000000

Chapter Eighteen

000000

Everything came back. Aline was once again on her back, her fingers clutched around a cuboid with a button on it—but no, her fingers were clutched around nothing at all. The Deus ex Machina was gone. She was weakened and coughing and exhausted, but she was alive.

The Wall was gone, too. Or retreated back to invisibility. Her memories of the Author were already fading. In another moment, she could no longer quite recall where she had been just now. She remembered slamming the Deus ex Machina, and then…she couldn't quite tell.

At least it seemed to have worked. The battle seemed to be over now, raging only in dregs. Her side seemed to have won. Somehow. Marie was lying unconscious—dead?—surrounded by broken glass.

There was a sharp pain in her finger. She glanced at it. Typical. She'd managed to get a papercut.

Slowly, she raised herself, looking sadly at the splintered remains of Trunkie. She allowed herself to mourn. She'd do something for him, she decided. She'd collect all the pieces and reassemble him. Maybe it wouldn't be the same, but it would honor his memory.

There were pieces of white paper with incomprehensible black writing strewn across the ground. It seemed they had blown in across the edges of another world, though why Aline thought that, she couldn't say. She idly picked up a sheaf and glanced at it. She didn't understand a thing. She folded it up and put it in her hoodie pocket, and immediately forgot about it.

"Well," D said, dismounting her pale motorcycle. "Looks like the apocalypse is cancelled after all. Good thing, too. It wasn't a very good one."

"Everyone's a fucking critic," Nikki grumbled, but shot her a weary smile. "Right, then," she said, and turned to glare at her sister. "Now I've got you to deal with. What the hell was all that about? Oh, man, you are in so much trouble."

"You're not my mom!" Jenna shot back. "You can't tell me what to do!"

"I can so tell you what to do! Mom is a disgraced evil villain and doesn't get to tell anybody what to do anymore, so now I'm the only one who does get to tell you what to do. So go to your room!"

"I am an evil villain and I'll do what I want!"

"You'll go to your room, that's what you'll do."

"No!"

"Jenna," Nikki growled in warning.

"You're all a bunch of disappointing loser adults!" Jenna declared. "And I'm not listening to any of you anymore! I'm done being condescended to all the time. And you!" She turned to D, furious.

D looked to her left and right, and then pointed to her own chest. "Moi?"

"That's right! You! I thought you were so cool! Everyone was so afraid of you, I thought you must have been serious business! A real awesome villain! I thought maybe we were the villains, and that's why you were on our side! But you didn't even do anything! You just sat around on your stupid motorbike and did nothing!"

"Don't care," D said.

"Augh!" Jenna tugged at her hair. "I can't believe I ever looked up to you."

"Can't believe it either, kid. I'm pretty short."

"You're not even really evil, are you?! You're just! Nothing!"

"Yeah," D said. "Nothingness is pretty much my thing."

Jenna glared hatefully at her. "I'm through with you! With all of you. I'm going!"

"Where?" Nikki demanded.

"Out!" Jenna shrieked, stamping her foot. A plot hole opened before her, and she leapt through, disappearing as it closed behind her.

"Jenna! You come back here this instant! You're so grounded! You're ultra grounded!"

"Kids," D clucked. "Let's never have any."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Nikki muttered.

D frowned suddenly, feeling for her back. "Where the fuck is my flame thrower?"

It was nowhere in sight. "I took it off to beat them with the empty cannisters when I ran out of gas, but I took it with me." D looked around. "The hell?"

Nikki realized. "Jenna," she growled.

"Oh, the kid took it." D sighed. "I'll get it back. Eventually. Author knows she won't have a good time with that particular weapon."

"You're not getting my kid sister killed, are you?"

"Nah. I mean, not much. She'll be fine. Probably."

"Hey, if we're done with the apocalypse here," the skinny woman on the black motorcycle said, "Can we head out? This whole 'being out of retirement' thing doesn't sit well with me. The reunion tour was cool and all, but I have a job."

"Ugh, can we talk about that?" D said, wrinkling her nose. She looked like her normal self again. Short and pale and dark, and small. A regular person, and not a vast and terrifying entity of death. "Because I think I can hook you up with something better. All of you."

"Yeah, hey, sounds good," the big redhead said. "So…post-apocalypse drinks?"

"Yea."

"I'm down."

"Me too."

"You're leaving?" Nikki said in alarm.

"I'll be back when the plot calls for it," D said. "Total temporal mastery, remember?"

"Right," Nikki said, unsure. "Be back soon."

"Move out, crew," D called to her friends, remounting. Their engines revved and kicked up a cloud of incorporeal dust as they zoomed away. In a moment, they were gone as though they'd never been.

Because the moment was opportune, Marie began to stir. She groaned. Nikki snatched up the Reality Hammer from where it had fallen and stuck it through her belt loop. She crossed her arms and glared as Marie slowly sat up, rubbing her temples.

"What am I going to do with you?" Nikki wondered aloud.

"I don't care," Marie said hollowly. "I had one chance at freedom. It clearly failed, if I'm still here. Do what you wish with me. Fitting that my own daughter should murder me."

Nikki regarded her.

"I'm reassigning you," she said finally.

Marie lifted her head. "What?"

"I'm giving you a different job. How does Majorca sound?"

"I don't understand. You wanted to kill me."

"Yeah, well." Nikki looked viciously aside. "I kinda still do. So maybe you better take the damn job and get out of the Hub for a while. Maybe forever. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Good, then. I'll arrange a plot hole for you and we can never speak again."

"Nikki, you know that's not what I—"

"Just don't," she said. Her lip trembled and she looked down. "I'll visit. In a few years. Centuries. Maybe."

Marie nodded.

"You were a terrible mother, you know."

"I know. I'm sorry. Tell Jenna."

"I will."

A plot hole of a serene sky blue opened conveniently beside her.

Marie rose and looked at it. "Goodbye," she said.

"Bye."

Marie disappeared into the blue.

Nikki visibly sagged in relief.

"Wow," Aline said. "That was rough."

"Fuckin' tell me about it."

"Hey, it worked out, though, right?" Aline said brightly. "Everything's fine! I did my underdog thing!"

"If you call a would-be destroyer of worlds loose in the Majorca, my little sister missing and throwing a tantrum, the Hub in disarray and all the world poisoned on the brink of change 'fine'."

"Yes?" Aline smiled awkwardly and shrugged.

Nikki sighed. "Thanks for being our underdog, Aline."

"No problem."

"Is there anything you want to do before I take you home?"

Aline patted her backpack. It contained a multitude of wooden shards. "I'm good. I want to go home now. Tell D I said bye."

"I'm right here," D said.

Aline jumped. "Augh, stop that! You need to quit sneaking up on people."

"No."

"I'm so not going to miss you."

"Cool."

"How'd it go with your old work friends?" Nikki asked.

"We had a talk. Things are gonna be better now, I think."

"Good."

D yawned. She looked a lot less imposing without her flame thrower. Lighter, somehow. She sidled up to Nikki and slipped her fingers through the other girl's as though Aline wasn't even there. "Hey, Nikki, you wanna take a vacation after all this? Just you and me. Any universe you want."

"Author, yes. Let's go to one of the sci-fi universes and hang out on a beach planet."

Aline looked between Nikki and D. A puzzle piece slid into place in her head. "You guys are dating?"

D raised an eyebrow. "Yes? Duh?"

"Congratulations," Aline said, flabbergasted.

"We've been dating for a long, long time," Nikki said. "It's not like a new thing. Wait, you didn't know?"

"Typical." D rolled her eyes. "Go home, kid."

"Yes, please," Aline said shakily.

0000

The ride back to Aline's world through the uninteresting brown plot hole felt longer than most, but only because of pacing reasons. As her familiar street and familiar neighborhood came into view, Aline nearly sobbed.

So what if her world wasn't really the real world? Levels of abstraction, schmevels of abstraction. It was home, and god, she was glad to be back.

Were those…sirens?

"Oh, by the way," D said as she and Nikki dropped her off, "there was a bit of a mishap at your house. Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure."

Was that…a fire?

"What did you do?" she said.

"Set you up a good return-journey plotline." D flashed her a thumbs-up. "You're welcome."

"What did you do?" Aline shrieked, but it was no good. The plot hole was already closing.

Aline turned and faced her street. Her brother's card had been driven into the mailbox, and the car alarm was shrieking. A large section of the house was missing, and it was partially on fire. She caught sight of her neighbor Margaret Finklestein's sharp, judgmental little eyes disappear behind her kitchen curtain.

She saw a car turn into their cul-de-sac out of the corner of her eye. Her mom's silver Toyota.

"Uh," Aline said.