Startled, Ron took a quick step back and looked up. It wasn't so much that the sky went away, it just… was suddenly never there in the first place. There was no black, no gray, no depth, not even the darkness of space which Ron had spent so long exploring. Try as he might, he couldn't remember what the place-above-the-ground had looked like just a moment before. The sky was a mental vacuum that sucked uncomfortably at the edges of his brain.
He shook his head. All these weird metaphors were making him kind of dizzy. Then he smiled. He'd used "metaphor" in a sentence.
Kim gasped a little, and pointed to something in the non-sky behind Ron. Turning, he saw a point of light slowly descend. After a few heartbeats he noticed it wasn't so much a point as a thread growing slowly larger, dropping from where they sky should've been. He guessed it would touch down not far from them. Ron saw Shego glance up, then down again quickly. Bonnie watched the group with her usual superior smirk. The locals didn't seem impressed with the new décor.
Kim turned back to Malcolm. "So here's the part where you explain exactly what you mean by choosing us." Her voice was steady and even, non-threatening, but Ron felt the steel in her words. He tried to stand a little straighter to back her up, but felt like he was posing and stopped before he looked too silly.
Malcolm opened his mouth, but before saying a word, the long-haired woman who'd spoken before quickly stood. "You're now partisan. You may not speak," she told him. Turning to Kim, Ron and Shego, she continued, "My name is Tana. I will explain as much as I'm allowed, then you will each go with your chosen and hear their argument. We will meet at the Chorlix." She pointed to the light thread that was nearing the ground beyond the nearest group of buildings.
Before she could continue, Shego raised her fist, which started to glow. "Let's hold off for just a second here, OK? You may have noticed I'm not exactly a willing participant here. Kimmy and her BF shanghaied me, and I need two things before I start venting my displeasure over the landscape." Tana nodded. "First: I'm starving, I haven't eaten in twenty five thousand years. Can someone rustle me up a Caesar salad or something?" Ron expected puzzled looks, but instead one of the locals stood, walked to the nearest building, and returned a few seconds later carrying a small bowl. Neat trick, he thought, but before he could put in his own order, Shego continued.
"Not bad," she said grudgingly, spearing lettuce with an ivory-colored two-tined fork. "Next," she said around a mouthful of chicken, "Kimmy will tell me exactly why she felt it necessary to put me on ice." She turned to the redhead. "It's not like I was any different than I'd been for years before that. Were you feeling threatened that I'd steal loser-boy from you or something?"
Kim looked down for a moment, and Ron could see she was doing a quick lookup in her wetware of that long-ago day. Her memories had only just returned, and Ron knew exactly how disconcerting it was. Kim's eyes rose to meet Shego's.
"That was the problem. You weren't different. The rest of us wanted to dive into the past and not think about the bigger picture. You kept reminding us of our… condition." Ron gaped. Kim almost never talked about the effects of Dementor's anagathic spray, even before they suppressed their memories of the long years.
Shego snorted. "You bet I didn't want to forget. If you decide to go navel-staring, hey, knock yourself out. Just don't expect me to squat down beside you and start drooling too."
Kim shook her head. "I think it was your refusal to accept wetware that kept you from forgetting."
"What, stick all that goo in my head just so I can get email faster? Who's left that's interesting enough for me to want to talk to anyway?" She finished her salad and tossed the empty bowl back at the woman who'd brought it. The bowl didn't quite hit her, but it didn't land either. Ron blinked. Bonnie hadn't been kidding about going down the rabbit hole.
Shego kicked the sand-like ground. "When we're through here, you and I are going to have a little one-on-one chat, little miss priss. Don't think I'll go easy on you, either. Nobody puts me on the sidelines just because I make them think." Her eyes shone, and tiny wisps of green plasma crawled over her balled-up fists for just a moment. Shoulders tight, Shego twirled back to Tana, who had stood patiently while Shego grilled Kim.
"Now you can talk. And it better be interesting."
Tana bowed slightly, expression never anything but neutral. "As I've said, we are the descendents of humanity. This is not our home," she said, gesturing to the odd buildings around her, and the not-sky above. "But it is a convenient place where we may all meet.
"Each time you raised up a new group of mortal humans, we learned and grew and became more than what we were, until we reached a point known as a singularity. We had learned how to become far more than you had taught us, that there were new horizons and new challenges for our burgeoning minds and hearts. So we joyously stepped into the next phase of our existence, even knowing you could not follow. We discovered places of beauty you can never know, regions where space and time literally spoke to us and told us the secrets we yearned to uncover. We met those who came before and came after – all three separate waves of humanity that shed their bounds and came to live between a whisper and a shout. We can't describe our existence to you, and I won't try. This place, these bodies… are all constructs to help you feel more comfortable. I am not even a single person, for instance, but a meld of partial and full personae."
Ron looked at the other "locals" and wondered if they were even weirder than a woman made of several personalities. Malcolm looked human enough, the woman next to Shego was relatively normal, and the small woman next to Ron could've walked down any street in Middleton without anyone commenting. There was still just something about her that tickled his memory, but before he could start a search through his wetware, Tana's voice caught his attention.
"Each of the three different groups went a slightly separate way, but we all ended up in the same place, in the space between real and unreal. It's impossible to explain, but it's the most logical destination for us. We met each other, and shared stories of our youth and our immortal benefactors. You should know we hold you in great affection and high esteem."
Shego barked a laugh. "Got a weird way of showing it." Tana ignored Shego, earning a small brownie point in Ron's book.
"In our place, we pursue endeavors I can't and won't describe. But one goal drives each of us: finding out what's next. Just as we reached a singularity from you, we strove to find the next singularity and discover answers to questions you don't even know exist.
"We found it."
Tana looked at Malcolm, at the woman by Shego, and at the woman by Ron. "But we are now torn. Each of the three groups has a slightly different goal in mind. To proceed, there must be unity. We cannot answer the question ourselves, and strange as it seems to us, only help from our ageless aunts and uncles can move us forward. This is why you are here.
"Malcolm represents the first, and oldest group. He will describe his group's vision to Kim. Morla," she nodded at the woman by Shego, "will discuss the second group's ideas. And Yuma will discuss the youngest group's wishes with Ron." Yuma looked up at Ron and smiled.
Ron felt the air go out of him. He felt incredibly stupid and embarrassed for not recognizing the young-looking woman. But she was not somebody Ron ever felt he would see again. He heard Kim gasp too, and knew that she recognized his companion.
Tana continued, "Each pair will appear at the Chorlix, where judgment will be rendered. Listen well to your chosen partner. Our future, and perhaps yours, rests in your hands."
Ron barely heard the end of Tana's speech. He stood and looked at the girl, who beamed back at him, clearly pleased that he'd finally recognized her.
"Hi," Ron said to his daughter.