closest friend. You can’t –” Her voice faltered, as she looked at him.
He knew what she was thinking. He couldn’t die.
“I have to help you. If I can,” she said quickly. She was scared for him, he realized. Not for herself – for him.
"Look, just find this man," Gretchen said briskly. Nicholai Czechzin. He saw a man's face, in his 40s, appear on the screen.
"I don't believe they're necessarily an anti-Acruvae organization but – somehow they’ve ascribed to an alternate way of life. It might be a long shot, but… it’s not like you’ve got a lot of people on your side right now.”