APPLES AND TREES

  Black sites all look the same. BACR Facility #47—"The Obsidian Vault"—sits in Nevada desert like a cancerous lump of concrete. Two hundred years after losing Dresden, I'm pulling new strings.

  "Two minutes," Maxwell says, expensive cologne masking fear sweat. "Everyone clear?"

  Starla adjusts her vocal dampener. A whispered "yes" carries to us all. When her powers manifested, she leveled a concert hall. Forty-three dead when her voice shattered their skulls. Waylan checks paint tubes, fingers stained with colors physics can't explain. The Parallax Event turned his art deadly—murals that move, colors that corrode steel. SCAN's eye bleeds as he processes data streams invisible to us. "Eastern checkpoint. Fourteen guards. Security blind spot at southeast corner. 2.3 seconds."

  I scan my assembled puppets, strings twitching with anticipation. They don't know they're my path to finding Dresden—my son, missing two centuries now.

  "Remember," I say, "the boy is our priority. Subject 17. Mikey Fleming. Fourteen years old. Reality manipulator."

  The guards at the checkpoint never stood a chance. Starla's whispered "Sleep" drops the first one. My strings take the other two—one's throat crushed, another's shoulder dislocated with a wet pop. Waylan's paint creates a portal through the electrified fence. We step through his impossible doorway. Ten minutes later we're in Sector 7, facing a glass cell containing a pale, skinny teenager. Mikey Fleming hunches on a bed, trembling hands clutching a thin blanket. His eyes dart between us like a cornered animal's.

  "You're not BACR," he whispers, voice cracking.

  "No," I confirm, strings tasting his quantum signature. Raw power, unformed. Manipulable. "We're getting you out."

  "The glass is molecularly bonded," he says, looking younger than fourteen. "They'll catch you. They always do."

  Waylan applies shimmering paint to the barrier, transforming it to something between solid and liquid. He steps through.

  Terror and hope war on Mikey's face. "How—"

  "Parallax survivor," Waylan says, removing the boy's restraints. "Like you. Like all of us."

  "Can you walk?" I ask.

  Mikey nods shakily. "They drug me. Makes my powers fuzzy."

  Perfect. A frightened child. A blank canvas for my machinations. We make it twelve steps before alarms scream to life. Red lights bathe everything in blood-color. Six Quantum Response operators pour through the door, weapons raised.

  "Take them alive if possible," their leader orders through his respirator. "Kill the reality bender if necessary."

  My strings explode outward. Throat crushed. Legs snapped. Starla's "Pain" drops three more, convulsing as their nervous systems overload. Waylan's paint traps another in quicksand floor.

  One operator remains, weapon trained on Mikey. "Don't move. I will kill him."

  The boy cowers behind me, fingers clutching at my coat. Fear radiates from him in waves. My strings slide toward him, wrapping around his shoulders like a false comfort. A puppet master's embrace.

  "Show him what you can do," I whisper, voice honey-coated poison. "He's scared of you, not the other way around."

  Mikey's terrified eyes meet mine, searching for reassurance. I nod slightly, strings tightening at his back.

  "I'm... I'm the one you keep drugged," he says, voice barely audible. "You said I'd get used to the restraints."

  The operator's stance shifts minutely. Recognition behind that mask.

  "Good," I murmur, strings pulsing at Mikey's spine, positioning him like a weapon. "Now show him."

  The air shimmers around him—not controlled like Waylan's paint, but wild. Raw. The weapon transforms, barrel twisting impossibly. Spikes erupt from the grip, piercing the operator's hand. His scream echoes as blood sprays. Mikey's eyes widen at his own power, fear mixing with dark fascination. The operator's respirator shatters. Air in his lungs crystallizes.

  "That's enough," I say, strings wrapping protectively around the boy. Keeping my new asset safe. "More coming."

  We reach the roof. Freedom lies beyond—desert darkness, Maxwell's extraction point waiting. But the alarms have drawn attention. Helicopter rotors thump in the distance. Floodlights sweep across the facility grounds. Radio chatter echoes as response teams coordinate.

  "We're out of time," SCAN reports, blood streaming from both eyes now. "QRD reinforcements, ninety seconds out."

  Mikey looks at the approaching lights, terror returning to his face. "They'll put me back in the box," he whispers. "Please, don't let them."

  My strings curl around him protectively—a predator guarding its prey. "Show us what you can really do," I whisper. "Create a way out."

  The boy's hands shake as he raises them. "I might... I could try to..." His voice breaks, the weight of our escape pressing on his thin shoulders.

  "You can do this," I say, voice soothing while my strings position him like a weapon. "Choose another reality. One where we're safe."

  Mikey's eyes close. Concentration etches lines no fourteen-year-old should have. The air shimmers around us as his raw power builds.

  "Not here," he whispers. "Somewhere else."

  Reality convulses. The concrete beneath us doesn't crack or break—it ceases to exist. Matter becomes possibility becomes nothing. A hole opens in the world itself.

  We fall.

  When awareness returns, I'm lying on desert earth. The facility glimmers on the horizon, miles away. Mikey lies unconscious nearby, blood seeping from his nose and ears. The others are scattered around—injured but alive.

  Maxwell's extraction vehicle approaches. One mission complete. One powerful puppet acquired.

  Questions can wait. First, I need to secure Mikey. Shape him. Use him.

  After all, every puppet master knows the strongest strings…

  ****

  First thing you learn about forgotten towns is they smell like abandonment. Not the clean kind from ghost stories, but the rancid, desperate kind that comes when people stay long after hope packs its bags.

  Hollow Creek sprawls across dead Nevada earth like a cancer nobody bothered to diagnose. Buildings stand in various stages of collapse, their facades peeling away like skin after third-degree burns. Streets cracked, riddled with potholes deep enough to swallow small cars. The few that remain sit rusting on blocks, gutted for parts like corpses harvested for organs.

  My strings taste something wrong in the air. Something that makes physics uncomfortable. Quantum resonance that reminds me of Dresden's unique signature, but twisted. Corrupted.

  The coordinates on Melek's disk pulse stronger as I approach what used to be the town center. My strings have grown weaker since the battle with the twins, since losing Dresden to the void. They writhe in anticipation anyway, tasting copper and possibility.

  A diner stands at the crossroads, its neon sign flickering with epileptic persistence. "LAST CHANCE" it declares in buzzing crimson. Fitting. This whole town feels like humanity's last gasp before surrendering to desert reclamation.

  I push through doors that haven't been cleaned since the last century. Inside, time seems suspended. Air thick with grease and stale cigarette smoke despite smoking bans enacted decades ago. Seven patrons freeze mid-conversation, heads turning with synchronous precision that makes my strings bristle with warning.

  Their eyes hold the vacant stare of religious ecstasy. The kind that bypasses rational thought and plugs directly into primitive brain stems. The kind that says "we've seen god and he's given us purpose." The kind that makes people dangerous.

  A waitress approaches, pad in hand, dressed in a uniform that belongs in a museum. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes. Nothing does. They stare straight ahead, focused on something a thousand yards beyond the diner's peeling walls.

  "Coffee, stranger?" she asks, voice artificially sweet, like saccharin dissolved in drain cleaner.

  "Information," I reply, strings coiling with predatory patience. "I'm looking for someone. Roth."

  The name drops like a bomb. Conversation stops. Coffee cups freeze halfway to lips. A fork clatters against ceramic, the sound echoing obscenely loud in the sudden silence.

  "Nobody here by that name," the waitress says, smile going rigid. Her knuckles whiten around her pen. "Maybe you got the wrong town."

  My strings taste the lie like copper on my tongue. "I don't think so."

  A man in the corner booth stands. Tall, rail-thin, with hands calloused from manual labor. His eyes hold that same unfocused devotion as the others. "You're one of them, aren't you? Coming to steal our Prophet's gifts."

  "Prophet?" The word tastes bitter.

  "The Enlightened One," a woman adds from another booth. "The Time-Keeper."

  Religious fanatics. Perfect. I still can't escape humanity's need to worship what it doesn't understand.

  "I've come to deliver a message," I say, watching them carefully. "From his father."

  The effect is electric. Bodies tense. Hands reach beneath tables, into pockets, behind counters. My strings spread in anticipation, tasting metal and quantum energy. Not guns. Something worse.

  "His father is dead," the thin man declares, voice trembling with righteous certainty. "The Prophet told us so."

  "Not quite," I reply. Melek's pendant pulses against my chest, hidden beneath my coat. "As of a few days ago."

  The waitress drops her charade of hospitality. Her hand emerges from beneath her apron holding what looks like a cube of obsidian, its surface etched with equations that crawl across its faces like insects. "You will not blaspheme in this place," she hisses.

  The black cube resembles nothing I've seen before, but my strings recognize the quantum resonance. Similar to Melek's device, but corrupted. Modified. Weaponized.

  "The Prophet foretold your coming," the thin man says, producing his own cube. Others follow suit, black devices gleaming in grimy hands. "The Thief of Powers. The String-Puller. The False Immortal."

  They've been expecting me. Waiting for me. Prepared for my arrival with weapons specifically designed to counter my abilities.

  I have choices. I could kill them all. My strings may be weaker than before the battle with the twins, but these are just humans playing with forces they don't understand. I could cut through them like tissue paper, extract Roth's location through substantially more painful methods.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  But that's not why I came. Not who I'm trying to be anymore. Not with Dresden's voice still echoing in my mind: I love you, dad. Even when you were building a weapon instead of raising a son.

  "Take me to him," I say instead. "To your Prophet. I have a message only he can receive."

  The waitress's smile turns predatory. "We will. But not as a guest." She activates her cube, its surface rippling like disturbed water. Reality hiccups around it. Physics takes a coffee break.

  I have exactly one second to regret my decision before they all activate their cubes simultaneously.

  The effect is immediate and nauseating. Reality warps. Air solidifies around my strings, becoming viscous, resistant. Gravity increases tenfold, driving me to my knees. My stolen powers—already weakened from the battle with the twins—scream in protest as quantum barriers form around me, blocking connections that have sustained me for centuries.

  I fight anyway. My strings cut through molecular bonds in the air, shearing through solidified reality itself. Black lightning arcs between them—the last dregs of Maelstrom's stolen power responding to rage and desperation. The discharge hits the thin man first. Electricity courses through him, making teeth chatter, eyes roll back, muscles spasm beyond his control. He collapses like a puppet with cut strings.

  Irony tastes like copper and failure.

  The waitress repositions her cube, compensating for her fallen comrade. The remaining zealots tighten their formation, black devices creating a contained quantum field that makes physics itself uncomfortable.

  My strings feel the pressure, the wrongness. They're being severed—not cut like Ishra's blade would do, but dampened, suppressed, strangled at the source. I feel my connection to stolen powers weaken further, like trying to hold smoke with chopsticks.

  Two more zealots approach from behind, confidence growing as they witness my struggle. One holds what appears to be quantum restraints—metal bands etched with the same crawling equations as the cubes. Custom-made for someone with my specific abilities.

  This has been planned. Precision-engineered. Roth knew I would come, prepared his followers accordingly.

  I have approximately three seconds to make a decision—fight to the death or submit to capture. Neither appeals to my dignity, but only one serves my purpose.

  "Fine," I spit, blood trickling from my nose as quantum pressure increases. "I surrender."

  It's a calculated decision. A piece sacrificed to advance the game. Something Dresden taught me before I lost him.

  The zealots exchange glances, confusion mixing with righteous victory. They hadn't expected compliance. Wanted resistance. Wanted to prove their Prophet's power by subduing me forcefully.

  "Hands behind your back," the waitress commands, confidence wavering slightly at my unexpected surrender. "No tricks."

  I comply, watching my strings fade to near-invisibility under the quantum suppression field. The restraints snap around my wrists, cold metal biting into immortal flesh. As they close, I feel the last connections to my stolen powers dim to ember-glow.

  Not gone completely. Just suppressed. Hibernating. Waiting.

  The zealots march me through town like a trophy, black cubes held at ready positions should I attempt escape. Townspeople emerge from dilapidated buildings to watch the procession, eyes holding that same vacant devotion. Some cheer. Others whisper prayers to their "Prophet" and "Time-Keeper." A few make warding gestures—three fingers spread, thumb and pinky touching to form a loop. Protection against string-pullers and power thieves.

  We approach what used to be the town hall, a once-impressive building of marble and granite now weathered by desert winds. Its facade remains mostly intact, though statues flanking the entrance have been modified—their faces crudely recarved to display the same features. Roth's, presumably.

  Inside, the building has been transformed into a temple. Walls covered in equations that hurt to look at directly. Air thick with incense and ozone. The central chamber, once used for civic meetings, now houses a throne built from salvaged technology. Quantum computers gutted for parts. Machinery that contains elements I recognize from Melek's workshop. Scientific instruments repurposed as religious artifacts.

  Zealots fill the chamber, hundreds of them, all bearing the same vacant devotion. All clutching black cubes of varying sizes. All wearing the same symbol somewhere on their clothing—a circle containing an hourglass shape, with twisted lines running through it like corrupted strings.

  On the throne sits a man who can only be Roth.

  He doesn't look seventy-five. Doesn't look any specific age. His features shift subtly between moments, fluctuating between youth and advanced age with each heartbeat. Like watching time-lapse photography of aging and rejuvenation simultaneously. His eyes, though—they remain constant. Melek's eyes, but harder. Colder. Calculating.

  "The Puppet Master himself," he says, voice carrying harmonics that make my teeth ache. "Come to pull my strings at last."

  The zealots force me to my knees before his throne, restraints biting deeper into immortal flesh. My strings, suppressed but not eliminated, coil with venomous patience inside me.

  "Your reputation precedes you," Roth continues, descending from his makeshift throne with fluid grace. His movement leaves afterimages, moments in time frozen like photographs. "The great Marionette. The thief of powers. The man who forced immortality on my father."

  "I came to deliver a message," I say, meeting his shifting gaze. "From Melek."

  Something flickers across Roth's features—too fast to identify. Surprise, perhaps. Or concern. "My father abandoned me fifty years ago," he replies, circling me like a predator assessing prey. "Said my 'research' had become 'dangerous.' Said my 'methods' were 'unethical.'" He laughs, the sound carrying temporal distortions that make air molecules vibrate painfully. "As if he had any right to judge, after what you did to him."

  "He's dying," I say bluntly. The words taste like ash.

  Roth freezes mid-step. For a brief moment, time seems to fold around him, his figure existing in multiple moments simultaneously. Then he stabilizes, features settling momentarily into what he must have looked like at thirty. "Impossible. The immortality you forced upon him—"

  "A woman named Ishra, with a weapon called the Severer. Forged between dimensions. It cuts what shouldn't be cut."

  "You're lying." But doubt creeps into his voice like frost on a window. "My father cannot die."

  "He sent me to find you. Asked me to give you this." With bound hands, I awkwardly indicate the pendant concealed beneath my coat. "Said to tell you he's sorry. For everything."

  Roth's eyes narrow with suspicion. He approaches cautiously, reaching into my coat to extract the pendant. As his fingers brush the quantum-etched surface, energy discharges between them, creating microbursts of temporal distortion. The air shimmers where past and present temporarily merge.

  "The quantum anchor," he whispers, recognition dawning in features that momentarily settle into middle age. "He swore he destroyed it."

  "Apparently not," I reply, watching his reaction carefully. "He thought you might need it."

  Roth's fingers trace the shifting equations on the pendant's surface, his expression unreadable through the temporal fluctuations affecting his features. "The quantum anchor creates fixed points in space-time," he explains, seemingly to himself rather than me. "Allows for controlled access to spaces between dimensions. We designed it together. Before..."

  He trails off, lost in memories that taste bitter judging by his expression. Whatever happened between father and son left wounds that haven't healed despite decades of separation.

  "Where is he?" Roth asks finally, voice suddenly smaller. Less godlike. More human.

  "Star City. His brownstone. The woman with the Severer left him alive, but barely. The wound refuses to heal." I search his shifting face for any sign of the son Melek sacrificed his pendant for. "He thought you might want to see him. Before the end."

  Something changes in Roth's expression. The temporal fluctuations slow, his features settling into what must be his true age—seventy-five, but carried well. Melek's eyes stare back at me, calculation mixed with something softer. Something painful.

  "Why would he send you?" he asks, genuine confusion in his voice. "After everything you did to him—forcing immortality upon him, making him watch everyone he ever loved grow old and die..."

  "Except you," I counter. "His son."

  Roth's laugh holds little humor. "Yes. His son. The one who inherited the temporal instability caused by his immortal DNA." He gestures at his body, where age still shifts subtly beneath the surface. "Do you know what it's like, growing up with cells that can't decide when they exist? With a body constantly fighting its own timeline?"

  Understanding dawns. "The quantum research. The modifications to Melek's designs. You were trying to stabilize yourself."

  "I was trying to survive," Roth corrects, bitterness seeping into every word. "While my father remained frozen in time, perfect and unchanging, I existed in flux. Neither aging normally nor blessed with his forced immortality. Just... unstable. Caught between moments."

  The zealots watch our exchange with reverent attention, though confusion clouds their vacant devotion. This isn't the confrontation they expected. Not the showdown their Prophet had prepared them for.

  "And these people?" I ask, nodding toward the assembled faithful. "Your disciples? Your test subjects?"

  Roth's expression hardens. "My congregation. I gave them purpose. Stability. In exchange for their service."

  "You gave them quantum weapons and religious fanaticism," I counter. "Called yourself a Prophet and Time-Keeper. Made them worship you."

  "I gave them what humanity always craves—certainty in an uncertain world." He clutches the pendant tighter, knuckles whitening around its edges. "Something my father never understood. People don't want freedom. They want direction."

  "Sounds familiar," I observe dryly. "I spent centuries thinking the same thing. Pulling strings instead of cutting them."

  Roth regards me with newfound curiosity. "The great Puppet Master, having a crisis of conscience? How unexpected."

  "Let's just say I've had time to reconsider my methods." My strings shift restlessly against their quantum suppression, tasting possibilities, calculating odds. "Losing your child has a way of changing your perspective."

  "The Unweaving," Roth whispers, recognition flickering across his shifting features. "The collapse of dimensional barriers. My father theorized it would happen eventually." His eyes narrow with sudden suspicion. "What do you know about it?"

  "More than I want to," I admit. "I lost someone to the spaces between. My son. His name was Dresden."

  Something shifts in Roth's expression—surprise, perhaps. Or recognition. "Dresden," he repeats, tasting the name like a familiar food he can't quite place. "Quantum manipulator?"

  My strings coil with sudden interest. "Yes. How did you—"

  "Theories. Calculations. Quantum resonance patterns detected over decades of research." Roth studies the pendant with renewed intensity. "This anchor—with the right modifications, the right operator—it could potentially create a stable connection to the spaces between dimensions."

  Hope tastes like rust after so much disappointment, but I feel it anyway. "Could it bring him back?"

  "Perhaps." Roth's gaze returns to me, suspicion returning. "But why would I help the man who cursed my father with unwanted immortality? Who's now brought news of his impending death?"

  I meet his gaze steadily, strings coiling with violent patience beneath quantum suppression. "Because I made a promise to your father. Bring you the pendant. Deliver his message."

  "And then what? You'd hunt Ishra? Take revenge for the weapon that's killing him?"

  "That was the plan," I admit. "Find you first. Deliver the pendant. Keep my promise. Then find the woman with the Severer."

  Roth studies me silently, features shifting between ages as temporal flux ripples through his form. One of his followers approaches, whispers something urgently in his ear. His expression darkens.

  "More attacks on the eastern quadrant," he mutters, just loud enough for me to hear. "The fifth this week."

  I sense opportunity in his distraction. "Problems with the locals?"

  Roth's laugh carries no humor. "This town has been suffering, but not from anything local." He crosses to a curved console, activates screens showing surveillance footage of what looks like a mining operation. Figures in cobbled-together armor patrol the perimeter. "Three weeks ago, they took the quarry. Our primary source of crystallized quantum material."

  The screens zoom in on one particular figure—tall, unnaturally thin, with limbs that bend at impossible angles. The movement isn't human. More like an insect wearing human skin.

  "Former Fellowship," Roth explains, noting my recognition. "Calls himself Contortion. Metahuman ability to twist physical matter, including his own body. He brought marauders down on us, took the mine, blocked all access."

  Understanding dawns. "The black cubes. They're made from material mined there."

  "Precisey." Roth turns back to me, calculation clear in his shifting eyes. "Without the quantum mineral, we can't create more devices. Can't maintain our defenses." His gaze drops to the pendant, fingers tracing its etched surface. "Can't stabilize this to create the connection you seek."

  I see where this is going before he says it. "You need the mine back."

  "I need the mine back," he confirms. "And Contortion eliminated. His ability makes him nearly untouchable. My followers tried. Twelve died. Twisted into shapes humans shouldn't make."

  "And you want me to do what your zealots couldn't."

  Roth smiles thinly. "A proposition. Help me reclaim the quarry, eliminate the threat to my people, and I'll help you stabilize the quantum anchor. Create a connection to the spaces between dimensions."

  "To find Dresden."

  "To try," he corrects. "No guarantees. But without the mineral, there's no possibility at all."

  I weigh options, feeling my strings writhe impatiently against quantum suppression. "Release me, and I'll handle your contortionist problem."

  "Half now," Roth counters, motioning to his followers. "Restraints off, suppression field remains active until you complete your task. Insurance against... creative interpretations of our agreement."

  The zealots approach cautiously, deactivate the restraints binding my wrists. Blood flows back into immortal flesh, tingling with returning sensation. My strings remain dampened, limited, but I can feel them stirring, regaining minimal functionality.

  "The quarry lies five miles east," Roth says, returning to his makeshift throne. "Twenty-seven marauders at last count, plus Contortion. Return with the mineral shipment they've stockpiled, and I'll help you reach your son."

  "And if I don't come back?"

  His smile turns predatory, features temporarily settling into middle age. "Then you'll never see Dresden again. And neither will the multiverse." He taps the pendant meaningfully. "Father always did create the most fascinating artifacts."

  Two zealots step forward, each clutching smaller versions of the black cubes. "They'll accompany you," Roth explains. "To maintain the suppression field. And to verify your success."

  I rise slowly, stretching cramped muscles, feeling the reduced weight of dampened strings. "This Contortion. Any weaknesses?"

  "His abilities work on physical matter," Roth replies, fingers dancing over the pendant's surface. "The rest, you'll have to discover yourself."

  As two zealots escort me toward the exit, Roth returns his attention to the surveillance screens, watching the mining operation with calculated intensity.

  My strings coil with renewed purpose as I consider the task ahead. Contortion. The quarry. The quantum mineral. All threads pulling toward Dresden.

  A puppet master knows when to recognize the strings fate provides.

  After all, every performance has its intermission.

  The real show starts when the curtain rises again.

  The Parallaxers, the story series where The Marionette first debuted, has started up again with Volume 3. Check it out to get a much bigger story with a whole cast of characters. New stories drop weekly!