Chapter 14

  Eric

  Eric did a circuit around the top of the clocktower, checking out the city, the cloudy skies, the surrounding neighborhood. He inspected the platform of sturdy metal mesh, into which were set seven circles: six colored ones around the outside and a white one in the middle. The outer six had symbols. The one in the middle had no symbol, but it did have a small flat hexagonal object with six glowing signs on it. He slipped this into his pocket.

  No cell service, no wifi. Seeing nothing else to be done, he descended by the stone stairs along the inside of the tower. He had to flip up a heavy mesh covering to access them.

  The interior of the tower was full of motion. Seven enormous machines rose up from the floor far below, color coded and clustered together like a modern art installation. The outer six formed a circle; the center one was a bit larger and was also the source of the shifting, flickering white light which illuminated everything else. Each was probably forty feet from top to bottom and several paces across. Complex internal mechanisms moved, generating the soft yet curiously piercing ticking sounds he had been hearing ever since arrival. They were metronomes, all annoyingly out of sync with each other. Each was different. One was all turning gears and spinning wheels; the movements of another consisted of swinging levers; a third was mainly pulleys and weights rising and falling in steady patterns.

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs for a closer look at one of them, the black one. This was probably Heidi’s? Enormous drills turned hypnotically, rotating fluted columns in an absurdly complex system of brain-twisting movement in which nothing really moved. A large central piston, somehow impelled by all the surrounding motion, pumped up and down, striking a muffled chime with every descent. This one ticked faster than the others.

  The white metronome in the center interested him the most. It was larger, brighter, shinier. It looked like a catastrophe of mirrors and glass, all shifting and sparking, spreading an ever-changing array of pale lights over and through all the other metronomes.

  “How ‘bout it, Frisby?” he asked. The tiny dragon, who had been swooping curiously around the metronomes, returned to Eric’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck. “Let’s go.”

  The ground floor resembled the interior of a church, at least as far as architectural structure. He saw no altar, or pews, or organ. Just those huge metronomes overhead. The rest was empty.

  Eric zipped up his jacket against the faint chill in the air. Time to go outside. The main doors were heavy, solid wood, but swung easily outward. He stepped into the yellow glare of a streetlight and set off to explore.

  It felt a lot like Chicago at night, except that he saw no other people. The city looked abandoned and old. He passed broken glass, crumbled brick, rusted fences and other signs of disrepair. A layer of dust or sand frequently covered the streets and sidewalks.

  It was eerie, in a zombie-apocalypse kind of way. He picked up a wrought-iron post shortly after leaving the church, four feet long with a probably-decorative spike on the end of it. He peeled it from a broken, rusty fence. It rested casually over one shoulder as he walked, but he mentally prepared himself to use it should anything jump out of the darkness.

  But nothing jumped out at him. He had chosen to walk toward a concentration of especially tall and comparatively well-lit buildings that resembled downtown area. He passed block after block of tall apartments and a commercial district, and he passed right through a weird swoopy building full of mirrors and windows that he recognized as some kind of shopping center. All this time he saw no one and heard nothing, although he walked quietly and kept his ears sharp.

  After the first ten minutes, he relaxed his course. He began to meander, to explore the area. This really could have been Chicago, or a different American city, except for the details. The language, which decorated street signs and shop fronts, was some runic gibberish he’d never seen before. The doorknobs, where they existed, were triangles with the sides caved in. The streetlights were shaped crookedly, apparently on purpose. The sidewalks were strangely narrow, the streets strangely wide. Regular doors were wider at the top than at the bottom as if he was in some kind of haunted Dr. Seuss book. One time he peered through the window of a shop and could not for the life of him figure out what the hell it was selling inside. Shrunken mangled farm equipment?

  About thirty-five minutes after leaving the church, he entered the area he had marked out as his destination, the downtown-looking area with the well-lit buildings. The streets widened, and the asphalt gave way to classy stone tiling. Skeletal dead trees, more angular than regular trees, grew from planters along the roadsides. Here and there, a sculpture or a display of lights decorated an intersection. If it were somebody else here–for instance, Liz or Isaac–they would probably have been fascinated by all this and wonder about the implications of the society that had inhabited this city. Eric, on the other hand, took it all in with indifference, secure in his belief that none of his immediate surroundings were real in any meaningful sense, and therefore were not to be taken seriously. The one thing he did care about was beyond his reach for the moment. With any luck, she would be safe in the badass hands of Alan Sheppard. But either way, he could do nothing about it now, or if he could, then he didn’t fucking know how, and thinking about this made him grit his teeth and clench his fist around the metal fence-spike and wish a zombie would come stumbling out at him just so he could re-kill it.

  While maintaining a wary eye on his surroundings, Eric pulled out his phone as he walked and texted Isaac. Maybe. Maybe he would answer. At worst he’d get that Jacob guy again. “Yo Frisby, eyes peeled,” he said, which was a sort of joke since Frisby did not have eyes. Frisby did his little dragon chirp in reply.

  EW: isaac you read me

  No answer. Every passing second made him feel a little colder. Was Isaac dead? Had Jacob been right? Eric had seen Isaac and Kate in the Museum, but it had been at that place where it only showed things that might happen, or might have happened, so it couldn’t be trusted.

  Frisby Wiser’s little claws patted his shoulder in comfort. Eric stopped and retrieved Kate’s phone, also smeared with blood. It had cute stickers on the back. She had said in her note that she wasn’t dead. Maybe. But he had her phone, so no use trying now. “C’mon, man,” he said.

  His phone vibrated. He was so tense that it nearly scared the shit out of him.

  IM: Loud and clear, over

  He exhaled long and slow. But was it really Isaac?

  IM: Glad you made it!

  IM: I was gonna text you when you got here but I got sidetracked

  IM: Bro I think my station’s haunted

  IM: *scaaarrry noises*

  Yep. Isaac. Eric looked up at the dark sky and closed his eyes for a moment. He thanked God, just in case he was wrong and Isaac was right. He glanced around to be safe, saw nothing of note, and kept walking.

  EW: isaac you fuck

  EW: i thought you were dead

  IM: I was

  EW: fuck you what does that mean

  IM: Not really dead though

  IM: Didn’t see God

  IM: Doesn’t count

  EW: isaac bro you better start explaining that shit

  IM: How’d you know I was dead?

  EW: tried texting you

  EW: guy named jacob answered and said you were dead or like maybe half dead or some shit

  IM: Haha like with Miracle Max!

  IM: “He’s only *mostly* dead”

  EW: so what did you get some fucking chocolate coated medicine or some shit

  IM: So I guess Black didn’t kill Jacob. That’s good! And he’s got my phone

  EW: if hes got your phone how are we talking

  IM: I really did die, or I guess my old body did

  IM: But Charlie (that’s my angel) took like my soul or something to the Museum just in time!

  IM: Where I had, like, this bonus spare body I guess?

  IM: Pretty sure I’m out of green mushrooms now though

  IM: Kate understands all this better than me so you should ask her

  EW: kate

  EW: shes alive?

  IM: Yeah bro!

  EW: shes okay?

  IM: *nods*

  EW: shes here?

  IM: Oh yeah, she said something about you and Heidi seeing her die

  IM: That really sucks bro, I bet that was, like, traumatizing

  EW: no shit

  EW: it was fucked up

  IM: She feels bad about that

  EW: she shouldnt

  IM: Just pre-emptively, neither should you

  EW: so tis the same with her?

  EW: her angel got her out?

  IM: ‘tis indeed

  IM: What is your moon medieval-themed?

  IM: That would be hilarious

  EW: just a fucking typo chill

  EW: where is she now

  IM: Theia, Cloud Moon

  EW: how are you talking to her

  IM: CHIME

  IM: It works here, for some reason

  EW: but i have her phone

  IM: Probably her other phone

  IM: *duh*

  IM: I said we got, like, duplicated right?

  EW: where am i

  IM: ???

  IM: You tell me

  EW: fucking huge ass city everywhere

  EW: started out in cut rate chicago knockoff

  EW: like the off brand shit

  EW: fuckin scuffed

  EW: but i accidentally stepped into tron just now

  EW: these buildings looking like theyre headed to the worlds biggest rave

  EW: all neon lights and shit

  EW: futuristic

  IM: Do you think your whole moon’s a city?

  EW: fuck if i know dude i just got here

  EW: where are you

  IM: I have...

  IM: guess what I have

  EW: insecurity

  IM: Incorrect

  EW: if you say so dude

  IM: Guess again

  EW: a bad case of the dunning-kruger

  IM: ...

  EW: wherever you are i hope it has ice

  IM: I have a satellite!

  EW: yeah that was my next guess

  EW: wheres everyone else

  IM: We’re scattered around on these moons

  IM: You got a coaster thing right

  EW: yeah but it didnt come with anything

  EW: least they could do was put a cup of coffee on there for me

  EW: im craving some coffee bro

  IM: It has glowing symbols right?

  EW: damn there must be a coffee shop around here somewhere

  EW: yeah

  EW: theyre us right

  EW: so heidis okay too

  IM: Right

  EW: what about liz

  IM: She’s fine

  IM: Probably asleep now though, apparently she’s all zonked out

  IM: Jim is probably fine too

  EW: how do you know

  IM: He’s Jim!

  EW: as cunning as that argument was

  EW: i am not convinced

  IM: Trust me, he’ll be fine

  IM: He’s got Hazel!

  EW: thats not a point in favor of him being fine

  EW: whatever

  IM: Man my station’s haunted for real

  IM: Space ghosts

  IM: Coast to coast

  EW: think your place is spooky

  EW: im in zombie tron apocalypse right now

  EW: sans zombies

  IM: Your thing is time right?

  EW: damn i dont know

  EW: metronomes

  EW: pretty subtle

  EW: maybe im the fucking god of beats

  EW: or antique chronometers

  EW: or ambiguity

  IM: That last one actually sounds cool

  EW: haha like ‘oh fuck is that the ambiguity guy’

  IM: “Well, maybe...”

  EW: ‘cant be sure’

  IM: Ha

  EW: hey i saw you and kate in the door place

  IM: The Museum?

  EW: you were like falling through the sky or some shit

  EW: is this a thing that happened?

  IM: Yes!

  IM: How’d you see us?

  EW: also i saw leah with Dwayne

  IM: *leaps back from computer in astonishment, upsetting chair*

  IM: (not really though)

  IM: Are you sure it was him

  EW: fuck youre right it could have been some other dual cane wielding giant bearded guy with HOLD FAST on his huge ass hands driving a piece of shit red pickup

  IM: Huh

  IM: weird

  IM: So Leah’s okay then?

  EW: dunno

  EW: we had to leave her

  EW: listen bro

  IM: ?

  EW: will i ever see her again?

  EW: for real

  EW: are we getting out of this?

  IM: I don’t know

  EW: shit

  EW: i dont even know if i can talk to her again

  EW: there was something really important i needed to tell her

  IM: She knows, dude

  She knows, dude. Yeah. Probably right, Isaac. Eric still wanted to tell her, though. He promised himself, in the least melodramatic way possible, that he would not miss the chance to tell her should it come by again.

  Eric stopped replying after this and re-focused on his surroundings. Still no zombies. Instead, just as he had told Isaac, he had entered the Future World zone of the theme park of his big empty city. Isaac said they were each on a moon? He looked up but saw only dark clouds overhead.

  A break in the buildings ahead revealed, when he came to it, the shoreline of a lake or sea, the far end of which disappeared into the dark horizon. A crescent of lights, reflected on the still water, stretched away to either side.

  He hopped a crumbling guardrail and clambered down a shadowy metallic slope to the water’s edge. It was lukewarm on his pinky. He sniffed the water, then tasted it. Fresh water. He turned around and was about to say something to Frisby, something along the lines of ‘fuck this, let’s go back and get something to eat or find some coffee,’ when he heard the roar.

  Eric remembered the first time he had actually heard a lion roar in person. It had been a paradigm-shattering experience. At the Omaha zoo, as a kid, he had been watching some fish when he heard it. It had ripped through the earth; he swore he felt the vibrations of it in his bones. He had heard lions roar on TV, of course, and in movies like the Lion King, but they were nothing compared to the real thing. Speakers could not convey the gut-wrenching primal fear which the real thing inspired. Forever after that he mistrusted sounds he heard on TV or in movies, or anything through a speaker. The real thing could be very different. Same principle at work with live music.

  This was not the roar of a lion, but it was to a real lion’s roar as that was to one heard on a recording through cheap speakers. The metal beneath his shoes vibrated. The surface of the water quivered. It was a deep, rumbling sound, but there was also a screech in the noise which set his skin crawling and made his jaw clench. Nails on the world’s biggest blackboard.

  He knew, immediately and incontrovertibly, that a dragon had made this noise.

  It had come from across the water, from a part of the city reflected across the bay. He turned and searched the lights in that direction while backing up to the guardrail, the street, the safety of cover among the buildings. He watched the lights across the water, afraid of them winking out for a moment and thereby signifying the presence of a large flying creature.

  The guardrail startled him when he backed into it. He almost turned to look at it, and if he had done so, he would have missed the moment when a huge shape cut a path of momentary darkness through the faraway city lights right where he was watching.

  Eric averted his gaze long enough to jump the railing and scurry for cover behind a concrete planter containing a skeletal long-dead tree. Frisby followed and trembled as he crawled inside of Eric’s jacket from beneath. His cold little body wormed its way up until it could pop its head out of the collar beneath Eric’s chin.

  A dragon, huh? Could that be why the city was deserted? The buildings looked undamaged except for the wearing of time. Eric kept his eyes on the distant lights across the bay but saw no more sign of movement. If it was in the skies above the clouds, he’d never see it. But he, too, would remain unseen. Probably the dragon was unaware of his presence. Eric was so small, and the city so dark, that it could not possibly have seen him. Probably.

  He dashed to the nearest building. It was a skyscraper, sleek and black, lined with vertical bars of neon blue. Warm orange lights glowed overhead as soon as he came under the awning. A plane of glass, visible only because of the accumulated dust, split apart to allow entrance when he ran through.

  He entered some kind of lobby, very futuristic and fancy, etc, etc. Eric did not care for any of that. Isaac would geek out about this if he were here, and Kate would whip out her magnifying glass and look for clues. Eric cared only about getting the fuck out of here–“here” being used in both the specific sense of immediate danger à la dragon, and also in the general sense of all this moons-and-doors-and-angels- and-museums-and-shit.

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  Someone had graffitied the floor, which was a mess of dust, yellowed papers, upturned chairs, and broken glass. All the signs of a post-disaster area, with the exception that he saw no bodies, no blood. The logo on the floor of the lobby read “ARKO.” Scrawled in jagged, red, frenzied lines and covered in dust and debris, the graffiti was only partly legible but definitely in English. It read in disjointed phrases: “the old voracity,” “god-eater,” “consumer of worlds,” “memories.”

  Eric theatrically twisted his head so he could see Frisby at the collar of his shirt. “Look, Frisby!” he exclaimed. “A clue. A fucking obvious clue in red graffiti on the floor of the ARKO building.” He shook his head in disgust. What the fuck was going on here? God-eater? Old voracity? Simple enough, there’s a big-ass dragon out there somewhere. What, did it like eat everybody? Make them go away? Apparently someone had time to get some spray paint (he didn’t see the cans around), come to this nice building (he hadn’t seen any other graffiti either, at least not in this part of town), and scrawl a few cryptic phrases on the floor.

  He continued on through the lobby, past the reception desk and into a random hallway behind. The interior design looked like it had been copy-pasted from Star-Trek. It looked like something Isaac would design, thinking it was cool. It was kind-of cool.

  He checked a few rooms. Nothing particularly interesting, and nothing locked either, until he came to a big white hexagonal door dominating the wall like the door to a vault. This looked important, but he detected no means of opening it. It had a gigantic wheel on the front, classic movie-vault style, but he tried turning it to no avail and saw nothing else helpful in the vicinity. He made a mental note of this place and moved on.

  He stopped in one office and looked at some papers. They were written in an unknown language. They looked boring.

  He found several sealed cylindrical packages in a lounge area that looked like food. Ancient food, but perhaps Twinkie-like in its ability to persevere through the ravages of time. He pocketed a few.

  One door had several warning labels on it. He couldn’t read them, so he walked in anyway. A dusty sword lay on top of a security desk as if tossed there and forgotten. Eric took it without hesitation. It had a wide blade but was surprisingly light. Little protrusions and angular boxes decorated the hilt. He tinkered with it by the faint light from the hallway, and after a moment he discovered a cleverly concealed switch. A flickering greenish glow sheathed the dark metallic blade. The room filled with lime green light and dancing shadows. That was more like it. He dropped the wrought-iron fencepost. Upgrade time.

  He turned the sword off and carried it with him back to the entry hall. He didn’t feel like trying the off-brand lightsaber against a dragon, but it did make him feel safer. Better than a rusty fence-spike, anyway.

  Back over the graffiti and out into the cloudy night. He retraced his steps back toward the cathedral, but paused here and there along the way for more exploring. He saw parks, concert halls, statues, fountains, little shops and stores nestled in among the skyscrapers…but no people. No sign of life, not even birds or rats. And another thing: no vehicles. Empty roads, everywhere.

  He began to appreciate the fact that his immediate environment was, if eerie, pretty damn cool. Walking around with the sword through an empty techno-city made him feel like a badass. And he had a little dragon of his own flying around, keeping an eye out. Still, he kept to the shadows and tried to avoid exposing himself to the skies above, especially over in the direction from which he had heard the roar.

  When he neared the vague line where the futuristic city faded into Earth-modern, he entered a random skyscraper to see if he could get to the top and have a look around. Discreetly. He got lucky with an easy one–the elevator was in plain sight directly ahead. But man, the rest of the place was high class: crystal chandeliers, lush red carpet, platinum gilding on fucking everything. The people who lived here definitely had credit cards with no numbers or letters on them.

  The elevator rose in a column of empty air, surrounded by glass catwalks connecting it to the other floors. He stepped in and selected 104, the highest available number. The doors closed, and with a barely noticeable acceleration, the elevator rose. Lights flashed over him in a hypnotic pattern as he ascended. The elevator rose smooth and silent except for a faint hum. Too quiet. Could use some music in here.

  Eric felt the phone in his pocket, the one that still had bits of dried Kate-blood on it. According to Isaac, she was still alive. He had her phone, but according to Isaac, that didn’t matter either. Well. No harm in trying. He sent a message from his own cell phone.

  EW: kate you there

  He waited to see if her phone received the message. It did not, although it still retained battery life.

  EW: status update

  EW: dead y/n

  The building interior steadily scrolled down on the other side of the glass. The wall on one side of the elevator was a mirror. He looked at himself: a scratched-up kid with a goofy techno-sword and a tiny dragon on his shoulder. Getting hungry. Needed some coffee.

  The silence from Kate began to worry him. Just like with Isaac. And with Isaac it had turned out to be fine. Still alive, still a dork. But what about Kate? He had seen her dead. He had searched her dead body–something which made him nauseous every time he thought of it. The idea that maybe she wasn’t actually dead was at the same time natural and disturbing.

  The elevator at last came to a halt at the topmost floor. Eric stepped out and looked around. Stairs. He wanted to get to the roof. He was just turning down a dark hallway when the phone in his hand vibrated.

  KC: n

  KC: NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  KC: not dead!

  EW: what took you so long

  KC: sorry, I was sleeping!

  EW: i wake you up?

  KC: yeah

  EW: my bad you can go back to sleep or whatever

  EW: just a routine dead friend check

  KC: <:(

  KC: too late now!

  KC: did you get my message?

  KC: did you get Leah?

  EW: yes and no

  EW: but for real

  EW: you okay kate?

  KC: Eric I’m so sorry you saw that!

  KC: me dead I mean

  KC: it’s actually embarrassing to think about!

  EW: then dont think about it thats cool

  EW: i mean it was in no way cool but somehow you are not dead now which is what actually matters

  KC: <3

  KC: yeah! ;)

  KC: I guess we’re all here now!

  KC: did you just get to your moon Eric?

  EW: been here a minute

  EW: didnt think of trying to text you because i have your phone

  KC: oooh yeah

  KC: glad you got it!

  KC: don’t look at the pictures though :p

  Eric had located a stairwell. A locked electric door blocked the upward path, but the sword, when sheathed in greenish energy, could score deep grooves into the dark metal of the door. It took a few swings, but he hacked out a hole large enough to squeeze through.

  He traversed the stairs as he continued his conversation with Kate. After a single upward flight, he reached a door which opened out onto a rooftop terrace. The rooftop was a miniature jungle of pipes and ducts, which he navigated until he reached the edge and looked out over the city.

  KC: and what about my note?

  KC: did you get my note?

  EW: about you maybe not being dead yeah

  EW: also your notebook

  KC: did you find your angel Eric?

  EW: yeah its frisby

  EW: leahs dragon

  KC: !!!!

  KC: that’s so CUTE

  KC: say hi to him for me!

  EW: done

  EW: so whats your place like

  EW: you all good over there

  KC: stop worrying about me!

  KC: I’m fine! The Theians are taking very good care of me

  EW: the what

  KC: the native people on my moon

  KC: they are like butterflies, Eric!

  KC: they are so pretty

  EW: wow thats cool i guess

  KC: so coooool :D

  KC: also they want to say hi

  EW: k

  KC: who is on your moon?

  EW: just me for now

  EW: and maybe a real dragon

  KC: describe your place, I want to hear about it!

  EW: so im standing on a skyscraper right now lookin out over an endless city

  EW: its night so its all lit up with lights everywhere which is pretty cool

  EW: and theres different parts to the city like where i started pretty much looks like chicago but then theres this techno future world shit going on over by the bay

  KC: 8o

  EW: and from up here i can see some weird coloration off in the other direction

  EW: but theres no one here and shits all dusty like its been checked out for a while

  EW: thats about it for now

  KC: Mormo says you must be on the hollow moon

  KC: sorry, the Hollow Moon

  EW: the fuck is a mormo

  KC: I think you’d like Mormo ;)

  KC: he says something bad happened there, but no one knows what and everyone is gone now :(

  EW: i think i know

  EW: theres a dragon here and i found graffiti about it in a weird place

  EW: it was a pretty fucking cliche expositional discovery actually

  EW: is that how this works

  KC: @_@

  EW: wtf

  EW: what is that face what does it mean

  KC: I don’t actually know for sure

  KC: but it’s kind of like we’re in a story?

  KC: ?:\

  KC: WAIT!

  KC: I’m so sorry I was so happy talking to you that I never asked

  KC: are YOU okay, Eric? OI was coming for you!

  EW: yeah they were

  EW: crawling out of the fucking woodwork

  EW: but heidis a badass

  EW: and her death lizard is the real mvp i mean holy shit that things a monster

  KC: ???!!?!?

  EW: we couldnt get back to leah

  EW: thanks by the way

  KC: ?

  EW: i saw what you did

  EW: i saw you jump out there to grab her

  EW: it should have been me

  KC: don’t you dare feel guilty! >:|

  KC: if you are feeling bad because you didn’t die then THAT”S STUPID and I will come over there and I will hit you with my guitar!

  EW: what

  KC: I know you would have done the same thing for Leah

  KC: I can tell how much you love her, Eric

  KC: (it’s really really cute!! ;)

  EW: well if you can figure out how to get over here youre welcome anytime

  KC: don’t change the subject!

  KC: you are welcome here too :)

  KC: we just need to get each other’s doors somehow

  EW: what

  KC: to fill the empty spaces on our platforms

  KC: *duh!*

  EW: i have metronomes for all of us

  KC: :|

  EW: big ones

  KC: 8|

  EW: ahaha but for real any idea what they might be for

  KC: nope, sorry!

  EW: somethings happening here

  EW: gotta go

  EW: well talk later

  KC: bye!

  EW: glad youre safe

  KC: <3 <3 <3

  Three hearts. Calm the fuck down, Kate. No one would ever guess she had just woken up judging by the enthusiasm in her texts. In fact, it was strange to hear about her sleeping. A weird thing about Kate had always been that, even with the time zone differentiation, he didn’t think he had ever caught her sleeping. She always texted back, like right away. Almost like…

  Wait. Fuck, of course. He patted the bloody phone in his pocket. Two phones. She must have had them for a while. Sleeping and waking; Museum and Earth.

  He sighed and shook his head. He’d get all their weird shit sorted out eventually. For now, something was happening out there. An object had descended from the clouds while he’d been texting Kate. Not a dragon, but a vessel. A bulky shape dropped directly from the dark cloud cover, searchlights randomly flickering over the facsimile-Chicago below. He automatically categorized this thing as a drop ship.

  He watched its minute-long descent from the clouds down to the roof of a building about a mile off, one much lower and broader than the skyscraper on which he stood. Eric wished he had binoculars to get a better look. He settled for crouching at the edge of the rooftop and peering over at the newcomers. Friend or foe? Either way, the ship’s position placed them roughly between himself and the cathedral. Closer to the cathedral than to him. Only about a half mile away from the cathedral, actually. Too close for coincidence? Were they looking for him? Or maybe they wanted the building. Maybe they wanted the metronomes. It occurred to him that maybe the metronomes, obviously connected to himself and his friends, were fucking important , and that possibly whoever had landed wanted to break them. That possibility gave him a sinking sensation in his stomach. Eric Walker, ladies and gentlemen, dropping the fucking ball already.

  No, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but he also probably should do his best to prevent damage to the metronomes until he understood what they were for. He understood that there was no way he could outrace whoever was in the ship to the cathedral if that was their goal, but he began to slink away from the edge anyway, back to the door, the stairs, the elevator. So much he didn’t know. Heh. Maybe he should go around looking for expositional graffiti everywhere.

  Not such a bad idea, actually.

  He heard the roar when he had nearly reached the rooftop door. Closer, much closer than before. It sounded from roughly the direction of the ship and the cathedral. The noise alone made him reflexively crouch in upon himself and grit his teeth in pain. He had never heard or imagined a sound like this. What the fuck.

  Eric put a hand to the door, torn between getting back down to the ground and going to see if he could observe anything from this vantage. He probably wouldn’t be seen up here. Probably. But it was still a risk, not knowing how the dragon or those on the ship might detect him.

  The sound of explosions decided it for him. He dashed through the pipes back to the edge of the rooftop and looked out just in time to see the drop ship immolated in a ball of blood-red flame. The flames shone so brightly in the gloom that they blinded Eric. He ducked back behind the edge. He blinked a few times, saw a huge purple blotch in the darkness of his vision, and the outline of something inside the purple spot. A huge winged figure had blocked part of the explosion. His first glimpse of the dragon, in negative.

  Frisby cowered against Eric’s side as he crept back to the edge and peered over. The fireball had faded, but now he heard distant screams and saw smaller lights flashing near the wreckage of the drop ship. It was hard to make out, but a huge shape moved among them in the darkness. Eric realized that all the lights in the city had gone out in a two-block radius around that area.

  He watched for a minute; that was all it took for the dragon to, apparently, obliterate the intruders–the ones Eric did not know whether to identify as friend or foe. He kept watching for a minute afterward, but all was silent. He could tell when the dragon left because the darkness left with it; the lights came back on in that area, illuminating the smoking wreckage of the ship.

  “Frisby,” he whispered, “I don’t think we’re high enough level for that shit. Let’s get outta here.” He backed away from the edge and made it safely to the door and back down to the elevator.

  He inspected the contents of Kate’s phone as the elevator descended. She had only one note in the notepad, and it looked like a list of equations. They were all so far beyond him that they could be complete bullshit, like a cat walking around on a keyboard, and he would have no fucking clue. She had a bunch of voice memos; they were mostly recordings of bass lines or of her humming melodies in order to not forget them. She didn’t stutter when she hummed.

  Her photos and videos almost exclusively consisted of animals and the sky. Here was Whisky and Callie, there were some clouds, here was a bluebird, there was Callie again all snuggled up in a room full of antique globes, here was a sunset/rise, here was a chess set, and here were like five million pictures of caterpillars, chrysalises, and butterflies. Some of them were selfies. With butterflies. She looked so happy in them. When he scrolled back far enough, he found pictures from when Liz and her sister visited. Here he also saw Kate’s aunt, Rebecca Carter, noted adventurer or whatever. Some of these pictures were pretty silly, and he understood why Kate might be embarrassed if he saw them. They made him smile.

  The rest of her phone was pretty basic. Some music apps, an rpg dice-roller for Banana Quest, a chess app with the computer set to the highest difficulty (still in mid-game), some search app called Wolfram Alpha, and a science news app. Nothing in the calendar. No other notes. No clues, in other words. Kaitlyn Carter: still pretty mysterious, but no longer an intimidating unseen genius across the sea. Now a goofy kid, though still a genius, with a butterfly obsession, a love of cute things, and dreams of another world.

  He put her phone away as he stepped back outside. No wind here. He hadn’t felt so much as a draft since arriving, even though the sky looked stormy overhead.

  He shouldered the sword, sent Frisby ahead to scout, and carefully picked his way through the streets back to the cathedral. He was on full alert, head on a swivel, which is the only reason he saw its approach. From behind, the lights all went dark together in a rush toward him. He saw it coming, but it happened too fast for him to react. Besides, he had nowhere to run. Might as well be cool.

  He turned to face the oncoming darkness just as it reached him. Now he felt wind, a powerful gust that put him off-balance. A sound cracked around him like canvas snapping in a gale. Dust and sand blew into his face, making him squint into the darkness. He felt the vibrations of something heavy striking the pavement ahead. Metal scraping on concrete.

  He lowered the sword in a non-threatening stance, but he kept his thumb on the energy switch. When the gust had died down, silence and stillness returned. The darkness in front of him, which snuffed out the streetlights, was some kind of mist or fog. Tendrils crept along the street, and a chill radiated from the black mist.

  He waited. Frisby Wiser returned to him, settled on his shoulder, and clutched Eric through his jacket hard enough to draw blood. Eric gripped the sword loosely, ready to act if he had to. He had enough time to reassure himself that his calmness was not a fa?ade. His pulse was racing, but he was thinking clearly, just as he had when he’d been looking down the barrel of Shade’s gun.

  HELLO AGAIN, HERO OF TIME, sounded a voice that shook him to his core. WELCOME TO PYRRHUS.

  The voice was not audible, similar to the voice of the Dark Man in the Museum. Eric heard it in his mind, like a powerful intrusive thought. But unlike the Dark Man’s voice, this voice boomed in his mind, drowning out all other thoughts.

  “Uh…thanks,” he said.

  THE INTRUDERS HAVE BEEN DEALT WITH, SAVE FOR ONE. I LEFT HER FOR YOU.

  Eric thought he detected a hint of wry amusement in that thunderous unheard voice. “Thanks again,” he said. “I think I could use some company around here, you know?” Much to his embarrassment, the last two words came out weakly, like when Leah ran out of breath partway through a sentence but finished it anyway.

  YOU WILL HAVE TO KILL HER. CONSIDER IT TRAINING.

  “Does…is it the metronomes? What do they do? And who are you?”

  It laughed, and its laughter was like the grinding of gears inside massive construction equipment. I AM ERANEX, THE GUARDIAN OF THE HOLLOW MOON. I WILL BREAK YOU, ERIC WALKER, AND I WILL BE THE ONE TO DESTROY THAT WHICH YOU LOVE. BUT NOT YET.

  That snapping canvas noise came again; the air stirred as unseen wings flexed. Speech delivered, time to go. Relieved that it wasn’t planning on killing him, or monologuing, yet frustrated that it intended to depart after having left him with only a few vague threats, he shouted a last request for information: “When?”

  YOU HAVE TIME, came the reply. YOU HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. And with this, and with a blast of wind that staggered Eric, the icy darkness swept up into the sky and vanished. The lights came back on around him. He took his thumb off the switch and wondered if the sword had a battery life, and if so, how much remained.

  The dragon had left someone for him. Consider it training? Was he dealing with some stupid-as-hell rpg boss which sits around waiting for the protagonist to level up enough to be a threat? He could worry about that later. The metronomes might be in danger, and although he couldn’t say exactly why he felt this way, the thought of them breaking equated in his mind to his own personal failure.

  He jogged toward the cathedral. After a block, he ran. Frisby sensed his urgency and flew on ahead. Eric soon passed the remains of the drop ship. He paused to observe the wreckage. It was…weird. An awful-smelling charred corpse was sprawled on the curb. No time to examine it now. He ran on.

  The door to the cathedral was open. He had not left it open. He heard the sound of metal against metal. Inside, a large dark figure swung something like an axe at one of the metronomes. It was the golden one, Elizabeth’s. The axe clanged ineffectually off of the churning mechanisms. The intruder paused to evaluate how best to sabotage such a machine.

  Eric flipped the switch. The blade in his hand hummed to life, illuminating part of the cathedral’s interior in green. He walked to the front, over an empty stone floor, past row after row of cold gray columns.

  The intruder spun around and leveled its weapon at him, leaving the golden metronome undamaged. Good. Wait, fuck, was it good? Eric had always liked to imagine he could figure out how to use a sword, but in reality, he knew he had no fucking clue. And the dark-clad figure by the hourglass looked pretty big, and also like it knew how to wield that axe.

  Didn’t really matter, he decided as he continued moving forward step by step. He didn’t know what would happen if Liz’s metronome broke, but it probably wasn’t good and he had to assume the worst. He couldn’t take any risks about that. And if it meant protecting his friends, he would fight whoever he had to fight. Fight, and maybe die. Simple. Easy.

  “Damn, I’m cool,” he muttered to himself with a weak smile.

  He had time to gauge his opponent. Bigger than him, swathed in black armor and with some kind of dark cape or cloak. The figure looked hunched, perhaps even inhuman. He saw nothing to designate it as female, as the dragon had suggested. A single circle of blue light peered out at him from somewhere around the face.

  He stopped ten paces away to see what it would do. The answer became immediately apparent as the dark figure leaped toward him in a huge arc from the base of the metronome.

  It was not instinct which took over in this fight; it was a cold, detached desperation. For all the twenty or thirty seconds which the combat took, he did not experience fear or pain or even anger. He saw only a single fact: he had to win.

  His foe dropped from its initial jump with a mighty downward swing of the axe. Eric jumped to the side, powered by a surge of adrenaline. He felt the vibrations of the impact as he retaliated with a horizontal swing of the sword. He put his hips into it, like swinging a baseball bat. Maybe the enemy did not know what this sword was, or maybe it made a miscalculation, but it reacted by raising an armored limb to block the blow. The green-sheathed sword dug deep into this appendage and Eric’s enemy screeched in pain, confirming that whatever it was, ‘human’ was off the list of possibilities.

  It reacted quickly, sweeping the long black axe in a broad arc. Eric very nearly made the same mistake that it had by stupidly attempting to block the incoming swipe with his arm. Instead he dropped to a low crouch and felt the wind of the strike shift his hair as it passed overhead.

  That could have killed him; he could have died right there. He did not care. He had to win.

  He shoved himself forward and attempted to thrust the sword into the intruder. Something blunt struck him on the side and flung him to the ground. He rolled with the blow, came up on his feet, and tried again. He knew it had further reach with the axe, whereas all he had was this sword. He had to get close.

  In the end, Frisby Wiser saved his life, with some credit also going to the superior quality of his weapon. Frisby flew about the creature’s face, teleporting here and there, and while the tiny dragon could not tear people to shreds like Heidi’s angel, he made an excellent distraction. And Eric’s sword, its green energy fading and flickering by the end of the battle, sliced through armor, flesh, and even the weapon of his enemy. He escaped with a handful of painful bruises and considered himself lucky.

  At the conclusion of the conflict, he stood panting over the twitching body of a large inhuman creature. It didn’t seem to bleed, but it had clearly perished during the fight. Mechanical hissing and sparks emanated from the corpse, but he was sure it had not been a machine. Or not entirely. Which would mean that he had just killed somebody. Assuming it counted, since he was in some kind of dream world. He found to his surprise that, even if this had truly been a sentient creature, he felt little guilt about killing it. It had been trying to break Liz’s metronome.

  He went and inspected the ticking machines. Elizabeth’s was marked, but not seriously damaged. The black axe had not been enough. Although he noticed it had been enough to crack the floorstone where that initial attack had fallen. His own metronome, the red one, was ticking wildly, much faster than all the others. In a flash of inspiration, Eric put two fingers against his carotid to check his pulse. It matched the ticking of the red metronome precisely. Elizabeth’s, meanwhile, was slowest of them all. Didn’t Isaac say something about her being asleep? Eric felt a flash of discomfort at the idea that he was watching her heartbeat right in front of him. Was it voyeuristic? Nah. A little weird, though.

  Frisby, ever since the battle ended, had been fretting back and forth in the air above the fallen assailant. “Thanks, Frisby,” Eric said. “You’re great even if you’re not an unstoppable killing machine like Bahamut.”

  Frisby flew over to him. Eric raised a hand, and Frisby wrapped himself around Eric’s wrist, tail and all, in a full-body hug. It was fucking adorable.

  “Know where I can get some food/coffee/sleep around here?” He recalled the food he had found in the skyscraper, but…it had looked a little sketchy.

  Frisby did know where he could get these things, or at least two of them. Back behind the front of the church, through a thick wooden door and down a dark stone hallway, Frisby led him to an entire well-stocked living quarter. Bed, kitchen, table, couch, weights, drumset, soundboard, all in one giant man-cave studio apartment. Even with all that was in it, it stood mostly empty. Just begging for a big-screen TV on that wall, and probably a pool table or some shit there in the empty space.

  His first reaction to seeing this place was verbal: “Who did this?” He said it before he fully understood what it meant, but it became obvious soon enough. Someone had designed this place and had obviously done it for him, Eric Walker. Someone had put basic food supplies in the cupboards and fridge. Someone had set up a drumset with a double-kick. Someone had not made up their minds about what the technological level around here ought to be, which resulted in a rack for melee weapons and rifles standing adjacent to the array of security-system monitors.

  He checked the security system, after a minute concluded that he had no fucking clue what any of it meant, and satisfied himself by flipping some switches that made all the lights on the rightmost monitor green. Probably good enough.

  He plugged his phone into the sound system and set some chill electronic music to play while he made a simple sandwich. A round throughout the church familiarized him with its layout and ensured that everything was locked up as well as it could be. He took a shower, bandaged his various minor cuts with some adhesive gauze he found in the bathroom, then crawled into bed with Frisby Wiser beside him and the sword, apparently low on power but still better than nothing, on the bedstand. The bed was comfortable, and dozens of colored lights blinked steadily from elsewhere in the room, making an otherwise over-large space feel close and comforting.