Intermission III: Concerning Chess Pieces Who No Longer Wish To Play Chess
Chapter Ninety-Six: A Quick Errand
The lake sparkled in the early morning sunlight.
From where she sat at the base of the Frog Temple, dangling her legs over the edge to dabble her bare feet, Anna Carrero stared at her reflection in the still surface of the water. She recognized the person looking back at her, and yet Anna felt as if she were meeting this person for the first time.
"Remember the last time we took a moment to do this?" Anna and her reflection asked each other. "Neither do I."
Anna's reflection looked as tired as Anna felt.
"You look like you need a nap," Anna remarked with a yawn. "C'mon," she chided herself for the yawn, "you know that's contagious."
Anna yawned again. Where could she take a nap? She glanced across the stone bridge linking the base ledge of the Frog Temple island to the shore of the lake, which also happened to be Cruz's backyard. Although she could not see it from here, Anna knew Cruz's house was hidden behind those beautiful pine trees.
Maybe she could sack out on a couch inside?
No, that would be weird.
"Not the best idea," Anna murmured, imagining the headache of trying to explain to Chela Arevalo why it was totally fine that she'd just broken into her house, and oh, by the way, the apocalypse is happening in three days, so, everyone is literally going to die. And I think you're the coolest grandma in existence.
Anna needed a drink, and she knew exactly where the nearest liquor store could be found. It was the Wine and Spirits over on Route 30, near the movie theater and the Wegmans, but how was she going to get there? It was a long walk. Perhaps Cruz had a bike she could steal?
"We're not going to the liquor store," Anna declared, taking a deep breath and looking back down at her reflection in the water.
With a trembling hand, Anna reached down and gently caressed her reflection, disturbing the surface of the lake. The ripples slowly expanded outwards, lapping against the stone foundations of the Frog Temple and rebounding, which caused the waves to interfere with each other, while other parts of the ripples continued undisturbed towards the lakeshore.
Anna gazed at the pine trees awaiting her on the lakeshore, and she considered crossing the stone bridge to Cruz's backyard, where she could enjoy the living sensation of having Pennsylvanian grass underneath her feet.
"Not yet," said Anna, talking herself out of it. "Prospit first, then vacation."
Anna put on her shoes and stood up, shaking the droplets of water off her fingers. "Fine." She ascended the long flight of stone steps carved into the front face of the Frog Temple, and when she reached the top, she paused to turn around and appreciate the view one last time. "Good morning, breathtaking vista."
The eastern horizon still had faint tinges of red from the recent sunrise, which beautifully colored the tops of the pine trees covering the lakeshore, as well as the lone puffy cumulus cloud drifting lazily across the sky.
Anna took a moment to listen to the birdsong, wondering how all the birds could hear and understand each other while participating in such a vast and intermingling chorus.
A group of seven cardinals soared past the cumulus cloud, attracting Anna's curiosity. She watched the seven birds fly together, intrigued by how they reacted in unison to the shifting wind patterns.
As she was about to look away, Anna glimpsed a loner cardinal in the distance, flying seemingly on its own, far removed from the others. Noticing that the loner cardinal's movements and adjustments were perfectly synchronized with those of the other seven, Anna realized she was actually watching a group of eight.
"Look at you," Anna murmured to the outlier cardinal. "You're part of the friend group, too."
As the cardinals vanished into the distance, Anna took one last moment to soak in the view of home. "I'll be right back," she murmured, turning away and walking into the Frog Temple.
Anna passed through the antechamber into the Lotus chamber. From her sylladex she retrieved her journal, opening to the last page, where Anna's Temporal Things-To-Do List had been scrawled in barely legible handwriting. Most of the items were crossed out, much to Anna's relief. Handling temporal chores was taxing on the psyche.
Several items on the list had yet to be resolved, however, and as she descended the stone stairs into the lower chamber, Anna knew she would never be able to fully relax until she had completed all of her temporal chores.
One of the temporal chores required a quick trip to Prospit.
Waiting in the center of the lower chamber were the two stone transportalizers linked to Prospit and Derse. Anna put away her journal as she approached the portal to Prospit, steeling herself for the inevitable nausea.
"Be right back," Anna repeated her assurance to Planet Earth, stepping onto the yellow transportalizer.
As the world vanished in a surge of white light, Anna closed her eyes and wondered how her consciousness held itself together while the matter of her body disassembled and reassembled.
Within less than an instant, Anna had her body back, and most importantly, her mouth. "Aw fuck," she groaned, staggering onto a marble floor, steadying herself against the nearest wall with one hand while clutching her churning stomach with the other. "Fuck me." One cough was all it took for Anna's nausea to clench her gut muscles, forcing her to double over and dry heave.
If Anna had not already emptied the contents of her stomach during her errands on Derse, she surely would have lost them here. She really needed a drink.
"Nope." Anna straightened up, her focus returning with laser intensity, and she detached herself from the loving support of the marble wall.
She appeared to be inside some kind of shrine.
Open doorways, framed by ornately carved stone frescos, were featured at the center of each of the shrine's four walls, and as Anna approached the nearest doorway, she glimpsed the gilded Prospitian skyline. All of the buildings glimmered hypnotically under Skaia's light, but Anna did not have time to enjoy it, for she suddenly found her path blocked by a stocky Prospitian soldier wearing full battle armor.
"Cheese and fucking rice!" screeched a very startled Anna, recoiling from the Prospitian. "Jesus fucking Christ, don't do that, don't fucking sneak up on people like that. Fuck."
The surprised Prospitian soldier recovered quickly from her shock and took aim with her energy rifle. "You are illegally trespassing in a sacred site. By authority of Her Majesty's Home Guard, I am placing you under—"
Anna heard a dull clunk, and the Prospitian soldier was cut off midsentence, sagging suddenly forward and collapsing unconscious onto the marble floor.
Standing behind the soldier was an identical Anna Carrero, presumably from the future, holding a piece of pulverized rock. Future Anna immediately tossed the rock and held a finger up to her lips. "Don't talk, just shush," she said. "Get to the throne room, jump before they kill you, and don't jump back until you're ready to knock out the guard."
Anna started to protest. "But-"
"Shh!" Future Anna brushed past Anna, muttering something under her breath about getting blackout drunk. She stepped onto the transportalizer back to the Frog Temple and disappeared.
Anna frowned at her future self's muttering, thinking about the ocean of available liquor awaiting her back on Earth. How was she going to stay away? She's always loved the ocean.
Taking another deep breath, Anna floated off the ground and drew herself up to a modest altitude of nearly a hundred feet. Before leaving, she looked down to get a good look at the area so that she could find her way back here later.
Hundreds of Prospitians filled the bustling public square below, going about their daily lives. Some people were sitting down for a picnic, others milled lackadaisically about the square with no pressing destination, while merchants at their stalls hollered out wares and prices. Several of the establishments along the perimeter of the square were cafés, and Anna could see folks sitting at quaint little outdoor tables to enjoy their lunch.
Situated in the middle of the square, next to an ornate fountain, and surrounded by beds of beautiful pastel blue flowers, the frog shrine was surprisingly small when viewed from the outside. It was less than two stories tall, capped by a dome of smooth marble, and squatting upon the dome's apex was a magnificently carved marble-and-gold statue of a majestic frog.
Swells of music drew Anna's attention to the group of entertainers performing near the ornate fountain. A guitarist, a percussionist, and a piper provided lively underscoring for the two actors of their troupe, who were currently engaged in a meticulously choreographed swordfight sequence.
Applause spread quickly through the crowd as one of the actors hurled her sword deftly into the air, threw herself into a forward roll to avoid her opponent's counterattack, and sprang back to her feet with more than enough time to catch her falling sword. Within moments, the other actor was disarmed and defeated.
Unfortunately for the Prospitian troupe, when they tried to continue with their show, they were met with little interest. Prompted by the sword throw to look up, many of the more curious audience members had spotted Anna in the sky above, and now more and more people began to whisper and point.
As the crowd's curiosity intensified, and the irritated performers looked up to see what had cost them their audience, Anna knew it was time to leave.
After noting several nearby landmarks which would help her remember how to find her way back, Anna soared swiftly away towards Downtown Prospit, banking gently to the left to avoid hitting a clock tower. As she readjusted, Anna increased her altitude by several hundred feet, placing herself safely beyond the reach of all buildings except the tallest skyscrapers, which were sparse in this part of the city.
Downtown Prospit, however, visible in the distance, contained the densest concentration of Prospit's skyscrapers, loosely reminding Anna of Manhattan.
As she flew, Anna basked in the skaialight. The sensation was much more mollifying than earthly sunlight, reminding Anna of being wrapped in a soft quilt fresh out of the laundry. It was around midday, and Skaia's gentle blue-white radiance filled the entire Prospitian sky.
Anna slowed down as she approached Downtown Prospit, dipping into a gradual descent. She banked around a cluster of angular skyscrapers, revealing the Grand Boulevard below, which ran through the heart of the downtown district, straight to the outer gates of the Golden Palace.
Treating the Grand Boulevard like a runway, Anna aligned her gradual descent with the road, which removed any risk of flying headfirst into any of the skyscrapers. What a silly and anticlimactic way to die. Anna's chances for god tier revival would be almost assured, but she did not want to put it to the test.
The broad sidewalks and the cobblestone street of the Grand Boulevard were packed with Prospitian citizens, and Anna wondered where they were all going. Home? Work? Out to see friends? Every now and then, the pedestrians walking on the road would clear the way for approaching trolleys, filling up the road once more after the trolley had passed.
While descending, Anna breathed in deeply through her nose, in love with how clean the air smelled. Usually when Anna was in Philly or NYC, she could feel her lifespan shrinking with each polluted breath she took, but the pristine air quality here on Prospit helped her feel sunny and clean.
At the end of the Grand Boulevard awaited the Golden Palace. Anna soared over the Palace's outer walls, giggling as several of the Home Guards on the ramparts pointed at her and ordered the alarm to be sounded. "No, it's cool!" Anna hollered back at the frantic guards. "It's okay, I'm cool!"
The Prospitian Home Guards did not agree. Alarm bells began to ring, and the soldiers posted in front of the open citadel entrance scrambled to seal the inner gate, but Anna moved too quickly. She sailed straight through the open gate and made it about halfway down the length of the beautiful grand hall just inside, bringing herself to a halt and touching down onto the glossy marble floor.
Towering marble columns lined either side of the hall, adorned with white-and-gold Prospitian royal banners. Tiny tables had been placed against the walls, between columns, each table bearing arrangements of blue, white, and yellow flowers.
Anna barely had time to remark, "Nice," while admiring the design of the grand hall, before the Prospitian Home Guards charged inside in hot pursuit, rifles at the ready.
"Weapons free!" screamed the ranking member of the bypassed guards at the citadel entrance.
"Oh fuck that." As the citadel guards opened fire, Anna held her breath and plunged herself forward into the timestream.
Immediately upon entering the timestream, Anna was overcome with confusion and disorientation, and her nausea flared back up. She hated jumping through time on such short notice, without having a chance to gather herself. It was awful.
Anna focused intently on the moment in which she wanted to arrive, more than a month after the one she'd left behind, and immediately found herself back in the grand hall, only to find it greatly changed.
Several of the stone columns had collapsed, and much of the citadel entrance had been blasted away by powerful explosives, exposing the grand hall to the elements, where a battle appeared to be raging. Screaming and weapons fire could be heard from outside, but Anna had no intention of delving into any of that fun.
And besides, the grand hall already offered Anna a vivid sample of the outside vibe. A slaughter had just occurred here, minutes before Anna's arrival. Pockmarks and scorches marred the formerly pristine marble floor, which was stained red with blood and littered with dozens of corpses, Prospitian soldiers and Dersite commandos alike.
Anna did her best to avoid looking at the carnage, but it was difficult to tune out when it filled the entire room. She steadied herself against the nearest wall, dry heaving several more times. Only way to forget something like this would be to get blackout drunk.
"Nope." Anna picked herself up off the wall and forced her legs to move, resisting the urge to continue dry heaving. As she followed the trail of corpses towards the blown-open double doors at the far end of the grand hall, Anna heard the sound of weeping coming from the throne room beyond.
It seemed that when Dersite commandos had broken through the citadel entrance, they paid dearly in blood for each step forward. And yet, in a testament to their deadliness in battle, the commandos nevertheless managed to reach the throne room, where they finally met their end.
The throne room was even grislier than the grand hall. The bodies of the last remaining commandos lay on the floor near the doors, and dozens of dead Prospitian Home Guards filled the rest of the chamber. Curiously enough, the Dersite bodies bore gunshot wounds, while the Prospitian bodies looked as if they'd been subjected to an artillery barrage.
One of the corpses, belonging to a Dersite who'd managed to get much further than any of the other commandos, had been gruesomely beheaded. Anna glanced around quickly for the head, but she did not see it.
Only one person appeared to have survived. Kneeling in the center of the carnage, weeping quietly over the unmoving body of Adam's dream self, was the White Queen.
Anna approached slowly and saw that the Queen was cradling Adam's head, and that Adam's throat had been slit. Cruz's dream self lay dead on the floor not too far away, and next to Cruz's body was a sight that made Anna want to curl up forever and disappear. "Oh, Tam."
The face of Tami's corpse still bore the scrunched expression of someone whose final moments had been filled with searing pain. Blood flowed profusely from the brutal stab wounds in her stomach and abdomen.
"What is my life truly worth?" asked the White Queen as she closed Adam's unseeing eyes. She glanced around at the slaughter before looking at Anna. "Look around you, Seer, and think well before you answer. Is my life worth this?"
"I can't really answer that," Anna replied, crossing the room to crouch beside Tami's body. She gently caressed the industrial bar in Tami's ear before neatening the corpse's hair and straightening its sprawled arms and legs. Then she moved to Cruz's body to offer him the same dignity. "I think you get to decide what your own life is worth."
The White Queen pulled a handkerchief from one of her coat's inner pockets, drying her eyes. "That has a ring of truth to it."
"Oh, shit." Anna had found the head of the headless Dersite, and was surprised to recognize its face. "Is that Jack Noir?"
"It was," replied the White Queen. "Your friends died trying to keep him out of this room. All to protect my life. Why?"
"I dunno, maybe they liked you?" Anna shrugged, straightening Cruz's head, ignoring the blood seeping from the wound in the corpse's throat. "This clearly wasn't your fault."
"In some ways, it is." The White Queen stood up and walked behind her throne, where a huge white-and-gold banner bearing the royal symbol of Prospit hung on the wall. "Ours is a world built on perpetual warfare, and I am one of its architects." She seized the Prospitian banner and ripped it from the wall, bringing it down. "I would like a new purpose in life."
"You don't control what the Black Queen and King choose to do with their military," Anna reminded the Queen.
"Your friends were not killed by the Dersites, they were killed by members of my own Home Guard." The White Queen drew a knife from her boot and cut the fabric of the fallen banner into three sizable lengths. "My own guards no longer wished for me to guide our people, and today I have difficulty disagreeing with them. Perhaps there should be no Queen."
"Well, sure," said Anna, "I think monarchies are outdated too, but maybe don't throw in the towel right this second? Make a smooth transition if you can, going cold turkey sucks."
"I am unfamiliar with turkey." The White Queen took two of the lengths of fabric from the gutted banner and lay them over Tami and Cruz's corpses.
"It's not that great," Anna declared, intervening when the Queen moved to pick up the third length of fabric. "No need to shroud Adam, here, I'll actually be taking him."
"Taking him?" The White Queen sounded confused. "You should leave him with me. I know a way he may yet live again."
"Yeah, the core of the Golden Moon, right?" Anna asked. "Gonna give 'em some of that quest slab action? I mean, sure, take Cruz and Tami. Cruz is the only one it will help, Tami is still alive on her planet, but hey, who knows? Don't worry about Adam, though, he'll be fine, ish, but only if certain things happen first, sooo… Just gonna go ahead and…" Anna captchalogued the body of Adam's dead dream self and stored it in her sylladex. "Boom."
The White Queen frowned as she watched Adam's corpse vanish. "Where did you just…?"
"Yeah, no, don't worry about it," said Anna, making her way towards the doors to the grand hall. "Not important. What is important is your beautiful life, so go ahead and live your beautiful life."
"You are odd, Seer," remarked the White Queen, following Anna into the grand hall and walking beside her. "Even for a human. Your people were fortunate to have you."
Anna let out a sharp laugh, stepping over the body of a slain Dersite commando. "You didn't know me in my old life."
"Perhaps you might consider your own advice," suggested the Queen. "Bring beauty to your life now, and let the past be."
"Let the past be?" Anna levitated off the ground several inches, preparing once more for rapid flight. "You realize I'm a time traveler, right?"
"To master time travel is to cease time travel," said the White Queen. "Something I think you already know."
"Yep, totally working on it."
Anna and the White Queen passed through the ruined citadel entrance gate into the chaotic outside world.
Several Dersite Royal Navy battleships loomed overhead, raining volleys of thundering artillery upon Prospitian targets which Anna could not see. Above the battleships, the sky was choked with smoke and ash, greatly diminishing Skaia's radiance. The air was harsh enough to make Anna's eyes sting and water, and her throat was quickly parched.
On the outer walls, the embattled Prospitian defenders seemed to be wavering against the strength of the Dersite ground assault.
"This has been lovely," Anna said to the Queen. "Let's do it again sometime."
"I wish you luck, Seer." The White Queen produced her ring of power. "It is best you are not standing next to me when I put on this ring."
"Good talk." Without any further delay, Anna launched herself back into the sky and rocketed away from the Golden Palace as fast as she possibly could, following the course of the Grand Boulevard until she reached a safe altitude.
Once the tops of the surviving skyscrapers were no longer a threat, Anna banked gradually in the direction of the large marketplace.
Anna glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the fully prototyped White Queen emerge from a flash of blinding white light, ring of power blazing from her fist.
The White Queen thrust her fist into the sky, and the Red Miles surged angrily forth from her ring in a concentrated blast, gutting the nearest DRN battleship and sending the others into a panic.
As the battleship exploded, Anna looked away to protect her eyes. Even at a great distance, she could feel the explosion's heat on her back.
The bustling marketplace was no longer bustling. Apart for a few dead Prospitian civilians, the square was deserted. An artillery blast had wiped out the ornate fountain, leaving a massive smoking crater in its place. Anna came in for a landing next to the little domed frog shrine, wondering if music would ever be played here again.
The ground trembled as another DRN battleship exploded in the distance.
Anna picked up a small chunk of stone debris from the obliterated fountain, staring all the while at the blue flowers surrounding the frog shrine, intrigued by the presence of vibrant life amidst an abundance of death and ruin. Careful to avoid stepping on any of the flowers, Anna walked up to the nearest of the little domed shrine's open entryways.
With a deep breath, Anna pretended she was on a playground slide and threw herself back into the timestream.
Focusing on the moment when she'd crossed paths with herself, Anna emerged from the timestream. She was now standing directly behind the Home Guard who'd first found her. Music played from the entertainer troupe near the ornate fountain, and the marketplace was once again teeming with life.
Anna immediately swung her chunk of stone and clocked the guard across the back of her head.
The guard crumpled to the floor, unconscious, bringing Anna face-to-face with Past Anna, who was fresh from the transportalizer and ready to launch into an impassioned denunciation of her recurrent temporal shenanigans.
Anna pressed a finger to her lips. "Don't talk, just shush. Get to the throne room, jump before they kill you, and don't jump back until you're ready to handle the guard."
Past Anna was not having it. "But-"
"Shhh!" Anna snapped, brushing past her bewildered past self to enter the shrine. She was not in the mood for another ridiculous cross-temporal conversation, not with Tami's contorted corpse face still vividly burned into her memory. "Gotta get blackout drunk to forget that shit," Anna muttered to herself as she stepped onto the transportalizer pad.
As Anna warped across dimensions into the physical universe she'd been raised to believe she was from, she steeled herself for a potential third round of dry heaving. Thankfully, this time around, when she rematerialized in the Frog Temple's lower chamber, the dry heaving did not come.
Massaging the temples of her aching head, Anna exited the lower chamber via the stone staircase, blowing a kiss to the Lotus Capsule as she passed it by. She continued through the antechamber and exited the Frog Temple, stepping once more into the sunlight outside.
Earth.
Anna breathed deeply through her nose, filling herself with the scent of pine as she descended the long flight of stairs carved into the temple's front face. She retrieved her journal, opening it to her temporal list, and she crossed out her latest errand. Just a few more to go.
After reaching the bottom of the outside stairs, Anna passed the spot where she'd watched her reflection in the water, and stepped onto the stone bridge connecting the Frog Temple to the lakeshore.
Although Anna was glad to be back, the sunlight no longer felt quite as magical. "Should've done Prospit after," she grumbled while crossing the bridge to Cruz's yard, irritated at having possibly ruined her own vacation with a fresh round of PTSD. "Should've just enjoyed the day, and done Prospit after."
Anna took off her shoes when she reached the end of the bridge, stepping onto the grass, feeling the earth underneath her toes. "Well, that still feels nice, at least."
Holding both shoes with two fingers, Anna made her way up the lake path through the pine trees, entering Cruz's backyard. She avoided the house and crept around the side of the garage, where she found a side door. Sure enough, when Anna peered through the window of the side door, leaning against the wall inside the garage was Cruz's bike.
Or maybe it was his grandmother's bike. Anna didn't assume, nor did she particularly care, because it was about to become her bike. She looked down at the lock in the doorknob and wondered if she would be able to pick it. She hadn't picked a lock in a long time. Did she even still have a lockpick? It was so easy to put things in a sylladex and forget about them for years.
"Hang on. You don't think…?" Anna tested the doorknob, and it gave way.
The door swung open.
"Unlocked, Chela?" Anna tsk tsked as she strolled into the garage and liberated the bike. She looked around for a helmet, but did not find one. "Just gotta be extra careful." She wheeled the bike outside, locking the door before closing it, and put her shoes back on.
Anna swung herself onto the bike and set off, wondering if she should stop at the Exton Mall for some Auntie Anne's pretzels. After considering it for a moment, Anna decided to nip that in the bud. It was a school day, and the last thing Anna wanted was to be caught 'skipping school' while an identical version of her was already in school, sipping vodka in the upstairs bathroom.
Perhaps Anna could get some Auntie Anne's tomorrow. Or Sunday. Or even Monday, if Anna could squeeze it in before the end of the world. Saturday or Sunday would be better.
Anna yawned as she cycled down the length of the Arevalo driveway, knowing she needed to get some rest. Her past self would be out of school later in the afternoon, and until then, Anna would have the house to herself.
Well, not exactly to herself, but a half-dead great uncle didn't really count for much in terms of company.
Anna passed the mailbox and turned onto the road, leaving behind the Arevalo residence and setting a course for home.