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Part 1

The Writer sat down his stylus as he glanced at the time. “It is getting late, isn’t it?”

The Mage stared out of the window, gazing pointedly at the moon. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“We haven’t even gone over the events in the District or what happened to Tokyo. It was gone for over three weeks,” the Writer said. While not accusing, he seemed disappointed.

“Only action films begin with action,” the Mage replied, off hand.

The Writer grinned. “But there was an explosion,” he pressed. The Mage did not respond. He seemed lost in his thoughts, in the history that he’d been a part of — no, not a part, but an active participant in. This man, this being that sat across from his clad in Armani or some other prohibitively expensive and unreasonably fashionable clothing, had met some of the luminaries of history. This man, who had witnessed so much that the textbooks he’d read as a student only hinted at.

What must life be to a man like that? What does he dream of at night? What touches his heart?

The Writer slid the stylus into its holder at the base of the tablet, took a quick gulp of water. “Same time and place tomorrow?”

“Yes,” the Mage replied, eyes still fixed on the moon. “We’ll have a car take you home and bring you back if you like.”

…

The next morning came and found the Writer and the Mage sitting across from each other at a table filled with fruit, bagels and pastries. The Mage gestured with a half-eaten apple. “So you’ve got some questions.”

“A few–Actually, a lot, but you said something that was interesting yesterday,” The Writer began, setting aside a cream cheese covered bagel.

“Only one thing?”

“You said that the tomb was a Mage Tower. What exactly did that mean?” The Writer brought up his tablet as he spoke.

The Mage nodded thoughtfully. “Good question,” he began. Outside, the morning light ignited the city into a lake of silver-white fire. Below the tops of the brilliant, sun-white skyscrapers, the city moved about its business in shadow. “Mage Tower… You know, on the ride back to the District, Williams asked me the same thing.”

“What did you tell her?”

“A Mage Tower,” I said, carefully as we passed through the clouds of a weak rain system. “Is a tool of sorts; a really, tremendously large sort of tool where mages work and live.”

Michelle looked at me, curious. She had taken off her sunglasses as we entered the airport and had not put them back on since. “There are more of you?”

“There were.” I think I looked away at this point. Know that, while I do enjoy sharing with people my knowledge, I find it difficult to talk about the fate of the mages. So, when she pressed the issue, I ignored her.

“What do mage towers do? Things in that tomb… Changed. All of that stone was metal when that woman appeared,” Michelle asked, moving away from her questioning on the fate of the mages.

“They are a refuge. Nearly indestructible. And, as I said, they are tools. They help the development of the sorts of technologies that I need to protect this world.”

“You have a mage tower? This workshop we’re going to is a tower?”

“No. I haven’t worked in a tower in several centuries. There was no need, especially after I started purchasing property.”

We looked up from our conversation as Henry and Jenna passed presumably on their way to the restroom. They passed the curtained area and, rather than the telltale thumping of entrants to the mile-high club, from the galley of the plane came their tense voices.

I sat up to look down the rows of seats and saw that Aiden had his head down and, from the clicking sounds, he was texting. “I thought people weren’t allowed to use their cell phones during plane rides.”

“They aren’t,” Michelle said stiffly. When I glanced at her, she seemed tense. Finally, she stood. “I’ll be back.” As if I was expecting her to leave the plane without letting me know.

She followed Henry and Jenna’s footsteps and the tense voices paused. I sat back in my seat and listened, allowing my hearing to focus on them.

“What’s the problem?” Michelle asked.

“Nothing,” came Henry’s reply.

“Something’s wrong. Is there something I can help you two with?” There was a pause. “It’s about Aiden, isn’t it?”

“Henry believes that it was a mistake to have him along,” Jenna said.

“He’s a minor for Christ sake. He couldn’t even enlist if he wanted to! And now we’ve got him out here dealing with some psycho woman who is making cities disappear.”

Michelle sighed softly. “He hasn’t been directly interacting with her or any of the phenomena attributed to her.”

“But that’s not the point. He should be at home, in school with people his own age. Playing football, not investigating aliens.”

Michelle’s voice was low. “Would you rather him taken against your will and experimented on?” There was a long pause. “Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get your entire family here and safe? If Aiden was not with me and you, he would be secreted away to a facility, kept in a deep, dark hole with no contact of the outside world or, worst of all, you.”

Jenna spoke first, “What are you talking about?”

But Henry cut in, “They can’t just take children.”

“Read your Patriot Act. The government has vast powers if it pertains to the safety of the country. Beyond that, the government, or the contractors, can claim that Aiden’s unique biology belongs to them. So yes, they can take your son, Henry. The only reason why Filteau and his NSA goons haven’t taken Aiden is because we have him here, on our team.”

“So if we left,” Henry ventured.

“I would not be able to protect your family. But, if in the future you feel that the field is not appropriate for him, we can arrange for you three to stay behind in a secure location when we go investigating.”

“That sounds like-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Jenna, just a minute age you were saying how we should be working for the country. How Aiden wouldn’t be in danger because -”

“That was before I knew that there might be black vans waiting to take our son away.”

Henry said nothing in reply. The moment stretched on. “Alright,” Michelle, said, breaking the silence. ” We’ll see about setting you three up with a safe house. But I will still require your services as consult.”

Silence again, though I imagine that it was filled with significant looks and nods. Michelle returned a few moments after that and sat. Trying not to seem as if I’d been listening, I tried small-talk.

“Does Delores always sleep that much?”

“What?” Michelle asked as she sat. She let out a long breath, apparently not used to dealing with the conversation she just had to have. Finally, she managed to get her thoughts together enough to respond. “No, no, she’s just clinically depressed. Sleeps all the time.”

“Well, that’s interesting. I thought it had something to do with her ability — you know, maybe with seeing death and destruction all the time?” I offered.

“No, her psych evaluations all come through clear, textbook depression. It seems like she’s viewing rather than experiencing. And, more than that, she says that most of the visions are boring.”

I considered this new information for a few moments, comparing it against my previous experiences with those with precognitive abilities. “She… Wouldn’t happen to be amazingly accomplished at mathematics, would she?”

“Three degrees in physics,” Michelle replied, glancing down at her tablet, she seemed ready to move on to actual work, and I planned to let her… But something else was bothering me.

“Michelle, one of the largest cities on the planet just disappeared. I would imagine that that qualifies under your office’s purview. Why isn’t your phone ringing continuously?”

“Lorenzo is fielding our calls and only forwarding the relevant ones to me.”

“The relevant calls? Aren’t they all relevant?” I asked, peering at her. Michelle sighed again, obviously irritated at my questions. This woman, this situation, was fascinating and it’s not often that I have a conundrum like this to pick at.

“We are an Office created by the President. So we don’t take demands from the Senate, the Military, or law enforcement.”

“You just share their budget.”

“So, we only take calls in emergencies like this from the President. Lorenzo knows who else need to contact us.”

“Michelle… You do realize that, essentially, we are the only people on the planet who realize what’s going on — except, perhaps, the whales, who, let’s face it, don’t have hands.”

Michelle gave me the look once again, informing me that I’d said something completely non-sequiter. Though, in retrospect, I must credit her for remaining stalwart in her mental priorities.

“Whales? No- not relevant. I recognize that we know the most — that you know the most, but Lorenzo will forward the information we have to those who ask with the proper clearance. Beyond that, we have other research that needs to be done before we can create a report or response of any substance.”

“A report… To debrief people with?”

“That’s the one. So if you’ll excuse me, I must write one now to submit to the President and the Joint Chiefs by the time we touch down in the District.” She watched me to gauge if I was going to pester her with more questions.

I didn’t. I had my own work to get to. So I set my mind to it.

Part 2

I watched as the flight display for destinations to and from East Asia flipped to “Delayed” and “Cancelled.” The news had already gotten the footage we’d obtained through secure channels. The Internet staggered beneath the weight of every single person with a connection posting or messaging furiously. The land phone lines, apparently, worked just fine. It was cellular service that took a major hit.

Michelle, blessed or resourceful, spoke tersely into her own cellular device as we breezed through the airport, passing people shocked into stillness as they watched the drama unfold on the television screens.

We hailed a cab. Henry, Jenna and Aiden drove away in a black SUV, headed for the safe house that Michelle and Lorenzo had organized while we were in the air. Now late in the evening, the crush of the District’s beltway traffic was over, and we made our way, relatively unmolested, to my workshop.

We stepped out of the cab on a quiet, dusk-lit street in Georgetown. Out of the brick reds and dark stones of the row houses, one house stood out. I’d had the facade made of brownstone. Frankly, if I dwell in another redbrick home before the end of the century, it will be far, far too soon.

“Nice place,” Delores commented as we entered the house.

“I try.”

Now, I’d mentioned before that I dislike the sensibilities of many interior designers. For example, free standing statues. Indoors. Terrible idea. And the decorator I hired… Put one in! Right in the middle of my sitting room!

“What happened here?” Michelle asked, pointing to a heap of marble sitting atop a pedestal of obsidian.

“That used to be a statue,” I replied, guiding them to the upper floors. From the exterior, the row home had only three floors. In the interior, there were seven.

“Are you using-” Michelle began, but I cut her off.

“No, the upper floors are just invisible,” I explained as we bypassed my personal rooms on the second floor to enter the open expanse of the third. Tables lined the walls, above which windows — on all four sides — allowed in light from the street. I clapped twice and the ceiling lights came alive. “The clapper, arguably one of the best inventions of the past forty years.”

“What about the internet?” Delores asked. I waved her opinion — for that is what it was — away. “What are we supposed to be doing here?”

“Research!” I exclaimed.

Delores and Michelle looked around at the nearly empty tables. “Research on what?”

“Oh, right, the crystalline processors. There are crystal disks on each table, simply tap them to start up the computers. They each tie into my central network systems.”

Michelle, I’m not certain if she was gullible or trusting, stepped over to a table and touched the flat lens of the crystal resting there. It pulsed, then flared with light. Above it, the holographic four-color logo of the Microsoft Corporation appeared. “Windows… 95?”

“Strangely enough it works the best with the architecture. Though finding drivers for USB 4.0 was quite the task. Go on, everything’s there.”

“Netscape?” Delores choked.

“Don’t knock it. It still displays the little dancing animated kittens just fine.”

“You’re insane,” Delores muttered as she reached out to interact with the holographic window.

“Can Lorenzo access your systems?” Michelle asked as she interacted with her own holographic interface.

“Ask him. Ever since we arrived he’s been trying,” I said as I looked over the interface hovering before me, listing Lorenzo’s attempts to access. At first they seemed refined, nearly surgical. Then- “Oh…my…”

A woman appeared on my display. She sat behind a desk and wore plaid and large glasses of a library, even her hair pulled up into a fierce bun. But her face… Seemed to be an amalgam of all things that screamed lust and charisma, but in such a composition that… There was something odd about it. “Oh indeed,” she replied.

“Lorenzo, darling,” she called over her shoulder, “We’re in.”

Lorenzo appeared in a window, obviously on a web camera. “What the hell?”

“What the hell?” I exclaimed.

“What the hell,” Michelle shot over my shoulder as she approached.

“Ooh-ho-ho, Lorenzo. Clever boy. When did you-”

Lorenzo’s eyes shot wide. “She’s a construct. A virtual reality thing I’ve been toying with.” He seemed insistent, so I let it drop, it wasn’t important.

The librarian winked at me — I presume it was I — then disappeared, allowing Lorenzo’s window to grow larger. “Right, then, if you’re quite done trying to break into my system –”

“Is that Windows 95?”

“Why are we still on this?”

“Lorenzo, did you gather that data that Mr. Valentine asked for?” Michelle asked.

“Barely. All that stuff started going classified faster than-”

“Good. Now… Send it to Mr. Valentine and we’ll get started.”

“Yes, send it to me and we’ll get started,” I said, crossing my arms.

“And, gentlemen, let’s keep the pissing contests to a minimum.”

We worked into the night; Michelle left to take several calls, and at one point used my system to conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They wanted to get my opinion, but I declined; Michelle knew my opinion and I wasn’t going to volunteer solutions that I did not yet have.

Most of our work was collating the few minutes before, during and after the disappearance of the city. The process that had been utilized in New Mexico had been magnified by an order of millions. Any subtle clues that I may have missed in Truth or Consequences would be writ large here.

“They’re asking it this will interfere with the rotation of the Earth and its orbit.”

“Definitely, but the effects won’t be felt for centuries… If we can’t get it back,” I explained.

“These readings aren’t adding up,” Delores said, not for the first time, going back several times to double-check her findings. Next to her one of the largest mugs of coffee ever poured by man.

“Of course they don’t, a city is missing for crying out loud.” Michelle said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Alright,” I said. “We’ve got a reasonable picture. The system is crunching. And…” I gestured. The room went dark and all of the crystals across the room blazed, declaring “95.”

The center of the room shimmered, then the island of Japan appeared. Beside, smaller images displayed seismographic, meteorological and network data. The country was dark and the city of Tokyo was a particularly brilliant jewel of man-made luminescence. The lights flickered as one and, across the country, darkness followed. Then, like that, Tokyo was gone.

“That was a really fancy display of what we already knew,” Delores said, yawning.

“Yes… But this is what I needed to know. The moon.”

“The moon?”

The display shifted quickly, zooming in on the reflection of the moon on the water, just before the city disappeared. There had been a flash. A gigantic flash just before the city had disappeared, followed by a shift in the tidal tables.

“Oh my god,” Delores breathed. “She didn’t”

“She did.”

“Did what?” Michelle glanced between us.

“She turned the feckin moon into a Death Star.”

Part 3

The Writer raised his eyebrows, questioning. The Mage smiled. “Strictly speaking, the Death Star was designed to make planets explode.”

“Is all of your life filled with hyperbole?”

“Oh, no, usually much of the insane outlandishness is accurate.” The Mage, finished with his apple, set the core on a small plate set off to the side. “Though, I am skipping a great deal of the boring in-between dealings.”

“Like what, for example?”

“Well, let’s see.” The Mage paused, turning his gaze to the ceiling. “Meeting with the President.”

“That’s not boring,” the Writer said, sitting up quickly. “You actually met with the President?”

The Mage nodded. “Yes.”

“Let’s go into that,” the Writer suggested.

“No. We’ll get to that later. First, there was a bit of trouble concerning the other clandestine offices located beneath the Homeland tower.”

“You know,” I told Delores and Michelle over an early, light breakfast. “I wonder at who invented scones.”

“Why?” Delores asked, pausing over her bowl of cereal, which, by the way, I had to send out special for. Did you know they still made Triples? You know, that ad where the children do a triple-take? With… No? Well, they do, but only in specialty stores.

“Because they seem like such a failed pastry. Firstly, it has the form of a muffin top, but without all of the moisture of a proper muffin top. It has the tough exterior of a baguette, but is not nearly so tender on the inside. It’s really just a hard brick of sugar,” I poked at one in the basket of pastries on the table with a fork.

“We’ve got problems. And they are bigger than a breadbasket,” Lorenzo said, his head appearing in holographic projection over the table.

“Wow,” Delores muttered through a mouthful of cereal.

“Lorenzo, you really must work on your witty remarks. I am terribly sad to say that you-” Michelle cut me off, obviously she was done with the pretenses of the morning.

She’d especially found it disconcerting that when she woke in one of my guestrooms, several garments from her home were hanging in the armoire. “What is it, Lorenzo?”

“The media are going mad out here. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day. The Senate is on our ass. And, to make matters even worse, you know those scientists we left behind in New Mexico? Some of them are starting to talk.”

I sighed. Of course they would have talked, it wasn’t as if some of them, particularly Dr. Kobayashi – sorry, Dr. Kobe. “So, what can we do about it all?” Michelle asked.

“Not much. No one can really control the internet, save for shutting the whole thing down, and that would only mean the hackers would have direct, unfettered lines of communication around the world and to the media,” Lorenzo shook his head as he spoke. “It’s pretty much a complete shit storm.”

Michelle glanced at me and, seeing that I did not have an answer from my shrug, she turned back to the Lorenzo projection. “Do what you can. Squash anything dealing with New Mexico if you can.”

Michelle turned to me. “What’s the next step? We know the location of the device on her side that she used to make the city disappear. What do we do with that information?”

I sighed softly and set the impaled scone down. “There are things that you need to understand about the nature of interdimensional travel. It is one of the basic laws which all realities follow and enables us to live side-by-side with them. Equality. Or, rather, the fact that all equations or reactions always have an equivalent result.”

Delores nodded, “Sure. It’s a basic precept of all mathematics. Equations must always be true.”

“And, while things can appear as if a reaction hasn’t occurred… It’s much like Mt. Saint Helen. The reactions and equations keep occurring, but the result is delayed and amplified.”

“Which means?”

“Which means… The meteorological data was consistent with the loss of a great volume of air and mass. Something was taken from this reality.”

Delores’ eyes grew wide. “You mean that something is coming back.”

“Something is coming back?”

“In about the same place and size of Tokyo, yes.”

“When?”

“Most likely when the moon is again visible, or, more generously… Ten hours.” I replied.

“Lorenzo, get on the line with… Everyone. There’s going to be an invasion.” Michelle glared at me as she spoke. When Lorenzo disappeared, Michelle stood. “Valentine… I realize that you are old and very, very likely insane, but I absolutely need to know when a mass roughly the size of a city once inhabited by thirteen million people is going to be entering our dimension.”

“Reality,” I corrected.

“Whatever it is, I need to know. Every time you have an inkling, a thought, or a gut instinct, you need to tell me. Every single time,” her eyes were hard, searching, as if she’d just seen me for the first time. “Come up with a solution to stop this.”

“Just like that?” I asked. Though I understood where her anger was coming from, I had no idea what she wanted me to do.

“Thirteen million citizens of this planet have disappeared in a split second, sent to a world ruled by a psychopath. Find a way to stop whatever is coming from coming and get our people back.” She glanced at Delores. “Are you good here?”

Delores waved her away. “Go save the world.”

Michelle gave me that hard, searching look again, then swept from the room, cellular already to her ear. Delores stared at me, curious. “You are a grade-A douche bag.”

She didn’t look quite as tired as she had yesterday. I would later learn that having a project to work on combated her depression. It was caused by an obsession, a wild focus on mathematics and theorems. The only way she could quiet it, she would later tell me, was to throw herself into another project, or to sleep. “That’s not very nice.”

“Well, you don’t seem concerned about the lives of the people of Tokyo,” she said. She set her spoon aside and pushed the bowl away from her.

“I care about the life of every person on this planet,” I countered.

“Huh. Then maybe you should start acting like it.”

The Mage speared a scone through with a knife and brought it up to his eyes to examine it. “And yet, why am I still served these dreadful things when I have guests? You know, perhaps on my future invitations, I will make it clear that scones will not be served. Though, that might be odd for a dinner party where, traditionally, scones aren’t served.”

“Delores brought up a good question. With how old and powerful you are, how do we know that you can care about anything? Anything you love will wither and die with the onward march of time and entropy. And you will remain.” The Writer paused, his stylus still over his tablet.

The Mage nodded slowly, “That is a good question, isn’t it? But consider it this way: You enjoy Christmas, don’t you? When you were younger you enjoyed the getting of presents. Opened them, one after the other. As you grew older, the gifts came smaller in number, so you opened them more slowly. Finally, you reach a point when you are the gift-giver and you watch others open their gifts. Such is the progression of life and my world.”

“I’m Jewish,” the Writer said. The Mage smiled.

“Then a birthday. Life… The life that I live is no longer about the selfish pursuits or wealth or fortune. Nor is it about the pursuit of legacy. It is about seeing those around me prosper, about seeing the world and its people, for all their faults and foibles, grow into something truly astonishing.”

I considered Delores’ words for a time as I sat alone. So often am I alone. I wonder if my perceived insanity is a result of that solitude.

But Michelle had been right. It was not fair for me to have kept that information from her, especially considering, like she said, that a psychopath was bringing a city into existence. I collected a muffin from the basket on the table and dashed from the kitchen.

I poked my head into the research room where Delores was trying to upgrade a display to a later version of Windows. “How long is a flight to Tokyo?”

“Is that some sort of badly timed joke?”

“How long?”

“Twenty hours.”

“Ah… Well… Yes, of course.” Which wouldn’t do. So, I had to organize my own transportation.

Part 4

“You bought a super-sonic jet,” Delores stared at the long, swan-like vehicle being wheeled out of a nearby hangar.

“Well, yes,” I replied. “I do need to get to certain places rather quickly. Oh, and I need you to calculate the location and distance to the moon while we’re on the way.”

“Why?” Delores hadn’t taken her eyes from the plane.

“We will need to figure out how to stop it of course.”

“In nineteen hours.”

“Plenty of time.”

“Just how wealthy are you?” The Writer asked, brow furrowed. “You haven’t been in any Fortune lists that I know of.”

“I have been alive for a very long time. One of the things that I am very glad for is that I do not have to worry about money. At least for the forseeable future. I have a patent on the wheel.”

The Writer stared. “You’re serious.”

“No. The wheel is a simple tool, you can’t patent it. But! You can patent nearly everything else. Create investment companies that are still getting paid. Possess original stocks in Bell Atlantic and Google, for example.”

“You’re not going to answer me, are you?” The Writer said, sighing.

“Probably not. It wouldn’t help the story any. Besides, if we can ever get through this monstrosity of a story, we might come back and revisit the question.”

“Sir! It’s the US military. We’re entering restricted airspace over Japan,” the pilot called back to the first class compartment. Delores was asleep nearby, though I imagine this time it was because she was actually tired rather than simply trying to dodge her over-active mind.

I unbuckled from my seat and moved into the cockpit. “Give me the thingy.”

“The what?”

“The headset. Ug, I can see why pilots always have the same haircut. Anything else gets obliterated under this damned thing,” I gestured for them to open the channel. “Uh-hello? This is the Nemo-Two, who is this?”

“This is the United States Air Force. Turn back now. You are entering restricted airspace,” a crisp, professional voice replied over the channel. “This is your second warning.”

“Ah, well. Okay. But you see, I need to prevent an alien invasion.”

“Sir, you must turn back now. Two aircraft are on intercept. You must turn back now.”

I took off the headset. “Aircraft on intercept, what does that mean?”

The pilot grew pale. “They’re planning to shoot us down.”

“Shoot-” I pulled the headphones back on, damn the hair. “This is Elijah Valentine, I am a consultant to the Office of Extra-Natural Affairs working under Michelle Williams. I need to land this plane near the location of the incident in order to stop something far far worse from happening.”

“Sir, you have four minutes to turn back now. Aircraft are closing on your position.”

“Is this thing on? Did they get that?” I asked the pilot quickly. He checked the controls and nodded. “Alright then we’re going to have to go about this a different way, aren’t we?”

“Short of turning back, we don’t have any other choices,” the pilot said, placing his hands on the controls.

“Oh, we can certainly get shot down. That’s a valid option,” I offered. Seeing that the man was not impressed, I let the suggestion drop. “So, it’s either get shot down or allow an invasion fleet to arrive. Well that’s not a good set of options in any case. Can Delores use her cellular?”

“Sure.” I dashed for the fist class compartment. I shook the poor woman awake, which she did not appreciate and slapped me for my efforts. “Where is your mobile?”

“My purse. What the hell was that for?” She straightened in her chair and adjusted her sweater as I rummaged in her purse.

“For the love of… Why do women have so much in their- AHA!” I snatched the cellular from its confines within the leather satchel and fiddled with it.

Delores, amused, watched me. “I can see why you prefer windows 95.”

“Michelle?”

“Delores?”

“What?”

“Valentine,” the name was a simultaneous disappointment and accusation.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“You stole Delores’ phone?”

“No-”

“What do you want?”

“Michelle, We’re an hour out from Tokyo. We need-”

“What do you mean you’re an hour out from Tokyo?”

“Just. Listen!” She was silent. “Apparently this is restricted airspace so wer have two jets-”

“F-28s”

“F-28? I didn’t know-”

“No one does.”

“Well those fancy new jets are four minutes-”

“Two minutes!” the pilot called from the cockpit.

“Two minutes out from destroying this plane. So, if you wouldn’t mind… Can you call them off?”

Michelle was silent. There were voices on her side of the connection, as if she was among very many people. Some barking orders.

“Michelle… How did you know that F-28s were on intercept?” I asked carefully.

“Valentine, you are clear to land,” she said. I could have sworn she was smiling, though that might have been impossible. In this sort of situation, she was all business.

Part 5

The plan was simple. Unfortunately, the technology at hand was not at the standard needed to accomplish the task. “You bring all of this equipment here — F28s no less — and you don’t think to bring a rail gun?”

“It wasn’t on the Kennedy,” Michelle explained as she pointed to the plan I’d sketched out on the engagement table. “But we do have nuclear options.”

“Nuclear options?” I scoffed, staring at Michelle, then to the military personnel gathered around. “Really? Is this the best solution?”

“I’m sorry, did any of you come up with an idea that amounts to ‘Let’s shoot the moon?’” One young uniformed officer said, grimacing.

“It worked in Truth or Consequences.”

“This is not New Mexico.”

“Obviously,” I replied. “In New Mexico I had the tools I needed.”

“Alright, so you don’t have a rail gun. What’s the next option?” One of the militaros asked, glancing at me.

“I don’t know-” I began, and the one who had insulted my idea of shooting the moon started to speak up. “Yet,” I amended. “I don’t know, yet. There are several things that may work but without the technology and tools to do that here, we can rule them out. We can also rule out any nuclear options.”

All were tight-lipped. “We -are- ruling out the nuclear option, aren’t we?”

“There are several warheads on the Kennedy,” Michelle explained. “It was the closest military asset we had in the region.”

“You humans and your damned nukes. Look, once it starts appearing, let me take the lead. If that doesn’t work, then you can nuke Japan. Again.”

“Take the lead, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means we start with Diplomacy. You know what that is, don’t you? Where two people talk and no one is threatening nuclear winter.”

“These people have nuclear capability?” Another person asked. I gazed at him

“These people turned their moon into a Death star. I think that nuclear might be well within their purview.” Though, in truth, I doubted it would come down to exchanging nuclear warheads. That was now how Rhianna worked, or at least it wasn’t how I remembered her.

“We give Valentine an opportunity to… Talk them down,” the general –I assume he was a general – said. He didn’t like my plan. “When it does not work, what are our options?”

Michelle gestured to me and the two of us left the engagement room. She led me out into a camp that was frantic with action. Transports rushed back and forth through makeshift roads lined by temporary tents. “This is impressive,” I commented.

“The US is the fastest acting war-response nation in the world. Why should this be any different?” she responded. And it was a solid point.

“You’re going to need to convince all of them to stay back when I go to talk to them,” I said softly. A loaded truck passed in front of us, pausing our progress.

“Why would I do that? You’re going to need back up when you-” Michelle began.

“No. Remember New Mexico. The explosion in the street. That was from a sphere roughly a meter in diameter. If I disable the machine, that explosion will be far greater by orders of magnitude.”

We walked for several more seconds. Michelle turned and headed back to the engagement tent. I stopped and watched the moon rise on the horizon.

“Moonrise. What have you planned, Rhianna?” I looked down as the scribbled notes on the palm of my hand, then brought it up to the horizon. It wasn’t high enough, yet. Not yet. Not for the appearance of whatever was going to appear in the stead of Tokyo. But it was time for me to put my plan into motion.

I planted my feet on the ground and produced from my pocket my blade, which was, at that particular moment, nearly six inches long, gleaming silver in the dim light. It grew in length as I held it. Glittering with the atomic bonds it was forging, the blade, now a meter long javelin, was heavy in my hand. I twirled it experimentally and a spark from the reactions lept from the surface and shocked my fingers.

I dropped it. Luckily, it fell along its length rather than point first. It struck the earth with a thunderous crack and I knelt to fish the javelin out of the fissure the impact created. It had fallen through several inches of the compact soil and it took me a moment to retrieve it. Retrieved, I hefted the javelin again, planted my feet then… Threw.

The ground beneath my feet shattered, kicking up dust and rocks. As I turned to release the javelin, I made note of how beautiful the grass looked as it waved slowly, slowly, slowly in the breeze. The kicked up debris arced, glacially slow, through the air. The sounds of work and wind slowed to near imperceptions. The javelin was free, speeding away violently.

As my perception returned to normal time, the air around me erupted with sound as the speeding weapon tore through the sound barrier on its way to its destination.

Uniformed men and women appeared, as if materializing out of the air with weapons raised and eyes sighted along the barrels of various guns. I raised my hands, sheepish. “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to startle you.”

I noticed the sound of a voice echoing through the quiet. “…begin evacuation procedure.”

I honestly don’t understand how Michelle got those military types and such to move so quickly, but in a few hours, I walked alone along the scooped earth that had once held Tokyo. The smell of earth trapped beneath stone and concrete was strong still and the breeze kicked up dust and dirt from the vegetation-free ground.

“You do realize that the only reason why they agreed to evacuate is because it makes the decision to use nuclear ordinance that much simpler.” Once again Michelle was in my ear on one of those communication devices.

“It’s overkill, it won’t be needed.”

“Tell that to the men and women whose job it is to keep people safe.”

“Speaking of, what is the United States government doing initiating this conflict?”

“What’s that?” Michelle asked quickly.

“No, no, you’re not going to change the subject on me-”

“No,” Michelle sighed, annoyed, “What’s -that-? Up ahead?”

I hadn’t really been paying attention, but now that she pointed it out, I could see a pulsing light several miles ahead. I glanced at the moon and swore. I’d lost track of time somehow and already the moon was rippling, shadows of the Death star appearing over it.

Michelle was saying something, but her voice stretched out into near-infinity as I crossed the distance between myself and the light in a heartbeat. I stopped short, black, rich soil flying upwards in a shower. There was a pedestal, like one from a mage tower, but this was far, far larger. It towered over me, nearly two stories tall, pulsing with light and through various gradient of transparency.

“Of course,” I said dryly. “Nothing is ever easy.”

“How did you…” Michelle paused, then reconsidered the asking of her question. “What is that?”

“It’s an anchor.” I thought back to the confrontation with Rhianna just a day ago and recalled that during all of their time speaking she’d never released the pedestal. “It allows whatever is touching it to exist in two realities at once. But this… Is massive. Why is it so large?”

“Could it be large enough to anchor a city?”

“Maybe, but I can’t see why.”

“Didn’t you say it was difficult to open a portal between realities?”

“Yes, but-”

“So Rhianna sends a city here, anchored by that thing. What’s to stop her from continuously sending her troops into the city to come out on the other side in our reality?”

“You mean this isn’t-”

“No matter how large a force is, ” Michelle explained, “Without a line of supply it will dwindle and collapse in on itself. Remember Crowston? The bats were having a hard time because they couldn’t digest complex molecules here. Why would Rhianna’s force be any different?” She paused, “She’s not just dropping troops off here. She’s establishing a beach-head.”