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Episode 142 |
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“Is it possible for a man to conquer his own karma?
Unless we can find a way to defeat the cycles of time, there is no future for
mankind!” Desty Nova, Emma sat in darkness. Dressed in her black trench coat, her head was
down. Her legs crossed, she sat on the
steel floor in the endless world of utter darkness. Her hands were in her lap, her left hand
open as she rested the knuckles of her right fist on its palm. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail and
flung over her right shoulder as she kept her eyes closed, focusing. On the ground in front of her sat the two Ivers’
books. Quiet and unmoving, the two
ancient tombs, physically identical, rested quietly, inanimate but somehow
aware, they commanded their own presence in front of her. “Concentrate,”
Jason said, slowly manifesting behind her.
Floating several inches off the ground, an outline of red power
divided him from the dark world that Emma inhabited. “The
books are there. The words inside
remain. The covers exist. They are physical and they are objects.” Emma lifted her head.
Her breath came out as a puff of cloud. As she breathed, her chest rising and
falling with the conscious effort, a blue line of power appeared around her. Twisting and changing, it grew into green,
then into a golden yellow. Finally,
her eyes opened powerfully. The book on the left disappeared, fading from
sight. Emma rose to her feet, the
golden outline growing in power. She
held out her hand, a powerful gust of wind blowing her hair and trench
coat. The book rattled on the steel
ground against the wind. Its cover was
torn open, but it threw itself over with the cover, closing again. Lifting her arms up as if rising water from the depths
of the ocean, Emma stared powerfully at the book. “Open,”
she commanded. The book lifted off the
ground, floating in thin air. It began
to shake, vibrating rapidly as it resisted Emma’s will. “Open,”
she commanded again, her voice charged with magical power. The door to the small office open and Alex stepped
inside. Carrying a soda can and a
handful of grapes, he joined Til and Eliot at the security monitoring
station. In front of them, several
screens showed Emma and Jason sitting calmly in front of the single metal
table in their lab, neither moving.
“How’s it going?” Alex asked. “Creepy,” Eliot answered with a bored sniff of his nose. He shook his head, watching the two. “It always weirds me out to watch magic and
stuff, especially on a security camera.” “Big man?” Alex asked to Til. “After all this time, it still disturbs me,” the thick
German said. “All they’re doing is
sitting there, but I know, my soul knows, that something very unnatural is
going on.” “Emma would argue that it’s very natural,” Alex
suggested, popping a grape in his mouth. “Yeah,” Til muttered, looking back at him. “Just like pilots contend that multi-ton
hunks of metal sailing through the air is natural.” Emma was on her knees, panting. Sweat covered her brow as she focused on
the book. It sat on the floor before
her, its presence resisting her. She
eyed the book, watching it like prey, observing it for the slightest
indication of weakness. In a surge of presence, the world changed. The
darkness overhead was gone and the steel floor was replaced with a grassy
field. Emma looked into the sky to see
a beautiful blue sea filled with white clouds. On the horizon, pine trees as far as the
eye could see. Emma looked down to see
her black trench coat gone. Instead,
she was dressed in a white sun dress, making the warm summer afternoon
surreally pleasant. “I
thought a change of pace might be worthwhile,” she heard Jason say. She turned as he walked out of the tree
line, carrying the two Ivers’ books.
Dressed in a black suit, he handed the familiar book to Emma and
smiled. “Working your will by force
isn’t working this time. Maybe we need
to try being a little more friendly.” “Maybe,”
Emma said. She reached out with her
mind, the world around her
becoming vivid and real. She sighed as
a breeze crested over the fields, causing the grass to bow in sweeping waves
while the trees in the distant sang with the motion of the wind. “This is a nice place,” she
commented. “Canadian?” “Yeah, it’s a
place near where my uncle’s trailer used to be,” Jason said. He looked down at the books. “Ready
to keep going?” “Yeah,” Emma
said with a nod. “I can’t wait for the rest of the staff to get back,”
Irene said as she dunked the plates into the dish water. She scrubbed them quickly, then handed them
off to Amy. “I haven’t done dishes
since I was in college and I worked at the university’s low-life
cafeteria.” She paused and looked at
Amy. “Worst food you can imagine,” she
said with a grin before wincing at the thought and turned back to the dirty
dishes. “My college’s cafeteria wasn’t that bad,” Amy said,
drying the dishes and setting them aside.
“It wasn’t great, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t bad.” “How’d you end up…” Irene ventured, “...you know?” “I met up with Lisa,” Amy said with a shrug, wiping down
a large serving dish, “and we decided to go backpacking down the “That’s really cool,” Irene said, smiling. She dunked another dish, then playfully
bumped Amy. Amy squealed and splashed
some water at Irene. Irene shrieked
and grabbed the spray facet, squirting Amy. Adam sat back, rubbing his eyes. “I’m a munitions expert and an electrical
engineer,” he complained, “not a research assistant.” He turned from his computer terminal to
Jin. “Shouldn’t somebody else be doing
this?” “Yeah, me,” Jin said, blinking his eyes exhaustedly,
multiple empty cups of coffee around him as he worked diligently on his
computer. “Sadly, there’s only one me,
so all of you get to take turns being a second me.” He paused.
“Wait, did I say that right?” “Sounds like it,” Adam said, turning back to his
computer. He scrolled down over more
data. “Ever since Jason and Emma got
the book open, this stuff’s been streaming out.” He shook his head. “God, we could spend out lives going over
this stuff, you know what I mean?” he asked, turning back around to Jason. The seat was empty. Assif stirred his coffee, staring out the window of his
office when the door was thrown in.
Jin stood in the middle of the doorway, the wide eyes of a madman on
his face. “We are in serious trouble,”
he declared. |
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