Search Results for 'tell'

Disgruntled and bored with the fruitless wait for the other characters to reveal more of themselves, Amy started staying in her room all day reading books, glad that she’d had an urge to grab a bag full of used paperbacks from a chance encounter with a street vendor in Bogota.

A strange book about peculiar children lingered in her mind, and mingled  somehow with the vestiges of the mental images of the writhing Uriah in the book Amy had read prior to this one.

Aunt Amy?  a childs voice came unbidden to Amys ear.  Well, why not? Amy thought, Some peculiar children is what the story needs. Nephews and neices though, no actual children, god forbid. 

“Aunt Amy!”  A gentle knocking sounded on the bedroom door.  “Are you in there, Aunt Amy?”

“Is that at neice or nephew at my actual door? Already?” Amy cried in amazement.

“Can I come in, please?” the little voice sounded close to tears.  Amy bounded off the bed to unloock leaving that right there the door to let the little instant ramen rellie in.

The little human creature appeared to be ten years old or so, as near as Amy could tell, with a rather androgenous look: a grown out short haircut in a nondescript dark colour, thin gangling limbs robed in neutral shapelessness, and a pale pinched face.

“I’ve never done this before, can you help me?” the child said.

“Never been a story character before, eh?” Amy said kindly. “Do you know your name? Not to worry if you don’t!” she added quickly, seeing the child’s look of alarm. “No?  Well then you can choose what ever you like!”

The child promptly burst into tears, and Amy wanted to kick herself for being such a tactless blundering fool.  God knows it wasn’t that easy to choose, even when you knew the choice was yours.

Amy wanted to ask the child if it was a boy or a girl, but hesitated, and decided against it. I’ll have to give it a name though, I can’t keep calling it the child.

“Would you mind very much if I called you Kit, for now?” asked Amy.

“Thanks, Aunt Amy,” Kit said with a tear streaked smile. “Kit’s fine.”

Key Themes and Narrative Elements

Metafiction & Self-Reference: Characters frequently comment on their own construction, roles, and how being written (or observed) defines their reality. Amy especially embodies this.

Lucid Dreaming & Dream Logic: The boundary between reality and dream is porous. Lucid Dreamers are parachuting onto plantations, and Carob dreams in reverse. Lucid Dreamers are adverse to Coffee Plantations as they keep the World awake.

Coffee as Sacred Commodity: The coffee plantation is central to the story’s stakes. It’s under threat from climate (rain), AI malfunctions, and rogue dreamers. This plays comically on global commodity anxiety.

Technology Satire & AI Sentience: Emotional AI, “Silly Intelligence” devices, and exasperation with modern tech hint at mild technophobia or skepticism. All fueled by hot caffeinated piece of news.

Fictionality vs. Reality: Juan and Dolores embody this—grappling with what it means to be real. Dolores vanishes when no one looks—existence contingent on observation.

Rain & Weather as Mood Symbol: The rain is persistent—setting a tone of gentle absurdity and tension, while also providing plot catalyst.

Carob didn’t know what to say — which gave her a tendency to ramble.

Was everyone avoiding Amy?

Was it because she was dressed as a stout little lady?

Carob cleared her throat. “Well, Amy, you look… most interesting today.”

“I have to agree,” replied Amy, unperturbed. “Now — what is this about you and Ricardo?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you,” Carob said, shaking her head. “Partly because it’s top secret, and partly because…”
She tapped her temple and nodded to herself — definitely a few times more than necessary. “I’m still working it out.”

“But you know him?” Amy persisted. “How do you know him?”

Carob knew Amy could be relentless.

“Look over there!” she shouted, pointing vaguely.

Amy didn’t even turn her head. She gazed up at Carob with a long-suffering stare. “Carob?”

Carob scrunched up her face. “Okay,” she said eventually. “I think the others are avoiding you. Me. Us. Both of us.”

She took a deep breath. “Thiram doesn’t know where we are or what we’re doing here — and he’s not good with that, bless. We don’t know where on earth Chico is — but we do know he spits, which, quite frankly, is uncouth.”

She brightened suddenly. “But one thing I do know — here, amid the coffee beans and the lucid dreamers, there is a story to be told.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “I’ve noticed you still haven’t told me how you know Ricardo.”

It was rather odd — but neither of them noticed the bush inching closer.

Trailing suspect but nothing to report yet, messaged Ricardo.

He knew Miss Bossy Pants wouldn’t be happy.

Amy supposed everyone was blaming her, for what she couldn’t say, but they had clearly been avoiding her. There was plenty of coffee here anyway, even if the rest of the world was suffering. Don’t even think it, she told herself sternly. We don’t want people flocking here in droves once they realise.

So, do I want people or not? she asked herself. One minute I’m wondering where everyone is, and then next minute I’m wanting everyone to stay away.

“You on the spectrum too, are you?” asked Carob, reading her mind.  “It’s ok,” she added, seeing the look of alarm cross Amy’s face, “Your secret’s safe with me. I mean about being on the spectrum. But be careful, they’re rounding people like us up and sending them to a correctional facility.  We’re quite lucky to be here, out of the way.”

“Have you been avoiding me?” Amy asked, which was more immediately concerning than the concentration camps.  “Because I’ve been here all alone for ages, nothing to do but read my book,  draw in my sketch pad, and work on my needlepoint cushion covers. And where are the others? And don’t read my mind, it’s so rude.”

“Needlepoint cushion covers? Are you serious?” Carob was avoiding the questions, but was genuinely curious about the cushion covers.

Amy blushed.  “No, I made that up. In fact, I don’t know what made me say that. I haven’t started any sketching either, but I have thought about starting sketching. And I’ve been reading. It’s an old Liz Tattler; the old ones were the best. Real old school Lizzie Tattie, if you know what I mean. Risque romps with potting sheds and stuff.  None of that ghastly sci fi she started writing recently.”

“Which one?” Carob asked, and laughed when Amy held it up.  “I read that years ago, T’Eggy Gets a Good Rogering, can I borrow it after you? God knows we could all do with a laugh.”

“How do you know the others need a good laugh?” Amy asked, peering at Carob with an attentive squint in order to catch any clues. “You’ve seen then, then?”

Carob smiled sadly and replied, “Only by remote viewing them.”

Amy asked where they had been and what they were doing when they were viewed remotely. Has she been remote viewing me? What if they ask her if she’s been remote viewing me, and she tells them?  “Oh never mind,” Amy said quickly, “No need to answer that.”

Carob snorted, and what a strangely welcome sound it was. “I didn’t really remote view them, I made  that up.  It never works if I try to spy on people. Fat lot of good it is really, it never works when I really really need to see  something. Or maybe it works, but I never believe it properly until later when I find out it was right.”

“Yeah,” Amy said, “It’s fun though, I haven’t done it in ages.”

“You should, it would give you something to do when everyone’s avoiding you.”

“Look, don’t get upset, ok?” Amy felt she had to nip this in the bud.  “There’s something glaringly wrong with the map.  I mean, yes, it does make a nice picture. A very nice picture,” she added, and then stopped.  Does it really matter? she asked herself. Am I always causing trouble?

Amy sighed. Would life be easier for everyone if she stopped pointing things out and just went along with things?  Was there any stopping it anyway? It’s like a runaway train.

“You were saying?” Ricardo asked.

“Pray, continue,” added Carob with a mischeivous gleam in her eye.  She knew where this was leading.

“Who is he?” Amy whispered to Carob. “Well never mind that now, you can tell me later.”

Amy cleared her throat and faced Ricardo (noting that he was dark complexioned and and of medium height and wiry build, dressed  in a crumpled off white linen suit and a battered Panama hat, and likely to be of Latino heritage)  noticing out of the corner of her eye a smirk on Thiram’s face who was leaning against a tree with his arms folded, looking as if he might start whistling Yankee Doodle any moment.

“According to your map, my good man, nice map that it is, in fact it’s so nice one could make a flag out of it, the colours are great and….”   Amy realised she was waffling.  She cleared her throat and braced her shoulders, glaring at Carob over her shoulder who had started to titter.

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes, and keep the waffling to a minimum.

“My dear Ricardo,” Amy began again, pushing her long light brown hair out of her sweaty hazel eyes, and pushing the sleeves of her old grey sweatshirt up over her elbows and glancing down at her short thin but shapely denim clad legs. “My dear man, as you can see I’m a slightly underweight middle aged woman eminently capable of trudging up and down coffee growing mountains, with a particular flair for maps, and this map of yours begs a few questions.”

“Coffee beans don’t grow in Florida,” Carob interjected, in an attempt to move the discourse along.

“Nor in Morocco,” added Amy quickly, shooting a grateful glance at Carob.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Carob as she crouched down to fuss over Fanella. “I have excuses, but they’re not interesting. I’m feeling a little underdeveloped as a character, so I’m not sure what to say yet.”

“That’s okay,” said Amy. “Just remember … if you don’t tell us who you are early on…” She squinted and glanced around suspiciously. “Others will create you.”

“I’d rather just slowly percolate.” Carob screwed up her face. “Get it? Percolate?”

She stood up and slapped a hand to her head as Amy rolled her eyes. “Sorry … ” She patted her head curiously. “Oh wait—do I have curls?”

“I’d say more like frizzes than curls,” answered Amy.

Thiram nodded. “Totally frizzled.”

“Cool … must be the damp weather,” said Carob. She brushed a twig from her coat. The coat was blue-green and only reached her thighs. Many things were too small when you were six foot two.

“Oh—and I’ve been lucid dreaming in reverse,” she added. “Last night I watched myself un-make and un-drink a cup of coffee.” She gave a quick snort-laugh. “Weirdo”.

“Was it raining in the dream?” asked Thiram.

Carob frowned. “Probably… You know how in scary movies they always leave the curtains open, like they want the bad guys to see in? It felt like that.” She shuddered and then smiled brightly. “Anyway, just a dream. Also, I bumped into your father, Amy. He said to tell you: Remember what happened last time.”

She regarded Amy intently. “What did happen last time?”

“He worries too much,” said Amy, waving a hand dismissively. “Also, I didn’t even write that in, so how should I know?” She looked out toward the trees. “Where’s Chico?”

To Whom It May Concern

I know you’re writing stories and making things up about me, and I intend to set the record straight before my character goes horribly awry. I am a character appeared from nowhere, from a reckless and inebriated momentary random insistence on a new plaything, and new toy, and new story.  But let me tell you this: I am born and I exist and this is who I am.

I find my name is Amy; it will do.  I neither find an affinity to it, nor an objection. It sounds English, and thus, familiar. I feel English, and so I am. I am a character, not a writer, but I exist; I am Amy.

“Juan, was it wise to speak to that man?” Dolores asked her husband.  “The cat’s out of the bag now, when Chico tells his friends…”

“Trust me, Dolores,” Juan Valdez implored, “What else can we do? We need their help.”

“But you’ve been fictional for so long, Juan. Nobody knew you were real. Until now.”

“You worry too much! It’s hardly going to make headlines on Focks News, is it, and even if it did, nobody believes anything anymore.  We can just spread a rumour that it was made up by one of those artifical story things.”

“But he took a photo of you!”

“Dolores,” Juan said with exaggerated patience, “Nobody believes photos any more either. I’m telling you, they make fakes these days and nobody can tell.  Trust me,” he repeated, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“So we’ll still be fictional, Juan?” Dolores asked in an uncertain tone. “Because I’m not ready to be a real character yet, it seems so….so time consuming, to be real every day, all day… doing all those things every day that real people do…”

“No, no, not at all!  You only have to play the part when someone’s looking!”

“I hope you’re right. Too many things changing all at once, if you ask me.” And with that Dolores vanished, as nobody was looking at her.

Mars Outpost — Fueling of Dreams (Prune)

I lean against the creaking bulkhead of this rust-stained fueling station, watching Mars breathe. Dust twirls across the ochre plains like it’s got somewhere important to be. The whole place rattles every time the wind picks up—like the metal shell itself is complaining. I find it oddly comforting. Reminds me of the Flying Fish Inn back home, where the fireplace wheezed like a drunk aunt and occasionally spit out sparks for drama.

Funny how that place, with all its chaos and secret stash hidey-holes, taught me more about surviving space than any training program ever could.

“Look at me now, Mater,” I catch myself thinking, tapping the edge of the viewport with a gloved knuckle. “Still scribbling starships in my head. Only now I’m living inside one.”

Behind me, the ancient transceiver gives its telltale blip… blip. I don’t need to check—I recognize the signal. Helix 25, closing in. The one ship people still whisper about like it’s a myth with plumbing. Part of me grins. Half nostalgia, half challenge.

Back in ’27, I shipped off to that mad boarding school with the oddball astronaut program. Professors called me a prodigy. I called it stubborn curiosity and a childhood steeped in ghost stories, half-baked prophecies, and improperly labeled pickle jars. The real trick wasn’t the calculus—it was surviving the Curara clan’s brand of creative chaos.

After graduation, I bought into a settlers’ programme. Big mistake. Turns out it was more con than colonization, sold with just enough truth to sting. Some people cracked. I just adjusted course. Spent some time bouncing between jobs, drifted home a couple times for stew and sideways advice, and kept my head sharp. Lesson logged: deceit’s just another puzzle with missing pieces.

A hiss behind the wall cuts into my thoughts—pipes complaining again. I spin, scan the console. Pressure’s holding. “Fine,” which out here means “still not exploding.” Good enough.

I remember the lottery ticket that got me here— 2049, commercial flights to Mars at last soared skyward— and Effin Muck’s big lottery. At last a seat to Mars, on section D. Just sheer luck that felt like a miracle at the time. But while I was floating spaceward, Earth went sideways: asteroid mining gone wrong, panic, nuclear strikes. I watched pieces of home disappear through a porthole while the Mars colonies went silent, one by one. All those big plans reduced to empty shells and flickering lights.

I was supposed to be evacuated, too. Instead, my lowly post at this fueling station—this rust bucket perched on a dusty plateau—kept me in place. Cosmic joke? Probably. But here I am. Still alive. Still tinkering with things that shouldn’t work. Still me.

I reprogrammed the oxygen scrubbers myself. Hacked them with a dusty old patch from Aunt Idle’s “Dream Time” stash. When the power systems started failing and had to cut all the AI support to save on power, I taught myself enough broken assembly code to trick ancient processors into behaving. Improvisation is my mother tongue.

“Mars is quieter than the Inn,” I say aloud, half to myself. “Only upside, really.”

Another ping from the transceiver—it’s getting closer. The Helix 25, humanity’s last-ditch bottle-in-space. They say it’s carrying what’s left of us. Part myth, part mobile city. If I didn’t have the logs, I’d half believe it was a fever dream.

But no dream prepares you for this kind of quiet.

I think about the Inn again. How everyone swore it had secret tunnels, cursed tiles, hallucinations in the pantry. Honestly, it probably did. But it also had love—scrambled, sarcastic love—and enough stories to keep you wondering if any of them were real. That’s where I learned to spot a lie, tell a better one, and stay grounded when the walls started talking.

I smack the comm panel until it stops crackling. That’s the secret to maintenance on Mars: decisive violence.

“All right, Helix,” I mutter. “Let’s see what you’ve got. I’ve got thruster fuel, half-functional docking protocols, and a mean kettle of tea if you’re lucky.”

I catch my reflection in the viewport glass—older, sure. Forty-two now. Taller. Calmer in the eyes. But the glint’s still there, the one that says I’ve seen worse, and I’m still standing. That kid at the Inn would’ve cheered.

Earth’s collapse wasn’t some natural catastrophe—it was textbook human arrogance. Effin Muck’s greedy asteroid mining scheme. World leaders playing hot potato with nuclear codes. It burned. Probably still does… But I can’t afford to stew in it. We’re not here to mourn; we’re here to rebuild. If someone’s going to help carry that torch, it might as well be someone who’s already walked through fire.

I fiddle with the dials on the fuel board. It hums like a tired dragon, but it’s awake. That’s all I need.

“Might be time to pass some of that brilliance along,” I mutter, mostly to the station walls. Somewhere, I bet my siblings are making fun of me. Probably watching soap dramas and eating improperly reheated stew. Bless them. They were my first reality check, and I still measure the world by how weird it is compared to them. Loved them for how hard they made me feel normal after all.

The wind howls across the shutters. I stand up straight, brush the dust off my sleeves. Helix 25 is almost here.

“Showtime,” I say, and grin. Not the nice kind. The kind that says I’ve got one wrench, three working systems, and no intention of rolling over.

The Flying Fish Inn shaped me with every loud, strange, inexplicable day. It gave me humor. It gave me bite. It gave me an unshakable sense of self when everything else fell apart.

So here I stand—keeper of the last Martian fueling post, scrappy guardian of whatever future shows up next.

I glance once more at the transceiver, then hit the big green button to unlock the landing bay.

“Welcome to Mars,” I say, deadpan. Then add, mostly to myself, “Let’s see if they’re ready for me.”

It was still raining the morning after the impromptu postcard party at the Golden Trowel in the Hungarian village, and for most of the morning nobody was awake to notice.  Molly had spent a sleepless night and was the only one awake listening to the pounding rain. Untroubled by the idea of lack of sleep, her confidence bolstered by the new company and not being solely responsible for the child,  Molly luxuriated in the leisure to indulge a mental re run of the previous evening.

Finjas bombshell revelation after the postcard game suddenly changed everything.  It was not what Molly had expected to hear. In their advanced state of inebriation by that time it was impossible for anyone to consider the ramifications in any sensible manner.   A wild and raucous exuberance ensued of the kind that was all but forgotten to all of them, and unknown to Tundra.   It was a joy that brought tears to Mollys eyes to see the wonderful time the child was having.

Molly didn’t want to think about it yet. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to have anything to do with it, the ship coming back.  Communication with it, yes. The ship coming back? There was so much to consider, so many ways of looking at it. And there was Tundra to think about, she was so innocent of so many things. Was it better that way?  Molly wasn’t going to think about that yet.  She wanted to make sure she remembered all the postcard stories.

There is no rush.

The postcard Finja had chosen hadn’t struck Molly as the most interesting, not at the time, but later she wondered if there was any connection with her later role as centre stage overly dramatic prophet. What an extraordinary scene that was! The unexpected party was quite enough excitement without all that as well.

Finja’s card was addressed to Miss FP Finly, c/o The Flying Fish Inn somewhere in the outback of Australia, Molly couldn’t recall the name of the town.  The handwriting had been hard to decipher, but it appeared to be a message from “forever your obedient servant xxx” informing her of a Dustsceawung convention in Tasmania.  As nobody had any idea what a Dustsceawung conference was,  and Finja declined to elaborate with a story or anecdote, the attention moved on to the next card.   Molly remembered the time many years ago when everyone would have picked up their gadgets to  find out what it meant. As it was now, it remained an unimportant and trifling mystery, perhaps something to wonder about later.

Why did Finja choose that card, and then decline to explain why she chose it? Who was Finly? Why did The Flying Fish Inn seem vaguely familiar to Molly?

I’m sure I’ve seen a postcard from there before.  Maybe Ellis had one in his collection.

Yes, that must be it.

Mikhail’s story had been interesting. Molly was struggling to remember all the names. He’d mentioned his Uncle Grishenka, and a cousin Zhana, and a couple called Boris and Elvira with a mushroom farm. The best part was about the snow that the reindeer peed on. Molly had read about that many years ago, but was never entirely sure if it was true or not.  Mickhail assured them all that it was indeed true, and many a wild party they’d had in the cold dark winters, and proceeded to share numerous funny anecdotes.

“We all had such strange ideas about Russia back then,” Molly had said. Many of the others murmured agreement, but Jian, a man of few words, merely looked up, raised an eyebrow, and looked down at his postcard again.  “Russia was the big bad bogeyman for most of our lives. And in the end, we were our own worst enemies.”

“And by the time we realised, it was too late,” added Petro.

In an effort to revive the party spirit from the descent into depressing memories,  Tala suggested they move on to the next postcard, which was Vera’s.

“I know the Tower of London better than any of you would believe,” Vera announced with a smug grin. Mikhail rolled his eyes and downed a large swig of vodka. “My 12th great grandfather was  employed in the household of Thomas Cromwell himself.  He was the man in charge of postcards to the future.” She paused for greater effect.  In the absence of the excited interest she had expected, she continued.  “So you can see how exciting it is for me to have a postcard as a prompt.”  This further explanation was met with blank stares.  Recklessly, Vera added, “I bet you didn’t know that Thomas Cromwell was a time traveller, did you? Oh yes!” she continued, although nobody had responded, “He became involved with a coven of witches in Ireland. Would you believe it!”

“No,” said Mikhail. “I probably wouldn’t.”

“I believe you, Vera,” piped up Tundra, entranced, “Will you tell me all about that later?”

Tundra’s interjection gave Tala the excuse she needed to move on to the next postcard.  Mikhail and Vera has always been at loggerheads, and fueled with the unaccustomed alcohol, it was in danger of escalating quickly.  “Next postcard!” she announced.

Everyone started banging on the tables shouting, “Next postcard! Next postcard!”  Luka and Lev topped up everyone’s glasses.

Molly’s postcard was next.

Helix 25 – Murder Board – Evie’s apartment

The ship had gone mad.

Riven Holt stood in what should have been a secured crime scene, staring at the makeshift banner that had replaced his official security tape. “ENTER FREELY AND OF YOUR OWN WILL,” it read, in bold, uneven letters. The edges were charred. Someone had burned it, for reasons he would never understand.

Behind him, the faint sounds of mass lunacy echoed through the corridors. People chanting, people sobbing, someone loudly trying to bargain with gravity.

“Sir, the floors are not real! We’ve all been walking on a lie!” someone had screamed earlier, right before diving headfirst into a pile of chairs left there by someone trying to create a portal.

Riven did his best to ignore the chaos, gripping his tablet like it was the last anchor to reality. He had two dead bodies. He had one ship full of increasingly unhinged people. And he had forty hours without sleep. His brain felt like a dried-out husk, working purely on stubbornness and caffeine fumes.

Evie was crouched over Mandrake’s remains, muttering to herself as she sorted through digital records. TP stood nearby, his holographic form flickering as if he, too, were being affected by the ship’s collective insanity.

“Well,” TP mused, rubbing his nonexistent chin. “This is quite the predicament.”

Riven pinched the bridge of his nose. “TP, if you say anything remotely poetic about the human condition, I will unplug your entire database.”

TP looked delighted. “Ah, my dear lieutenant, a threat worthy of true desperation!”

Evie ignored them both, then suddenly stiffened. “Riven, I… you need to see this.”

He braced himself. “What now?”

She turned the screen toward him. Two names appeared side by side:

ETHAN MARLOWE

MANDRAKE

Both M.

The sound that came out of Riven was not quite a word. More like a dying engine trying to restart.

TP gasped dramatically. “My stars. The letter M! The implications are—”

“No.” Riven put up a hand, one tremor away from screaming. “We are NOT doing this. I am not letting my brain spiral into a letter-based conspiracy theory while people outside are rolling in protein paste and reciting odes to Jupiter’s moons.”

Evie, far too calm for his liking, just tapped the screen again. “It’s a pattern. We have to consider it.”

TP nodded sagely. “Indeed. The letter M—known throughout history as a mark of mystery, malice, and… wait, let me check… ah, macaroni.”

Riven was going to have an aneurysm.

Instead, he exhaled slowly, like a man trying to keep the last shreds of his soul from unraveling.

“That means the Lexicans are involved.”

Evie paled. “Oh no.”

TP beamed. “Oh yes!”

The Lexicans had been especially unpredictable lately. One had been caught trying to record the “song of the walls” because “they hum with forgotten words.” Another had attempted to marry the ship’s AI. A third had been detained for throwing their own clothing into the air vents because “the whispers demanded tribute.”

Riven leaned against the console, feeling his mind slipping. He needed a reality check. A hard, cold, undeniable fact.

Only one person could give him that.

“You know what? Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s just ask the one person who might actually be able to tell me if this is a coincidence or some ancient space cult.”

Evie frowned. “Who?”

Riven was already walking. “My grandfather.”

Evie practically choked. “Wait, WHAT?!”

TP clapped his hands. “Ah, the classic ‘Wake the Old Man to Solve the Crimes’ maneuver. Love it.”

The corridors were worse than before. As they made their way toward cryo-storage, the lunacy had escalated:

A crowd was parading down the halls with helium balloons, chanting, “Gravity is a Lie!”
A group of engineers had dismantled a security door, claiming “it whispered to them about betrayal.”
And a bunch of Lexicans, led by Kio’ath, had smeared stinking protein paste onto the Atrium walls, drawing spirals and claiming the prophecy was upon them all.
Riven’s grip on reality was thin.

Evie grabbed his arm. “Think about this. What if your grandfather wakes up and he’s just as insane as everyone else?”

Riven didn’t even break stride. “Then at least we’ll be insane with more context.”

TP sighed happily. “Ah, reckless decision-making. The very heart of detective work.”

Helix 25 — Victor Holt’s Awakening

They reached the cryo-chamber. The pod loomed before them, controls locked down under layers of security.

Riven cracked his knuckles, eyes burning with the desperation of a man who had officially run out of better options.

Evie stared. “You’re actually doing this.”

He was already punching in override codes. “Damn right I am.”

The door opened. A low hum filled the room. The first thing Riven noticed was the frost still clinging to the edges of an already open cryopod. Cold vapor curled around its base, its occupant nowhere to be seen.

His stomach clenched. Someone had beaten them here. Another pod’s systems activated. The glass began to fog as temperature levels shifted.

TP leaned in. “Oh, this is going to be deliciously catastrophic.”

Before the pod could fully engage, a flicker of movement in the dim light caught Riven’s eye. Near the terminal, hunched over the access panel like a gang of thieves cracking a vault, stood Zoya Kade and Anuí Naskó—and, a baby wrapped in what could only be described as an aggressively overdesigned Lexican tapestry, layers of embroidered symbols and unreadable glyphs woven in mismatched patterns. It was sucking desperately the lexican’s sleeve.

Riven’s exhaustion turned into a slow, rising fury. For a brief moment, his mind was distracted by something he had never actually considered before—he had always assumed Anuí was a woman. The flowing robes, the mannerisms, the way they carried themselves. But now, cradling the notorious Lexican baby in ceremonial cloth, could they possibly be…

Anuí caught his look and smiled faintly, unreadable as ever. “This has nothing to do with gender,” they said smoothly, shifting the baby with practiced ease. “I merely am the second father of the child.”

“Oh, for f***—What in the hell are you two doing here?”

Anuí barely glanced up, shifting the baby to their other arm as though hacking into a classified cryo-storage facility while holding an infant was a perfectly normal occurrence. “Unlocking the axis of the spiral,” they said smoothly. “It was prophesied. The Speaker’s name has been revealed.”

Zoya, still pressing at the panel, didn’t even look at him. “We need to wake Victor Holt.”

Riven threw his hands in the air. “Great! Fantastic! So do we! The difference is that I actually have a reason.”

Anuí, eyes glinting with something between mischief and intellect, gave an elegant nod. “So do we, Lieutenant. Yours is a crime scene. Ours is history itself.”

Riven felt his headache spike. “Oh good. You’ve been licking the walls again.”

TP, absolutely delighted, interjected, “Oh, I like them. Their madness is methodical!”

Riven narrowed his eyes, pointing at the empty pod. “Who the hell did you wake up?”

Zoya didn’t flinch. “We don’t know.”

He barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. “Oh, you don’t know? You cracked into a classified cryo-storage facility, activated a pod, and just—what? Didn’t bother to check who was inside?”

Anuí adjusted the baby, watching him with that same unsettling, too-knowing expression. “It was not part of the prophecy. We were guided here for Victor Holt.”

“And yet someone else woke up first!” Riven gestured wildly to the empty pod. “So, unless the prophecy also mentioned mystery corpses walking out of deep freeze, I suggest you start making sense.”

Before Riven could launch into a proper interrogation, the cryo-system let out a deep hiss.

Steam coiled up from Victor Holt’s pod as the seals finally unlocked, fog spilling over the edges like something out of an ancient myth. A figure was stirring within, movements sluggish, muscles regaining function after years in suspension.

And then, from the doorway, another voice rang out, sharp, almost panicked.

Ellis Marlowe stood at the threshold, looking at the two open pods, his eyes wide with something between shock and horror.

“What have you done?”

Riven braced himself.

Evie muttered, “Oh, this is gonna be bad.”

Base Klyutch – Dr. Markova’s Clinic, Dusk

The scent of roasting meat and simmering stew drifted in from the kitchens, mingling with the sharper smells of antiseptic and herbs in the clinic. The faint clatter of pots and the low murmur of voices preparing the evening meal gave the air a sense of routine, of a world still turning despite everything. Solara Ortega sat on the edge of the examination table, rolling her shoulder to ease the stiffness. Dr. Yelena Markova worked in silence, cool fingers pressing against bruised skin, clinical as ever. Outside, Base Klyutch was settling into the quiet of night—wind turbines hummed, a sentry dog barked in the distance.

“You’re lucky,” Yelena muttered, pressing into Solara’s ribs just hard enough to make a point. “Nothing broken. Just overworked muscles and bad decisions.”

Solara exhaled sharply. “Bad decisions keep us alive.”

Yelena scoffed. “That’s what you tell yourself when you run off into the wild with Orrin Holt?”

Solara ignored the name, focusing instead on the peeling medical posters curling off the clinic walls.

“We didn’t find them,” she said flatly. “They moved west. Too far ahead. No proper tracking gear, no way to catch up before the lionboars or Sokolov’s men did.”

Yelena didn’t blink. “That’s not what I asked.”

A memory surfaced; Orrin standing beside her in the empty refugee camp, the air thick with the scent of old ashes and trampled earth. The fire pits were cold, the shelters abandoned, scraps of cloth and discarded tin cups the only proof that people had once been there. And then she had seen it—a child’s scarf, frayed and half-buried in the dirt. Not the same one, but close enough to make her chest tighten. The last time she had seen her son, he had worn one just like it.

She hadn’t picked it up. Just stood there, staring, forcing her breath steady, forcing her mind to stay fixed on what was in front of her, not what had been lost. Then Orrin’s hand had settled on her shoulder—warm, steady, comforting. Too comforting. She had jerked away, faster than she meant to, pulse hammering at the sudden weight of everything his touch threatened to unearth. He hadn’t said a word. Just looked at her, knowing, as he always did.

She had turned, found her voice, made it sharp. The trail was already too cold. No point chasing ghosts. And she had walked away before she could give the silence between them the space to say anything else.

Solara forced her attention back to the present, to the clinic. She turned her gaze to Yelena, steady and unmoved. “But that’s what matters. We didn’t find them. They made their choice.”

Yelena clicked her tongue, scribbling something onto her worn-out tablet. “Mm. And yet, you come back looking like hell. And Orrin? He looked like a man who’d just seen a ghost.”

Solara let out a dry breath, something close to a laugh. “Orrin always looks like that.”

Yelena arched an eyebrow. “Not always. Not before he came back and saw what he had lost.”

Solara pushed off the table, rolling out the tension in her neck. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters,” Yelena said, setting the tablet down. “You still look at him, Solara. Like you did before. And don’t insult me by pretending otherwise.”

Solara stiffened, fingers flexing at her sides. “I have a husband, Yelena.”

“Yes, you do,” Yelena said plainly. “And yet, when you say Orrin’s name, you sound like you’re standing in a place you swore you wouldn’t go back to.”

Solara forced herself to breathe evenly, eyes flicking toward the door.

“I made my choice,” she said quietly.

Yelena’s gaze softened, just a little. “Did he?”

Footsteps pounded outside, uneven, hurried. The clinic door burst open, and Janos Varga—Solara’s husband—strode in, breathless, his eyes bright with something rare.

“Solara, you need to come now,” he said, voice sharp with urgency. “Koval’s team—Orrin—they found something.”

Her spine straightened, her heartbeat accelerated. “What? Did they find…?” No, the tracks were clear, the refugees went west.

Janos ran a hand through his curls, his old radio headset still looped around his neck. “One of Helix 57’s life boat’s wreckage. And a man. Some old lunatic calling himself Merdhyn. And—” he paused, catching his breath, “—we picked up a signal. From space.”

The air in the room tightened. Yelena’s lips parted slightly, the shadow of an emotion passed on her face, too fast to read. Solara’s pulse kicked up.

“Where are they?” she asked.

Janos met her gaze. “Koval’s office.”

For a moment, silence. The wind rattled the windowpanes.

Yelena straightened abruptly, setting her tablet down with a deliberate motion. “There’s nothing more I can do for your shoulder. And I’m coming too,” she said, already reaching for her coat.

Solara grabbed her jacket. “Take us there, Janos.”