Tommy's dental appointment was finished. It had not gone well. "No more sour candy for you, young man," Wanda announced. "It's bad for you!"
'Awww," Tommy moaned. "Sour bears are my favorite!"
"I'll buy some fresh fruit," Wanda said. There was a Safeway on the way home she could stop at. She was about to pull the SUV out of her bag and enlarge it, when Tommy warned her, "Aunt Wanda. I feel magic."
Magic, here? in downtown Arlington? That meant trouble. She scanned the sidewalk in both directions, seeing nothing but several pedestrians at first. Within seconds, though, she saw those people turn red, yellow, and black, their skin decaying and falling off their bones. Death waves were advancing toward them from both directions.
"Tommy! Escape!" The five-year-old pressed the red button on his bracelet, as he'd been trained to, and disappeared. She paused for a second, to capture more images of the slaughter that was unfolding, then pressed the button on her own bracelet and disappeared.
Wanda materialized in the twins' bedroom, where a spot next to the doorway had been reserved for her. The twins had been instructed several times, very firmly, to never leave things on the floor because that could cause people to be hurt. they had remembered that, so far.
Tommy was standing in his reserved spot, next to the bunk bed he and Billy shared. He appeared to be frozen. "We're okay, now," Wanda assured him, and patted him on his shoulder. "You did well back there."
Tommy looked up at her with miserable eyes. "I felt bad, like I was gonna be sick." Both of the twins could sense looming magical attacks; that ability had proven to be a lifesaver.
"Do you want to lie down for a bit?"
"No, um. I'd like some candy."
"Mom! Tommy!" Viv, Wanda's stepdaughter, entered the room along with Billy. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, we are. People died, but. . ." She shivered slightly. "I need to transfer images to the orb, and contact Stephen. Could you get Tommy some apple juice?"
"All right. Come with me, Tommy." Viv and the two boys departed, leaving Wanda to her work.
Wanda couldn't cast spells. Stephen Strange, the dimension's Sorcerer Supreme, had told her that her magical potential was tiny. However, she could use specialized magical devices. One the household had was a message transmitter. Another was an orb that was used for storing, viewing, and analyzing images.
The transmitter, a six-inch square wooden box covered by a white linen cloth, was lying on the twins' dresser. Wanda tapped the cloth, activating the transmitter, and thought about what she wanted to tell Stephen. As she did, the words appeared in black letters on the cloth: Tommy and I were attacked this morning in downtown Arlington. People's bodies were rotting all around us, but we weren't injured. I have pictures. Wanda. Another tap, in combination with her thought, sent the message.
Next was the orb, a glass sphere seven inches in diameter, sitting in an ornate black holder on the dresser. Transferring the images of people dying on the street took only seconds, fortunately. The gruesome sights caused her to shudder again.
The transmitter had a small square of cloth clipped to the box. She took it and put it in a side pocket of her jeans. It would light up when Stephen read her message. Until he responded, there was little to do except to keep the children safe.
"Mom? The boys are in the kitchen. Tommy has his juice. Anything else you want me to do?"
"No, Viv. Thanks. Until Stephen responds, there's not much we can do except to be on guard."
In the month since Wanda Maximoff brought her long-lost twins back to Earth, there had been five (now six) attempts to take them from their parents. The first occurred mere moments after their arrival, and was repelled with nothing more than Vizh's and Wanda's solar beams. The second attack, three days later, was repelled with solar beams as well.
That solar beams were effective against dark magic wasn't a tremendous surprise-Vizh and Wanda well remembered the witches of New Salem-but the thought that they would always-always!-have to be on guard against evil beings attempting to take the twins and their magical power was distressing. So, Dr. Strange provided the family with three levels of magical protection. He also provided the three synths with enchanted lenses that gave their solar beams the effect of magical, incinerating flames. In the three weeks since, no attackers had made it past the front lawn. There were no repeat attacks; Strange located and eliminated the vile power-seekers after an attack had been repelled.
Strange was certain that the attacks would lessen as the sources were eliminated. The twins were tempting targets only to beings hungry for quick and easy infusions of power, he believed. Make the twins hard to reach, and punishment for an attack swift and severe-power-seekers would look elsewhere.
"Damn it, anyway!" Wanda wished fervently that she could go out and kill whoever it was that had threatened her and her child-but she couldn't. Stephen could, so she would just have to wait.
Minutes crawled by, while Wanda tried to distract herself with housework. Finally, the linen square clipped to her side jeans pocket glowed brightly. Strange had gotten the message! By the time she had returned to the twins' bedroom to view the transmitter, Strange's astral form was hanging above it.
"Thank you, oh, thank you, for coming so quickly!" Wanda exclaimed. "Somebody killed people today! The pictures are in the orb."
Strange moved quickly to examine the pictures, and then used a spell to examine Wanda for traces of the killing attack. "He did try to kill you in his attack, too, Wanda. But you were sufficiently different from a human for the spell to fail. Contragor has earned his demise."
"Contragor?"
"A man who lost his soul to a demon years ago and now drifts in a void, channeling a demonic lust for power and hatreds into other dimensions. The universe will be better without him." With that, Strange disappeared, saying only, "I'll be back."
Minutes later, he was. "Contragor is finished," Strange informed her. "I used his foul spell against him."
"Thank you again. We're all so grateful. . ." The words seemed terribly inadequate, but there was nothing better to say.
"You and the children deserve to live your lives without fearing that you could be attacked at any moment. We've gotten closer to that goal today." Strange bid farewell, and vanished.
"Viv! Viv, where are you?"
"In the rec room, Mom, with the boys!" her voice came from upstairs. Wanda became intangible, floated through the ceiling, then solidified and went to the rec room. There, Viv and the two boys were working on a jigsaw puzzle.
"We're safe again!" Wanda announced. "Dr. Strange dealt with the monster who attacked us."
"The bad man is gone?" Tommy asked.
"Yes, dear. Gone." Wanda hoped he was satisfied with the answer. Telling the boys that Strange was executing everyone who had attacked them, because doing anything less severe would be useless or worse would only raise issues that she didn't want to get into.
"We can go back to the daily routine?" Viv asked.
"Yes." The daily routine meant that the boys weren't allowed to go into the back or front lawns unsupervised, much less into the street. The magical protections Strange had installed would prevent anyone less than a master sorcerer from getting past the house's entrance, and no attacker could get to the boys' bedroom-or so Strange had said-so everyone could relax inside the house. Trouble still lurked outside, though.
"Vizh will want to know about the attack. I'll call Virginia Tech and leave a message."
"Okay. And Maxie is going to watch landscaping work-"
"'Maxie'?! Viv, that's not her name!"
'I like it. It's better than calling her Wanda M., or Ms. Maximoff."
"Maybe. But I don't want her to hear you calling her Maxie."
"Okayyy. . ."
"Now, after I call Wanda, I've got the presentation at SerraTech this afternoon, and some fundraising appeals to work on. Can you take care of the kids till this evening?"
"Sure, Mom." But Viv's expression was serious.
"Viv? Is something bothering you?"
"Sort of. I-I'm just amazed at how you're handling this! I know you were an Avenger, you've faced death before- I don't think I could handle it! I'd be so stressed out I'd be afraid to leave the house!"
Viv followed her mother as they walked to the office/study. "Thank you, Viv." Wanda sat down at her desk, equipped with a transforming PC. "I do feel terrible about what happened this morning. People died! But-" Wanda's hands clenched into fists, as she stared into space. "But I don't know how many, or who they were-and if I'd tried to stand and fight, I'd probably be dead too!"
Wanda turned to face Viv again. "Stephen is the reason why we're alive, why this house is safe, and why those two little darlings might get to live real lives. Humans can adapt to anything, I've been told. So I'm adapting, hoping for the best, and going on with my life.
"I'm going to call Vizh now." Wanda took out her phone as Viv left the room. Virginia had had internal communication with her husband, but Wanda's body didn't have that equipment. It would have felt unnatural, she had told Vizh within a day of waking up in her new body. While her body was mostly artificial, her mind was human, and that wasn't going to change.
Wanda reached the office secretary for Virginia Tech's Advanced Engineering facility. "Hello? This is Wanda. My husband, the Vision, is at your facility today, for work on the chess project." The secretary responded, and Wanda told the secretary what Vizh needed to know. "He can multi-task, so if you'll hold that message in front of him for a minute or so, he'll read it, and nod when he's done. Can you do that for me?" After a moment, "Okay. I'll hold."
Interrupting Vizh's interface with the network would interfere with the computations, and that was no minor thing, when he was being paid $2500 an hour. Only an actual emergency could interrupt.
"Thank you for delivering that message. Have a good day." Wanda disconnected. That left her sister. Wanda M. couldn't get smartphone service yet, not with a credit rating of 524 and no source of income. So she resorted to EZ-Fone, which offered cellular service in metro areas and two lines of text per message, for $15 a month. That was better than nothing.
Wanda placed the call. "Hello? Hello?" There was background noise, and the connection wasn't very good. "You haven't reached the lot yet? Sorry." She described the attack as fully as she could, and emphasized to her sister that Stephen had disposed of the attacker. "You don't need to come back home. Tommy is okay. He's a tough little kid." The sudden disappearance of people, who left behind only their clothing and piles of dust, would certainly make the news, but such random disasters happened, in a world with supervillains. "All right. See you and Holly later. I'll call if anything new happens."
Reviewing VADA's (Virginia Anti-Discrimination Alliance) strategies for online and direct-mail fundraising took some time, but it was time she was well compensated for. She made as much, working 20 hours a week, as an office worker would at 35 hours a week, and could work at home to boot. Soon, it was time to leave for her presentation at SerraTech. She'd have to pick up Annie on the way.
"Hello. This is Wanda. I"ll be coming by to pick up Annie in about 20 minutes. Is she excited?" After some back and forth, "Great! See you soon!" This was going to be a big day for the young woman.
"Viv? Viv! I'm leaving now!"
"All right!" They met in the hallway. "Have a great day, Mom!" Viv had wanted to ask if if they had any talking toys, since she'd heard Billy talking to one, and something apparently talking back, but she could look into that herself.
SerraTech occupied two buildings in an industrial park at the north end of Arlington. Wanda's presentation was in the auditorium in the headquarters building.
After meeting several SerraTech officials, Wanda made her way to the auditorium. There sat the grand piano she had requested and, close by, a holographic projector. She took an eight-inch black cube out of her duffel bag and connected it to the projector.
Wanda was experienced at giving presentations that tried to persuade people, to show them how hurtful and destructive sexism was, to convince them that treating everyone one met respectfully made the lives of everyone better. But she was here to celebrate advances in technology today, not to lecture people.
More than 100 people were seated when the presentation started. Assuring them that she wasn't here to condemn them must have boosted the turnout, she thought. Stories and movies about existing as data, living free from flesh-and-blood constraints, were commonplace now, she noted, but stories about gods and goddesses, or their secular counterparts, energy beings, seeking to live as mortals were nearly as common. What was the point of an intelligent existence without limits to test oneself against?
Suffering a brain injury could leave someone with the worst of both worlds: unable to move, unable to enjoy any earthly pleasures, unable to communicate, and also unable to think clearly or to fashion any sort of escape from the deadening internal silence. However, advances in technology and medical research were finally providing patients with options.
Advances in microscopy and cellular labeling were enabling researchers to view the functions of living cells. Advances in genetic mapping allowed researchers to do precise scans of genetic activation in brain cells. New statistical techniques enabled doctors to calculate how many cells, and their types, had been lost to injury in a given case. Recently, advances in medical nanotechnology, a field SerraTech was involved in, had enabled the construction of synthetic brains with an emulation accuracy rate of over 99 percent. And just within the last six months, analysis of genetic activation patterns in the human genome, research Wanda had assisted with, had identified three sets of genes, each of which conferred telekinesis abilities. That news caused buzz in the audience.
Four years ago, concert pianist Annie Novitz, 22, had been seriously injured in a car accident. Brain damage had left her unable to move or to communicate in any way. Doctors couldn't determine from brain scans whether she had any thought processes. All the advances in technology and research Wanda had just described, though, had combined to give Annie a path back to conscious existence.
"She hasn't performed for an audience in over four years," Wanda told her audience. "Now, here to perform the music of Liszt, Alkan, and Medtner, I give you-Annie Novitz!"
The holographic projector activated, forming the image of Ms. Novitz, dressed in her customary blue and white pantsuit. As she waved to the audience, a speaker sounded her words, "How wonderful it is to see you again!"
The hologram walked over to the piano bench and sat down, Then Ms. Novitz began to play. As the first notes of Listz's Todtentanz rang out, cheers and applause erupted from the audience. Wanda had to shush them: "Please, let's listen to Annie play. You can applaud when she's done." That they did, for four numbers and two encores.
Wanda M. wished she had a car, but her finances didn't allow her to buy one, and asking Vizh to buy her one-that would set Wanda's hair on fire, she figured. So she made do with a moped to get around. At least Virginia's 35 m.p.h. speed limit lessened the pain of driving around slowly.
Seeing Holly LaDonna, her young blonde friend, sitting just off the lot where Burchett was working was a real pleasure. The year of the pregnancy, the planning, the anticipation, the teaching sessions with Holly, had been one of the happiest times of Wanda M.'s life. Only afterwards had things gone downhill.
"I was so glad when I got that email from you," Holly said. The two ladies were sitting on a wall of cement blocks. "I've hardly had any contact with. . . the other Wanda."
"You can just call her my sister," Wanda M. told her. "Our names are the same, were the same-we're not that much alike." Vizh and Wanda deciding to drop their last names, as she and Vizh had done when they married, hurt. But there was nothing to do about it. In the past few weeks, she had realized how much a photographic memory and the ability to learn something with one run-through changed a person. "Anyway. . . so you're working with flowers now?
"Yup. I work 20 hours a week at a floral shop in NYC, and after I graduate with my degree in floral design, maybe I'll get a job in a greenhouse, or a management job in a floral shop."
"The floral job-was that the first job you had?"
"Oh, no-no. My first job-babysitting doesn't count-was at a DQ in Leonia. Ten hours a week during the school year, 20 hours a week in the summer."
"Did you like it?"
"It was okay. Nothing special, but I got used to working with other people and dealing with customers. What kind of work do you like?"
"Um, well. . . I don't know yet." Although she'd gotten a good idea of the types of jobs she wouldn't like. Virginia had a program that allowed new entrants to the job market to watch how employees at some companies did their work. "Job auditing," the program was called.
"I've seen how baristas at Starbucks and servers at the Italian Delights do their work, how customer service people at Amazon work, how data entry people at Health Data work-and they're all jobs I don't want to do."
"Oh. That's too bad. I've heard that working at a coffee shop can be fun."
"Yes, for some people. If you like coffee, like meeting people, and don't mind getting hit on. . . I was amazed at how often the baristas were asked for dates by people they didn't know!"
Holly chuckled. "That's just part of the working life. Guys shouldn't do it, but if you're good-looking and seem approachable-some guys are just too forward."
"Well, that's something I want no part of! When I went to the local Job Service office to get tested, and to find out what my options were, I was told that I was an introvert." Wanda grimaced. "I already knew that, but seeing the work at Starbucks and the restaurant confirmed it."
"Ms. Maximoff?"
"Oh, Mr. Krantz." Wanda stood up. "You have something for me to do?"
"Yeah. We're ready for you to get that tree stump out of the backyard." Mel Krantz was thirtyish, dressed in a blue Burchett Landscaping shirt and blue jeans. "Follow me," he told her.
Last week, Pete Burchett and Wanda M. had talked about things that she might use her magical abilities to do, things that would otherwise cost Burchett time and money. Removing tree stumps was one of them.
The two walked up to the tree stump, which measured three feet across. "Getting rid of this would take us a while. Uh, do you need to warm up, meditate, or anything?"
"No, I'm ready." Although the tree was dead, it was dead organic matter, and she had power over it. Wanda M. concentrated. A reddish glow emanated from her fingers. Within seconds, the stump began to vibrate. "We should back up," she advised Mel.
"You heard her, guys. Back up!" The two men and one woman who'd stopped work to see what Wanda M. was doing moved off to the side. The dead tree's roots began to vibrate as well, causing soil to fall away. A few minutes later, the stump and its roots, forming a rough circle 20 feet across, lay exposed.
"Where do you want me to put that?"
"You mean the stump and its roots? You can move the whole thing?"
"Yes, I can. Though I can't separate the roots from the stump."
Mel looked at the stump and thought. "Oh! Look, there's a sewer line running over a root! Well, that's what a chainsaw is for." He turned back to Wanda M. "We'll cut off the roots. Can you move the wood then?"
"Sure." While Wanda watched and waited, two men took chainsaws to the roots. The noise was unpleasant, but tolerable. The roots were quickly severed. "Now?"
"Yup. Do your thing, ma'am."
Another hex, encompassing all the wood, caused it to float into the air and drift to the edge of the backyard, where it all settled, the roots forming a pile. One more hex moved the soil which had covered the roots back where it all had been.
"Wow! That's nice work! Real nice." Mel looked at Wanda M. appraisingly. "Uh, are you tired or anything?"
"No," she assured him. "These hexes don't tire me out." Not like they used to, anyway, she thought.
"Okay. I think we'll have one more thing for you to do in a bit."
"All right." Wanda M. returned to her seat on the wall, where Holly waited. "That went well."
"Great! Think you'll have something to celebrate tonight?"
"Maybe. Although Mr. Burchett isn't here today."
While Wanda M. waited for her call back, the two women discussed Wanda M.'s brief consideration of being an actress. "I know I look good, and I had dreams of being an actress," she told Holly. But models didn't automatically become actresses. Good actresses.
"You know Flo? In those Progressive commercials?"
"Yep. She's still doing them."
"Well, her spots are funnier than the show, sometimes. And to get them, she had to work. Acting classes, building a portfolio, auditions-that's not for me."
"Yeah, with the kids. . ."
"Right. I told the counselor at the Job Service office that I couldn't go to college full-time. I need to contribute financially, through steady work. And landscaping might be my best route."
"I remember when we spent more than an hour working in the garden. We got dirty. And sweaty. But it was fun!"
Wanda M. did remember that. Soon thereafter she and Vizh had been tricked by Pietro, they ended up joining the West Coast Avengers, and she hadn't seen Holly again.
"Mind if I include you in a selfie?" Holly had her phone out.
"Ms. Maximoff?" Mel was back. "Something else for you to take a crack at. We have a rock."
The rock turned out to be a good-sized boulder, sticking out of the dirt where flowers were supposed to go. "Can you get that out of our way?" Mel asked.
"I think so. Let me concentrate. . ." Wanda reached out with her mind, seeking the earth elementals that dwelled in the dirt. She found them, and found them agreeable. They would help her, if she provided them with some energy.
Wanda wasn't a telekinetic, but moving the boulder with her magic was nearly the same thing. Forming a hex, and willing the boulder to move, along with the elementals' help, got the boulder up out of the ground. From there, she and her helpers just had to get the earth to move in waves under the stone. Slowly but steadily, the boulder rolled across the ground, till it reached the rough at the back end of the lot.
"Uhh... Is that an okay spot for it?"
"Yes, it is," Mel assured her. "Uh, are you okay? I see you're sweating, and. . ."
"Oh, I'll be all right." She realized that she'd been on her knees, sweaty and panting. "Thanks for asking." Wanda M. got up and brushed the dirt off her jeans. "If I were a sorcerer, I'd have used a spell to heave the rock into another dimension. Or summoned a golem. But earth magic requires a bit of work."
"Well, you did just fine, ma'am." Mel consulted a sheet. "I don't think there'll be anything else for you to do here today. It's supposed to rain tomorrow-80 percent chance, the weather people said. So we won't be here Tuesday."
"I can block the rainfall! I'm pretty sure there are a couple of ways for me to do that!"
"You can? Really? That'd be terrific!" Mel grinned. "Rain really messes up a work schedule. If you can stop that- Hey, Marcy!" he yelled.
"Yeah, boss?" Marcy was a young woman, thin, but muscular, with fiery red hair and her blue shirt knotted above her waist. Wanda M. thought she resembled a bird of prey, for some reason. Maybe it was her sharp features.
"Change of plans. Ms. Maximoff-okay if I call you Wanda?"
"That's fine."
"Wanda here thinks she can stop rain from messing up our site, so plan on being here tomorrow at 9. If she comes through, then the guys here can come to work too. Is that okay with you, Wanda?"
"Certainly!"
"All right. I'll have to check with Pete, but as far as I'm concerned, you're hired. See you tomorrow at 9. Be ready to fill out some paper work. And Marcy will show you what all we do at a site."
"Thank you! Very much!"
"Having another woman here will be wonderful!" Marcy stated. "Okay if I call you Wanda?"
"Sure!"
"And you can call me Marcy. Or Marcy D." She grinned, as if at some secret joke. "See you tomorrow!" Marcy turned and left.
So, Wanda had a job. And getting it, with her GED and without a decent resume, hadn't been nearly as hard as she'd thought it would be. All she had to do was deal with some rainfall, and while she hadn't done it before, the methods were simple. Not things to worry about.
Back at the wall, Holly was engrossed in her phone's display. Of something. "Holly! I got the job!"
"That's wonderful! We'll have to celebrate that!" Holly brought up her phone's camera. "Let's take that selfie. Holly LaDonna, florist to be, and Wanda Maximoff, budding landscaping artist."
Back at Holly's car, Wanda M. was asked, "Want to do anything before we head back to your place?"
"Not really. Let's get a pizza and see what's on TV. I'm not sure when my sister and Vizh are coming back."
"Okey-dokey!"
At the house, Viv informed them where Wanda and Vizh were. "Mom's running late. The recital she planned with Annie-that was sensational! She's been fielding media requests. People have even been calling our wireline number!" Viv laughed. "If you take any calls, tell them to call VADA's press office. But you can just let calls go to voicemail."
"What about Vizh?"
"He'll be done pretty soon. Then he's coming straight back. Did the Burchett job work out?"
"Yes, it did. I start work tomorrow."
"Congratulations. Getting work when you need it is wonderful, isn't it?"
"For sure!"
Wanda M. found her sons in the living room, each one stretched out on the floor watching a video on his tablet. "Boys! I'm home!"
"Mom!" they both yelled. The way they responded, and ran to hug her wherever they could whenever she came back in always filled her with a warm, tingly feeling. After a few loving words, the boys went back to their tablets, and Wanda went up to the rec room to enjoy some pizza and watch HGTV, whatever programs the channel had on.
Eventually, Wanda arrived back home. After chatting with Viv, she floated up to the rec room. "I hear you've got a job, Wanda. Congrats!"
"Thanks. It's not quite final yet, but all I have to do is keep some rain from falling tomorrow. That shouldn't be hard."
"Rain, rain, go away. How many people can say that, and have the sky listen?" Wanda grinned.
"I hear you had a big day."
"Sensational! Wired, Gizmodo, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, local media, they all wanted bits with me. Maybe I'll go on CNN Thursday. And the donations! $300,000 in one day!"
"Wow! That is. . . wonderful." Wanda M. didn't want to admit it, but hearing her sister talk about her terrific day-aside from her and Tommy being attacked, of course-was just. . . depressing. She was so far behind that she could never catch up.
"I have a bit more VADA stuff to work on, so I'll get to it. I hope Vizh is back soon."
Viv was closest to the door when her father walked through it. "Hey! Dad, you're back! How did. . ." But her father's slumping shoulders, slow pace, and tired expression all radiated fatigue.. "Uh, what happened?"
Vizh made his way to his favorite sofa and sat down, heavily. "Getting involved with the chess project was a mistake." A tech billionaire had funded a project that set out to solve the game of classical chess. The project had a spot for an AI to interface with and to assess computations as they occurred. "Very few AIs in the world could do what Lundin required, so after months with no responses, he offered a rate that was irresistible. He got me."
Wanda joined her husband on the sofa. "Did you solve chess, like he wanted? Was there some problem?"
"We didn't solve chess. Not technically. But we examined enough lines to determine that White has an advantage in all regular openings. With best play, all the fighting defenses lose. The most Black can hope for is a draw."
Vizh gestured vaguely, venting his displeasure. "I didn't know that before, but I know it now. So-what's the point of playing chess anymore?"
"I'm sorry things turned out that way," Wanda said. "Is there anything I can do-?"
"Not now. I feel so damn tired. . ." He brought out a sheaf of papers. "There are more projects-better projects-that people want me for, but I don't want to go over them now." He handed the papers to Wanda. "Here are some details, if you're interested."
Vizh looked around the living room. "If nothing's going on, I think I'll turn in early. That attack on you and Tommy this morning, though. . ."
"There's nothing more to add," Wanda replied. "Frightening, but we survived it, and Stephen took care of the malefactor."
"Wonderful. Anyone who attacks our children should die for the crime." Vizh yawned.
"Honey-are you okay? I've never seen you so. . . tired."
"Okay? Well, I guess I'm not, and being sleepy is a strange feeling, but nothing's broken. If I get a good night's sleep and recharge. . ."
"Uh, um, before you go to bed, Dad-Mom, what I saw this morning happened. Billy talks to things-and they talk back! He asked my old doll, Becky, what her name was, and she answered!"
"She did? So, a power of his has been revealed?"
"You don't seem that surprised, Dad."
"No, your mother and I"-Vizh yawned again-"anticipated that Billy would have a computation-related power. Information-information processing. . ." His voice trailed off, as his eyes closed and he fell asleep.
"What the- Dad actually fell asleep!" Viv spoke in an intense whisper
"That's something I haven't seen before. Ever," Wanda whispered back. She picked up her husband effortlessly. "I'll put him to bed. We can run diagnostics in the morning." if that computation project was at all to blame, he'd never do that again. For any amount of money.
Wanda put her husband gently on the bed, in their bedroom upstairs. While she was considering what to do next, the lights went out, all over the house.
"Mom!"
Wanda walked over to the landing. "Yes, the power went out. The generator should kick in, in a moment." Wanda M. and Holly had appeared in the hallway.
"Mommm. . . Look outside!"
Wanda went downstairs, followed by her sister and Holly. Outside, the city streets and houses were gone, replaced by a plain uninterrupted by nothing except scattered rocks.
"What could have happened?" Wanda M. asked.
"It's hard to say," Wanda replied. "But if we weren't affected, then Stephen might be okay. We can send a message- The boys!" As she spoke, some lights came back on. "Viv, go check on the boys!"
Her daughter drifted upstairs, to the hallway. Wanda followed, reproving herself for forgetting that the magical transmitter was in the boys' room. As she rose to the ceiling, Wanda M. called out, "Look! Things have changed back!"
Wanda immediately sank back to the floor and looked outside. The streets, houses, and traffic were back in place. The house's lights were all back on.
"That's weird," Holly commented. Indeed, it was. She'd have to call Stephen, Wanda decided, to see if he had an inkling about what had happened.
Wanda heard voices upstairs. "I thought Becky might be scared," she heard Tommy say, "but when I picked her up, she said 'No. Put me down.'"
"Tommy, Becky isn't alive," she heard Viv say. "You must have imagined that." Viv brought the boys downstairs. "They're fine, Mom."
Moments later, the two synthezoids heard light footsteps on the stairway. They looked up. Becky was descending the stairs. At 11.5 inches tall, she hopped at first, but the hops quickly became athletic jumps. Her doctor's coat flapped all the way down. As she got off the last stair, Becky asked, "What's going on? Who are all you people?"
The writer does not claim ownership of any character appearing in this story.