Sally’s knuckles paled, her hands gripped tightly on the edge of the table as the spaceship shook for the second time.

  The rest of the group were in a similar state of discomfort, holding onto whatever furnishing were closest to them. Bully had sworn under his breath after the first deep vibration had knocked one of his potion bottles to the floor, and now he sat hunched over with his arms wrapped around the others.

  “Just the power transferring from Sanctuary to the ship,” Archie explained. The ginger cat was sitting on the floor, still looking pleased with himself. “One more and we’ll be ready.”

  The fact that it was this troubling and they were still sitting in the hanger put Sally’s teeth on edge. There was only a low chance they would die and not respawn if the process went terribly wrong, but she knew not to discount the near-impossible. Being in a dangerous position without the ability to stab or eat her way out sounded like the worst way to go.

  A third shock rattled the OMEN. Edward sat with his face in his hands, taking a break from trying to bait Jackie to violence to ponder his own existence. Humphrey was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Any attempt to seem quietly confident over the process was dampened by how low his helmet flames were. The mobster herself had her eyes closed, but she was also subtly rubbing at her wedding ring.

  “Systems are ready. Everything green.” Archie hopped up on the table beside the zombie. “Departure is on your command, Captain.”

  Sally eyed him up and removed her grip on furniture. With a sigh, she looked around at her Party. Each of them relaxed from their tense positions, but didn’t seem any more like they were enjoying being picked for this mission.

  “I hadn’t prepared a speech or anything.” She furrowed her brow. “We all know why we are here and what we need to do. Any time wasted between now and then is just a breeding ground for hesitation and doubt. Success is inevitable, so prepare to look back on this moment, feeling slightly foolish for not remembering we are the fuckin’ Outsiders from Sanctuary.”

  Humphrey grinned and nodded his head. “Well said, ha-ha. I would also like to add that-”

  “Hit it!” Sally yelled at the cat.

  He did. Almost immediately after the zombie had finished the instruction, it all happened at once. The feeling of being held in place by great pressure, the G-Force of their ascension physiologically crushing even as they remained physically fine. A distinct lack of sound that turned into a roaring hum throughout the cabin. Time seemed to slow as every atom from the vehicle and those within stretched out to infinity.

  Then it was over, with a sudden jolt.

  The five Outsiders within the OMEN staggered and shifted from their positions, pressing against the nearby furniture or walls. While they all complained and swore over the rude shuffling, Sally’s eyes were fixated on the long faux window across the front of the bridge.

  It looked just like space, as imagined by all those science fiction movies she had watched several lifetimes ago. She found herself moving from her chair to walk closer and observe it all properly. As the Outsiders gathered themselves and clocked what the zombie was doing, they quietened and joined her.

  An unending void of darkness, swathed with occasional blurs of deep blue or purple. A few areas were sparkling with hundreds of stars and planets. Several of these bright orbs were bigger or closer than most of this imagined cosmos.

  Archie leaped up onto the panel in front of the faux window. “While this is only a simulated visual representation of space, it is vaguely accurate to other System worlds out there in the Sea.”

  “All these little specks are worlds like Sanctuary?” Jackie asked, screwing up her face.

  “To some degree. This is the amount that we have found, so far - and some are still just speculation. It appears we are traveling this distance between planets physically, but it is more of an abstract process.”

  Sally nodded, but couldn’t keep her eyes off the screen. It was enthralling, even knowing that she was almost lost in this void once before. To think there could be so many people, real or created, living and surviving in these different worlds… it was overwhelming.

  “We are traveling through time alone?” Edward asked. “All we did we exit the sphere of Sanctuary’s influence, and it is a matter of distributing our… ‘data’ to the target planet?”

  “That is an accurate enough explanation, yes.” Archie yawned and stretched out.

  Bully held little interest for the projected space, but hovered behind the others, nonetheless. “How do we arrive on the planet? Teleportation? Parachute? Is it too late to admit I’m scared of heights? And sharks.”

  The cat tilted his head. “Traditionally we use a drop pod, as it is a safe way to temporarily pierce through the homeworld System.”

  “What do we have now?” Sally put her hands on her hips. “Five individual pods, or a large team one?”

  “No, it’s more of a set of five connected together in a soft shell of our System’s power.”

  “Oh, like a clove of garlic.”

  Archie flicked his tail back and forth, frowning up at the zombie. “I’m not sure what that is, but sure.”

  “Eh.” She rolled her eyes. “I forgot that technically you were created by Theo. We’ll move on past that and try not to give it too much attention or thought ever again.”

  “Which one is Theo?” Bully asked, his bulging eyes looking at the gathered group.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Humphrey shook his head. “Someone who couldn’t be bothered to turn up to such an important event, clearly.”

  While they devolved into bickering about the vampire’s absence, Sally slunk away to sigh to herself. A whole day. She had to put up with these goofballs for that long before arriving, without anything to kill or eat in the meantime.

  [Chuck: How are things up there?]

  [Chuck: Everything okay?]

  [Sally: Seems normal, like we are just in a room.]

  [Sally: A singular space where there’s no escape.]

  [Chuck: Fantastic. The good news is that you won’t need to sleep.]

  [Chuck: In some ways you are frozen until arrival.]

  [Sally: It just keeps getting better.]

  [Chuck: I know. Thank you again for doing this.]

  [Chuck: We’re in contact with Theo and will get you in contact with him once you get to the planet.]

  [Chuck: As it stands, only I can speak to you - any other connection might set the variables off.]

  [Chuck: We wouldn’t want that.]

  It was bad enough that he had put a potential error into existence by telling her that. That said, getting to hear from the vampire again soon would make this all worth it. She tilted her head away from the conversation and internal monologue to look at the gang.

  Edward and Humphrey were at odds because Archie had said that the demon wasn’t allowed to use skills on the ship, and that the death knight would be immune to [Cower] anyway. Given that the former also had an ability to cast certain spells subtly, the sneaky use to attempt to win the prior argument just made them even more aggravated.

  “You two best stop right now,” she said. Not especially loudly, and her voice was almost drowned out by the bickering. But they had heard, and each of them paused, their current sentences fading away to murmurs.

  Out of everyone on Sanctuary, the Outsiders knew well enough not to underestimate the zombie. It was an unspoken understanding that if they annoyed her to her limits, she’d just kill them and eat their brains. Sure, they’d respawn back home most likely, but Sally knew how to hold a grudge - and when she finally returned after somehow soloing everything against the odds, they’d be in for another stern talking to.

  She crossed her arms now that the rabble had died down. “Time here is weird, like we’re in a living stasis. None of our stats or abilities will change while we’re traveling, otherwise I’d be getting you all training. I want us to be a tight-knit team once we hit the surface. Humps, you’re my second-in-command and will be in charge of setting us a base of operations. Wandering into the nearest settlement might work out, or we’ll need to establish ourselves before making contact with the locals.”

  “Assuming the roaches ain’t already scurrying about everywhere,” Jackie said.

  Bully nodded. “What do we know about that? Does the planet know they’re about to be attacked? Are they prepared?”

  The zombie shook her head and glanced at Archie to see if he would interject or advise her otherwise. He did not. “Unfortunately, all we know is the bugs are arriving imminently and we’re going to kick their ass. It’s a miracle we even found out about this given how obscured and vast the Sea is. Were you a part of that, Arch?”

  He stared at her blankly for a few moments, letting a silence fall within the OMEN. “Meow?” he eventually offered.

  Sally opened her mouth to probe him further, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was a brain full of needless exposition. What she really wanted was a stomach full of brains. Shame the bugs were probably gross to eat.

  “So, what should we do in the meantime?” Bully asked, his eyes going back over to the workbench where his bottles sat. “I had hoped to work on my alchemy during the travel, but if I’m not getting experience for it…”

  Another long sigh escaped from Sally’s nose. Being stuck in a room with the Outsiders for a whole day was bad enough, but they couldn’t even be productive or destructive. It was only a matter of time before one of them murdered another.

  Her hands balled into fists. Cabin fever was settling in already, and it had only been five minutes… or had it been hours? Her red eyes darted between the others standing around. Humphrey probably didn’t have an actual brain, but would be the toughest to fight. If she was quick, she could eat Jackie and Bully before they had a chance to ready up against her. Edward was evasive and could probably avoid a quick death, maybe assisting the death knight while she struggled with her adopted pops.

  She snapped her fingers. “Oh! I know, we can play some party games.”

  Although that suggestion received some groans, the demon produced a deck of cards from his pocket. They arranged some tables and chairs so that they could all sit in a circle, and they played.

  Other than Sally forgetting the rules every five minutes, Edward cheating Jackie out of every single win she was close to, and Humphrey having the worst poker face of them all - it was reasonably fun. Without the violence, it was a little plain, but it gave them all a chance to get to know Bully a little better.

  He had come to Sanctuary on one of the worlds that Theo had saved, not too long after he and Sally had become Aspects. An error-generated plague had been shredding through the once-thriving population there, with nothing to stop it. Bully was from a family of famous warriors, but had devoted his life to alchemy and medicine. While he hadn’t been able to cure anyone of the fatal disease, he found ways to mitigate and avoid it - saving several villages.

  Archie piped up to say that Chuck had found a way to integrate all the uncorrupted parts of that world, essentially leaving a cancerous lump to destroy itself into the Sea once everything rescued joined Sanctuary. Bully had an impressive background and was an easy pick to join the Architect’s Tower as part of the administrative team.

  Bully himself downplayed his abilities, but Sally was impressed enough. She had gotten lucky with having her own bugged existence that was mostly positive in nature. Sure, she ate brains and had murdered plenty of real people in her adventures, but the undead part of her brain made accepting that easy. No trauma at all.

  His story, however, did make it difficult to determine whether he was System-created or came from one of the six planets that fed the System worlds. Not that it mattered to her, but it had been an interesting experience finding out how different the NPCs on each world she had visited were.

  She placed her terrible hand on the table. “Thought I had something with the ace of diamonds pair, but the rest of them were bad luck.”

  “Pair of diamonds?” Jackie asked, her jaw working. “I have three ace of diamonds. Edward, you shameless bastard…”

  The demon grinned, placing his hand down. Each of his five cards was also the ace of diamonds. “Perhaps this is a lesson for you all?”

  “You’re just lucky I’m only thinkin’ about the mission.” The mobster sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Otherwise, I’d be sending your cheatin’ ass back to hell.”

  Edward rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond. Instead, he started gathering up the cards to put them away - the others giving them over with little complaint.

  “Well, then.” Sally wrinkled up her nose and turned to Archie. “That must have been a good twenty minutes or so. How long do we have to not-kill each other now?”

  The cat was laying at the end of the table, curled up and asleep. On hearing the zombie, he opened one emerald eye. “Oh? No, that was much longer than twenty minutes. You must have actually been having fun.”

  While the prospect of having burned a few hours sounded exciting to the zombie, she needed to know the specifics. She narrowed her glare at the ginger cat until he got the hint.

  Archie opened both eyes now and unfurled, stretching out with another yawn. “I lost count after twenty, but that doesn’t matter now.”

  “Twenty hours?” Humphrey asked, rubbing at his chin. “Felt like five, at a stretch.”

  Sally waved her hands, stopping the others from giving their two cents. “Forget that. Why doesn’t it matter now, Arch?”

  The cat stood, arching his back as he finally recovered from his nap.

  “We’re here. It’s time to get into the pods.”