Leftover Apocalypse

The sun had just risen over Monument Valley, and I had to admit that it was fucking majestic.

Even so I could only barely appreciate it; I was sore, and not exactly pleased with how everything had gone down in Albuquerque. Grunkle hadn't called, despite Zoey swearing she'd made him memorize her number. We'd totally failed to murder Greg. The government was after us, maybe. At least that was only a maybe; they had a lot on their plate right now, and I felt like they probably didn't understand whose fault it was.

Katrin joined me at my spot, where I was drinking a to-go hot cocoa I'd grabbed from the little restaurant we'd just eaten breakfast at. "I think I'm not a fan of camping," she said, "it's every bit as ridiculous as I thought it was when you first described it."

"Well, we slept in the shuttle," I said, "to do it right we would have used a tent."

Katrin nodded thoughtfully as she looked out across the desert. "I saw the tents, they look worse. When we were in the jungle training - gods, does that feel like years ago - we at least had a reason to be there. Here, it's completely ridiculous. Look, there are rooms for rent right in front of us."

We were at a combination motel / restaurant / laundromat / grocery / RV park / campground, but to keep things simple and avoid showing my drivers license we'd only paid for a spot at the campsite. There were bathrooms, thankfully, and the restaurant wasn't far if you went up the little hiking trail rather than following the road. Now that there were only five of us left, we'd all fit in the vehicle just fine... but I'd still woken up with a sore neck and shoulder because Matlyn and Zoey had ended up in the sad little bed the previous owner had installed in the back.

There was wifi up at the restaurant, and we'd read the news over breakfast. I'd been too frazzled to think about it at the time, but in retrospect it wasn't surprising that someone had paired the video from the motel - of one armed agent accusing another of a friendly fire incident - with the events later in the day. While I'd found some rumors of Homeland Security using satanic magic rituals, to most people it looked more like some of them had just gone crazy and shot up the place.

Katrin's destruction of the wall to let everyone out had been dramatic but very explainable as normal explosives, and everything else had happened totally inside away from the cameras. Internal footage was reportedly not captured, but I wasn't sure if that was Greg's demand having been carried out or the government just not being willing to release it. I had my fingers crossed it was the former. The question of why a whole building full of officers and other government employees had murdered each other and blown up a wall before marching out and opening fire on unarmed protestors was one nobody had a lot of answers for. Speculation ranged from "illegal immigrants poisoned them with drugs from Venezuela" to "it's a plot to start a civil war so the government can implement martial law".

On top of all that, the conspiracy theorists were pointing to the fact that later that same day an accident at a construction site in D.C. had killed some important politicians or cabinet members or something; I didn't actually recognize the names and hadn't been concerned with details, but the flags were all at half mast. This was being pointed to as proof of... something... with one of the two incidents clearly being nothing but a planned diversion from the other one so "they" could get away with it - but of course nobody could agree on which of the two was the diversion.

With the government in chaos, and no clear video of us, we were probably safe for the time being. We probably could have even just continued down the 40. Instead, I'd taken us North to the edge of Utah and figured we'd swing down through Sedona since nobody would be looking for us in that direction. I still kinda wanted to switch vehicles, but it would take a ton of time whereas Phoenix was only five and a half hours away. In the end, the gamble was all about whether or not someone was specifically looking for our shuttle bus and I really thought they weren't.

Matlyn was enjoying the road trip immensely; she'd been taking samples of plants along the way, and was fascinated by everything. Last night, after finding some tourist brochures while we were getting the campsite paid for, she'd sat there flipping through them and asking how far it was to the Grand Canyon, to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, to a whole assortment of caves and parks and tours. Errod was almost the opposite, having spent last night's drive silent and brooding.

"He didn't care for the conditions of the prison - detention facility? Whatever it was called. He also didn't approve of the attitudes of the guards; apparently several of them were quite hostile. I don't think it would have changed his mind, but it certainly doesn't help that neither of us really understand this whole 'immigration' issue. Back home, everything is discrete cities. The rules for full citizenship and what benefits that conveys can vary, but unless you've specifically been banished virtually all of them allow people to come and go as they please.

"We moved to Theramas, on a whim. In Erathik, even if we hadn't been citizens, we could have stayed for a full year before we needed to show proof that we were contributing to the city; even then, the requirements are minimal. I've met merchants that aren't citizens of anywhere, and they get by just fine. Some places are a bit rough for non-citizens, but only because resources are tight to begin with; Yallowsben didn't have a dedicated healer, so of course they charged for a lot of things, but they'd let people work off debt after the fact.

"Here... even the land between cities is owned by someone, and really there's no clear spot where cities end at all. It's so restrictive - traveling is less dangerous here, it's far more accessible to the average person, but you're still shackled to whatever country you were born in. You might as well live in Markonti, with their caste systems and slavery keeping people trapped. Anyway, my point is that... Errod, for now, is thinking of the government here as his enemy. Not in the sense that he's going to do anything, but in the sense that if they get in the way of him doing what he thinks is right he's going to treat them as enemy soldiers in a war. So... we should be careful about how we make plans."

Yeah, that could complicate things. I knew human Calliope had been talking about what she did and didn't approve of in the news, and how she wanted to fix things, and she'd been talking to Zoey about it as well - I had just figured that made sense, since they were staying, and had ignored it as not being my business. Maybe I should have actually taken note of what was going on in the world around me more, but I'd always felt so fucking powerless to impace the systems society had put in place that I'd gotten into the habit of just ignoring everything. Also, the day I'd turned old enough to vote I'd been whisked off the planet.

"Okay," I said, "I'll try to keep an eye on things. But for now, let's just try to finish up here as quickly as possible. That means either finding a way back, or killing Greg.

"Or?" Katrin asked. "I would have thought you were going to insist on killing him."

I sighed, and started walking back towards the trail so we could rejoin with the others. "I was, but that fight didn't go well. You were amazing, but he countered everything you threw at him. Maybe if you hadn't already been worn down you could have pushed him harder, but it seemed like over time he was going to win."

She nodded. "You're not wrong. His spellcasting is immaculate, and extremely complicated. I was countering mostly with brute force, if I'm honest, and that's never going to be a winning strategy. He didn't have a mana battery, or at least not one with anywhere near the output of mine, but he was still stronger than me. I think any attempt to kill him is going to require a lot of luck, and maybe something tricky. I was assuming you would provide both, since they seem to be your specialty."

"I don't know, I think Errod might get that title just from the time he cut off his hand. He also did that thing where he pulled human Calliope off the roof, that was pretty great. But... yeah, right now I have nothing. No ideas. If we can get off Earth, we can take some time and decide how much we care and then potentially come back with better firepower. That's why I said 'or', I'm perfectly willing to retreat and come back when I'm stronger. I do want to take care of him, though, since we need Earth to be a safe place for us."

Katrin stopped, so I stopped as well. She was looking at me funny. "Why does Earth need to be safe for us," she asked, "if it's just Zoey and Calliope that are staying behind? Not that I don't want them to be safe, but the way you said it..."

Ah, right. I hadn't told her this part yet. Well... no time like the present. "Katrin... if we can't fix what's broken about the timeline and the alignment of the planes, then in a little over a year the world is going to end. But... it already did, once, and Earth was fine. As the Grand Alignment approaches, if things are looking bad, then I'm going to move anyone we care about to Earth. There's no way to save most people like that, the logistics of it would be ridiculous; you can only get through Nusos so fast, and they'd have to be picturing the right things, and you wouldn't even be able to convince most of them to go. But, you know, people like Hugh and Mila and Sige and... I was going to bust your dad out as a present... people like that, we could bring them here and if the world ended they'd be okay. Oh, and Lute, of course. I mean, you could make a list or something."

She just blinked at me a few times. "Oh. Well. I... I don't think it's a bad thing to have a backup plan, so long as we don't slip into thinking of it as the solution. Callie... I care about the world, not just the handful of people I love. Lute and Mila and Sige all have other people they care about, and those people have people, and - and it's not just people, regardless. It's history, and culture, and spirits, and animals... I'm glad you have a plan, for the worst case scenario... But I want to be clear that if that time comes, I'd rather die fighting to the last second than run away. Errod will feel the same. If you evacuate, you might end up doing it without us."

"Jesus, Katrin. I'm not saying we'd just stay here now. But after a year, when it's down to like a month and a half or whatever - I've lost all track of the date - we can sit down and make the call."

She shook her head. "I don't see that happening. Maybe if we're down to a day or so and things are truly hopeless, but certainly not sooner. And even then... I'd go for the most ridiculous unlikely path to victory even if everyone said it was certain doom. It's everything, Callie. All the planes, all the people, all the memories and hopes of five million days. The gods will help us. Fate will help us. We'll get through it."

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I nodded, mumbled something about that being fine. I didn't have the same level of faith that she did, but there was no point in arguing about it. When we got closer to time, she'd change her mind or she wouldn't. And when that last second came - if she let it go that far - I would make the call. Then again, I'd made it once before and I didn't feel good about it. I'd killed Helma, let the world die. If I'd gone with her and tried to stop it, maybe I would have succeeded. Maybe things would have turned out better. Although... I suspected it wouldn't have turned out better for me, personally.

That little voice in my head tried to point out that worrying about that meant I'd possibly made a selfish choice and picked my life over an entire world. I told it to shut the fuck up.

We were almost back, just crossing past the RV area, when Zoey came towards us. "Nope. Other way, we're taking a walk and planning. Errod is sulky and in a foul mood, so the shuttle is off-limits until he's cheered up or it's time to go."

"If Errod is the one in the bad mood, shouldn't it be him taking a walk?"

Zoey tilted her head at me like I'd said something crazy. "No? The shuttle has a bed." Errod's hand popped out of her jacket and made a complicated gesture I couldn't understand, but she tossed it into a bush. "Listen, we need to talk about my... what were we calling her?"

"Paradox twin." I said. "Look, I don't care if Errod needs some extra sleep, but it's five and a half hours to Phoenix even without stops which really means it's going to be like seven. We have time, but I don't want to stick around here all day."

Katrin and Zoey were sharing a look between them and snickering. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "I know it's super funny that I'm the one pushing everyone to stay on a schedule. And yes, that really should be Katrin's job just based on her personality, but pretty much from the second we got to Earth everyone has expected me to be in charge for some reason. I'm also doing all the driving, so I don't even get to dick around with you guys in the back, and then at the end of the day I'm tired so I collapse in bed and you all go out and do exciting shit together."

Katrin frowned at me, but at the same time I could tell she was barely keeping from laughing. "Oh, Callie. First of all, we weren't saying that. Second, you know you could send your ghost to the back of the shuttle with us and keep your other mind on the road, right?"

"Having the ghost out feels funny on Earth, and I keep thinking someone is going to see it. I don't know, I guess I'm just cranky too. Maybe I need a turn in the shuttle."

Zoey and Katrin collapsed against each other laughing.

"See," I said, "this is the thing. I feel like there's running jokes or something that I missed out on, and now you guys are joking around and I don't get it."

Zoey recovered first, wiping tears from her eyes. "Goat licker, I want you to entertain the notion that it's more about you being oblivious. These guys are doing an amazing job adapting to a world where almost everything is a cultural reference they don't understand. Matty saw a meme about cats right after we got our phones, and it used a screenshot of Puss in Boots ripping out of Shrek's shirt. I had to explain the cultural shit around pet cats, what Shrek - the movie - was, what an ogre is, the fact that actually that scene was a reference to a totally different movie about aliens, what aliens are because they don't have a concept of other planets... probably a few other things I'm forgetting."

I wasn't sure where she was even going with this.

"And this is all the time," Zoey continued, "for everything around them, and despite that - for the most part - they just kinda figure things out. They're already fitting in really well, with clothes and customs and shit. Errod managed to survive a conversation about football with an Eagles fan, Katrin made a pun the other day, Matlyn recognized a reference to Loss. Meanwhile, I bet you couldn't tell me why anyone does anything in fantasyland. Like... why does Katrin always use her left hand to brush her hair?"

Wait. "Does she?"

Katrin nodded. "Yes, everyone uses their left hand for brushing hair, wiping your face, brushing your teeth... well, not everyone. Everyone from the Eastern side of the Free States or Halenvar. Or... okay, what about Theramas. Remember how there were colored flags everywhere? Why?"

"I... I don't know, we were only there for like a week."

Zoey sighed. "I've never been there and I could tell you the answer. You don't wave to people the right way. You do your belt funny. I'm willing to bet you haven't picked up on any of the monthly traditions -"

The what? "That's partly our fault," Katrin said, "we never really showed her."

"She should have just picked it up," Zoey said, "but... anyway, this isn't meant to be me shitting on you. I'm just saying that you're a little bit self-centered in a way that means you don't always pick up on what other people are doing. You could be having more fun with us, even if you're tired, but you're up in your own head - sometimes literally. You didn't have any friends in high school either, and there were for sure people who tried; I know because I was mean to them. Because I was a heinous bitch. But I didn't even need to be, because you ignored them anyway."

I wanted to argue, but I was realizing I had barely really noted any of the cultural stuff around me in fantasyland aside from the food. And I could have put up with the itchy feeling of having my ghost out, or just asked them to talk louder so I could join in while I drove. And I did, for sure, miss a lot of cues and stuff around me when it came to stuff I wasn't directly trying to be involved in; I'd willfully ignored signs that Katrin and Errod were pissed at me when we were training together, and I'd quietly missed that Katrin was upset the first time she killed someone, and... yeah. I was pretty bad at this shit.

"Fine. Fine. I get it. Well, let's... I don't know, let's grab Matlyn and the four of us can plan for Phoenix."

Katrin turned away, seemingly choking on something, but Zoey nodded and took my arm. "Let's just have this conversation with the three of us. So, I've been stalking myself and my - her - friends online, and I think we need to deal with my paradox twin as soon as we get into the city."

"Deal with how?" I had thought that she didn't want to get the other Zoey involved until Greg was dealt with.

"Well, nobody has explicitly said what's going on," she said, "but putting some comments and rumors together I'm almost certain she's been checked in to a mental hospital. I'm... guessing she's been getting all the shit you template dumped into her head this whole time."

Oh, fuck. "I didn't even think about that. Motherfucker. Well... at least she's doing a great job establishing an airtight alibi. Okay, I... think I'll need to get right up to her. If you can figure out where she is, we'll make time for it. I can also, maybe, try to get her the memories back. Or... well, if it works it would be a copy of the memories you have, which wouldn't be quite the same. Most of it would match though."

Zoey was excited about that, and as it turned out Katrin was also pretty fascinated by the concept. We talked it over for a while, but then veered into my own plans for when we got to Arizona. I explained about Tony, and the idea I'd had that I could have him spy on Bill to confirm he was on Earth and maybe help us find somewhere to lay low. Zoey showed me a few tricks on social media, and before long she'd actually found him.

He still lived in Phoenix, and based on the photos he'd posted on Instagram I had been right about the part of town. In fact, after only ten minutes we'd identified a few places he seemed to go pretty frequently. "And you think you can trust this guy?" Zoey asked, "Like, how much are you going to tell him?"

"I think... he's a genuinely nice guy, and motivated by money. That's a very convenient combination. As for how much we tell him, I don't think we'll need to get into any of the magic stuff. I'll tell him it's a big criminal conspiracy thing, let him imagine the details."

Katrin looked out at the red rock formations, thinking. "We'll need to tell them there's some sort of very powerful surveillance systems at play, if we're not going to explain magic to him. I wouldn't want to send someone into this kind of job and have them immediately trip some wards."

"Sure, sure. But mainly I'll just tell him to keep it simple. I don't need him to break into Bill's house or anything, just to get eyes on him. It shouldn't be dangerous, the only reason we need Tony is because the rest of us are either known by Coelestis or noticeably a fantasyland ethnicity to anyone that's familiar with that stuff."

Matlyn wandered past, whistling as she examined a sprig of some plant she'd plucked. "Hey guys!" she chirped, "we can get going whenever, I'm just grabbing something from the store before we get on the road. I found a neat flower, too!"

I rubbed my sore neck as I watched her go by with a slight hitch to her step, not quite a limp but maybe a minor waddle. I clearly wasn't the only one who had slept funny; we'd have to get an actual motel once we made it to Phoenix. We headed down to the campsite, and saw Errod coming out of the bathroom with a terrible case of bedhead and a generally rumpled look to him. It seemed like he was either still waking up or distracted by some thought, but he looked calm and content so at least he'd slept off whatever funk he'd been in.

"Hey, sleepy-head. If you're done with your beauty rest, go find your hand so we can get back on the road. We have to meet with a drug dealer, and break into a mental hospital."

We all got loaded up, and picked up Matlyn from the little store - along with road snacks - before heading back towards the Utah border and Southwest across Navajoland. I made an effort to keep an ear on the chatter in the back, harassed them with the built-in PA system, and even sent my ghost back there for a good part of the journey; I was going to make an effort to be more connected with them, at least the ones that were left. There still hadn't been any word from Grunkle.

Things went well enough that when we hit Flagstaff I didn't even hesitate before taking the long way South through Sedona. More red rock formations, but nobody was tired of them yet - they hadn't seen anything quite like it in fantasyland, and I had to admit the color was striking. Katrin was a bit distracted by her mana sense, saying that the whole area was magically inert in a way that felt somehow even more dead than the rest of Earth, as if this area had almost a negative amount of mana, but she let it go after a bit and enjoyed the ride. We parked and had a picnic, since even in November the temperature wasn't bad at all, and because I needed a break from driving.

As we ate, I glanced at the GPS. It was mid-afternoon, and we were two hours away from Phoenix. I could feel nervousness building, and some urge to make up an excuse to skip it. We had to go back and scour Albuquerque for Grunkle. We had to stay far away from Greg until we were better prepared. We had to go all over the country getting Matlyn plant samples while we could. I knew what I was avoiding, even if I couldn't articulate why; I couldn't risk seeing Bill again, because I hadn't sorted through how I felt. The whole thing made me want to run, to anywhere else. Being so close and avoiding him felt wrong, but seeing him would be complicated and uncomfortable and might even result in him being forced to attack us because of some fucking oath.

But I didn't say any of that to my friends. I knew they'd listen, and be understanding, and try to help... but that, too, would be an awkward conversation. Instead I tried to force myself to stop imagining the worst and focus on what was in front of me. Things felt... good. We were in a beautiful spot, the weather was nice, and everyone other than me seemed relaxed. Katrin was complaining about how sweet all the food was here, causing Zoey to threaten her with a hot Cheeto - she was still traumatized by almost dying from the one I'd given her thanks to the fantasyland hyper-sensitivity to capsaicin - while Matlyn was examining a plant she'd found as she lounged against Errod.

He had actually draped his arm across her; I knew she'd been flirting and had made him go on all the rides with her at Dollywood, and I knew she'd been sitting next to him in the shuttle, but last I'd actually checked in with Errod he'd seemed pretty much oblivious to her advances. Then again, that had been... back on the train to New York? Huh. It could have just been that the fantasyland folks were a little looser with showing physical affection, but I suspected that arm around her meant something. After all her contrived reasons to be close to him or even hold his hand, and all the times the two of them "coincidentally" got put in the same group when we split up, this was the first time I'd noticed him initiating anything.

Though with the talking-to I'd had about being unaware of the people around me, I had to wonder if it had been going on for a while. It was possible I was the last to know, but... nah. I wouldn't have missed that.