The instant stretched on into the flux, a sacrosanct tapestry of mutable rigidity.

  Naomi watched as eighteen versions of herself became immersed within the psitronic crystal’s multifaceted core. Her perspicuity was fully charged now, and folding in and out of existence to the boundless cadence of a cosmos wide pulse.

  Reality fractured as, somehow, her awareness spiked. And for the first time in her life, she felt truly alive. Hyper-cognition flared through myriad concepts, its whetted keenness expanding to fill each lattice of the sixteen-foot monstrosity with a host of prospects. Prospects she began to enact simultaneously, in a way only she could hope to control.

  In one, her mind brought up a full sensory replay of another transcension she had witnessed. That of her mentor, Anatt Yasin, five years previously. Just before the process began, Naomi had been conversing with the Shadow Lord, Andrew. An exchange she was extremely mindful of now.

  In an instant, she lived that episode again:

  Oh yes, she thought. Very useful indeed! Especially as his mind also revealed the artifact was thirty-two times stronger than their previous one.

  Coaxing another lattice to life, Naomi used the infinite propensity offered by its bipolar template to enhance her own stupendous ultrasenses. She knew the Gulf of Aden was already in good hands, so concentrated instead on the Los Angeles Basin.

  The clarity afforded by the crystal’s framework sent an esoteric thrill through her soul. Ethereal or not, this is awesome!

  For a moment, she flirted with the idea as to how easy it would be to lose herself among the endlessly replicating horizons on offer.

  Get a grip, Naomi! She chided.

  And trust yourself! An ancient mind echoed.

  Nanoseconds had passed from the strangely complex detonations. An unusual kinetic wave led the impacting vortices, its mad charge threatening to trigger further seismic calamities along the already shattered backbone of the San Andreas Fault.

  Other occluding stress lines networking the area also bucked furiously. And little wonder. Each and every asperity beneath the mantle had disappeared, consumed in the same blast that had vaporized billions of tones of rock and soil. All the tension that had accumulated during hundreds of years of continental occlusion simply vanished, released at the exact same juncture. Now, the devastating energy surge had nothing to impede its charge, as could be seen by the way the whole western seaboard was beginning to deflate like a punctured airbag.

  Nothing would prevent a catastrophe. Unless. . .

  Projecting her hyperquaitance along that probability strand, Naomi followed as the beginnings of a highly compacted, secondary kinematic wave smashed outward. Its onslaught signaled the subsidence of vast tracts of land, and the inrush of trillions of tons of seawater.

  Naomi decided on a response instantly. Snapping back to the present, she flexed her mind, and activated four further aspects of the gem. I need to issue an augmented blanket call and put each and every single Guardian on duty on notice to stand by. . .

  Here it goes!

  Reining her stupendous vision back a notch, Naomi tuned one substratal feature of the crystal into the precise frequencies employed by the cerebro-energetically enhanced SEPs scanners and transporters aboard all those ships and stations currently orbiting both the Earth and Moon. By amplifying their resolution far beyond spec, she would ensure her compatriots retained the capability to assess the unfolding situation with perfect clarity.

  She did the same for the three dreadnaughts and the North American Disaster Command Carrier already powering their way to the scene.

  Taxing herself further, Naomi then manipulated another of the obverse angles to analyze the exact nature of the damage in each specific location. Progressing that time-strand in particular, she calculated the degree of control it would require to hold events in stasis while an evacuation was conducted. Yes! I see it!

  Next, her ego activated a further facet of the crystal to call her transcended brothers and sisters to attention. Apprising them of her intentions, she at last meshed with the final lattice.

  Naomi’s spirit shrieked as her mind was beset by forces that threatened to tear the fidelity of her reasoning apart. Her percipience was consumed in that instant, seemingly bursting open and recoiling all at once.

  Trust yourself . . . breathed a nearby source of support, wise in its understanding.

  Don’t think . . . feel! Advised another, from far, far away.

  She did as both instructed.

  Surrendering herself to the celestial calamity brutalizing her soul, Naomi stepped through the pain and into the eye of the storm. Abruptly, everything stopped spinning. Time and space and possibility congealed into a focused knot of will and purpose.

  Her will.

  Her purpose.

  Naomi expanded in response to the unadulterated plangency rushing to suffuse her complexus with limitless dominion. It molded to her psyche, becoming part of who she was. Filled to overflowing, her senses magnified like a lens, sharpening with a lucidity that went beyond all possibility.

  Time paused and the universe took a deep, deep breath.

  At this range, the task would test her commitment to the limit. Distance is but a state of illusion.

  The sheer scope of the undertaking should be impossible. The size of the task is irrelevant. Failure is not an option.

  Dynamic potential coalesced in the ether about her, its composition resonant and vibrant. All at once, everything fell into place.

  A full second had passed since the blasts.

  Do—or do not!

  Initiating her grand plan, Naomi seized the boundless well of choral latency ringing throughout the heavens, and imbued it with the capacity of every transcended mind standing at the ready.

  As each distinct character was added, the aerial consonant altered, amplifying with a sweetness that was as hypnotic as it was thrilling. Naomi’s acuity flowed as never before. Refining and adjusting. Sampling and approving. Doing everything she could to synchronize their mergence to the pace of the upwelling now blossoming through every facet of her orchestral construct.

  A maestro incarnate, she succeeded with flair.

  Her speed and finesse belied comprehension. Before onlookers were aware of what had happened, every consciousness at her disposal had been woven into a magnum opus of harmonic unity.

  Without warning, the congruence swelled toward a crescendo. It seemed unlikely the pitch could withstand the influx of any further vitality. But it did.

  Expanding ardently, the timbre somehow adjusted to a new, unique, multi-faceted tempo and the Moon became encompassed by a lucent halo of power. The melodic coefficient built, swelling higher and higher, allowing the sizzling band of ecstasy to wind tighter and tighter about the pyretic sentience controlling it. A febrile awareness that was now able utilize the awesome sovereignty at her command with intuitive dexterity.

  By now, two seconds had passed since the coordinated antimatter detonations. Naomi could taste the distinctive flavor of their concussions, even from her current locale.

  Calling on the declamatory mode, her mind addressed the rest of the Guardians: THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN LIFE TAKES PRIORITY. PROPERTY CAN BE RECLAIMED LATER.

  As she spoke, she unleashed a triple arc of blazing plasma.

  Travelling via the warped physics of the crystal, the first ribbon was able to reach the Earth at faster-than-light speed. Arriving less than a heartbeat after its inception, it saturated the whole of the western shoreline of North America in a golden rainbow of amplified psitronic light.

  Two things happened simultaneously:

  In her magnified condition, Naomi had easily been able to digest the precise frequencies of the crustal tremors and ocean borne tsunami. So, as had happened in the Gulf of Aden, the first thing she did was to rob them of the ravenous dynamo driving them along. Stripped of their power, they began bleeding away instantly.

  Moreover, because the Los Angeles area was now saturated with a multitude of residual psitronic flecks, Naomi had ensured to infuse the composition of the leading plasma strand with a very specific command structure. A command structure that Naomi now applied in a strategic masterstroke!

  As each fragment bloomed to life, negating breakers of augmented mirror energy radiated outward. In moments they had created a massive damlike structure within each of the voids. Soil liquefaction ceased; residual fracturing faded and died; continental flexing stabilized; the encroaching ocean flopped backward, spent, as conjoining energies abruptly harmonized.

  Frozen, the wounded lithosphere trembled on the brink of collapse.

  The following wave arrived to witness the success of its counterpart.

  As its potency irradiated the circuitry of the arriving emergency response ships, the capacitors within each craft immediately began charging, ramping way beyond their usual magnitudes—a similar process to that also taking place aboard Guardian Observation Stations 1 and 2.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  A mile above the disaster, two distinct, gray vortices appeared, one slightly above the other. Tuning each maelstrom to the existing bipolar charge of the crystal, Naomi then initiated the next phase of her plan.

  The lower gyre shimmered, turned indigo blue, and started to sink toward the ground. Its sister fabrication rippled turquoise and disappeared. An instant later, its sea green expanse had manifested across the whole of the Great Basin, in the neighboring state of Nevada.

  Both curtains fluttered briefly, in tandem, before intensifying into fully primed, whirling energy fields.

  Without conscious thought, the matter transporters within those Guardian vessels and facilities that had been affected came back online, all of them now focused on ground zero.

  Remaining on the declamatory mode, Naomi called: I WILL BE RETURNING PRIMARY CONTROL TO YOU SHORTLY. WHEN I DO, STATION ONE . . . TARGET THOSE LIFE-SIGNS WITHIN THE PRIMARY FIELD AND WORK FROM NORTH TO SOUTH. STATION TWO . . . BEGIN YOUR SWEEP IN THE SOUTH AND HEAD NORTHWARD. CAPTAIN HUDSON? TAKE THE ODDESY AND YOUR RESPONSE GROUP DIRECTLY INTO THE CENTER OF L.A. THERE WILL BE NO NEED FOR ANY OF YOU TO MONITOR OUTBOUND TRAVELERS. THE VORTICES WILL TAKE CARE OF THAT FOR YOU. . .

  UNDERSTOOD?

  A handful of mental affirmations came back.

  Naomi then addressed her fellow transcended colleagues. Please strive to keep my persona intact. The more I employ the power of the crystal, the deeper I have to descend into its matrix. There is a very strong possibility my hold on reality will fragment. Under no circumstances allow that to happen. If I begin to lose containment, pull out what you can and destroy the rest! Do not allow me to go nova and endanger others.

  Another round of acknowledgements resounded in the ether.

  Finally, Naomi drew their attention toward the trailing arc of plasma. As big as the first two combined, it crackled and sparked with arcane exuberance: This beauty will arrive a few minutes after we complete the evacuation. You will see it encompasses a nucleic matter generation placebo within its core, suitable for tectonic adaptation.

  If I survive the extraction, I won’t be in any fit state to help you. However, its template has been designed for manipulation by a transcended director. Decide amongst yourselves who will take point during the modifications. I would suggest either Andrew or Victoria. They have previous experience in this kind of thing, and stand a higher chance of success in generating lasting repairs.

  She called a halt to her instructions and inquired: Shall we begin?

  Diverting her multiplex levels of awareness back toward the scene, Naomi activated the matter vortices. It wasn’t until the first beams began to bathe the panicking crowds and fleeing casualties in cerulean splendor, that the ingenuity behind Naomi’s construct became apparent.

  Usually, Guardian transporters operated following a swift, but extremely complex process: Having locked onto a target, they would scan its physical structure at the sub-atomic level and break those readings down into their corresponding quantum patterns. That pattern would then be digitized, compressed, and transferred through subspace toward the target zone. On arrival at the zone, the incoming stream would be reassembled into a coherent matri-packet. Once sufficient integrity had accumulated, the focusing projectors would then generate an expansion and reconstruction field, within which a person would appear.

  Although the cycle took less than four seconds in its entirety, it was still far too long a procedure for the emergency evacuation of more than twenty million souls. So Naomi had done away with it.

  The vortices were the answer.

  Because of their dual polarity, they were, in effect, representative of the surfaces of a coin. Existing in two places at once, the event horizon on the blue—heads—side was located in the Los Angeles costal region. Its converse—or green tails—side was situated over the one hundred and eighty-four square mile area of the Great Nevada Basin.

  And the augmented transporter beams now acted as a key between the two geophysical points.

  No sooner did they register bio-signs, than they were phased through the unique subspace nihility away from danger and into a place of safety. In effect, they would disappear here in Los Angeles, only to instantly manifest there, in Nevada.

  Genius!

  But torturous.

  Naomi now had to endure a ferocious amount of distress to maintain the bridge’s integrity. Woe assailed her from all sides; from within; from without; from everywhere and elsewhere. It bludgeoned her to near submission. Cruelly pierced her to the core. Amplified her agony a thousandfold. Throughout it all, Naomi teetered on the edge, her every molecule flaring at the brink of ultimate expression.

  The Overlord’s voice intruded, anchoring her to the here and now: Impressive, Naomi! You acted intuitively, and seem to have an inventive, almost natural instinct for elucidation. Hopefully, you’ll find this encouraging. . .

  An ultra-compressed psychic data stream followed.

  . . .I thought you might like to pass this latest information on to the others. Yet another of the thorns in our flesh will shortly be out of the way . . . After she’s delivered a message for me. While I’m sure the cancer won’t have spread to all of their corporate and multinational assets, it would nevertheless be a course of prudence to ensure each and every single one of their executives are interrogated as a matter of urgency. The rest can be evaluated by marshals. I’ve no doubt you’ll foster the perfect tool to accomplish that task. In the meantime, I’ll make sure Andrew, Victoria, Anil, and Anatt are aware of your broadened responsibilities.

  Naomi clutched at the stability of his voice: If I survive! She gasped.

  Oh you’ll survive, Naomi. Believe me.

  The Overlord went quiet for a moment, as if deliberating on how much to reveal. Eventually, he continued: Just prepare yourself for the change. Transcension aside, you’ll be very different from what you are now. So long as you can accept the regenesis for what it will accomplish, you will come to look on it for what it is. A unique gift!

  Regenesis? Alarm flared through Naomi’s anima.

  It will take time for you to adjust. To adapt. But you will. And the future? Well. . .

  Again the pause.

  The future? Naomi pressed.

  Change is necessary, Naomi. Embrace it as I do, for you will become a guiding light once you’ve managed to achieve a degree of equilibrium.

  A gold and silver doorway cracked open in her mind. Hinting at hidden revelations, it exuded an air of invitation. Fixated, she channeled her spiraling consciousnesses toward the stability it offered. But when the skittering tendrils of her thoughts touched it, it slammed shut, mocking her efforts to gain entry while continuing to gleam enticingly around the edges.

  Quickly, the Overlord interceded: As I said. That’s for another time. For now, it would appear your designs are reaching fruition. Observe!

  Returning her attention to the rescue efforts, Naomi was startled to discover that, somehow, time had jumped. Guardian Alpha Response Teams were already converging on the hills and shoreline of Los Angeles. As she looked on, the last of the refugees were scooped away to the temporary staging area at Nevada. There, detachments from Sector Command—supported by details from the new Marshal’s Bureau and dozens of crews from the EMS, Fire & Rescue and First Responders pool—were on hand to receive casualties and redirect them, either to disaster management pods or triage units.

  Further afield, Naomi could see elements of the National Guard had started to arrive and were already in the process of coordinating efforts with outside agencies.

  That . . . that’s outstanding. But how long were we speaking?

  Ethereal laughter pattered about her.

  As you will discover, the Overlord explained: though our state of being is linear, it can be manipulated. Especially in such a place as this!

  Naomi paused to inspect the recursive plane she now inhabited. Slightly different versions of herself looped off in multiple directions at once; pictures within pictures, in a hyper-magnified version of the Droste effect.

  Referring to the puzzle, the Overlord said: What you need to appreciate is, these gems act as a bridge between multiple levels of existence. A window through time, thought and possibility. They exist both inside and outside of the normal planes of temporal reference. Although a paradox, their contradiction fastens the reality of each dimension in place. And if you’re powerful enough . . . adept enough . . . well!

  Naomi gasped, her intuition firing on all cylinders: Are you saying it’s possible to jump through time by manipulating the reality lattices?

  This time the Overlord’s mirth pealed like thunder about her: Oh, Naomi! If only it were that simple. You’re thinking along the right lines, but it’s far more complex than that. We are very different to the crystal. It exists everywhere and everywhen at once. That’s its natural state. From the moment of our generation—or in your case, conception—we become locked in time. Bound, if you like, to a very specific orientation point. Thereafter, our natural state is linear, no matter how mighty we are or become. However, if we are strong enough, the crystal does allow us to see into the different plausibility outcomes. And, if we have the fortitude to immerse ourselves deeply enough within its milieu—as you have done—to skip forward a little in time. Just a little, though, otherwise we would become forever lost in hyperphasure. Do you follow?

  Reality span within the vaultlike halls of Naomi’s parametric consciousness: Yes! Yes I do!

  A grounding recognition rippled through her. The fusion of multiple confluxes that streamed together into one continuous panacea of solutions: Don’t think. FEEL!

  Comprehension flared: I am . . . I ammm. . .

  The Overlord finished her sentence for her: Awakening at last! As foreseen.

  Naomi went to reply, but suddenly found herself all alone again.

  For a split second, she lost focus and manifold realities crowded in on her. Panicking, she floundered in a lamellate sea where welcoming midnight currents vied with psychedelic energies, all of them urging her to embrace the chaos and surrender control.

  Voices at the edge of discernment called out to her.

  Hey, Naomi, over here!

  No, not that way!

  Ignore them . . . the true path lies this way.

  Naomi!

  I’m warning you . . . if you listen to them, you’re screwed!

  Don’t you know who to trust?

  That’s when she saw herself as she once was. Frangible, limited and human. Someone who had always been confident of her strengths and mindful of her weaknesses.

  But now?

  Expanding her perceptions to the disjointed incoherence each angled node brought, she nevertheless remained still and chose instead the calm of self-assurance.

  A grinding noise—akin to pack ice tightening around the hull of a stranded vessel—moaned eerily about her, a resonance that coincided to the moment multiple layers of veracity set in place. The template condensed, solidifying with the rigidity of a diamond encrusted fretwork . . . and mental cohesion was achieved.

  Elation coursed through her being, along with the recognition of a familiar mind: Victoria?

  Feelings of relief flooded the ether: Naomi? Thank God for that! I was just about to initiate the failsafe.

  Naomi’s awareness homed in on the Shepherd’s aura where it hovered, near to the exterior facade of the crystal.

  Victoria sounded tense: We thought the shit was really going to hit the fan there. We lost you! You just . . . vanished. It was like you’d never existed. I skimmed the planes of the nearest lattices, but you were gone! I wouldn’t have been able to wait either, as the final plasma strand is approaching Earth and it’s going to take all of us to achieve the choral purity required to activate tectonic regeneration. You didn’t tell me before, but I take it you intend for the old crystal shards to transmute into the new mantle layers?

  An odd frigidity sprouted from the center of Naomi’s complexus, distracting her.

  Naomi? Victoria called.

  Huh? Yes?

  I said, do you intend for the old crystal shards to transmute into the new mantle layers? Is it a self replicating design?

  Yes! Yes it is—is—is. . .

  Frosty petrifaction crackled outward, freezing her as it went.

  Naomi?

  Victoria reeled as a sharp psychic burst arrowed into her mind. Forewarned, she reeled away from the psitronic crystal, yanking Anil along with her.

  The connection was severed just in time.

  Stunned, both Victoria and Anil watched as the crystal started to pulse. A rending shriek filled the air as myriad obsidian facets began rotating all at once. Twisting in on themselves, the facets splintered. A cloud of ebony icicles sprayed in every direction, creating a jingling fanfare as they burst apart against floor, walls and ceiling alike—their tympanic demise masking the emergence of a whole new reticulum of prisms.

  As they burst forth, they heralded the appearance of a luminous coating of hoar-frost that radiated outward from Naomi’s position in the manner of an invasive and virulent fungus. Mesmerized, Victoria could only stare as the growth infused Naomi’s complexus, petrifying the newborn ascendant in the process.

  A grinding crack made her wince, after which, the Naomi-psitronic hybrid settled into position. Then—having achieved what it must have felt was a suitable symmetry—it emitted a final groan before the usual fairy-bell tinkling resumed.

  Less than a minute later, the mutated crystal commenced folding gently in and out of view again, as if nothing of consequence had taken place.

  What the hell? Anil hissed, unable to tear his senses away from the horror before him: Victoria! That can’t be right. Can it? It . . . it’s not . . . natural.

  Although now privy to the circumstances, Victoria also found herself utterly captivated by the morbidity of Naomi’s evolution, and had to force herself to act. Time was short.

  Ushering her stunned colleague away from the center of the chamber, she teleported them both through the warped lunar strata and into high orbit: We’ll study the ramifications later, Anil. And with a full team on hand, believe me. For now, we’ve got to complete the meld in order to trigger the modifications down on Earth. Naomi gave me the program before she threw me out. Quite ingenious, really! You won’t believe what it can do.

  Wryly, he admitted: Oh, I probably will. Today’s been one long list of surprises . . . your heritage included! I’d always suspected, of course. I’m just trying to fathom why your father felt the need to keep it a secret from Earl and myself for so long.

  Victoria considered her friend of the last five and a half thousand years closely, and was prompted to reply: He kept things hidden from us too, don’t forget! Both Andrew and I were quite freaked out to discover we’re part human, part . . . God knows what—pun intended! Makes days like today seem run of the mill, don’t you think?

  Anil declined to answer, being content instead to ruminate privately while he kept an eye on events unfolding on Earth. As he did so, he orchestrated the prelude to the metapsychic concert that would allow their transcended counterparts to join them in harmonic union.

  Left alone, Victoria came to a poignant conclusion. Run of the mill? Who am I kidding? I’ve got a feeling that the next twenty-four hours might teach us just how freaky our lives are going to be from now on!