Total Drama Endless

by NondescriptNorbert

Total Drama back again! This time there's new twists, a cast of twenty seven fictional characters, and most importantly; a new host. The story isn't over. Epilogue part 4/6. Wonderland is gone. The girl in the looking glass stares back.

46. Muskoka

Total Drama Endless Epilogue, Part 4.

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"It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests." ― H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

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...

Tuesday August 28th 2057

Lake Huron, State of Ontario, North American Union.

Cold wind paired well with summer heat as Chris McLean's autonomous yacht sped towards Wawanakwa Island. Aboard were the old recluse's first visitors in a long time. Thirteen contestants from the most recent season of his old show.

Their spirits were high. An electric sense of anticipation flowing through them as the island approached.

"Kayla, seems like you've got the best guesses." Paisley said, shading her face from the sun with a raised hand. "Want to try and take a crack at what we're in for?"

Kayla reflected on it.

"I mean I've been saying new season all trip, but it'll probably be more of like a Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island deal!"

"Like an Epilogue?" Hannah asked.

"Yeah! You know it!" Kayla said. "Maybe Chris wants to find out how good we are at his game outside the OASIS?"

"Classic challenge style?" Neil said.

Luisa groaned hesitantly.

"It better not be gross, I don't want to ruin this top."

"It can be gross, I just better be paid for it!" Yeong-Ja said folding her arms. "Whitey owes me money!"

"Oh my gosh guys look!" Aria called excitedly.

As they got closer to the Island a familiar shape was becoming visible amongst the foliage. A short dock and behind it a few small wooden structures in a clearing.

"No way!" Jaxson cried. "Camp Wawanakwa's still standing? Or is that a replica?"

"All structures are the originals" Replied their robot captain. "They were originally preserved post Season Five to be incorporated into an island spanning theme park and resort. However, the collapse of the globalized economy in the 2020s saw such concept abandoned. I and the other Chefs Master McLean employees have been tasked in part with maintaining the campground. He has also requested that I allow you to stop and explore it for a while if you wish."

Kayla's eyes boggled. Several of the other contestants followed suite.

"We get our own private tour of Wawanakwa!?"

"Correct." Replied the machine emotionlessly.

Kayla drew in a breath then turned to Jaxson and Paisley beside her.

"Am I allowed to freak out, or would you guys not be cool with that?"

"Go crazy." Paisley insisted.

"Good, because I was gonna do it no matter what you said." Kayla replied quickly. Then she and Aria grabbed each other and let out a prolong squeal of delight.

Paisley laughed and rolled her eyes.

…

They moored on the Dock of Shame (The Dock of Shame) and ventured into camp like schoolchildren on a field trip. Even with constant maintenance the two contestant cabins, communal washroom and main lodge were all showing their age. Their wood had been coloured by time and the elements; their cinder block foundations were weathered. But it was miraculous how well they'd held up. As their robotic guide informed them, Camp Wawanakwa had been a real local summer camp once upon a time. All its cabins had been built long before Total Drama in the early 1980s, that most inescapable decade.

The inside of the main lodge smelt of dusk, oil and aged wood. It was a musky scent. Kayla took delight in it. Everyone did. It was one thing to walk the halls of Narnia or the canals of Atlantis in the OASIS. No matter how lifelike they had been rendered they were still at the end of the day illusions. Fake places inhabited by fake people. But the lodge was real, and there was a tangible difference in that, even if most of them couldn't quite describe it. The knowledge that the old contestants had stood here once, made choices and felt feelings and lived their lives. It gave character to the structure.

"Look at this stain!" Neil pointed to a discolouration on the floor. "What do think it is? Chef's cooking?"

"No chance." Hannah said confidently. "It's puke. Maybe even from the original Brunch of Disgustingness."

"Coooooool." Several of the contestants said around them.

Kayla meanwhile found Paisley inspecting some of the shelves in the back of the kitchen.

"Find any of old Chef's cook books?"

"Yeah but I feel like if I pick one up it'll crumple to dust."

Kayla laughed.

"Man… I can't believe we're here."

Paisley shot her a grin.

"It's like we're finally real Total Drama contestants."

"For sure."

Paisley sighed; it wasn't a bad sigh.

"Kayla, I don't think I've had a chance to say it yet but… thanks for bringing me along on this trip. These last few days have been a good time."

Kayla returned her smile. "Glad you came around to it. I still probably shouldn't have pressured you into it."

"All good. I probably shouldn't have been such a bitch about it. But the apologies still nice."

She mimed pulling at an invisible skirt and bowed regally.

"We royally accept your humility."

"Oh I see. Well…"

Kayla copied her gestures.

"I as a delicate forest maiden promise to never do harm to your feelings again Princess."

"That's not how Beatrice talked."

"She would if she was riffing on Peach."

Both girls laughed.

"Thing's aren't gonna get complicated between us again once we're back in the game right?" Kayla asked.

Paisley waved her hand.

"Probably not. I've already won, I don't have skin in this game." She smirked at Kayla. "Just don't expect me to go easy on you guys. Especially if it's me playing."

"Oh, it's on Your Highness." Kayla giggled.

Farid walked into the room with Stacy in tow, they looked like they had something urgent to say.

"Matsunaga figures he found some carvings Duncan made in the Bass's cabin." Farid said. "You girls want to see?"

Paisley and Kayla looked at one another.

"Yes!" They said at once.

…

A few hours latter when everyone had explored to their hearts content the contestants returned to the yacht and had a quick lunch before they departed for the far side of the island, where Chris's estate was, and as the robot butler informed them, on a hill over the old mineshafts.

"The Island of Wawanakwa was originally used by several indigenous peoples such as the Moose Cree, Ojibwe and Huron." It explained as their yacht sped rounded the coast of the island. "Its first European settlers came in the early 20th century with the opening of the island's mine. The 1900s saw a frenzy of mining activity here in Muskoka due to the invention of the electric headlamp. Most turned up empty, however here on Wawanakwa a local enterpriser named James Fairhall discovered the most western iron ore deposit in Canada. A small mining sentiment by the name of Port Fairhall was established along a natural harbour and was quite lucrative for the better part of a decade. Then, in winter 1913 hurricane force winds swept across the Great Lakes, two ore trawlers were grounded in the harbour and proved to costly too remove. Soon after Fairhall's venture was declared a bust and the island was abandoned. Of course, a summer camp and later television production were eventually established however Wawanakwa's permanent population remained zero until Master McLean built his residence."

There were several audible gasps as they rounded a corner and a vast estate came into view. Chris's mansion was near identical to the one he had in the OASIS. A Neoclassical citadel of dark slate and white marble with sprawling gardens around it. The difference was it seemed far larger here perched atop a hill in the wilderness of rural Ontario than it did surrounded by similar homes in Bel-Air.

They passed the harbour the robot had mentioned, the old trawlers had decayed into dirt and rust and any other structures of old Port Fairhall had similarly been consumed by nature.

There was a more modern marina at the bass of the hill. A veritable fleet of luxurious yachts and speedboats populated the docks, none of which looked like it had moved in over a decade.

Their robotic guide led them to a hillside trolley and they ascended up to the grand home. As opulent as the estate was from a far, coming closer they could see that none of the lights seemed to be on inside, and the blinds were drawn. When they reached the hilltop, things were eerily silent. The only sounds in the garden were the fleet of robotic landscapers quietly attending their work, the wind, the fountains, and distant birdsongs. They stopped for a minute to take in the views. While doing so Paisley seemed to noticed something else.

"There's no Chris here."

"You were expecting him to meet us out here?" Farid chuckled.

"No I mean there's no statues of him out here. It's weird. He had a lot of those back in the OASIS didn't he Kayla?"

"Yeah he did." She agreed. "God it is kind of weird he doesn't have them IRL."

Before the conversation had a chance to continue one of the robots approached them, whether it was their original guide or an identical stranger it was hard to tell.

"The Master is ready for you now."

They were led not through the master doors (which also seemed disused) but a rather nondescript side door. There they found themselves in a comfortable guest room that smelt of musk and leather. There was a large television waiting for them.

"Please make yourselves comfortable." Instructed the machine.

They sat down. A moment or sort passed in uncertain silence before…

"Contestants!"

An old voice croaked from a hidden speaker. A second later the television activated and an old man appeared on the screen smiling. The figure didn't look as time weathered as Conner did but age had taken its toll on his features. His face was wrinkled, his hands gnarled like an old oak, his hair grey and receding into a widow's peak. Yet for all that had changed there were things that had remained constant, the thin nose, the angular jaw, and the mischievous twinkle in the eyes.

"How good it is to see you all." Chris McLean said.

In their excitement most of the group spoke over each other.

"One at a time!" Barked the old man. The group went silent. There was some murmuring and Jaxson, their de facto authority figure stood up.

"Mr McLean it's an honour for you to welcome us to your home like this."

"Honours all mine! Thanks for coming!" Chris laughed. "I checked in with the president to extend a formal invitation and he told me some of you were already on your way out east! That's some good initiation right there! Always does me good to see it."

"Blame Kayla!" Hannah shouted.

Some of the others laughed. Kayla blushed modestly as the hosts eyes fell to her.

"Just… doing like you asked sir."

"Good… good. Very good." Chris's attention turned back to the others.

"I'm sure you have several questions. Such as why we're speaking over video link or more pressingly why I called you all out here. Is that right?"

"YES!" Cried several people at once. Chris chuckled softly. "Well you're about to find out… after I speak to your two finalists."

He turned his full attention back to Paisley and Kayla.

"We have some affairs I'd like to go over with them first. Don't worry! You'll all be allowed to hear about it once were done. By the end of the day for better or worse everything is going to make sense. Alright?"

There was a general chorus of agreement.

"It's cool." Jaxson said.

"Just so long as we get paid!" Yeong-Ja shouted.

"You're a legend man!" Neil called.

Chris sighed and gave them an oddly sincere look.

"Thank you all for doing this. You've no idea how important to me this is. Bellam, Parker, you'll find me in the foyer. I believe you're already familiar with where that is."

The screen clicked off.

"Is it just me or does he seem nicer?" Luisa asked.

"Probably luring you into a false sense of security." Hannah said.

Aria shrugged. "Maybe being old mellowed him out."

"Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it." Paisley said getting up. "You coming Kayla?

"Wouldn't miss this for the world." She replied brightly.

"You two want someone to go with you?" Jaxson volunteered.

"Thanks, but we'll be alright." Kayla insisted. "We'll catch you guys soon."

…

It didn't take Paisley long to find the right path to the foyer. As she claimed to Kayla that she had retained some of Peach's navigation skills.

"…It's coming back to me, but I think it'd have to be a place she'd been."

"So here basically?"

"Yeah. Here and the OASIS if I ever wanted to revisit Jabba's Palace or something."

"Would you?"

"Oh god, fuck no."

They laughed again and found themselves in the dark foyer.

"Déjà vu…" Kayla said quietly.

"Here we are again." Agreed Paisley.

"Here we all are again." Agreed a voice behind them.

Kayla spun on her heels and squealedl. There was Chris McLean beaming down at them from his master staircase. At once she ran up to greet him, Paisley following behind.

"Mr McLean it is an honour sir!" Kayla cried. "May I?"

Not waiting for a response, she embraced him quickly. The old host seemed surprised but didn't protest. She pulled away and smiled giddily at him.

"I'm sorry! I had to!"

"That's alright." He chuckled. "Nice to have company again after so long. And what prestigious company at that!"

He threw his arms out.

"The newest entrants into a noble class! Never thought I'd see the day! The Finalists of the fiftieth season of Total Drama, including our big winner!"

He gave an overexaggerated salute to Paisley.

"Congratulations on the win princess! Fine performance out there your Highness! Damn fine!"

"Er…Thanks."

She was giving him a funny look. Kayla assumed it was just some of Paisley's antisocial tendencies acting up again, then she caught Chris's eyes and saw what her friend saw. For all the joy in Chris's smile, none of it reached his eyes. There was sadness there. The same melancholic look he had worn the day he'd pulled them out of the OASIS.

She tried to dismiss it.

"Everything alright Mr McLean?" She asked gingerly.

Their Host seemed caught off guard by the question. She saw him try and shift his expression.

"Oh yes! Fine! Fine… just an old fool getting sentimental."

He was trying not to give away their challenge she decided. Kayla's mind relaxed as her host cleared his throat then beckoned behind himself.

"Come with me."

…

There was no gravitas to the old man's hobble, no blaring music filling the familiar hallways and Kayla and Paisley found them for the second time in a month shadowing Chris McLean through his cavernous mansion.

In the OASIS's fairy land of ones and zeros these halls were seemed brighter, more polished, ready at fleeting preparation to be displayed to the world. But that had been in a different world, one that didn't exist. Here in reality fantasy had its wings clipped. Here in reality the mansion was not a jewel in the crown in Bel Air, it was a hermit's shack, nestled away from prying eyes in Muskoka, and the house's atmosphere had altered itself to fill that roll. It stunk of dust and floor polish and Its hallways were cold and barren, much like the look hiding beneath McLean's eyes.

"Like the décor?" The old man called back to them. "Just remodeled… couple decades back."

"Pretty impressive." Kayla said. "Now what do you to talk to us about?"

Chris wheezed out a breathless laugh.

"They'll be plenty of time for that soon enough. Just settle down a minute, will you? You've come a long way."

"We came all this way to see you though." Kayla beamed. She couldn't help it, her heart was racing with excitement. "I knew I wasn't crazy! I just knew they're be more to the game!"

"Game?"

Chris sounded strangely surprised by the term. Whatever his thoughts were that gave him pause, he got over them quick enough and chuckled softly.

"Yes…I suppose there is… more to the game we'll say."

"Is it a special or another season?" Paisley asked. "Because with all due respect sir I know you don't care about us or any of your contestants but if we're going into another ONI rig or something, I need to see my family first."

Chris paused again and turned and to stare at her. Paisley stood her ground.

"Look, don't give me any contract crap, I don't want to be here for another four mouths though. I owe my baby brother a birthday gift."

Chris gave them a strange look. They recognized it. It was the same distant melancholic look he had given them right before they had been pulled out of the OASIS.

"I assure you Miss Parker, one way or another, everything will be over by the end of this month. In here please."

His unsteady hands grasped limply at a doorknob and pulled it open, ushering the ladies into a room. Paisley and Kayla gave each other an incredulous look then followed him inside.

They walked into a sitting room, with a long ornate chair and a fireplace behind it.

"Chef!" Barked Chris. "A fire if you will?"

One of the robotic butlers swept in and lit the gas fireplace. Chris smiled graciously.

"Thank you. That warms the old bones."

"You and the real Chef still talk?" Kayla asked. Chris's smile thinned ruefully.

"Er… no. Unfortunately. We had a very strong disagreement in 2045 and haven't spoke since."

"Ah, that sucks, I'm sorry to hear that."

"He was the last person to visit me actually. Haven't seen a real human being face to face since then."

Chris chuckled and tinge of his old ego crept into his voice.

"Not to say that's kept me from what I do best."

He pulled out a little remote, a large screen opposite of the mantlepiece flickered to life. Renders, and notes, and concept art of several of the Endless destinations were displayed.

"Kept a low profile for once but I was more involved in Endless than people know. Uncredited executive producer was the term Wade and I used in our monthly talks. Nice enough kid that President Watts but relatively clueless in these sorts of things. He needed a lot of direction to keep things moving in the way I needed Endless to go. But may I say…"

He beamed like them, there was pride in his eyes yet still that sadness. That pain, swimming behind his gaze.

"You both have done remarkable. I rarely say this to my contestants but I am impressed. Very truly impressed. You have my respect."

"Thank you, sir!" Kayla smiled.

"Uh… yeah… thanks." Paisley said uncertainly. Chris examined her again, his eyes had shifted again, they were studious, even hawklike.

"I'm not what you expected me to be am I?"

Paisley shook her head. Kayla shrugged good naturedly.

"Kind of seems like living out here alone all this time mellowed you out. If you don't mind be saying."

"Time…" Chris echoed.

He mediated on the concept momentarily then repeated softly.

"…time…"

"Yeah. Time." Paisley said. "So, uh speaking of, you said this'll be done by the 31st?"

"What are you still standing for?" Chris asked suddenly. "Sit please, we have so much to discuss."

Both girls pulled up a chair obediently. Paisley seemed put off by Chris's strange behavior Kayla thought. As for herself true it was unusual but it was building to something. She knew it had to. She had been right about Chris this whole time. She was still riding the high of that feeling. There was still adventure yet.

"I hear you drove from Vancouver?" Chris said. "Also quite impressive. How to you like Wawanakwa? I instructed one of the Chef's to take you around the old campground."

"Yeah thanks that was incredible!" Kayla breathed. "I mean like, I mean I can't believe all that's stuffs still there! It's like taking the studio tour at Universal."

"Yeah, it was cool." Paisley admitted. "And the nature out here in Muskoka. Never came through in show but it's actually really nice out here."

"Yeah no, these Northern States are beautiful." Kayla agreed. Her eyes flickered to Paisley she smiled good naturedly.

"Or provinces, old Canada, Canada, whatever you guys are comfortable with calling it."

Another examining look from McLean came in their direction. Then the old man gestured with his cane to a place above the mantlepiece. There was a beautiful impressionist oil painting of a windswept coastal landscape.

"What do you girls think of that one? Nice isn't it?"

"I guess." Paisley said.

"It's an original Maurice Cullen." Chris informed them. "Great Canadian artist. Lived in the country most of his life but was born in my old homeland, Newfoundland."

"The Province?" Kayla asks.

"No." Chris said. "Not when was he was alive."

He marveled at the painting.

"Not every knows but in the 1860s in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the recently re-United States were resentful to towards The British Empire for flirting with the idea of recognizing the Confederate rebellion. There was fear the Americans would retaliate by seizing the British North American Colonies as they had been threating to do for years. so, a compromise between the colonial officials and the British government was made and the North America colonies were granted self determination as the Domain of Canada. Canada was the first nation to be born from the British Empire with the full permission of the crown and by 1900 every British colony in the north was made a province of it… except for Newfoundland. We stayed on our own until 1949."

He turned to the girls.

"Pretty insane isn't it? Almost a hundred years Newfoundland was her own nation alongside the Canadian coast. We had our own history, flag, anthem, currency, culture! We raised our own armies to fight in both world wars. In 1916 The entire Newfoundland bigrade was destroyed the first day of the Battle of the Somme. That's Newfoundland's own tragedy. No involvement from the rest of Canada. We forged our own path for generations… until one day it all went away. There were people when I was growing up that remembered that time. But the years when by and they all died out, now that history fades day by day."

"Wow, um… that's too bad?" Kayla said confused.

Chris McLean shrugged his worn old shoulders.

"It's inevitable really. We were going to lose our Independence one day, we actually went broke during the Great Depression and had to ask the British to take us back. By the forties the only question was who was going to take us, Canada or America?" He laughed sharply. "Not like it matted in the end did it? Newfoundland faded away into to Canada, now Canada's fading into the United States."

"Yeah, Paisley's been telling me all about it…" Kayla said. Where was Chris going with this? "But you made a piece of Canadian culture that still survives."

"Culture yes." Chris murmured.

"Yeah Total Drama! So um… what's the deal with that rig-"

"Of course, we weren't the first people to call Newfoundland home." Interrupted Chris. "Like everywhere in North America there was indigenous people before any settlers from Europe arrived, and of course Newfoundland was the first place in the Western Hemisphere were white settlers arrived. A thousand years ago Leif Erikson set a group of Viking settlers to the island, called it Vinland. After building camp the Vikings noticed there were signs of habitation. Leif and his men found eight of them hiding beneath a birch bark canoe, that was for what we know the first contact between the Europe and America.

Anyway, Leif killed those men on sight and moved on with his life. Probably never guessed the precedent he set there and then.

The Vikings called them Skræling. They themselves the Beothuk, and they eventually forced out the Vinlanders but then half a millennium later came the Englishmen. They arrived in Newfoundland before Plymouth or Jamestown or Roanoke. Meaning that the Beothuk were the first peoples in the Americas the English encountered too.

Thing about the Beothuk is they loved Red Ochre, red dye, it had some sort of… religious significant to them. Then painted everything with it, including themselves, so when the English first saw these strange men with their red painted faces they thought it was natural skin tone. That combined with Columbus stumbling the Taino and Carib populated islands of the Caribbean and thinking he was in the Indies set another precedent. For the next five hundred years there were not Beothuk, or Taino. No Powhatans or Pequot or Micmac or Sioux or Iroquois or Cree or Navaho or Haida. From Columbus up through my childhood the only Native Americans were Reskinned Indians, who were the same everywhere. Living in tepees, carving totem poles and fighting cowboys and Peter Pan."

"I know some Cree guys back home, they make fun of Disney's Peter Pan a lot." Paisley said still eyeing Chris. "You probably knew some Beothuk guys that shit on it to, did you?"

"No, I've never met a Beothuk myself." Chris said. "They're extinct. Last of them died in 1821. Like the Taino that first meet Columbus, like ninety percent of everyone that lived in the Americas before contact they were exterminated from the face of the Earth. A whole people group gone. Dead. All we have of them now is their stories."

Chris was actively pacing in front of the fire place.

"They say you die twice. Once when you breath your last, and again when someone last breaths your name. It's the same for nations like the Beothuk, or Newfoundland or Canada. There dead, gone, conquered soil. But they live now in the stories people tell, and tell, and tell, and tell again. All the while changing by the teller. Things are left out, things added, fiction usurps reality."

He gave the girls a strange look.

"Reality. Fiction. Those are terms I've been thinking about a lot these last twelve years. People have this concept that they're black and white. There's the quote-on-quote real world and the fictional stories we tell in it but they overlap more than some people would like to think. Reality can become fiction, and fiction reality. Go back in time and they can blur. All of history is pieced together through the voices of those who tell it and we just have to accept that they're telling the truth. There's no guarantee to that. Actually, there's a guarantee they're at least lying about something intentionally or not and all those lies… all those fictions get written down as real history, which fades into legend, which fads into myth. Is Gilgamesh of Uruk our first historical figure or first literary protagonist? We thought Troy was a made-up place until someone dug it up! Meanwhile the ancient Greeks that would have besieged that place, they'd have thought their gods were real, Zeus, Ares, Athena. All part of reality for them, real as flesh, real as the sky. Now we treat them as fiction. You don't have to even go that far back, look Davy Crochet, look at cult leaders, at dictators like Mao or the Kim dynasty pretending to be superhuman, at all that garbage the Republicans drummed up from 2016 to 2026. Our world has never been purely governed by objective reality! Reality can be subjective and fiction fills the voids! People can rage and rage about the current world, how everyone's busy on the OASIS carving the fine details into the bathrooms at Hogwarts while historic sights and rainforests are burning. I'm not saying their wrong."

He laughed bitterly.

"But they don't understand girls! We've always been like this! They hated me for Pahkitew Island! Hated me! But it's always been this way. We're a species of confused simpletons confusing the people we made up with people flesh and blood and killing one another for land on a limited planet when there's a whole dead universe out there- Can I help you Parker?"

Paisley had stood up from her chair and was backing towards the door.

"Listen." She said measuredly. "Kayla insisted we come here because she thought you had some second season. Clearly you don't so we'll be on our way now."

"Sit back down Paisley." Commanded Chris.

"I have better things to do than listen to some old hermit's Alzheimer ramblings."

"Paisley!" Kayla gasped.

"I assure you there's nowhere on Earth more important for you to be than here in this room." Chris's voice had gone cold. "So sit DOWN!"

The old man voice was so filled with authority that Paisley obeyed. This was another change. For all his swagger and power as a television host Chris was known to be something of a coward when confronted. Where had he found this new backbone?

Chris half hobbled, half cantered to the door and locked it. Paisley challenged him with a glare. He glared back then signed very deeply. It was like the old man was deflating.

"There is nothing in your life more important than what you're about to hear."

"Colour me suspicious." Paisley said.

"It will all make sense in a moment. Though you may regret it when it does." Chris said grimly.

He hobbled back across the room and fumbled with the draws of a cabinet. Pulling a manila folder out of a hidden compartment before turning to back to the girls with all the grim concentration of a mortician.

"I am going to tell something no one else knows. Beyond the group you brought with you here nothing said in this conversation will leave this room. I picked you two to tell this too first because you we're the finalist. The best performers. The strongest willed. If I'm wrong about that…."

His dark eyes met Paisley's.

"…then I highly suggest you go grab your Kashmiri friend, and I'll tell him all of this instead. Understood?"

Paisley didn't respond, she didn't move either. Chris took that as confirmation.

"Have either of you girls wondered why I haven't left my home in twelve years?"

"Yeah. Of course." Kayla said.

The faintest ghost of a smile appeared on Chris's lips.

"It was a snowy evening thirteen years ago…."

…

Saturday, December 17th 2044

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Once upon a time It seemed like he had been going to a Christmas Party every day during the holiday season Chris thought sorely as he ran his fingers through his newly greying hair and surveyed the penthouse. These days he was fortunate to see six of them. Part of that was that there was a lot less networks, and to be fair he had lucked out this year. December 2044 was proving to be a busier month that he had had in while.

Being fresh off of wrapping up Season 49 definitely helped. He had to hand it to his publicists for once. Numbers had been slumping for the show for years but the team was doing a good job hyping up the milestone 50th season coming up next year.

…If only he could figure out what he was actually going to do for it.

"Quite the crowd…" He remarked. To his left his long time friend Norbert 'Chef' Hatchet grunted in agreement.

"Pretty rare to see things this busy now a days." Chris continued on, he was well used to carrying most of the conversations he had with Hatchet, or anyone else for that matter. "The host really knows how to draw a crowd almost as well as I do."

"Whose party is this any way?" Chef asked.

"Oh it's… uh… Good question."

A voice rose above the background noise of the party.

"Hold on? Chris? Chris McLean?"

"Uh… you know it dude?" Chris asked the crowed. "Who's asking?"

Automatically Chris went into publicity mode. A man slightly older than him with thinning grey hair and a rectangular jawline was coming towards him. An executive maybe. He definitely looked familiar.

"Thought it was you. I'd recognize that hair anywhere. Been a long time since we had to share timeslots on the networks huh?"

"Ahh…" Chris said. Now he recognized the man. "Don Seiders. Man, dude it has been a while."

They shook hands.

"How's Ridonculous Race holding up?"

"Oh it's been off air for years now." Don said with a wave of the hand. "You know how it is, no ones been able shoot around the world like that anymore. Though I am glad we managed to outlast Amazing Race."

"Right dude?" Chris laughed and gave him a nudge. "I know you've been off air. Geopolitics man, it killed Survivor too."

Chef shook his head.

"Man… poor old Fiji. Ain't fair what mother nature did to them."

"Yeah…" Chris said. "Basically, it's just us and Big Brother still going strong from the good old days."

"I don't know if you can count us out yet." Don said giving them a wink. "Ridonculous Race is still a strong IP in the OASIS."

Chris scoffed. "HA! Doesn't count if it's the OASIS."

"I respectfully disagree McLean." Don said. "People do all these incredible Ridonculous fan seasons over there, traveling to all these historical planets, fictional planets. Sometimes I'll humour them and participate for old times sake. I stepped in on this one recently, they were going to Arrakis and Discworld and Ancient Rome. God Chris, the things they do in that place is astounding."

Chris nodded disinterested and turned his attention to the Mai Tai he had been nursing before Don had shown up. He muttered something into his glass about 'Nerd crap'.

"They have Total Drama fan seasons over there too of course." Don went on. "Some of them get pretty out there. You hear about that new one with all the crossover characters? Total Drama Everything I think it was?"

Chef smirked. "Oh… Chris's heard of them alright. Been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to sue those sorry folks."

"You wouldn't?" Don asked a gasp.

"Yeah. I would." Chris replied shortly. "We've been trying to get Gregarious to clamp down on those but you know how they are. By the way I'm totally sure you've already heard the news, but actual canon Total Drama's about to have it's fiftieth season. I'll be on the O'Halloran show tomorrow promoting it."

"I'm surprised you haven't just moved the show over to the OASIS yet." Don mused. "That's what we had done if we had had the foresight."

"I host a Reality show my dude. People were very vocal about how they prefer it when it had real people."

"You can still have real participates doing virtual challenges."

"Yeah, uh sounds great, but tell me? Where's the stakes in virtual challenge?" Chris asked. "I don't care if it's trendy, Total Drama's got more brand integrity than to devolve into another part of that Halliday nutcase's over glorified video game."

"It ain't real reality TV 'less some kids are bleeding." Chef agreed.

"Thank you Chef."

Don chuckled.

"What do you have against James Halliday? The man was one of the greatest minds of the century!"

"Never seemed that smart to me dude. I ever tell you about how I meet him way back in '07? I thought he was a grip he looked so dull. This mousy haired, hyena laughing social reject dev. Didn't strike me as all that great. Pretty far from whatever cult of personality he's set up for himself now post mortem."

"Ah…" Don said slowly. "You're jealous over The Contest?"

Chris cackled humourlessly.

"Me!? Never! That old Gunter hunt is dying out anyway. Just you wait… this time next year IOI will have bought out Gregarious and abandoned the easter egg nonsense, and TD 50 will be out and knocking everyone's socks off. "

"Really? What do you have planned for the anniversary?" Don asks.

Chris hesitated.

"Ye-uh… you just got to like…wait until it's out and like everyone else dude. NDAs and all that."

"Of course." Don said. He patted Chris on the shoulder. "I look forward to it pal. Nice catching up with you. Merry Christmas!"

"Whatever!"

He gave Chris a final nod then walked back into the fray of the party. Chris breathed a sigh of relief.

"You know we're gonna have to think of something sooner or later right?" Chef asked with a note of concern.

"I know that." Chris insisted. "I told you I'm workshopping an idea."

"Really?"

"Yes really?"

Chef looked at him suspiciously. "You tell the producers yet? 'Cause they're real antsy."

"I know already!" Chris rolled his eyes. "Look you'll hear my idea soon okay? It'll be worth the wait! This is me I'm talking about here! Have I ever let you down?"

"All the time." Chef growled. "But… that strange mind of yours has got a way of making things work out."

"Exactly!" Chris said patiently. He shifted his attention to the other side of the room. "Do I spy a fresh offering of foie gras?"

"I'm on it." Chef said, lumbering off through the crowd like a quarterback.

"So what do you have planned for your show Christopher?" Came a voice from behind him

Chris nearly jumped. There was a young woman standing about a metre behind him. She was a beautiful twenty something with dark sun kissed skin and silky raven hair done up in an eighties wave.

"How long have you been back there?" He demanded. She bated her long eyelashes at him innocently.

"Long enough."

She stepped forward and stroked his face affectionately.

"I represent some very influential groups and individuals. If you're still shopping for ideas for your anniversary season they have a concept they think you'd be interested in."

Chris laughed sarcastically.

"Uh thanks but no thanks dude. I don't take suggestions on my season and even if I did, I've already got the master plan for TD 50 on lock."

"That's a shame." Mused the woman. "My group was willing to offer unlimited resources for your show… but I must respect your artistic integrity." She looked past him. "Where has your friend, what was it? Don Seiders gone? Perhaps he'd be more interested…"

"Alright hold the phone." Chris said suddenly. "Why don't you just like give me your pitch real quick. Couldn't hurt right? Then we that see if I'm interested."

The young woman smiled.

"Natalie will only discus mattered in person." She handed him a card. "She's currently at our field laboratory in the High Arctic. You'll meet with her in a few weeks time."

Chris felt his eyes bulged at the woman.

"I'm sorry! What!? You want me to fly to the Arctic to hear a television pitch!? What alien planet do you spawn from woman?"

The woman pursed her lips.

"It will all be paid for of course, and I assure you Mr McLean Doctor Campbell may not seem like the obvious choice of benefactor, but there are potentially billions of dollars worth of funding at her disposal."

Chris looked skeptically at the woman, then to the business card of her Doctor Campbell friend, the name vaguely rung a bell. He turned back to her still suspicious.

"And your name is?"

"Rzayev. Alea Rzayev,"

The girl's grin broadened and she leaned over and whispered to him.

"We are going to do wonderful things Mr McLean."

Then she left without another word.

…

"Alea Rzayev works for Natalie Campbell?" Kayla exclaimed.

"What?" Paisley asked. "Sorry… I zoned out or something. Who's this Alea woman?"

"She was at the party back at Vancouver." Kayla explained. "She made some kind of vague offer to Jaxson apparently."

She looked to Chris.

"That's who that woman who meet was isn't it? You described her the same."

Chris gave her a satisfied look.

"That's why you girls won. You're sharp. That's good. That's very, very good."

He continued his story.

Paisley leaned over to Kayla.

"So… this is one of the same mystery people that Jaxson was talking about? The Rzayevs? He met her back at the party?"

"Yeah. He said She played Perky actually, and her brother was apparently Roy."

"What they bribed their way into letting Wade accept their OCs?"

"Maybe. But like, that doesn't explain how's she's connected to a famous scientist."

"Weird…"

Chris cleared his throat loudly. Both girls looked up guiltily.

"Sorry. Good on." Paisley said quickly.

Chris shot her a dark look.

"As I was saying… Soon enough I had exhausted my other options enough that in spite of my better judgement I decided to investigate Alea's offer in person…."

…

Iqaluit in early winter turned out to be just as unappealing in practice as it was in theory Chris thought as the plane touched down in Nunavut. He had flown on what had passed for first class these days, all the while sorely missing his private jet. Alas, he had had to get rid of years ago. Post-oil meant only the ultrawealthy could afford private planes, and unfortunately that no longer included him.

As he stepped out of the airport he shivered bitterly and pulled his thick parka tight. It was -38 Celsius with a windchill of -43. Cold enough for frostbite to set in in ten minutes. Fortunately, Alea was waiting with a SUV.

"Welcome to Nunavut Chris McLean."

"Yeah thanks." He muttered scowling around. There wasn't much to see. It was 11am and yet it still looked like day break

"Haven't these people heard of the sun?"

Alea smiled.

"It's Polar Twilight here. Once we get above the Arctic Circle it will be total night. There won't be sun there at all until spring."

Chris gave her and look of outrage.

"We're going farther north!?"

"Yes, much further."

Chris opened his mouth to protest. She cut him off.

"Doctor Campbell assures you that this will be worth your time."

"She friggen better hope so."

They drove for an hour through the city. Iqaluit was Nunavut Territory's capital city and was decently sized for the Canadian Arctic. The modern Inuit that lived there had forgone igloos and dogsleds for wooden cabins and multistory apartments, fast food chains and OASIS rentals. All glowing in the endless twilight of winter.

Chris did a double take as there were leaving town.

"Huh?"

"Something the matter?"

"I think we just passed a mosque." Chris said surprised.

"Yes, Sunni unfortunately, otherwise my brother and I would have liked to have prayed there." Alea said. Chris raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Where are you and your brother from?"

"We are from Azerbaijan Mr McLean." Replied Alea.

"Never heard of it."

She smiled.

"Not many westerners have."

They continued on the road out of town until Iqaluit was a faint glow behind then. Desolate Arctic wastes surrounded the community. A fresh snow over a rocky landscape, they were already above the treeline here. Nothing but lichen grew at this latitude.

Twenty minutes after their last sign of civilization had faded, they turned off the side of road. There was an impromptu airstrip of packed snow wanting for them. There perched atop it was a hovercraft, a recent innovation in aircraft, two helicopter like rotors fixed in the wings of a sleek plane like frame, in flight the hovercraft had all the best elements of both. They'd be everywhere within twelve years, though of course Chris didn't know that at the time.

Standing in front of the hovercraft, being buffered by the blistering cold winds was their host.

Natalie Campbell had been famous for so very long a time. Born blind in both eyes, she had made up for her disability as a child by having a staggering savant level eye for mathematics. She had graduated Oxford at fifteen.

Now she was a grown woman in her late forties. Short for her age. Tufts of red orange hair stuck out between the hood of her dense winter coat and the black visor wrapped around her face. A decade or so ago James Halliday had worked with his company's R&D department to create a retinal implant that allowed the blind to see inside the OASIS, then with cameras mounted to the exterior of the head then could see in the real world as well. Because of her notoriety Natalie was one of the few people in the European Federation allowed to use Gregarious technology, giving her the eyes she'd never had. Since then, the slim black OASIS visor had been a permanent fixture of her look. It reminded Chris of the black guy in the Nineties Star Trek series, whatever that guy's name was. Chris didn't exactly have time to memorized every little detail of nerd culture like all the Halliday worshipers did.

"At last! Christopher McLean!" Said Campbell in her thick Glasgow accent. "Been quite a long time I've wanted to meet you!"

"I get that a lot!" Chris purred, flashing her a fleeting grin. He was mildly concerned his gums would freeze if he opened his mouth to long. "I try and downplay it occasionally but I know I'm basically a roll model to all."

The Doctor chortled.

"Role model to the Devil is more like it. You know when I was ten, I was daft enough to try and sign up for the first season of that cursed show of yours."

"Is that so?"

"Aye. Wasn't let in of course. Too young, too foreign they said. Had to be sixteen and Canadian." She grinned. "…Course that turned out for the better didn't it? I've found more productive pursuits in the intervening years. But I was still a wee lass once. I still have fond memories of watching the show… which naturally is why you've the fortune of being here today Mr McLean."

"I'm flattered to have the honour to stand here freezing my hair gel off speaking to you in this frozen hellscape." Chris informed her. "Your little assistant has told me that for some reason unthinkable to man you're planning on taking me even farther North. Which got be real here dude, I'm most definitely not stoked about. Now what say cut the chatter and be on our way up there already? Sooner we go, sooner we can get back to latitudes man was actually intended to inhabit!"

"Patience Mr McLean. We're still waiting on our other guest."

"Other guest!?" Chris shouted, abandoning all pretenses of being polite. "What other guests!? I thought we were making an exclusive offer?"

Alea laughed.

"I never said that Christopher."

Chris grumbled bitterly. He had fantasized semi-seriously for a moment of straggling the women and making a getaway. After all who'd find the bodies out here?

He quickly pushed the thought down. No use, the cold would preserve them anyway. Wasn't much of a perfect crime after all.

Mercifully another SUV arrived within a minute. Out of it stepped two men. One he figured must be Alea's brother, his features were a match for hers, though far less sightly.

The other man he couldn't place. He was blonde and had a long hawkish nose. Like the Rzayevs He was on the younger side, late thirties, early forties at most. Alright, maybe that wasn't young, Chris just thought it was because he thought of everyone younger than him as "young."

The stranger like everyone present didn't have much of himself showing currently. Not that Chris needed much to get a read on him. Everything from the sleek grey parka, to his posture, to the way he smiled optimistically gave it away. This man was a career business drone for one of the Mega corps ruling the modern world. Specifically, if the logo on his coat was to be believed IOI, or Innovative Online Industries, the leading telecommunication company in the United States.

The drone continued beaming his soulless grin and he marched straight past Chris and made a beeline for Natalie's had.

"At last! The woman of the hour has graced us with her presence! Doctor Campbell is it a pleasure!"

He shook her head vigorously.

"Nolan Sorrento. Head of Operations at IOI."

"Pleasure to have you Mr Sorrento." Natalie responded to the business man's soulless tone with geniality. "I appreciate you coming this way. I know you wanted to meet over a chatlink but I insist in person we'll be much better for security."

"Ah, of course I understand the need for exclusivity." Sorrento said. His eyes shifted to Chris. "Hence why of course we have this… rather unexpected guest."

He extended his hand to him.

"Chris McLean. We've meet in passing before but it's a pleasure to be re-introduced. I always enjoy networking with the far-flung parts of the company."

Chris gave him a strange look. "Thanks, but I don't work for your company dude. I run a reality show. It's kind of what I'm known for."

"As they said in your country au contraire mon amie. Total Drama's international and OASIS distribution rights are held by Warner-Discovery, one of our many media subsidiaries. So, in a way you do work for IOI Mr McLean. Whether you're aware of it or not."

"I never signed any OASIS distribution rights!" Chris said heatedly. "I don't approve of that cyber hellscape."

"Funnily enough we agree on that." Sorrento said brightly. "We at IOI would love to see some common-sense changes implemented to the simulation and have enthusiastically joined the hunt for Halliday's Easter Egg. I myself personally head IOI's Oology at our head offices in Columbus."

Chris didn't bother hiding his laughter.

"Something the matter Mr McLean?" Alea asked.

"Seriously guys? This is who I'm splitting the offer with?" Chris asked. "A big-league video gamer?"

He sneered at Sorrento.

"Must be quite the prestigious position dude? What do all the stupid little corporate awards in your lifeless office say? Most Pac-Man dots eaten? Fastest time to rescue Princess Peach?"

Sorrento's condescendingly forced smile stretched almost painfully, as if the frigid temperature had frozen it in place.

"On the contrary Mr McLean while some senior citizens such as yourself may look down on our division, we at IOI see the race to secure ownership the single largest global economic engine of the 21st century, as well as leading stock in the megacorporation that controls it very seriously, and as such we don't take to wasted time lightly." He turned back to Natalie. "So, let's all cross our fingers and hope for everyone's sake that this little outing will prove itself worthwhile, shall we?"

"Oh yes. I've the feeling you boys will be quite happy once we get to the impact site." Natalie promised.

Chris blinked.

"Impact site?"

"…Of asteroid Karliq." Sorrento explained patiently. "There was a minor stir about it when it hit the Greenlandic Ice Sheet last month. Apparently, it's quite large, potentially even of interstellar origin. There was some talk of it being quite the lucrative source of rare earth elements, however reports have dried up afterwards. The scientists are saying now it largely burned up in the atmosphere, and there's nothing noteworthy to study." He grinned broadly. "Of course, you can never be sure of something until you've seen it in person, can you?"

Natalie chuckled knowingly. "Aye… seems one of our guests has been doing their homework."

"Yes. Well, it's standard procedure for any..." He cleared his throat and gave Chris a fleetly yet deeply condensing look. "Ahem… Professional businessmen to have some idea of their investor."

Fortunately for Chris's ego he was still hung up somewhere behind them in the conversation.

"I don't have my passport." He said suddenly. Behind her visor Natalie raised an eyebrow.

"No matter."

"We're heading to another country? Right? Greenland's like European Federation territory I'm pretty sure?"

"No one will know you're there." Alam Rzayev assured him.

"…And they'd be daft to think otherwise." Natalie said. "They'll be no paper trail to this trip you gents hear that? As far as anyone not present knows this little excursion never happened. You were both at home this week, neither of you have meet me, nor have you ever been barking mad enough to go and do something like shiver your bawbag off in the far north of Greenland. That will be your truth from here on and it remain so under threat of death. Are we clear on this gentlemen?"

"Very." Sorrento said with an alarming readiness. Natalie nodded.

"Right then… off we go."

…

Natalie's hovercraft was a top of the line and sturdy, built specifically for the kind of environment they were traveling through, yet even then they could hear the rotors struggle occasionally against the northern winds. The weather was worsening by the kilometer, all the while what little light was left faded away as they crossed the Arctic Circle. After two hours there was nothing but an all-encompassing darkness beyond their windows. They sat there in their seats being jostled uncomfortably by the turbulence. The craft's interior was spartan, it reminded Chris of the set for World Tour and made him long deeply for the economy flight to Iqaluit.

There were other things that bothered him about the flight, things less tangible. Strange feelings Chris was normally not privy to his day-to-day life. He wasn't an easy to shake man, he considered himself a realist to his core. When the world had begun to decay, he had only bemoaned his own diminishing profit margins. Some people took up arms with that, called him selfish. So what? The world was a selfish place, and it was unforgiving to those who fell behind. You couldn't thrive in it by wringing your hands and lamenting your fate, nor would anyone find success in a life of piety. Not unless you established yourself as the head of one of those televangelist megachurches, but even Chris considered those people parasites.

No Chris McLean was a realistic man, a rational man. His own well being was all that mattered to him, and his imagination was merely a tool long curtailed into serving only the purpose of creating new challenges to torment teens with.

And yet… as he ventured further and further into the darkness of the extreme north, away from the civilized world and chauffeured by secretive strangers, there was a dread stirring within him beyond which any rational fear could explain.

"Nearly there…" Natalie said abruptly. "Mind yourself, it'll be a bumpy landing coming in."

"Will we see the site from the air?" Sorrento asked over the sound of the motors. Natalie shook her head.

"We don't fly over it. Atmospheric difference and that sort of thing, creates hazards."

"This thing really went out of it's way to be as inconvenient as possible." Chris growled.

"Are you mad?" Alam asked, seemingly genuine offence in his tone. Chris gave him a sarcastic grin.

"Right… sorry I guess it might have been worse if it had hit the moon."

"The impact could have been on the seventy percent of the Earth surface covered by water or a it could have fallen into the hands of an enemy state."

He muttered something dark in his native tongue before continuing.

"God willing this gift has come to us atthe best possible place and time. That we found this before anyone else is most fortunate."

His sister smiled pleasantly. "It is nice to get away from civilization once and a while. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Any break from time in the OASIS is appreciated." Sorrento said. Chris laughed and the businessman fixed his gaze on him.

"Still amusing you am I Mr McLean?"

"I thought a guy like you would be addicted to that stupid game."

"I don't take any pleasure spending time in the modern Opiate of the Masses." Sorrento said, he hadn't dropped his light professional tone but it was clear beneath it he was serious.

"Everyone and their grandmother like to make biting political commentary about 1984. How much the United States resembles Orwell's totalitarian Oceania, but if any of them had actual read a real book every now and then they'd realized we're living in something closer to Huxley's World State."

"Are we?" Natalie asked, humoured.

"We are. That stupid game as McLean's coined it is the center of it all. There's all this modern pessimism about the Oil Crisis and the over reached of multinational conglomerates, something we at IOI find blown out of proportion might I add. But either of these could have been solved extremely easily provided there were more people like you Doctor, doing science in the real world. Where's the funding for these sorts of projects? Or the brainpower?"

"In the OASIS." Chris said. Sorrento grinned.

"Lost in Never Never Land. A civilization scale brain drain without migration. People don't take any real risks anymore I'm afraid. They're too busy being absorbed in their fantasies. Drugged up on cheap dopamine highs instead of doing anything productive in the job market."

He chuckled darkly and quoted.

"O Brave New World, that has such people in it."

"That is western centric thinking." Alam insisted. "The rest of the world is suffering beyond America, and most of them do not have your fancy video game."

"There's always an equivalent." Sorrento said. "Social Media, Religious fundamentalism, Nationalists, but OASIS is the most pressing. It's the primary vice of the United States and not to brag Mr Rzayev but we Americans were the lynchpin of the global economy until Halliday ruined us. It brings to mind Juvenal's satire on Rome before it's decline.

Satire Ten in part, they shed their sense of responsibility long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob that used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything, curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only, panem et circenses, Bread and circuses."

"Well, that's more original that the 'literally 1984!' crowd." Chris admitted. "But uh… slight issue there. You having that much of a problem with the OASIS is something I can sympathize with deeply, but you do realize you selling it to your corporate overlords won't get rid of it, right dude?"

Nolan Sorrento laughed heartly.

"IOI has plans… and so do I." His eyes swept the craft, judging everyone present. "Since this whole trip never happened none of you heard this from me, but there's rumours will say of an off switch of sorts Halliday buried in the code."

"One that could shut down the game?" Chris said.

"Shut it down, Permanently."

It was Chris's turn to laugh. Newfound respect for Sorrento following through him.

"Dude! You ever find that button, hit me up! I'll open my best Cognac and will toast to a bettered humanity."

For the first time Sorrento's smile extended to his eyes.

"I'd like that. It's nice to finally find a sympathetic ear."

"Oh dude, I was the original Halliday hater long before you were born! You know I meet up before he was famous in 2007?"

"Save the story." Alam said. "We're landing!"

They bundled themselves as tightly as they could and stepped out onto the Greenlandic Ice Sheet. The ground was a flat glacial expanse of solid ice. Visibly was low but from what they could see the camp was comprised of several tents and prefabricated structures with tunnels extending into the ice.

Fighting against the wind a man approached them, Asian by the look of what they could see under his winter wear. He was also smiling very proudly.

"Chris McLean, Nolan Sorrento, This is our head geologist." Natalie explained. "He was the one that first made the discovery here at the site."

"Gentleman! May I humbly welcome you both to Greenland!" The Scientist practically cried. The was a passive expression of joy he put into every word and movement as he reached forward to shake their hands vigorously. "Li Zhiyuan, best geologist at Copenhagen University and Chinese Academy of Sciences before that."

Both men stopped shaking his hand immediately.

"You're Chinese?" Sorrento asked.

"Defected." Li said. "My loyalties lie with the West and with what is being done here. What miracles we have to show you."

"On behalf of IOI we're very happy to see them." Sorrento said, his cheerful tone had solidified back into the artificial business voice. "Shall we see the meteor now?"

"Very soon." Li assured him. "Let's get you settled in first. dinner and a decontamination shower."

"What?" Chris asked.

…

The shower heads were harsh but at least they were warm. That was the thought Chris used to comfort himself as he was subjected to it. So, as they had descended into the base he had been swarmed by lab assistants, they had taken his clothing to be disinfected and he had been forced to take a myriad of blood samples and retinal scans and other privacy invading procedures.

"I thought we agreed no paper trail!" He wined.

"Internal trails are fine, we just don't want information getting out." The Doctor tending to him said as they retrieved a syringe from the tray next to them. "Left arm please."

…

"I apologize for the very tight security." Professor Li said when they finally sat down for dinner. The meal was some rehydrated survivalist food, hardly better than an MRE.

"…and for the minimal living conditions. Our study of the Karliq is top secret and must be completed as efficiently as possible."

"Greenland is one of the fastest warming places in the world." Alam added. "By the Polar Summer the glacier will have destabilized to the extent a base here will no unfeasible."

"Professor Li has been here on site since first discovery and will remain here until the spring thaw." Alea said.

"I admire your dedication to your craft Professor Li." Sorrento said. "Braving the most remote part of the Arctic for the entirety of winter is no easy task I'd imagine."

"Thank you, Mr Sorrento, but it's nothing I'm not used to. I have lived in harsher conditions back in China."

Sorrento raised an eyebrow intrigued.

"That bad over there?"

Li smiled grimly.

"Worse."

At that the Professor launched into a long discussion of his upbringing. He had been born in 2006 in Baotou, a polluted Chinese mining town on the steppes of Inner Mongolia. He remembered his childhood as prosperous times but they had quickly vanished when he was ten with the Covid pandemic and the centralization of power around the then chairman, Xi Jinping.

Like most of his countrymen Li first instinct was to dismiss his nations problems on Westerners. It was only when Chairman Xi passed from prostate cancer in 2029 and Chen Quanguo became chairman that he lost his faith in the Chinese Communist Party.

"Almost immediately upon his accension Chairmen Chen launched the invasion of Taiwan Xi Jinping had spent his life plotting."

Li sipped his tea somberly.

"It was a disaster. The CCP hadn't been at war since it lost to Vietnam in 1979. We had no proper training and the Taiwanese had been waiting for us since 1949. It was a massacre. Four years trying to get a beachhead only then to face partisans in the mountains. So many little solider boys never came home to their families. Even once we had taken the island the PLA razed nearly everything to the ground. Han Chinese slaughtered like cattle, ancient dynastic relics that had survived the Cultural Revolution were destroyed. It was the final nail in the degradation of our relations with the west. China became a pariah state, made worse when the nuclear war with India began. The Himalayan Plateau protected us from the worst of their bombs but there were still some that found their targets in Yunnan and Szechuan. Both of those exasperated the demographic collapse that was already occurring…"

He waved a hand defeatedly.

"It was finally too much for my people."

"I seem to recall the western media reporting something about a failed student uprising around that time." Sorrento said.

Li sighed bitterly and passed his empty tea cup to Alea to take away.

"Tiananmen Square was overshadowed that day. There was no hesitation from the soldiers this time. Chen had them fire on the students the moment they began to protest. Even more of China's youth dying. They had to begin sending young women into state sponsored breeding chambers. We had lived in denial for so long before that about the nature of who was ruling us, but those years made it clear to even the most ignorant. Even after Chen was deposed by his fellow members of the inner party and Bo Mùyáng became Chairman, we knew. The people in power were heartless demons, corrupted by the poison of Marxism. They could do whatever they pleased to us and we the common citizen were powerless to stop them."

Alea brought him a fresh cup of tea, he smiled graciously and thanked her in Chinese, she responded in kind.

Li went on to explain that the Rzayevs were his protégés. They were from Azerbaijan, a post Soviet one-party state in the Caucasus mountains, between Russia and Iran. Azerbaijan had been long known as for its rich deposits of hydrocarbons. The capital Baku had been the Soviet Union's oil capital for the entirety of its history. So important had Azerbaijani oil been to the Soviet economy that the decisive Battle of Stalingrad had been fought in 1943 to prevent the German Wehrmacht from reaching its oil fields. The Rzayev family had been prominent in the fields of earth science and geology since Soviet times. They had been raised lavishly in the luxury of Baku, the Paris of the East, and had repeatedly won the favour of Azerbaijan's post independence ruling family, the Aliyevs.

Both Alea and Alam had been naturally gifted in the family field and had graduated with high honours from Baku State University before being granted the opportunity to study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"After the fall of Turkey and Russia Azerbaijan's closest allies have been Iran and China." Alam explained. "The opportunity to study in Beijing was a privilege, however…" He took his sister's hand. "…as Shiite Muslims the godless communists in China looked down on us."

"Li was one of the few authority figures that was kind to us." Alea said. "He had been there for nearly two decades at that time. His influence protected us, and when a chance to defect to the Europeans presented itself, he brought us with him."

"It was the best discission of my life." Li said. "Europe will never be home but I was able to connect to the Chinese diaspora, discover the ancient secrets of our millennium old culture that the Party had tried to force us to forget. I learnt of the Qiqong, of the traditional ways. Learnt the teachings of the cleric Li Hongzhi and all the gifts of knowledge he inspired in mankind. I regret I was not able to learn such things in my home country of course but I knew there were greater opportunities for us here than home. Especially when the universe delivered on to us the Karliq."

A smile grew uncomfortably wide on his lips.

"My friends, my beautiful friends, how blessed have we been to have discovered the Karliq."

He laughed ecstatically. Chris didn't like the sound of it. He had no trouble believing the man to be a born-again zealot. There was a dangerous fanaticism beneath his tranquil eyes.

Not for the first time Chris wondered if coming here had been a mistake, he exchanged a look with Sorrento. The Businessman's poker face was top notch but beneath it he had reason to believe he had the same misgivings as Chris.

"Alright there Li, we're not here to give a sermon or hear you flapping your gums away about politics half way round the Earth." Natalie said. "They're here to see what found."

"Thank you, Campbell!" Chris said relieved. "Now if it's alright with you I'd live to see this 'miracle' I was dragged all this way for."

Li nodded.

"Of course."

…

The blizzard had stopped when Campbell led them out of the tunnels. It hardly made things warmer, though the temperature was actually a few degrees higher than it had been in Iqaluit.

They were led into snowmobiles speeding off through the endless night until they reached a ledge.

"This is the edge of the impact site." Natalie said. "We'll get some flood lights going once we've summitted. You boys are our first guests, we want to give you a good show."

She led them to a metal stairway. As they climbed the doctor chuckled to herself.

"A little something to think about before you see this gentlemen. One thing all of human kind is bleedin' shite at is scale. Being blind used to help me with that. Take the stars, even in the best of cases you can only see five thousand of them in night sky. Not a lot really? That's maybe the same number of people you'll speak to in your life time, which is microscopic compared to everyone out there. Even the tiniest nations, the microstates in Europe, the sinking island republics in the Pacific, they all have more people than that. Here in Greenland there's well over fifty thousand. Then there were places like India, China or that sort that used to have a billion.

Problem is humans, we think additively, and we're not built to comprehend anything bigger than a few thousand. We think say, the distance between a thousand and million is the same as a million and a billion but we're wrong! It's just our language tricking us! A billion's larger in ways people don't even know! A thousand seconds is sixteen minutes, but a billion seconds? Thirty years!" To say nothing of a trillion, or a quadrillion or quintillion. Higher and higher.

People have absolutely no comprehension of the size of those numbers. They talk of things like the leap between Ten to the Power of forty and Ten to the Power of forty-one like it's the same as forty and forty-one, But to get to Ten to the Power of Forty One you have to reach Ten to the Power of Forty a thousand times! Every jump is multiplicative not additive!

Our language is like that with space as well. We think we know how big the sky is by looking up at the five thousand things we can see, but in our galaxy alone there's a hundred billion stars! Maybe more, and there's somewhere between a two hundred billion and twenty trillion galaxies in our universe alone! Each of them with just as many stars in them as our own. To think just over a hundred years ago we thought there was only the Milky Way out there."

They reached the top. An observation post had been built there. The gaping crater before them was too dark to see into.

"Gentlemen I may not be as god fearing as Professor Li, but let it be known damn well that we are an impossibly tiny spec, on an impossibly tiny spec in the unfeeling abyss that is nature. We are a young and tiny civilization, and there is so much for us still to know."

"I suppose this is all your grandiose way of saying that Asteroid Karliq is of interstellar origin?" Sorrento guessed.

Natalie sneered at him.

"If I recall Sorrento, you're the only one that's been calling the Karliq an asteroid."

The floodlights surrounding them came alive, and every thought Chris had ever had was forcefully ripped out of him.

…

"Please tell me you're making this up." Paisley said. Kayla had almost forgotten she was there, so absorbed she had been in Chris's story. Her friend looked deeply disturbed. "You need to tell us right now this is all just lore for the next season."

Chris gave her a pitying look and handed her the folder he had been holding since his story began.

"What is this?" She asked without looking.

"A little souvenir." Chris said. "Words don't really do the Karliq justice…. I think it's better if you girls saw for yourselves."

Kayla watched Paisley open the folder suspiciously. She took one long look at the first set of pictures then forcefully shoved the files at Kayla and put her head in her hands.

Kayla looked herself.

She had been of course, raised in fiction. Reality had never been kind to her so she was more used to the worlds of stories. She had also been a contestant in Endless, so she was used to seeing the fantastical in life like detail.

Naturally then it took some time for the implications of the photos to register. Her eyes took in and thought little of the landscape of the crash site, the remnants of the main structure still intact and wreckage surrounding it. Instead, she turned her focus and again, read several sentences before the realisation her. She reread the first few words she had seen.

"…force of impact is thought to have been great enough to puncture ice sheet and embed the nose of the ship in subglacial bedrock."

All of it hit at once.

Ship.

Everything went numb in Kayla's mind.

"That's a real alien spaceship." She croaked.

Chris winced.

"Close."

Paisley gave him a hollow look.

"What do you mean?"

"Well spaceship would imply it's supposed to fly in space. Before it crashed The Karliq flew in the space between spaces."

He grinned macabrely at them.

"Fastest way to get between universes you see?"

…

There was nothing human in the architecture of the Karliq.

Somewhere in Chris's spiraling mind that tiny spec of cognitive thought reached him. Every piece of logical reasoning within him was firing in vain, trying to make sense what he saw. Trying to find some human explanation for the jutting tower and buttresses of some ceramic-metallic material in the centre of the crater. Somehow, someway this sprawling wreck was something his civilization had left, something his species had made. But he could find no way to excuse the Karliq. The iron-clad grip its existence had on him siphoned the heat from his body in a way that would make the biting artic weather writhe in jealousy.

He could feel the weight of those shapes below ripping away his higher functioning, it left him lobotomized. Jabbering nonsense like a patient of some 19th century asylum.

Beside him Sorrento had been frozen to ice, the businessman rigid as a statue. Behind them Doctor Campbell was beside herself.

"Asteroid it is!" She cackled. "Now I might be a wee blind woman so I don't know for sure, but that don't look like a feckin' space rock now, don't it?"

…

Chris hadn't regained his composure by the time Natalie had ushered them to the camp's main laboratory. Professor Li and the Rzayevs were waiting for them. The wild elation bounding behind the geologists square rimmed glasses felt like it had gained an entirely new depth to it.

"Beautiful it's it?" He breathed fervently.

"It's a spaceship!" Chris blurted out half deliriously. Li's gaze twinkled with humour.

"I understand this is all very overwhelming. You both are far more composed than I was when we first saw the crash site."

"The uh-"

Sorrento's voice had cracked terribly. He cleared is throat and manage to return to something close enough to a controlled tone.

"The shock comes in waves but I have to congratulate your team Professor Li on this once in a civilization discovery."

"Thank fate for guiding us to it." Li said.

"Mr McLean could I interest you in a doggy bag?" Natalie asked, still baring a smirk. "You seem a bit peely wally."

"Who? Me? No, I'm great dude!" Chris squawked. "I mean…HOW!? But also like…. why show me this?"

"I told you I'm an old fan!" Natalie laughed. Chris made an incoherent noise.

Sorrento turned to Li

"How much do you know so far about the ship?"

"We've had to work fast but we've accomplished much in the last month."

He set down a device on the lab table next to them. A holograph appeared. The indistinct shape of the Karliq glowing in the air. Surprisingly it looked wider at the front then the back.

"Ice penetrating radar has shown us the full extend of the Karliq. Right now, our estimates put it at two kilometres long, two kilometres tall and a single kilometre wide."

"From this angle it looks more like a church than a ship."

"My sister has been gotten everyone referring to it as a war cathedral." Alam said. Sorrento's expression darkened.

"It's military?"

"That's the current hypnosis." Alea said. "Though it's carrying very little of what we recognize as exterior weaponry. Natalie has suggested the Karliq was a transport vessel for infantry. Possibly a penal legion of former convicts."

Natalie pulled up to more smaller displays. From them came visions of dark and alien chambers.

"Society seems theocratic. We've done a few manned expeditions into the ship. Some of the first things we found were these two large altars. We were calling them the Aenir and the Vanir rooms up until a few weeks ago when we noticed the latter's devolved entirely to a single god, Ulvi Mubarek."

Sorrento looked impressed.

"You already have some of their language deciphered?"

Both women in the room chuckled.

"It's Azerbaijani." Natalie explained. "Means 'Highly Blessed'. Alea's been amusing herself by coining some of the terms in her native tongue. Karliq means 'Bootleg' I believe. Is that right lass?"

"The closest English translation is 'deaf' actually." Alea said. "As in the how world is deaf to this remarkable revelation."

"My sister has also coined the name of the principal species within the Karliq. The Fiseng." Alam said. It was remarkable how unemotional the man sounded given the current circumstance. "…And she has taken the liberty of naming three of the individuals we most hope to recover. Their head priest Yalan, their commander of the soldiers, Gilqameş and the captain, Yerdəyişmə."

"Never liked that last one myself. Can never pronounced it right." Natalie said. "I just call the whalloper Yerdey Yisme."

"Have you already recovered any cadavers of these Fiseng you call them?" Sorrento asked in a measured tone.

Natalie gestured to a lab separated from theirs by a glass window. Two scientists in hazmat suits entered and removed something from a tank of dry ice, setting it on a table near the window for them to see.

The Fiseng was a metre long. The torso was vaguely humanoid but its texture was soft and porous like the skin of an octopus, there were also two long tentacled armed attached to it, further giving justice to the comparison. The legs were small and numerous like those of a crustacean. The head round, with two beady black eyes and a small beaked mouth.

"Handsome devil, isn't he?" Natalie asked. "Normally they wear veils over their faces and skirts round their waists."

She made to continue, then paused. The entire room turned its attention to Chris who was now doubled over, racked with maniacal laughter.

"Mr McLean if you need some air for a moment…" Li began to offer.

"I told you I'm FINE!" Chris was practically shouting with hysteria. "No it's awesome, right guys! An alien warship full of fanatical soldiers' crash lands on Earth and we're all just STOKED about it! I got that right?! No thoughts about implications! Possible coming invasion fleet!? NEVER HEARD OF IT! We're all just excited to see the aliens!"

"If it's some consolidation the Karliq never intended to land on Earth." Li said pleasantly. "…And we have reason to suspect Captain Yerdey and his perky assistant were… something of a rogue agent within the Fiseng hierarchy. Chances of a rescue mission seem… very low."

"How do you know that man!?" Chris asked distrustfully.

Natalie was smirking again.

"Easy! We listened to the blackbox."

The room was filled with grabbled static. Voices slowly became distinct from the white noise. Two stood out, a vaguely male, vaguely Caribbean voice and one more feminine. The background noise became a far more distinct din of chaos. Voices shouting, the ship rumbling, sirens blaring. The primary voice chortled shortly.

"….ah the sweet sound of something going wrong that's not even REMOTELY MY FAULT!"

"I'M SORRY BOSS! I'M SO, SO SORRY! I DIDN'T KNOW! I DIDN'T KNOW!"

His female counterpart sounded hysterical.

"What did I tell you about touching the controls!?"

"SORRY! SORRY! SORRY! Boss I thought after-"

The recording degraded into static briefly.

"…we'd find another place like my home and try it again!"

"I said we were going to-" More Static "-NOT-" Again it broke up.

"…But that world seemed so small! And it was surrounding by nothing, and had people like me! I thought-"

"Listen Perk, next time how about next time instead of thinking... you look and pay attention WHEN YOU STEER US INTO A REALITY DIRECTLY FORBADE BY ULVI MUBAREK!"

"I DIDN'T KNOO-HO-HO!"

"NOOOOO! REALLY PERKY!? YOU DON'T SAY!"

A third voice made itself known.

"Sir! The Prisoner has escaped."

"Oh Mama!"

Banging sounds could be heard somewhere distant.

"Sir?"

"Oh Aenir of Torment will you get off my ass!? Tell Gilqameş to stop messing around and kill that thing already!"

"Actually… I…"

"What!?"

"Gilqameş has fallen sir."

A hush fell over the room as the captain cursed his many gods. The female voice was weeping now.

"We're gonna die and it's all my fault!"

"Easy Perky..." The captain's seemed to have collected himself now. "If we could escape that chicanery back on your world, we can get throw this. YOU HERE ME!?" He was speaking to the whole room now. "We're the 2801st Legion! Nothing's ever our fault! Nothing's ever a loss! We never retreat we just advance in a different direction, and by the might of Fiseng we're gonna advance out of-"

"THE PRISONER'S OUTSIDE!"

There was a series of horrified sounds as the room descended into anarchy. For about a minute all that could be heard was distant violence. Then a new voice made itself heard.

"Right then… which one of you nasty little buggers is gonna tell me how to steer this monstrosity?"

"GET AWAY FROM THOSE CONTROLS!"

"Shut it! Or tell me how it works! This here? That's some sort of control panel is it? Bloody Hell the décor on this nightmare. I almost don't want to sullen my hands on it."

"THEN STOP TOUCHING IT YOU ABSOLUTE-"

"If you didn't want me here you should have thought twice before mucking about on my world…which is exactly where we'll be off to now!"

They hear the sound of something firing up. Then the captain screeching in alarm.

"THAT'S NOT YOUR WORLD! THAT'S NO-"

There was terrible deafening noise.

There was a terrible thunderous silence.

Li turned off the recording. Chris's heart was palpitating dangerously. Sorrento's expression had only hardened further.

"They speak English?" He noted with surprise. "…and use the names you gave them?"

"Oh yes." Natalie said. "Oddest thing about it is I've we listened to that recording before and after Alea named some of the individuals and the recording changed accordingly."

"The Karliq's and it's crew's relation to reality are vexing." Professor Li said. "We've encountered some very strange anomalies within the machine, universal standards such as the laws of gravity are far more pliable within the hull, even the impact radius is as Natalie pointed out completely at odds with conventional physics."

"Too intact." Natalie agreed.

"The ship?" Chris whimpered.

"The planet!" Said Campbell. "This is a two-kilometre object we're taking about. Daft thing was going far past relativistic speeds! That much kinetic energy should have shattered the entire Earth! But it didn't. The Karliq don't play by our universe's rules lads, because it's not from our universe!"

Somehow, Chris's stricken heart grew even more distressed.

"Is that the current hypothesis or do you have something to back that up?" Sorrento asked. If it hadn't been for the visor Natalie's eyes would have likely shone with a mischievous glee.

"Aye…gentleman. The prisoner."

"Oh good!" Chris said almost hysterical as the Perky girl. "I was wondering when we we're gonna bring that up. Glad to known you don't have some Xenomorph on the loose, really calms the nerves. Now tell me it's dead!"

To his alarm the staff we're wheeling another body bag towards them on a gurney, this one it seemed they felt was safe enough to bring outside quarantine. Chris disagreed strongly. He made to protest then stopped abruptly.

Natalie had opened the bag. Chris had expected a monster. Partly he was right, half the corpse was crystallized amalgamation of a humanoid figure, obscured the runaway growth of orange geodes.

The other half of the body was what really messed with his psyche. That half had sandy blonde hair, a Caucasian completion, and unremarkable looking clothes.

It was human, utterly. Someone Chris could have seen on the streets. Some how it made it worse than if it had been a monster.

"Say hello to Roy." Natalie said.

"He's from Earth?" Sorrento asked. The scientist nodded.

"Mostly correct. See he's just not from our Earth."

She pulled up another window on the holographic display.

"We found his wallet in those baggy cargo pants he's got on. He's a British citizen, mid twenties, and attending college in England. He's IDs' licence is up to date. Current date in his world? Approximately 2001."

She grinned at Chris.

"Shame he was killed on impact. He might have recognized you McLean."

Sorrento's face contorted with deep thought.

"I'll go ahead and assume you realise the staggering implications of this? I mean… the doors this open. Theories like Multiverse that live only exist in philosophy are about to be made hard scientific fact."

"Potentially. Though it may be a sign of even greater destinies." Li said dreamily. "There are more Earths beyond the Heavens. Do you gentlemen have any concept of that? Many Worlds may be true."

"This isn't by necessity Many Worlds. That's a theory in quantum mechanics. I've studied some abstract concepts researching Halliday in my day, reclusive atheist geek he was he occasionally dabbled in multiverse philosophises. What you're proposing would potentially be a true multiverse in line with David Lewis's 1986 concept of modal realism. All possible worlds existing coherently in physical space. Hell, with the anomalies as you're calling them aboard the ship that could be sign of extended modal realism. That would include both possible and impossible worlds as real in part of an either infinite or near infinite causality.

The implications of that on the world would be earth shattering, it be the biggest moment in our species development without rival. That'd be true even if all the proof we'll ever have of it is these corpses… Unless…"

He turned his full attention to Campbell.

"…You've already found a way in the wreck to reopen the gate these things came through?"

Natalie grinned broadly and changed the holograph once more so that the full focus was on the ship.

"Something that's been missing so far in our mapping of the Karliq's internals is any sort of propulsion system. We've found ship's power of course. That's all fusion and we've already learned enough from those to start solving the global energy crisis. But the actual engine of the ship? Nothing so far, but we've got a theory."

Her hand flickered to a highlighted chamber in the interior of the ship.

"That chamber there? That's been sealed since we found it. First, we thought it was Roy's holding cell, but there'd have been a hole in the side. Then we noticed that whatever's in there it's producing massive amounts of energy.

If it's the reality drive, and as intact as the rest of the ship, or if we can reserve engineer it then that'll be that boys. No more shortages or suffering or any of those pesky modern concerns. Like Sorrento says. We could have everything at our fingertips. No catch to it."

Sorrento's eyes born transfixed into the holographic object.

"No shit…"

He slowly began to laugh.

"You folks really did find the Holy Grail here huh fellas? I am most definitely impressed by all this… Although I have to admit as an American, the concept of all this limitless power going to the European Federation is uncomfortable."

Natalie scoffed.

"What's Brussels got to do with this?"

Sorrento was caught slightly off guard. He raised an eyebrow.

"You're on their bankroll, aren't you?"

Natalie cackled.

"Fuck's that matter?"

"Erm… yes well…"

"Are you really so daft that you think we'd let the government find out about this? No one hears about this you understand? Not Brussels or Washington, Not Moscow or Beijing, Not even Ottawa or Nuuk! None of them can be trusted. You've any idea what those kinds of people would do with the Karliq?"

"It'd be their greatest weapon." Li said morosely.

"Exactly!" Exclaimed Natalie.

The humour had gone from her voice. She was pacing now. Whipped into a fury.

"Politicians." She said it like it was a slur, voice dripping with scorn. "What's those blighter's ever done for their common man? Nothing!? They don't care for nothing but lining their pockets! Blame that glaikit game of Halliday's all you want Nolan!" She had spun on her heels and waved a finger in his face. "It's those feckin' idiots fault the world's got to shite! Selfish bastards are all relics from different age. Here Mr Sorrento we've the opportunity to have a hard reset."

"Fortune has gifted us the Karliq." Li said. "It is a sign from the heavens that the world must be rebalanced."

"Aye! Right you are! When Plato first envision his Republic, he saw it ruled over by the wisest of the land, the Philosopher Kings he called them. Never has it been put to practice. Plenty intellects have had lofty dreams but there was always some idiot with a bigger gun to force them down."

"But now we have the biggest gun." Alam said almost hungrily. "We have the greatest tool the world's ever seen. One to rewrite reality. Set the world right."

"Let me guess…" Chris said. "…the people to determine that will be…"

"…Yours's truly." Natalie said with mock humility. "…and those we deem can withhold the same unbiases view on things."

…

Chris interrupted his own story with a fit of hollow laughter.

"IDIOTS!" He roared. "How proud they were of themselves. They were the only one's that knew what was best for the world!"

He slammed a fist on the table.

"Every last tyrant the world's ever seen had said the same thing! Those people really thought they're the exceptions!? Please! Professor Li Zhiyuan has beliefs tied to the Falun Gong cult! The Rzayevs are by their own admission closely linked to the dictatorship back in Azerbaijan and like most of their government have genocidal aspirations for neighbouring Armenia! Campbell has delusions of self grander! And Sorrento I don't think I need to prove doesn't have a moral compass; everyone knows about the things he did working with IOI! But oh! Just because they'd stubbled upon a wonder weapon now they're the one's wise enough to use it for the greater good."

He cackled again.

"God what a cancer we are as a species. CHEF!"

One of the robots emerged with a glass of whiskey. Chris took it without thanks. He locked eyes with the girls and jerked a thumb at the machine.

"People get spooked these things are due to replace us. I say they couldn't do any worse than we have."

He drained half his glass then erupted into a hacking cough.

"Campbell… I was the only one there to see the madness of it all. Knew how little we belonged there. Not that knowing did me any good. I was at there mercy now.

They talked a while longer, told us we'd be given a tour of the ship's interior in the morning, set us away to get some rest and that was that. No arguing about it. Our lives we're in the hands of that mad woman and her zealots. All those years of having control over people as host, I never truly appreciated what it felt to be powerless until that day.

I spent most of the night laying in my bunk, soaked through with a cold sweat. Dread permeated my body. It was so thick up there you could almost see it in the arctic air. That ship… words and pictures don't do justice to what it was like to be near it. It was a scar on reality, the wrongness of it went right through you and lingered there. If either of you girls have ever been somewhere in the wake of some evil, a crime scene, a disaster you know the feeling. That deep sense of nausea death's shadow casts in the body. This was that but far worse, it was the whispering of death, but on a grand scale. The death of all order in our world, and with that little smile of her's Campbell had told me and Sorrento we'd be going into the heart of it and sent us of to bed.

I've never sympathized more with you, the contestants, more than that night.

…

Chris kept forgetting to ask how many people were at this this site, he remembered as a researcher he'd never seen before taped him into his suit.

The suits were like something between winter wear and a hazmat suit. All the layers of protection were doing little to calm his nerves, much for the same reason the two-armed escorts weren't bringing him comfort. All this safety precautious wouldn't have been necessary if their wasn't a risk inside the ship.

His thoughts drifted enviously to Sorrento whom seemly had already climatized to this new reality of gods and monsters. He considered bitterly that perhaps all that time in the OASIS and its lifelike wonders had conditioned everyone but him to accept the fantastical more readily. Or perhaps Sorrento was merely goal oriented, a career business man with lofty aspirations that had no time for potentially psychologically damaging philosophizing.

Then there was the third hypothesis, one Chris was growing quite confident it. That this hideous ship seemed to be a beacon for crazy people.

"Are you alright Mr McLean?" The researcher.

"I'm great! Thanks." Chris replied unconvincingly.

"If you're feeling overwhelmed Mr McLean please let us know." Alea urged. "The landscape inside the Karliq can be suggestable to mood. Those who experience a comprised mental state within are the most likely to be deemed irretrievable."

"Remind me why people need to be going in there instead of like a drone or telebot?" Chris asked trying to sound conversational.

"Difficulties in transmitting a signal." Natalie said. "Though personal radios seem to be an exception."

"What do you suppose is the connection there?" Sorrento asked.

"As Alea says the space within the Karliq is far more open to suggestion than normal reality. But nothing to get your knickers in a knot over. The chambers you'll be touring have been priorly surveyed. Perfectly safe, all of it."

Privately Chris scoffed at that. He'd been using the same lie on teenagers for almost half a century.

…

The facility had dug a tunnel through the glacier leading to a crack in the ship's fuselage, that was according to Campbell the main entry and exit shaft. An air lock had been set up just outside, creating a hard separation between the mundane and the alien. Campbell, Li and the most of the staff left them at the air lock, they'd be communicating over radios. Alea and Alam would be their guides, accompanied by four harden guards carrying high calibre rifles.

Alea when first in then turned back to them.

"Ready gentlemen?"

Chris inhaled sharply and he and Sorrento followed her inside. At once a sensation passed straight through every protective layer of suit and penetrated down to the core of his being. Every part of his nervous system was all trying to file the same report at once, that of a warm dreamlike numbness in all parts of his body. He shuttered. In his ear Campbell was laughing.

"Gives you the jitters don't it? Everyone gets them the first time."

"What's the atmospheric conditions like in here?" Sorrento asked. "Is it breathable to humans or was that Roy guy stranger than he looked?"

"Inconclusive." Campbell said. "Every time we pull out a sample it turns to air, yet the Fiseng seemed to be built for an aquatic environment."

"Really is a hell of find you've got her Campbell." Sorrento said. He looked around appraisingly. The interior of the ship was dimly lit and made of the same vaguely metalloceramic material as the exterior.

"Isn't it?" The scientist sounded humoured. "Mind you're paying attention to Alea for this next part. It tends to gives people the slip when they first try it.

Alea stepped forward further into the ship, then confidently placed a boot on the wall. It stuck. She took another vertical step and was soon standing at a ninety-degree angle. Chris's eyes bulged.

"How-"

"Whatever it Karliq's equivalent is to artificial gravity is still active." Alam said boredly.

"And it's strong enough to overpower the Earth's?" Sorrento said. The Azerbaijani man nodded curtly then followed his sister onto the wall. Somewhat less certainly first Sorrento then Chris followed them. Chris's internal balance staged a great cry of protest as he walked onto the wall, and a wave of nausea past over him before. He fixed his eyes on the rest of the ship to reorient himself. That seemed to help somewhat.

The twins led him down what was actually a vertical shaft but to them down was a horizonal hallway. Furnishings were sparse, the only object in there with them with the Fiseng themselves, or rather dozens upon dozens of their corpses.

"Some of these are Roy's doing." Alam said, anticipating their next question. "Others are result of the impact. Most of them however seemed to have been intentional self-termination."

Chris's throat when dry.

"You wanna run that by us again?"

"They committed ritualistic mass suicide." Alea said.

Chris took cold comfort in the fact that Sorrento seemed as uncomfortable as he was.

"Jesus Christ it's like an alien Jonestown." He hissed. "Why'd they do it?"

"Are findings are inconclusive." Campbell said.

Sorrento exhaled sharply. Then looked around once more.

"Oh Brave New World…" He said in a low voice. "…That has such people in it."

Chris looked down an adjoining hallway. He regretted it even before Alam forcefully turned it away. There amongst the alien bodies there was a corpse of a man in a suit like his own, it was crouched down with its visor shattered. Finger's frozen in their last action, clawing out their owner's eyes.

Again, he heard Sorrento.

"Oh Brave New World…"

The marched further into the hallway. The air was heavy with particulates. They grew more and more dense with every step. Other things, pieces of ruble and bodies were floating in front of him. Chris waved his hand and they flowed away from him as if caught by a current. At once he knew what Campbell had meant, it was now impossible to tell whether the hallway was filled with air or water, it seemed like some combination of both.

"You see why we brought you?" She asked in his headpiece. "Pictures don't to it justice. The Karliq has to be experienced to be believed."

They stopped in front of a broken doorframe and walked into the room beyond.

"Oh god!" Chris cried.

They entered into a vast dimly lit space. The opposite wall was occupied by a vast shrine. There was a statue in the likeness of a Fiseng wearing a tasselled veil and robes, an arm outstretched. Piled at its feet was a mount of corpses. Quietly Chris was deeply grateful their suits didn't allow them to smell this place.

"The chamber of Ulvi Mubarek." Alea said. "…along with the remains of his most devote followers amongst the crew."

"Breathtaking…" Sorrento whispered. Chris turned his head away. The feeling he'd felt in his gut had gotten much stronger in the statue's presences. Instead, he looked at the wall. There his headlamp illumined ornate geometric carvings in the relief, each of them lined with the symbols of what was doubtless the Fiseng writing script. It too was angular and harsh, like Nordic runes. Unlike stone runes these glyphs seemed to be shifting as he looked at them. Chris squinted and saw to that the carvings were faintly animated as well. The entire room was alive and every changing, art moved slowly and words formed and reformed. The sight of it caught Sorrento's eye as well.

"I imagine these would be a nightmare to decipher."

Natalie chuckled in their ears.

"You don't know the half of it. We haven't had time to recruit a designated linguist yet but we've made some small progress. Li says he's got a hunch it's vaguely remanence of Chinese. Li what's the word you used? Logosyllabic?"

"Fiseng cosmology from what we can interoperate so far is henotheistic. In a chamber opposite of these one there are shrines dedicated to Aenir, deities that embody certain concept." Alea said.

"Which concepts?" Asked Sorrento

"The Fiseng believe there is an Aenir for all possible concepts. However, all of them are subjects under Ulvi Mubarek." Alam cast an arm upwards to the statue. "His reign extends to the totally of existence. All worlds are his subjects according to the Fiseng, whether they realise it or not."

Sorrento gave her a quizzical look.

"Is there any proof of that?"

"Just the word of Fiseng."

"And they are wrong in that regard." Alam insisted. "These creatures are technological advanced but spiritually they're nothing more than petty idol worshipers."

"You really sure about that dude?" Chris asked. Alam's nostrils flared.

"there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger." He said stubbornly.

"Forgive my brother, this place brings out his piety."

"Understandable, but just to be on the safe side I'd rather play nice around Cthulhu over there." Sorrento said.

He stepped forward and raises his hands reverently.

"I give tribute to you oh Ulvi Mubarek, most high. May we walk your halls in peace."

"You jeopardize you soul Mr Sorrento." Alam warned.

Sorrento turned back to them, he bore an amused look.

"If spending all day up to my eyes in Gunter culture hasn't already destroyed by mortal soul then I don't think paying lip service to an eldritch god-head is gonna be the thing that pushes me over the edge."

…

The twins led them down another hallway, one that turned and twisted its way through the ship. Away from the central halls the ship was labyrinthine.

Chris was now almost certain they were somehow underwater. Yet turning as he looked down another side hall, he saw open flames. A collect of more men in suits were standing at a dead end, working furiously at the wall with blowtorches.

"Everyday as debris is cleared our navigable section of the ship grows." Alea said. "This next room is our most recent major discovery. Took some time to break through its defenses but we're quite happy with what we found. We believe it explains some of the casualness in which the Fiseng treat death."

She led them through a series of what had once been several security doors and into another tall chamber, there was no sign of worship here. The room was filled by rows upon rows of cloning vats. Each of them houses an individual Fiseng.

"Clones, fascinating." Sorrento said. "I can't help but notice they've seen better days."

It was clear by the cloudy look of the vats and the decaying creatures within that something was wrong with the machines. Some of which had even burst open, their contents floating into the room. Chris swallowed hard. This was proving too much. Alea's warning of a comprised psyche returned to him and his anxiety rose higher still. The image of the corpse with its eyes gouged out difficult to forget.

"The state of this room is puzzling." Alea agreed. "So many questions have been raised by it, whether these individuals match those we've found outside the tanks, whether their liquidation was intentional, whether these are the only backups to exist or if there are more somewhere else."

"…Whether or not every Fiseng on the ship is a genetic clone of the same individual?" Sorrento exposited.

"Genetic samples of multiple cadavers have proven that false." Alam informed him.

"But there's still so much we don't know." Said Alea. "We stand on the percipient between knowledge and ignorance. With every passing discovery new questions are raised. Entire fields of science are being invented here and now. It is a privilege most high, and this gentlemen, this is all without our true miracle maker. The engine"

"McLean are you alright?" One of the guards asked urgently.

Chris's chest felt tight. He found it difficult to focus.

A guard touched his shoulder. With a cry of alarm he instinctively forced himself away from the man and fell hard against one of the vats.

An odd low toned klaxon sounded. The others looked around. Alam muttered low in Azerbaijani.

"Citizen!" Came a commanding voice above them. "The area you've entered is prohibited to all but his Holinesses own race. By the divine order of his majesty Ulvi Muberak you will cease all interference with critical infrastructure or face the consequences of your ill-informed choices!"

"NO ONE TOUCH ANYTHING!" Cried one of the guards, raising her rifle.

Chris staggered to his feet, in doing so he ended up using the broken vat for support. The voice above returned.

"Citizen! Your refusal to take orders speaks for itself. Physical deterrents have now been engaged. Ulvi Muberak's judgement shall be carried out!"

Something activated.

"GET OUT!" One of their group shouted.

There was a low pitch of infrasound that struck with such a force it nearly knocked them off their feet. Chris staggered, crippled by a splitting headache a pain in his chest like it had been pierced by a hot danger.

As he struggled to regain his bearings another shot of terror slammed into him. The floors were moving under their feet, changing. From the tiny grooves between the titles something was emerging, a tiny horde of something alive.

"GET OUT NOW!" Someone cried again.

Chris's legs moved automatically. They gave in to the instinct they'd be fighting since they had entered here and took of, spiriting.

Someone called out to him. Campbell shrieked something in his ear. Gunfire sounded somewhere in the distances. He couldn't truly hear any of it. Fear had taken him, it was driving him forward without a plan deeper into the ship.

He collided with something hard and was knocked to his feet. He looked up to see what he had hit. It was one of the men who they'd passed earlier. The ones with the blowtorches.

"Mr McLean stay calm!" He shouted.

Something moving behind the man's shoulder caught Chris's eye and he screamed. The man looked behind him and cried as well.

Tiny metallic insects were pouring from the walls and amassing behind them. They flowed together in the air one mindedly. Clicking with anger.

The other man cursed and raised his torch.

"Stay with me McLean."

"Are you insane!?" Chris yelped.

"We have protocols! This isn't the first time this has happened."

"WHAT!?"

"Don't panic! It'll make things worse McLean! McLean!?"

Chris turned on his heels and ran, the other man screaming after him.

"MCLEAN!"

He couldn't have listened if he'd wanted to now, his mind was giving way to this maddening, his heart and breath pulsed uncontrollably.

Somewhere amongst the panic a rogue thought asserted itself, the fact that he was running down the wall of a vertical shaft struck him.

The laws of the universe righted themselves to fit his thought, and suddenly he was falling. Up and down realised their place in the world and having summoned them his body was now at their mercy as he fell into the abyss.

Tumbling helplessly into the depths of the ship, his leg bounced against a hard surface and there was a loud snap and a blinding flash of pain as it broke. He continued his descent, falling further and further until he landed fall down on a flat surface hard enough to shatter his visor.

He let out a wail of pain and tried to stagger upright on the hard glassy surface he'd landed on. His useless leg crumpled behind him, the raw trauma of it making him hyperventilate.

A fresh surge of pain greater than anything from his leg shot through his chest and he collapsed again. Barely able to breath.

He knew at once what it was, he was having a heart attack, his second. This time though there'd be no fast relief, no doctors or pills. He was all alone, at the bottom of some eldritch stain upon the universe, buried in the ice sheet of the most remote part of Greenland. It was over.

The corners of his vision began to blur and a final terror flooded into him.

"I'm gonna die…"

"I mean your body's only broken if you think it's broken pal. It's kind of mind over matter in here…."

"Who said that?" He croaked.

The strange voice spoke again.

"Don't focus on me dude, focus on healing."

One last gasp of self-righteousness flashed through Chris's dying mind.

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Sweet Muberak help me… You things really are that primitive aren't you? You're in a feverium environment! Reality is a suggestion controlled by your mind!"

"So?"

"What do I have to spoon feed it to you? Get your mind to tell your body to unfuck itself!"

Chris's mind was currently succumbing to a lack of oxygen from his failing heart. He had no time left.

With blind faith he closed his eyes and thought. Told, no, commanded his body to heal.

"It's not working!"

"Start with the heart."

All his energy, everything fibre of his being willed itself into believing his heartrate was slowing. With a sense of wonder, it did. The darkness receded from his vision. The pain slowly leached itself from his chest.

"How'd you do that?" He asked the voice.

"Feverium my dude! Feverium! It's what we call The Void between Worlds! There's energy out there that doesn't obey any of the normal laws of reality, and this ship's still filled with it."

"How does that make me psychic all of a sudden?"

He heard it groan above him somewhere.

"Am I gonna have to spell this out for you again? A consciousness broken free of any given set of physics is only limited by its internal perception of what's real. Doesn't matter how simple that consciousness is. Try your leg."

Chris focused his attention on his leg beneath him, currently sticking out at an odd angle. He grit his teeth and with agonising pain forced it back into the right position. With tenuous confidence he slowly lifted himself back on to his feet.

The leg held its weight. It felt perfect, better than it had for years. He stared at it in disbelief.

"Wow, look at that you didn't manage to fail this most basic task. Great job."

He looked up.

He had fallen all the way to the front of the ship and was standing now on the console of the cockpit. Far above him on the floor, amongst the many corpses there was a single Fiseng still moving, its lower torso pinned by a broken piece of equipment. Chris's eyes went wide.

"You're the captain?"

Beneath it's veil the alien seemed to bristled with pride.

"Nice to hear I've got fans in this place." He chuckled weakly. "Yerdey Yisme! Fearless captain of the Karliq! Notorious everywhere!"

Chris removed his now useless helmet. "Chris McLean, Host of Total Drama." His networking instincts were so ingrained in him they took over without having being asked for.

"I don't care." The alien said flatly. "…hence why I didn't ask."

Now it was Chris's pride that resurrected itself.

"Oh don't you? You crash your ship into my world, and you don't even care when one of the locals come to investigates."

"Firstly, I've got some secret transdimensional wisdom for you, it's called fuck you!" Snarked the squid. "Secondly, we've got protocols for this. Third, nothing's ever my fault. This is all Perky's doing."

He gestures with a tentacle to something near Chris. He looked and let out a cry of shock.

A corpse was pinned to the console by one of Roy's crystals sticking through its chest. She was female, her upper body human with long turquois hair and a slender figure. At her hips began a long fish like tail.

Chris could scarcely believe his eyes. Of everything he'd been shown. This seemed the most fantastical.

"She's a mermaid…" He breathed faintly.

"Yes. That's what she calls it. She's your species but made slightly less primitive."

"I-I-I-I don't understand!" Chris stammered weakly. "How!?"

Yerdey stretched forward and pressed something. A holograph appeared between them. One of the mermaid alive again, swimming happily with the captain.

"Perk and I go way back…" Yerdey said nostalgically. "First thing in the multiverse I meet that looked like you. I did her a favour once and she became devoted to me." He regarded the image of her fondly. "Sure she made some mistakes but we had a good thing. So when she came to be asking to show her world the light of Ulvi Maberak… I don't know… Couldn't say no to that face of hers."

"I thought all worlds already belonged to your god king?" Chris said. Yerdey turned to him, mildly surprised.

"Well, the ape man does know something after all, praise Ulvi! Give the man a cigar!"

He sighed.

"All creation is part of the Fiseng domain, some of them just don't realise it yet, and there're others that just really like being heretics.

Perky's was like that. It's big like this one, only it's not all dead, there the stars are swarming with civilizations, most of them not keen about the Feverium. Perk said she wanted her world to be a new centre of Fiseng influence, help tame the neighbour, maybe hand out flyers to anyone that maybe felt like not being wrong about everything. But it turns out her world was particularly committed to being a pain in my side."

"You lost?"

"I never lose!" The captain declared angrily. "We tacitly retreated. At which point little most goody two fins decides on me it'll be easily if we practice on a simpler world, and proceeds to completely ignore the warnings of the Aenir and steer us straight into the single most dangerous iteration of your planet to exist!"

"…and you lost there too. With one of those… people still aboard." Chris said. "Then he crashed you into my world."

Chris watched as the little mangled cephalopod seethed. Yerdey Yisme pulled back his veil and glared at him with his beady black eyes.

"Was that an annoyingly improbable guess or did you find the blackbox?"

"Blackbox." Chris replied. Yerdey groaned again.

"I'm sorry about all the bum luck." Chris said. It was an odd thing to come from him. He couldn't remember the last time he had truly given someone his condolences. Yerdey gave him a very begrudging sigh.

"Yeah pal… you really should be. Perk's really gonna have a lot to answer for when we get back."

Chris furrowed his brow. The sentence didn't make sense. Perhaps it was whatever strange translation that was happening between them malfunctioning.

"Uh Yerdey? I hate to break it to you if you don't know but your friend's not coming back from that."

The creature blinked at him opaquely.

"She's dead." Chris said bluntly.

"You're just…saying word's now." Was Yerdey's response. "Death. That's like the thing you people do when you go unconscious right?"

Chris could tell the captain was being serious in its ignorance. It struck him all at once how truly alien Yisme was to him. The notion of it made him feel dizzy and he forced it from his mind.

"What happened to your men then?"

"Oh that." Yerdey almost sounded relieved. "Yeah. No offense pal, but at this point this whole thing's a write off. It's not entirely your fault, but crashing here didn't help matters. I gave the order for the platoon to liquate the cloning bay and find a nice corner to off themselves in, cut our loses. We've got backup clones on Home world, consciousness will be transferred but not the most recent memories. Not that anyone's complaining. Sooner I forget this nonsense the better."

"What about your mermaid friend? She gonna respawn?"

"Yes!" Yerdey said shortly. "Everything does. It's the will of Ulvi Mubarek. Seriously your primitiveness is killing me here!"

"Are you… entirely sure?"

"YES!"

Chris glanced back at the corpse thoughtfully.

"Look." Yerdey said. "Don't worry about us. Worry about yourself. I barely saw anything before that idiot Brown crashed the ship. How remote is this place?"

"Pretty far." Chris hesitated. "But there's a group of crazy science types trying to get at your reality engine or whatever they call it."

"Of course they are." Yerdey said impatiently. He studied Chris. "What about you? You said you host something?"

"A reality show. It's like… It's… I'm an entertainer. Not a scientist. I don't why I'm here. I don't know why I'm the first person from my world to talk to an alien lifeform. It doesn't make sense." He laughed deliriously. "Look where I am! Nothing makes sense."

"Have your little panic attack some other time, I'm being serious. My reality drive. Your little scientist's friends think it's their little all-access pass to causality, right?"

"It is?"

Yerdey was blunt. "Yes. You people turn that thing on again, you can go anywhere, or bring anyone to you. No limits on time, or space, or whatever other rules are in your simple little science books. Everything you've ever dreamed of and could never dream of will be yours if you break the security around that thing. What you say to that?"

…

Chris was very solemn now.

"If that offer had been made to me as a young man, I would have taken it. No questions asked. I would have just as gleefully thrown open the lid to Pandora's Box as Campbell wants too.

But I'm not a young man any more, and I wasn't then. I'd seen all the darkness are kind is capable of, through decades of my show, through the news. We humans can be unceasingly cruel, I am no exception to that. I am part of the generation that watched the world die. Over the years I watched as plagues and war and death desecrated any hope for the new millennium, and I took that all in and did nothing! One long life of petty little contests and celebrity gossip. In that moment in the ship, I saw it all flash before me and for the first time I realised how worthless it all was. Nothing I had done in my life had ever meaningfully made an impact.

But now, Yerdey was making me an offer to change all of that, and I considered what that powered might look like in my hands.

…and it terrified me."

…

Chris's breath hung in front of him as he thought. For a few minutes the only sound in the cockpit was that of him breathing.

He hung his head low.

"We're not ready."

The deathless creature above him grunted in satisfaction.

"Good!"

He began rapidly entering commands onto the device he was trapped under. The console Chris was standing on whimpered to life.

"I'm done with trying to help your world, you're too young and stupid for any of this. We normally wait until a civilization establishes itself in the multiverse before we make contact. The last two were already on their way, Perk's planet had already made the reality beneath them unstable by mistake and Roy's was in a universe so tiny it didn't take much for them to go beyond it.

You though? You've got no excuse to get involved with any of this. You're a tiny spec in a vast empty universe. There are sextillions of solar systems available for you to spread into with more resources than you'd ever need. Your world is luckier than most to arise in such a bountiful reality. And you want to know the funniest part? Your species is so mentally archaic that it has all these worlds for itself and can't use any of them because it's too busy fighting over worthless chucks of it's home world in the name of made up nonsense and false gods."

"I thought you said you didn't know anything about our world? Who told you about that?"

"You did. Just now."

Chris scowled, then felt grave, he couldn't rebuke the creature.

A last set of instructions clicked into the console and something emerged from it. Yerdey grabbed it and threw it to Chris.

"Happy Local-Culturally-Important-Gift-Giving-Ceremony!"

Chris, walked down from the console and caught it. Inspecting the tiny object, as his centre of balance shifted 90 degrees. It was scarcely half the size of one of his fingers. A little smooth rectangular object that vaguely reminded Chris of a flash drive.

"What is it?"

"It's a kill switch for the ship's engine. It'll unlock the security systems around it, then you slid it into the machine near the front."

"The what? It falls apart?"

"No! It sets off a controlled implosion that'll take out the ship."

"What!?" Chris yelped. "How much time will I have to get away?"

"Not much, though I don't see how it matters. If anything, this current body you've got disappearing and your clone forgetting all about really makes things easily for me."

"I don't have a clone! If this body goes, I go with it! That's how humans work!"

"I highly doubt that."

"I'm being serious!" Chris pleaded. "I'm not doing this!"

"Fine." Yerdey said shortly. "Then I'll get rid of myself and force to the security systems to manual denote it. Without control!"

"What difference does that make!?"

"It explodes! Instantly… with enough force to leave a crater fifty kilometres wide!"

Chris let out a whimper of terror.

"My engine's got more power in it than your star will put out in it's lifetime!" The Captain growled disapprovingly. "What do you expect it disappear in a puff of daisies? No! If that thing's staying out of you people's hands, then it's got to blow."

Chris was straining now to find the words to get point across.

"I…I Look Yisme! I'm not the guy for this! I can't do this! I'm not the heroic type! I'm the guy that schemes in the background and makes life hell for the heroic types! You've got the wrong guy!"

"This is what disgusts me about you're kind!" Yerdey retorted. "Always too selfish to see the big picture! No one ever wants to risk their sorry hide for anything, even if it's the only thing that'll keeping everyone else out of harm!"

"You don't understand…" Chris pleaded.

"No! You don't!" Yerdey said. "You said yourself everyone else here is too blinded by the possibility of what my ship could do then what is going to do to them. You people reserve engineer my drive and build a portal out of your universe and you'll be a bunch of pillaging barbarians rampaging across causality or you'll blow yourselves up. Maybe both! Either way it's going to result in a whole bunch of paperwork by home I can't be bothered to deal with. I'm scuttling my ship with or without your involvement. You only choice is whether you want a chance to live."

"You said this thing's barely gonna give me a chance to run!" Chris shouted, holding out the kill switch. "How's that the better choice."

"It's a feverium engine we're talking about here. Maybe if you think will it hard enough, it'll give you enough time, or it'll only destroy what you want it to. Who knows! I don't, it's not for me to use. I'm giving it too you as a favour, so quit wining about it!"

"Alright! Alright…" Chris rubbed his temples. "I'm sorry, just… give me some time alright? This… this is a lot…"

Yerdey Yisme, let out a long-pained groan.

"I don't know how much time I have."

"Please…" Chris begged, something unheard of for him. "Please… I'm an old worthless man… Let me gather some strength for this."

"Fine." Yerdey said. "Just don't waste too lon-"

There was an ear-splitting noise and the captain's head ruptured violently into a mist of viscera. Chris let out a sharp cry and staggered backwards.

A wave of his fellow men were pouring in the room. The guards at the front, rifles draw. Following them were the twins and Sorrento, as well as Campbell.

"It's McLean! He's alive!" One of the guards shouted.

Natalie shoved her way to the front at marched up to Chris.

"Doctor Campbell…" He began weakly. She cut up off with a firm slap across his exposed face.

"Forty years of making up your own rules and you're too stupid to follow someone else's!?" She shouted, then struck him again. "Don't panic and listen to the Rzayevs! Didn't we say that was all you had to do you brainless git!"

"Doctor Campbell!" Alam said sharply. "It's the captain!"

"That's not all." His sister said.

The others turned. Alea was standing under Perky's corpse, looking up at it awestruck.

"Oh… she's beautiful…" Sorrento whispered.

"Isn't she?" Alea said. "Was those she mean Doctor?

Campbell turned her head up to the corpse and grinned with satisfaction.

"It means Sorrento's theory has been proven correct."

…

Perky's body when taken from the atmosphere of the Karliq began to emit a dangerous level of radiation. As such she had to be sealed in a special chamber once brought back to base. Not that it dissuaded anyone. Chris could feel the joy brimming in the scientists around him. It still lingered hours later as they were sitting around the main table and discussing the find.

"A mermaid is a creature of folklore." Said Natalie. "A legend that grew from the Sirens of Greek Mythology and other such myths across the world. They have no place on the natural tree of life. No basis in fact. In our universe they're nothing but constructs of the human mind. Impossible!

…and yet, somewhere, in an immeasurably distant place they are real creatures. In that place our fiction is hard fact. Selection Basis dictates that if the multiverse is vast enough for such a specific creation of our minds to spring into existence solely through the laws of probability then it can be argued that anything else we create in our mind can and does exist as well."

"Extended Modal Realism." Sorrento said.

"All legends are true." Said Li in a hushed tone.

"More than that." Campbell insisted. "Ladies, gentlemen, give yourselves a hand, we've just disproven fiction as a scientific concept."

There was a round of applause and celebration.

"What about the engine?" Chris protested weakly. Natalie's visor turned to face him, and subsequently the rest of the room's attention followed.

"Well..." She laughed. "We've more reason to get to it now than ever."

"But what if-"

"McLean you say you spoke briefly with Captain Yisme that correct? Did you managed to get anything useful out of the bugger on his propulsion device?"

"No." Chris lied near instantly. He had hidden the kill switch when the others had found him. "He said using it would destroy us."

"Fearmongering." Campbell said dismissively.

"-He insisted there's no way into the chamber where it's kept." Chris continued. "Said it was entirely impenetrable."

"We'll see about that won't we?" Campbell sneered. "The Arctic night ends in two mouths time, at which point we'll take anything we can from the ship and destroy what's left. Keep it out of anyone else's hands. If we don't have that shitey box open by then we'll take it with us."

"How?" Li asked.

"I don't know! I'll find a way somehow. Even if I have to give a tuggy to a Russian billionaire to borrow his yacht. Even if it takes fifty years to crack it, I'll get that portal gun working. Everything will be worth it. We're going to upend all of human civilization and rewrite it for the better!"

"Professor Campbell, you have IOI's full backing." Sorrento says. "Although as someone who works in public relations, I have to acknowledge how disruptive this would be to the public during the transitionary period into your desired Utopia."

"Nolan makes a good point." Chris said.

"'Course he does." Campbell agreed. "Public relations are exactly why the two of you are here."

"Professor Campbell believes that especially in the west there would be benefits to gradually introducing the concept of transdimensional contact into the public conscious." Li informed them. Sorrento laughed.

"It already is! Superhero comics, TV shows, cartoons. Why do you think Halliday flirted with the concept? The multiverse has been a staple wish fulfillment for nearly a century."

"We want to take advantage at that." Alea said. "Our first goal should the portal works if to establish allies. If we're going to built Utopia, we would be wise to seek guidance from those that have already done it. Plenty such states exist in the worlds of myth and fantasy. Science Fiction and tales of heroes. If Fiction is disproven and such places are real, we'd have much to learn from them."

"And people would comprehend them better." Li said. "It's easier to accept Sun Wukong than it would be some fifth dimensional being made of antihydrogen."

"Better the devil you know than the one you don't." Alam concurred.

"Easiest way to do this is control the media and the corporations. Lord knows that's where the true power is in this day and age." Campbell said. "Nolan IOI's involvement would be a great blessing to us, especially if it wins control over the OASIS through Halliday's contests."

"It will." Sorrento insists.

"It's taking you a while. Been five years nearly since the old man croaked and you still haven't cracked his riddles."

"So what? All those so called "gunters" are a joke. We don't have any real opposition, and we have all the money and resources in the world to spend. Even if it takes ten years, I will win that contest! No matter the cost."

"Good. Because inseminating our discoveries through the OASIS is the simplest way forward." Campbell said firmly. "There's a whole generation in North America that spends every waking moment in a fantasy land. At this rate they'll hardly notice when it all comes true. The other generations are the one's that'll be hard to hard to sell. We'd do with a celebrity endorser. Someone charismatic and used to presenting that the older folk trust."

She nodded to Chris.

"What say you McLean? I'm open to suggestions. Hell, if we work quickly enough you could have a whole multiversal cast for your special little fiftieth season. How'd that sound?"

Chris didn't meet anyone's gaze.

"Yeah… uh… I think that'll be a little gaudy… actually."

"Everything alright McLean?" Sorrento asked.

Chris looked up.

"What if we shouldn't be using this reality engine?"

An uncomfortable laughter reverberated across the room. Sorrento joined them though his eyes narrowed.

"Chris this seems a little out of character for you pal! You sure you didn't hit you're head too hard back there?"

"I just think it's worth considering what we're potentially unleashing here." Chris insisted. "I mean I've seen people do a lot of blind leaps in my lifetime but this is one on a societal level. We should wait until we've sorted out are problems here on Earth first. Spend as much time as we can studying that thing, so we don't open a portal to a death world and doom humanity."

Sorrento drew in a long breath patiently then rose to his feet.

"I see you're point. You care about the world. Seems a very recent development, but your hearts in the right place McLean. I'll give you that. I think everyone agrees with the sentiment.

But there's a lot of very smart people here with a whole lot to worry about…"

He gestured to Li.

"Totalitarian governments…"

He gestured to the twins.

"Unsustainable resource extraction, the energy crisis, runway climate change, growing ethnic tension."

He gestured to himself.

"Addiction and a lowered standard of living."

He folded his hands behind his back.

"None of these things are new by the way. Human civilization is nothing but one long Ouroboros of waste, destruction, and needless misery. It's always been like this, and it's always going to be like this. Now nothing sort of a miracle falls into our laps and you want to store it away in the vain hope we'll be able to manage without it."

"That's the only humane path forward."

Sorrento laughed.

"What do you know about humane Chris McLean?"

"Like you're one to judge? I've heard the rumours about in little slave legions of indentured employees you have at IOI. If they can't pay the debts to the company, they'll work pay free in third world conditions until they drop dead of exhaustion. But I'm the bad guy because I run some shitty little game for teenagers."

"Need I remind you that shitty little game of yours's is owned by IOI McLean? I'd thank you to watch what you say about your parent company." Sorrento said sharply, humour gone from his voice. "The rumours around our indent program is nothing more than that. Rumours. Employees are treated to union grade conditions and are promptly released once their debt's been paid. Even if one of them those die once in a while it's still far less than have been killed by Halliday's doing."

"Who the hell do you know that died because of the OASIS?"

"My sister for one!" Sorrento snapped, momentarily losing his professionalism. He straighten and regained by composure, eyes flickering across the room to check how the others had reacted before he went on.

"Overdosed during the first year of the contest. One of thousands, and that's not counting OASIS related suicides which number in the hundreds weekly. I've the official statistics if you ever want to see them."

He took in another deep breath as he did his nostrils flared.

"Every moment of every day thousands die needlessly cruel and painful deaths. If we choice not to use this machine to help them their blood is on our hands. On your hands McLean."

"Aye." Said Campbell. Her eyeless face turned to Chris and focused intently on him.

"I brought you here McLean because you've got a reputation for being one of the most self-entitled bastards in Hollywood. I figured you'd agree to anything we'd offer you quick enough. Had I known you were gonna try and grow a spine for once I wouldn't have bothered."

"I'm just concerned…"

"Stop being a baby!" Campbell sneered. "I thought you were desperate for work. I offer you the chance to be part of the greatest project in history and you get cold feet about it? How's it possible to be so pathetic?"

"I thought you were a fan?" Chris said woundedly.

"Never meet your heroes." Growled the scientist. "Now I'll go ahead and give you a Mulligan on this conversation. You're going to cooperate with us on saving the world from itself. Do anything we want you to do you do it or give us a better opinion. Now? Are you going to give us more of that pearl-clutching 'Think of the Children' shite? Or are you going to be man I hired for me? The sleezy producer in it for fame in glory."

A room full of judging eyes waited for Chris's response.

…

"As agreed, I told no one about my trip to Greenland. I figured I knew what the consequences would have been if I went public. For how high stakes everything about the Karliq project had been, killing me to cover their tracks didn't seem out of the question."

Chris spoke with the same detached tone he had used to tell his story since he had gotten to the part where Yerdey died.

"It was impossible to go back to my old life, what I'd learned up there made it all feel worthless. I made a single talk show appearance to announce my retirement, then withdrew from public life. Couple mouths later Wade found the Copper Key and everyone forgot about me. Chef Hatchet was my only confidant. I allowed him to continue visiting me for a while but eventually he grew suspicious. He gradually broke down my will and I confessed what I had been a part of it. There were some very strong disagreements between us and are forty years of friendship ended. He was the last person I'd seen in the flesh until today."

Kayla closed the folder he had given her and passed it back to him, mind utterly numb. Behind her somewhere Paisley was pacing.

"Are you girls alright?" He asked.

Kayla was still remembering how to talk. None of this felt real. It had to be a joke, some classic bit of Chris McLean cruelty. But the old host didn't seem to be taking any delight in their fearful looks.

Paisley let out a long drawn out breath. Kayla recognized the tone of it, deep agitation.

"If this is all true. Did Campbell ever get to that machine?"

Chris pursed his lips bitterly and nodded.

"Roy's armour was did it in the end. I think they made a saw of it or something, not sure. But it worked. Even without my key they got in and found Yerdey's engine."

Paisley seemed to process this. Her expression measured.

"Did they turn it on?"

Chris's grin turned grizzly.

"They're close."

He pressed another button on his remote. The screen behind them came back to life, now showing a plethora of schematics and maps.

"Campbell's little Fiseng portal gun as she calls it, it takes a lot of energy to function. Enough to punch a hole in space time. It's taken twelve years just to built the infrastructure for it. She's got several of the fusion reactors her team reserve engineered from the crash site hooked up to a massive particle acceleration feeding into an accelerator. They needed somewhere with a lot of background power generation to not draw attention to themselves so this is all about two hundred metres below Niagara Falls."

Words finally came back to Kayla.

"How do you know all this? I thought you turned them down?"

Chris's grin widened further.

"When did I say that?"

Paisley took a step towards the door. Kayla stammered alarmed.

"But I thought-"

"Oh I haven't changed my mind on anything." Chris glared at the schematics behind them. "This project's the doom of mankind, I stand by that. Campbell's plan for this machine is dystopian at best, apocalyptic at worst. Cooperating with the project was the best way to avoid suspicious, but I assure you I've thought of nothing, but destroying that portal gun."

"So why haven't you?" Paisley challenged. Chris gave her a cold stare. She met his gaze without flinching.

"You had the kill switch, you had access to the site, why haven't you done anything with it?"

"There's still people at that site that question my loyalties. And I am old. I am weak, and let's be honest, I've never been much of a doer myself. No… no. I've had my best results with a crowd far more passionate."

Paisley made for the door again, she found it locked.

"Paisley if I could have you not to that?" Chris requested.

"Unlock this!"

"Please Paisley…"

"No, I know where you're going with this, and it's not happening." She said voice trembling. "Get someone else for your suicide mission, or better yet do it yourself!"

"Believe me I'd love to."

"Yeah bullshit! You're a coward!"

"Yes!" The old man cried, causing her to take pause. "I am coward! I know that! Call me whatever names you like, I've spent the last twelve years calling myself all of them. I am scum! Seventy-Eight years of waste and vanity! But I'm an old man Parker, it's too late for me to change. Even in this one last thing, my one act of charity I need you and your friends to do the most dangerous part."

Paisley faltered, starting and stopping several times as fluctuated between restrained anger and fear.

"Why didn't you just end this back in the arctic?"

"They had eyes on me from the moment I got that switch, even if I was the kind of man capable of that bravery, I never had a chance."

"Stop with the self-pitying shit! You think that's comforting?" Paisley shout back. Chris frowned.

"Forgive me for trying to have a little empath for once." She began to protest, he cut her off. "I get that's it's not fair. I'm sorry. But there's no time left, first testing on the gun is scheduled for the 30th and whether or not you realise it you kids are the best people in the world to stop it."

"Oh really?" Paisley asked. "What's stopping us from going to President with all of this?"

Chris laughed scornfully.

"What? You think getting that Halliday junkie Watts involved is gonna help matters!? The president worship's Saturday morning cartoons like Christ on the cross! You tell him someone's built a portal that could get him to Third Earth or Eternia or where ever else in fiction he wants to go what do imagine is going to happen!?"

Chris tapped the side of his head.

"Think Parker! I brought you kids here because you're suppose to be smart! The only involvement Wade's ever going to have in this is organizing your season for me!"

"So all of Endless was for this!?" Kayla cried.

"Yes!" Chris said impatiently. "I already told you, I've been Wade's advisor behind the scene for over a year now! Every time I needed things to intervene for my plan I did. From pitching the concept at the start to telling him to get you girls those lovely pieces of jewelry you're wearing right now."

Both Kayla and Paisley clutched their lockets, horrified. Chris pulled out his own neckless from inside his shirt, a leather pouch he had worn since the first season. He opened it and something fell into his hands and he held it up to show them.

It was the kill switch Yerdey had given him, it looked to be the perfect size to fit in their lockets.

Kayla felt dizzy, a flood of betrayal had just washed over her.

"Jaxson and Yeong-Ja have already been invited to the lab. Two days from now you and your group go attend the private demonstration, find a distraction and get this switch in the machine."

"…And die!" Paisley interjected loudly.

"Not necessarily!" Chris insisted.

"Yes necessarily!" Paisley cried.

"It's like Yerdey said this thing runs on whatever energy is out they're in the transdimensional void, the only laws it obeys is conscious thought. You plug that thing in with the believe it'll only destroy the machine they it'll do just that!"

"Easy for you to say, you're not gonna be the one doing it!" Kayla said.

"Girls listen to me!"

"WHY!?" Both shouted.

"Look." Chris said matter of factly. "You both have every right to me mad, but it's unproductive. This scheme Campbell's had reserve engineering Fiseng tech has been happening since you two were toddlers. Whether or not I got you involved it would always have come crashing into your lives. We are a stupidly young, stupidly insignificant world full of all kinds of unresolved hate and trauma. Campbell's got it in her somehow that the best thing for us is to thrust ourselves out into an endless multiverse and this isn't some cutesy little pulp story where that won't affect things. That's not how the world works! That's not how history works! The consequences for this are going to be global.

On Thursday those people are going to use that machine to kick off a new age of exploration, and I can't tell if we're the Spanish riding the Santa Maria or the Taino watching them arrive from the beach, but either way it keeps me up at night. Everything is going to change for you, for me, for your families. The only difference is because of me, you and your little gang have a fighting chance to stop it."

Both girls wore a hollow look now, there was little they left to argue. Inaction would seem to spell their doom, taking action seemed to follow the same path.

"You signed us up to die…" Said Paisley quietly.

Chris let out a small laugh.

"No. My brand's never been about killing teenagers, only making it seem like they're in danger."

Paisley reanimated slightly.

"But this is…"

"…a lot more cruel and dangerous that even what I'd normally put my contestants through yes." Chris agreed. Then he grinned at them. "But you've been through things my normal contestant could've have dreamed off."

The screen switched to show different scenes from their game, wars and battle's they'd fought it, foe's they'd bested, puzzles they'd solved.

"Inside a stupid VR sim or not you have inside your heads the lived experience of two lovely young ladies who over the course of 239 days went from their sheltered rural upbringings to dimension travelling masters with an myriad of survivalist abilities and enough combat experience to make a Congolese mercenary envious."

"You're overexaggerating." Paisley told him.

Chris nodding then without warning hurled a paper weight of one off the selves and towards her head. Paisley caught it.

"I am?" Chris asked. "Muscle memory, quick impulses, weapons experience, trauma management, familiarity with how to improvise in a high stress environment. You have the memories of all of that."

Kayla retreated into her own thoughts for a while, processing this. Besides her Paisley was doing the same.

"If this is some black op site, they'll have the best security on the planet." Paisley said. "Thermals, X-ray's, camera's everywhere."

"Good thing you've got a master hacker as part of this cast." Chris smirked. "Wonder who made sure she was picked?"

"Could that person also give us a map of where the portal gun is?"

Chris chuckled.

"Please Parker. I gave you that weeks ago."

He pulled up the schematics of the sight again, specifically central section surrounding the gun. The alien engine seemed to be rigged up to a long machine essentially splitting the complex in the two slender chambers multiple floors tall. If that wasn't complicated enough there seems to be side wings attached to either side, perhaps maintenance rooms. The complexity of it blurred into background noise to Kayla and she struggled to make sense of it. Beside her however Paisley's eyes had gone wide.

"Shit…"

"What?"

"It's the maze." Paisley said. "The same one from the finale."

Kayla stared at her.

"Didn't you say you've got everywhere Peach has been memorized."

Paisley nodded stiffly.

Chris gave them both a look of approval.

"Better. Good initiation there. Always does me good to see it."

Kayla was still staring at her friend with a look of deep shock.

"He really thought of everything." She said faintly.

"How did you get this much sway over the President's discission making?" Paisley asked.

"Fifty years of work experience in analyzing personalities and manipulating people younger than me." Chris informed her. "You have any more concerns?"

They thought for a moment.

"The Rzayev's." Kayla said.

Chris grimaced.

"Yes… they will be a problem."

He pulled up two imagines of them.

"Campbell and her team wanted some say on Endless to start 'inseminating the concept of the Fiseng into the public conscious'. I couldn't stop Alea and Alam from forcing their way onto the show, but I was able to shoo them out a little early so they didn't catch on to the fact I gave everyone a map to there precious doomsday device. Unfortunately, they would still both know who you are. Disguises should be in order for some of you, and I'd recommend trying to not get to close to them."

He switches into a different set of files.

"The other person you'll need to go out of your way to avoid is Sorrento."

"Nolan Sorrento's supposed to be dead." Kayla said.

"He is on paper."

The files showed the aftermath of a bombing in an Oklahoma City stacks and a prison riot in Ohio.

"Nolan was already something of a Templar before that faithful trip to Greenland. Coming back, he only became worse. When Wade and his Gunter pals started beating IOI to the egg Sorrento of course was more than willing to use lethal tactics against them. He must never have told IOI about the Karliq, lucky him because Wade of course hacked the company files and exposed everything on them to the media, resulting in his arrest. He was in federal prison for just over a year before Campbell started a riot to fake his death and break him out, guess she didn't like the knowledge of her project being out in the wild like that. He's been employed with her under the assumed name Harry Buttle since then. Stay clear of him. Not only can he be a little unhinged but he already has his suspicions about moles in the project. Me specifically. Hasn't trusted me since our argument, especially after I started Endless with Wade. As you'd imagine Sorrento's… not a huge fan of any one that works with President Watts."

"Wonder why?" Paisley asked dryly.

"Okay…" Kayla took a deep breath, her thoughts were clearing now. "Paisley we might actually pull this off."

Her friend considered things in silence. Chris offered her the kill switch and she took it, contemplating the little piece of place beyond the stars as she rolled it over her palm.

"I want to hear from the others."

Chris nodded.

…

The rest of that day was spent in fog of malaise that crept from person to person as the truth of why they were there spread. Neither Kayla or Paisley had done Chris's story any form of justice and they'd largely been dismissed by the group at large. However, at the girls encouragement their friends began disappearing a few at a time into the house to speak to Chris himself. Each time emerging after in a daze of shock. Reality was as the old man said a fickle thing, and took time to separate itself from fiction, yet but early evening it had done so for most of them, and they were left with a very somber mood, as palpable dread established itself.

The sun was beginning to sink into the distant west when Paisley went out to the garden, most of the group was there, they'd be offered a generous meal by the robot staff but few'd been able to stomach anything.

"Where's Jaxson?" Paisley asked, inserting herself into a group with Farid, Yeong-Ja, Hannah and Kayla.

"Talking to Chris again." Farid said distantly.

"Screaming at him's more like it." Kayla said. "Man, I was starting to think he never got angry."

"He has a reason to be pissed." Steven said, walking over with Neil.

"Motherfucker tricked us!" The other boy said angrily.

"He's Chris McLean, what'd you expect?" Hannah asked. Neil scowled at her.

"Not fuckin aliens Hannah!"

"Transdimensional beings Neil, not like it matters because where gonna keep those bastards from showing up."

She turned to the others matter of factly.

"Look I won't kid myself, my life's had nothing going for it 'til now. If I was put on this Earth just so I could stop a couple mad scientist from ending the world I'm alright with that. Doesn't matter if I die doing it. I'll go down like a badass."

"Finally, something out of your mouth I agree with." Steven said. She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah? You ready to back up all that tough talking you do kid?"

"You know it. You and me, we'll take down those guys just like we did back in the Colosseum of Fools Amethyst."

Hannah smiled.

"Fuck yeah, we will Lapis."

"Not everyone here's okay with dying." Luísa said, walking over with the others.

"Chris said not everyone's got to go." Farid said. "We didn't volunteer for this. No one will judge if you're too scared to go."

"…Maybe not no one." Hannah said.

"What about these two?" Neil asked gestured to Kayla and Paisley. "Seems like McLean needs them to be there."

"We can do this without them if we need to." Yeong-Ja said.

The others looked to the two finalists.

Kayla sighed.

"…All…All I've ever wanted was a family." She looked around to the others. "Now that I've got one I feel I'm about to loss it…"

"We'll be fine." Hannah said. Kayla sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"I don't want you guys to die."

"We're not going to die." Paisley said stubbornly. She was still playing with the little Fiseng object in her hand. He turned to the others.

"I entered this contestant to give my little brother and the rest of our family a better life and I stand by that? My kid brother Will is five, he's got his whole life ahead of him, and want him to grow up living a better life that we did. If Campbell and her little goon squad think they way to do that is tear open a portal to another world they're wrong. Fiction's only exciting because it's not real! We known that living through all that shit isn't fun, if anyone thinks for one second I'm going to let my family be subjected to that and whatever over Lovecraftian hell is out there they're wrong!"

"Paisley right." Farid said. "We're the Endless cast! Greatest multiversal team causalities ever known. We've survived everything from Aku to Camazotz to Doctor Eggman. Doesn't matter if we don't have any gem powers or gods on our side, we can do this!"

"One last challenge." Agreed Kayla, smiling faintly. "Then we get our happily ever after."

Hannah threw an arm around her.

"You know it kid. We fucking take names and kick ass, from here to out beyond the endless stars!"

"To Endless!" Steven cried.

"To Endless!" The others chorused.

"Let's fucking go!" Lennox roared.

They all let out a cheer.

Paisley smiled broadly. In the reflection of one of Chris's garden pools she could picture them all as they had been on all those long journeys. Archeologists and scientists and maidens and princesses alike. This was a false equivalency she knew. Reality was not like fiction but matter how much they were bleeding together now. There was no one like Conner or Chris watching over them. Not grand machinations of a plot. They had no guarantee of victory but this she hoped time they'd all share the glory.

This time she hoped more than anything… they'd all survive.

The group gradually dispersed until only her and Farid were still outside.

"I liked your speech."

She grinned weakly. "Thanks."

"I can't believe your not scared." He said amazed. She laughed.

"God are you kidding, I'm ready to shit my pants in terror, I just couldn't let Kayla know. What about you?"

Farid's smiled waned and he cast a glance southward towards Niagara Falls.

"It's all so close to home."

She cupped his face in her hand.

"I'm going to make sure nothing happens to your family, you understand? That's a promise."

He reached up to feel her hand.

"I'm very fortunate to have meet you Paisley."

She withdrew her hand and blushed suddenly embarrassed.

"Ha ha. Yeah. You're a really cool too. Stacy's really lucky to have you Farid."

He gave her a quizzical look.

"What do you mean?"

Paisley's blush darkened.

"You're going steady with her right? I thought that's why you've barely left her side this trip."

Farid laughed.

"She's got a lot of common interests with me. But we're just friends Paisley." He gave her a teasing look. "Why are you concerned about that?"

She steeled her nerves and straighten up slightly.

"If I did something really reckless would it freak you out?"

"I guess it depends on what it was."

"Cool…"

She leaned forward and kissed him quickly then pulled away blushing furiously.

"God I'm stupid sometimes…I"

She didn't make it any farther. Farid had pulled her back and their lips meet again.

They stayed like that a long while, silhouetted against the setting sun. Her body pressed against his. She could feel her locket, a cold lump on her chest.

Inside it was Yerdey Yisme's kill switch, the tiny device nested between the scrap of paper with their fake season on it and the photo of her family she'd intended to give to Will.

That she would give to Will. She was going to make it back to him, she'd made a promise to.

There was after all, so much in her life worth living for.