Lost

Tall grasses brush their legs like whispers as they pick their way through thistled shrubs and hot dirt. Charred trees curl their black, scorched roots over the ground. The sun is a constant, an unblinking dragon's eye, lazy and baleful.

Eventually Curtis stops. Hours seem to have passed in silence. "When we began walking," he says, "that tree was at eleven o' clock." His arm angles thirty degrees and falls in line with the gnarled bare bones of a desert tree.

Keith pauses to consider this. "So, either we're not moving, or that tree is moving relative to us."

"Are you able to activate your suit's navigation system?"

"Everything's offline."

"Have you tried rebooting it?"

Keith punches in the reboot. Nothing happens. As he lowers his hand from the helmet, a sudden resurgence of idle power whirs through the system. The visor's display flickers. Systems thrum online. Data and strings of code fly across the screen faster than his eyes can track. A shrill ringing feeds directly to his ear drums. Keith shouts. He flings the helmet off. A passive resonance throbs his brain. His eardrums writhe with hurt. He groans, rubbing his temples.

After the throbbing placates and his ears clear, Keith rises his head to the air. He becomes attentive with listening. He perceives something, a sound. A faint intonation, like an echo. Something remembered, very distant. It rises from the helmet, diminutive and disembodied, but manages to reach the edges of Keith's register. Gradually the sound concentrates. Then it gains definition — a voice, he realizes.

"Keith, Keith, is that you? Keith?"

Keith takes up the discarded helmet. He jams it on. "Pidge?"

"So, it was you. What are you doing walking around in Shiro's subconscious?"

Keith is bewildered. He stammers at this impossibility. "He fell into a coma and — Wait, how'd you know that?"

"Give me a tick. I'll explain everything in person."

"What do you mean 'in—'"

A blast of wind whirls sand skyward. Waves of grass fold over, flat. The wind dies. The dust settles. Curtis lowers his arm from his eyes. Keith stares, astonished, at the image in front of him, manifested into being.

"Pidge," he says. "But how?"

"Well, first of all, I'm not the Pidge you know." Pidge says this brightly, dressed in her green Paladin suit. With a conspiratorial tap, she adjusts her glasses. "I'm a construct of Shiro's mind."

"So . . . you're not the true Pidge?"

"Not exactly," Pidge says. "As a defense mechanism, Shiro created five guardians to defend the gates leading into his deeper mind. And if you want to get to where Shiro is, you'll have to be granted access by us."

"Five guardians," Curtis says, "for the five paladins."

Pidge snickers. "Corny, right? Who knew Shiro was actually a fluffy pink Duflax with a robot arm."

Keith feels scandalized. "What?"

Still smiling, Pidge folds her arms. Her right hip pops out the way Keith remembers her doing, all those years ago, when she'd air confidence and cunning everywhere she went. A spitting image of the Pidge he used to know from the old times together.

"I hope you don't plan on walking your way to Shiro," she says.

"How else would we get there?"

"On those." Pidge thumbs behind her shoulder. To their right are three parked hoverbikes. They shine, magnificently.

"Were those there a second ago?"

Pidge grins, still cunning and conspiratorial. "Come on." She waves her hand and leads Keith and Curtis away. She doesn't explain the hoverbikes or how they got there. Keith and Curtis don't ask, either, following Pidge, deeper into the desert.

They mount the bikes, which lift them from the ground in easy suspension. The engines hum like deep, toneless voices. The sun stays on them relentlessly.

Resilience

Pidges takes Keith and Curtis straight into the horizon. The tree that was unmoving before approaches them steadily, and then it recedes. It wanes from view like a pebble dropped from the top of a tower. Progress is apparent.

The scenery crinkles like a jumbled tablecloth, piling their route with perilous hills and craggy rocks. They climb and descend the hills they can't avoid, transitioning out of the desert and into what Keith apprehends is a ravine. The sun starts to fail.

"How did Shiro fall into a coma?" Pidge asks.

Keith looks at Curtis. When Curtis remains quiet, Keith answers: "There was an accident."

Throughout their conversations, Keith has been finding himself answering Pidge's questions while Curtis refrains from speaking. But this time when Keith answers the question, Curtis breaks the dynamic and decides to respond.

"You assume it was an accident."

Keith lifts away from the handlebar and straightens against the wind, surprised. "Are you saying Shiro was attacked?"

Curtis's face is inscrutable. But he narrows his eyes, slightly, with the wind tearing at his face. "I can't say with any certainty foul play was involved. But Takashi is observant. Falling prey to such a careless error isn't like him."

Pidge and Keith watch Curtis, who's in the middle of their company, as they ride at equal speed. The ravine consumes them. Shadows close over their heads like a lid. The lighting is dusky and muted, as though they've sunk underwater.

They adjust speed to the ravine's tapering walls. Save for an occasional puddle, the river is dead, and the air is dank with salty residue.

"Takashi has been preoccupied lately," Curtis explains. "There's been word about a faction of dissenters holed up in Earth's underground. According to Takashi's sources, this faction aims to dismantle Galra leadership. And at the top of the roster," Curtis eyes Keith, and Keith braces himself, anticipating—"is you."

Despite it all, Keith is not ready to hear this. "If you think somebody wanted to hurt Shiro, you need to tell me," he says. "Right now." But it's the voice of somebody who's pretending to have it together, tremulous with the uncertain froth of emotion.

Curtis studies Keith, sidelong, with the wind pressing flat against his face, his eyes pinched and opaque, somewhat metallic, sharp as tacks. "This isn't about you. This is about Takashi," he says. "There are too many assumptions, and I have no evidence. For now, we should believe the simplest answer."

"Whatever it was," Pidge says, "it's not gonna help bring Shiro back. So, listen up: The layout of Shiro's mind is straightforward. It's comprised of three concentric levels. Hunk and I guard level one. Meanwhile, level two's guarded by Lance and Allura."

"Allura?"

"Yeah." The name prompts a feeling, a feeling of space that used to be filled; an absence that can't be shaken. "Shiro's in level three. But I don't know what's beyond level one, so I can't tell you what to expect. Just keep your guard up."

"Got it."

The world seems to give a jerk, once, shaking them in it. Then the ravine vibrates like a giant iron gong. Tremors work up the steep walls. Everything else is driven into motion. The walls stretch apart, opening like the lungs of a massive breathing animal. Boulders are rattled loose. Rocks drop from above. Keith, Curtis, and Pidge jet forward on their hoverbikes, weaving, in and out, between falls of rubble and stone. Keith shakes his bayard. A sword emerges on the right, a shield on the left, which he lifts and extends to divert a shower of debris off Curtis.

"What's this rift?" Curtis asks.

"It's getting bigger."

Keith and Curtis match Pidge's speed, flying down the ravine, exceeding the swift cascade of boulder and stone. Pidge is leading, Curtis follows, Keith is last with the updrafts from the tumbling rock blowing at his back, gusting behind him like violent expulsions of breath. He leans forward, teeth gnashed, pressing in on Curtis. Faster—

The rumble quiets. The earth stills. The cliffs pierce the sky, motionless now, and breathless.

"What was that?" Keith asks, once he's sure they're safe.

The three match their speed again, riding side by side.

"The landscape of the mind is ever-changing," Pidge says. "Incoming stimuli cut new pathways. Meanwhile, any established thought patterns dig deeper grooves in your neural structure, making it progressively easier for your brain to communicate recurring thoughts. And Shiro picked up some pretty bad mental habits over the years."

"Is there a way for us to close the rift?"

"That'd be like trying to push two diverging tectonic plates back together." Pidge shrugs a shoulder to show its futility. "Sorry, Keith. Some things can't be fixed. You can, however, build bridges."

"Bridges?" Keith contemplates the likelihood of building bridges and what that might mean. "How do I do that?"

"It's simple." Pidge turns to smile at him. "Just keep doing what you always do."

For some reason, Keith's heart lifts, warm and pleasant. He's bewildered by it. His own blood knows something Keith himself doesn't yet know. Something he hasn't quite begun to figure out. But he knows it's important.

"Somebody's up there." Curtis has his head lifted back, squinting at the top of the cliffside.

They scan the ridges. Above them, the sky is a barren, impenetrable barrier.

"I don't see anything."

"Up ahead." Pidge brandishes her bayard. "A hostile."

In the dead riverbed, an alien creature, long and muscled, coils its legs, getting ready to attack. It hisses, flailing its lizard tail, with its jagged fishlike spines fanned down its back, bright red. Keith and Curtis split. Pidge advances. Her bike whirs heatedly. There's a burning green blur, the surgical heat of Pidge's bayard, and then the creature wails, collapsing. Square pieces break apart like pixels and erase the creature from existence.

"The gate's close," Pidge says. She puts away her bayard. "As you get closer to Shiro, you'll encounter an increasing number of enemies."

"That's not what I saw," Curtis says. He brakes and stops his bike. Pidge and Keith stop too and prop themselves on one foot. The hoverbikes relax briefly. "It was a person I saw," Curtis says. "He was watching from the top of the ravine. I think he's been following us."

Curtis is insistent about this. And Keith, bending his head back, surveys the cliffside again, alert, searching thoroughly for the figure Curtis claims to have seen. Nothing will escape him this time. Whatever it is, it won't escape.

Then — Keith sees it too.

"You're right." He kicks off the ground. The engine turns over and hums steadily. "Druids," he says. "Three of them." He accelerates. "I'll draw them away. Pidge, take Curtis to the gateway. I'll meet you guys there."

Pidge nods. "Roger."

Collapse

Now at the top of the ravine, Keith is surrounded by the three druids. They extend their hands. Magic crackles at their fingertips like condensed bulbs of lightning. Keith raises his shield and swings his sword. The blade falls, never connecting, slicing where a druid has disappeared, reappearing behind him, mid-strike. Keith reels, thrusting the sword haphazardly, channeled by pure instinct. The druid is slashed across the chest. Pixels explode. The druid vanishes from this world.

Keith leaps at the remaining two druids, just as they've emitted a force of energy. The ground whirls, upending Keith. A propulsion of magic, violet and sizzling, throws him into the air, and then he's falling, down, down, from the ravine's ledge. The two druids die in a storm of square pieces, disintegrating, but Keith plummets. He twists, pulling from the muscles in his core, and plunges his sword into the cliffside. The blade skids, clashing, without taking hold as he falls, gaining speed. He jerks the blade's point toward the rock again, piercing, striking holes and dents, slowing himself marginally, but still falling too fast, his boots sliding, fumbling down the steep vertical drop, impossible to stop.

"Ah—"

Keith knows it's over. There's nothing more he can do. He's unable to find Shiro, unable to bring him home. He's failed.

Then Keith feels himself slowing. The wind eases from his face. The rush of his hair becomes gentle. Time expands like a plume of smoke.

At what would be the end of his fall, Keith is caught and cradled. He's shrouded in a bed of weightlessness and light. He's floated, gently, in the hands of a white shimmery glow. Having condensed right from empty space, the white glow cups Keith like a palm, glimmering, with small spheres of even brighter light, tranquil as candleflame, drifting around inside like nuclei, slow and sentient and unbearably kind. Everything feels warm. Keith is awash in a soothing bath.

The glowing entity swoops Keith away from the cliff and slowly carries him down to the bottom of the ravine where it sets Keith on his feet again, tenderly. Though it has no eyes, the white glow lingers in the air, seemingly watching Keith, to ensure his safety.

"Shiro?" Keith feels silly almost, speaking out loud.

The white glow hovers and doesn't answer. Inside it, the floating spheres are lighted, swirling aimlessly in the white misty mass, slow and serene, like dreamy thoughts. The aura is a comfort, and Keith's heart becomes suffused. Reaching out to the strange, nebulous entity, Keith thinks, It'll be okay, and his fingers slip into the glow, enveloped, as if he were dipping a hand into someone's soul. But now the glow is untouchable. A white nothing. Pure light and quintessence.

As if hearing Keith's thoughts, it'll be okay, the light is reassured and dissipates. Air and space return. Now Keith knows: Shiro is waiting for him. Somewhere.

When Keith finally arrives at the gate, Curtis and Pidge turn to meet him. The gate is a wall made of rock, hidden in the crags of the ravine. Pidge places her hand on a panel. It lights up blue. With a growl of effort, the doors split apart. The world opens. And then it ends. Running from the top of the ravine to the bottom, the divide grows. The doors grind apart and allow access to the second level, into the deeper subconscious.

Keith and Curtis approach the gaping door and head inside, not knowing what they'll find. Keith looks over his shoulder, seeking out a final image of Pidge, and sees a vast white sea collapse around her and she disappears, smiling, her hand lifted, sunk in the tide of boundless light.