The last month has been a little crazy. On Sunday, June 26th, I wrote a “Time & Tied” guest post at Jim’s serial site, “Legion of Nothing”. Then on Saturday, July 9th, my third Epsilon story appeared at the top of “Web Fiction Guide”’s main page (it’s still there, towards the bottom). I’ve also had a few votes giving me pings from the “Top Web Fiction” fantasy page (feel free to vote in the above menu).

Having been curious in advance about any possible effect, I’ve been grabbing daily stats screen captures, in the name of research. At this point, we seem to be back to “normal”: less than 15 views per day here, since Monday. So here’s the month (June 25-July 24) in a nutshell.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Zero comments. Nothing, nada, zero, zip. Arc 3.1 done, and nothing on the blog in the last 30 days. Unless you count the spam remark that got through, which I deleted. Maybe people need to sign up for a WordPress account, and don’t want to? Though no emails either. No idea why people are staying, or aren’t staying. All I have is my statistics captures.

Okay, there has been some external feedback, which I will get to, but if people aren’t saying anything here, what HAVE they been doing on this site? Let’s get into it.

INTERPRETING THE HITS

It looks like I might have FOUR readers who archive binged. Hello! Feel free to introduce yourselves. One person caught up on June 28th, the next on July 4th (though they may have only read Books 1&2 and not continued), the next on July 7th, and the latest on July 16th. In all cases it seemed to take only two days. June 28th is a curious one - someone might have read the entire T&T archive then, or they might have read to Part 27 even as the person who got that far on the 26th continued reading.

This brings up the question of where people are cutting OUT, and not reading any more. Someone cut out around Part 27, implying they read Book 1, peeked into Book 2, and decided this wasn’t for them. (The June 26/28 case above.) Someone who started on June 30th got as far as Part 34 a few days later, and dropped it. I can’t figure that one out, it’s not a natural stopping point, maybe the Julie family thing was a trigger?

Two people dropped the story at Part 10. One person at Part 8, another at Part 7, four people at Part 4, and everybody else gave up after 1 or 2 parts. “Everybody else” being the 77 other hits that Part 1 received since June 26th.

It’s a bit tricky to tell if anyone simply picked up at “Book 3” (Part 48) with no backstory, but “The Visionaries”, Part 51 from over a week ago, has only 9 views. So between the 4 new readers (above), the 4-5 I think I already had, and past experience, I’m going with “no”.

As far as my “Epsilon” interactive fiction is concerned, forget about it. Out of 55 views this month, only ONE person read past Part 1, and they only went to Part 4. Granted, they’re the ones coming from “WebFictionGuide”, who haven’t seen a prior sample of my writing like Jim’s group did. Before I get deep into referrals, here’s an amusing screen capture from late in the afternoon on Sat. July 9th, where you can see exactly who came from where.

INTERPRETING THE REFERRALS

At noon on June 26th, when my post went live on Jim’s site, I had zero views for the prior 12 hours, and my June 2016 total was clawing its way to 200, which would have made it the second worst month of the year. Instead, June would finish with 486 views, my best month ever, and July has already pushed past 600.

Note I’m talking views there, not visitors. My June visitors was 149, thirty better than my previous record (119 in April). July is at roughly the same number right now. The surge from Jim’s site in late June was likely duplicated by the WFG entry earlier this month. The highest visitor counts were: 21 on Mon June 27, then 20 on Tue June 28, then 18 on July 10th (after I went up on WFG). All other daily visitor counts are below 15.

Jim’s site, “Legion of Nothing”, gave me 47 referrals in just the first week. The second week had 9 referrals, and by July 13th I was starting to see consecutive days with no arrivals from his site. At present, we’re looking at a total of 68 people (possibly double counting any who clicked in twice). At least two of the new readers must be from his site.

“Web Fiction Guide” listings gave me a total of 57 referrals over the month, four of them “Time & Tied”, the rest “Full Scale Invasion” links (that, as said, no one continued with beyond Part 4). So nothing stuck there, nor with the 10 referrals from various “WFG” forum posts.

I also got 9 referrals from “Top Web Fiction: Fantasy” which is kind of exciting. At one point “Time & Tied” had 4 votes there (well, 3 + 1 was mine) which allowed it to be visible (near the bottom). It’s theoretically possible that the complete archive readers July 3rd and July 15th came from TWP and not Jim’s site, but I have no way of knowing.

In the “Miscellaneous” category, I got 3 referrals from Graves’ serial; I hadn’t realized L.E. Erickson had linked me, so go check that serial out. Also 1 referral from RedWood Crossing, and 1 from one of my other blogs. Then 12 from Twitter, 9 from Facebook (T&T has a page with 9 likes), 6 referrals from random Google Searches (most unknown, one was “principal tt2”), 4 from WordPress dashboards/readers, 1 from “mail” (the link is in my .sig) and 1 from “feedreader”.

Here’s a screen capture of views over the last month:

INTERPRETING THE FEEDBACK

While there’s nothing “on site”, I have heard things. Like a friend at the math camp I went to last week said that if someone is subscribed in a reader (like feedly), I’ll get no notifications here at all. I also have 7 WordPress followers (wait, 8 - hello chryskelly!), two of which joined in the last 30 days (plus one in the last 24 hours). I admit I have no idea how any of that factors into anything.

Of interest, I also discovered at that math camp that Hedge had been reading my interactive fiction, and doing her own personal vote considerations, which blew me away. Also Justin Aion said that my T&T story was interesting, another a pleasant surprise. And I had a conversation with John Golden, who has been with me for a while. He’s fond of Chartreuse, like me, also likes Frank (though noted he wasn’t around as much later), and as to Carrie he’s warming up to her though didn’t like her initially. Which John feels was part of the point, and yes. I’m big on redemption arcs.

Outside of those 3 “in person” talks, ChrysKelly made a comment over on Jim’s site at my guest post. Seemingly another Chartreuse-style fan, she noted the entry was confusing until you really get that it’s a time travel story. Valid. Elsewhere, on the WFG forums in the thread “Clever/Funny Lines?” I posted an excerpt from “The Visionaries” (the Queue & Eh session), to which Walter said “That’s hilarious”. So that’s good. And Scott Delahunt (my beta) has continued to campaign for me, sharing my FB posts and RTing my updates.

That’s it. To date, of 52 entries, the only T&T posts with actual comments (not counting Commentaries like this one) are Part 21, Part 36 and Part 37, all by John Golden last year. Which makes this serial a massive failure as compared to “Full Scale Invasion” where TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE actually commented on ONE post (I know, right?!) within the first month. On the other hand, no one who started “FSI” this month actually continued with it, whereas four who started “T&T” caught up.

A good question that Sonal raised with me on my personal blog is why “feedback” on something already published in a post is of any use. Just to give a sense of that, there’s two relatively major changes I’ve made thanks to two reviews I got at WFG. The first review was by Billy Higgins Peery VERY early on, mentioning the main character was a horrible, selfish person. So, despite me already losing him, going forwards I muted some of Carrie’s edges and bumped her ‘redemption’ arc back from Part 23 (end of Book 1) into Part 21. The other review was by MaddiRose, which indirectly convinced me to put better ‘breaks’ into earlier chapters, so it’s more clear when I’m changing Point Of View.

I… don’t know what else to do. I mean, the majority of this thing is written, so it’s mostly editorial tweaks like that which are at stake, but even Mark Dittmer’s tweet from reading Part 42 stand-alone and wondering about there being a “Carrie” and a “Corry” was illuminating. Are the names too similar? ARE THEY? Or if you’ve read from the start, is it okay? Does any of it matter??

Maybe I just need to stop going to other serial sites where there are occasional comments, it’s depressing.

WRAPUP

In summary, Jim said LoN gets 2000-4000 page views and 300-600 users most days. So at best, I pulled in maybe 5% of his viewers, and maybe 5% of those I got stuck around. (5% of 5% being 0.3%, or about 2 people. It presumes the same 600 users each day, but then again maybe all 4 readers came from Jim over two days.) In the past, I’ve picked up a single reader from Maddirose’s review (my previous best day before June 27/28), and that’s about it.

I guess, all I can think is, if you have been enjoying this thing, maybe tell someone?? I suspect comments beget more comments, but that’s supposition. It’s also possible I’m being too self conscious, or have self esteem issues. I’m still KINDA planning to write a T&T Book 5 with a bunch of new characters, but maybe I should write something else instead? Time travel doesn’t seem to fly. That said, we’re stuck with it for at least the rest of this year, I’m no quitter. Plus I need to keep 9 people entertained.

Thanks for reading! Oh, I now have two 2016 dimes to go with my loonie and quarter, and hey, the fact that such an event still makes me grin means something.

A brief reminder that I started this style of post with the second Epsilon story; it’s a look at the choices NOT taken by you, the audience. The arcs that never were. To see how “Full Scale Invasion” Parts 1-9 might have unfolded, see this prior post. Spoilers follow for the rest of the story, naturally.

ENTER THE GOVERNMENT

10. DELIVERY. Marginal influence? Hard to say with this one. Queeny was due to come in anyway - the third incursion of a large artifact would have involved the government somehow - but the unanimous decision here to have Queeny in possession of Alice’s package meant three things.

First, Queeny arrived before the artifact, instead of after. Not that big a deal. Second, Chris not having the package meant Alijda’s healing would be delayed. But with magic about to get torpedoed, a delay was inevitable anyway. Finally, indirectly, this kept Bonnie from returning to the story. Is that marginal?

I point out that Queeny’s meeting with Bonnie was always going to happen at or near the site of the incursion. (You may recall in vote #7, Bonnie not being able to return to the DEO? The object arriving would have factored in.) Except now, for Queeny to be there early, and to bring Andi back in, it made more sense to NOT have Queeny and Bonnie in a motel room.

So, no Bonnie here - marginal? Maybe. It meant she was keeping informed another way. This part also gave Queeny a spy in the DEO, but that was liable to be the case anyway.

11. THIMBLE. Major influence. If technology had stopped working, Bonnie would have needed the help of the magic users to create a “technology capable field”. If magic had stopped working, the magic users would have needed access to that hidden room in the DEO, so heavily shielded that magic was accessible again.

I threw in “techno-magic fusion” on a whim. Whelp. The fact that it was selected kept Bonnie from returning for quite a while. Also, only three votes for such a pivotal decision, during a time when I was struggling to write, was problematic - see this “Behind the Scenes” post for why, post-vote, I subsequently only put in half the effort on part 12.

Notably, for someone who is a big fan of the anime “Magical Lyrical Nanoha”, I ended up thinking about how to fusion for far too long. When the anime link clicked in my head, Kat having taken an “unnamed item to be identified later” became “Minerva the USB”, and Chris’ new identity as Axiom became inevitable - although such details wouldn’t fully form until Part 13.

12. TPORTING. Marginal influence. Alijda teleporting being unaffected by scale would have had her teleporting being a major piece of rescuing Clyde. Her teleporting with assistance would have had her interfacing in some way with Minerva/Axiom. With the choice of her teleporting being limited, having her along became optional… but she was ultimately chosen anyway. So no big deal.

HIDDEN VOTE DECISIONS

One of the objections to a “vote for plot” story raised at CanCon (a convention I attended last October) was that readers don’t necessarily know what they truly want. Or they may lack necessary context to choose. How things play out from here took that into account.

13. CLYDE. Major influence. This was “Bonnie’s revelation”, which I alluded to as far back as #6… namely Clyde is still alive, on TechWorld, and his use of the portal is what triggered everything. Back then, I’d decided Bonnie knew about it - but did she? She didn’t have to. Hmm. Readers didn’t have this information, so I presented it in the following way:

If the vote was Bonnie hated Clyde, she knew. But she’d had to keep it secret, and was continuing the experiment either to capitalize on his earlier work, or out of a delayed sense of guilt. If the vote was Bonnie loved Clyde, she did NOT know, and was continuing his work to give the man she loved a better legacy. The third option was that someone else loved Clyde.

Maybe I should stop dreaming up these third options?

That choice was always going to be homosexual. I debated Queeny having a brother, Kingy, who was in love with Clyde, but decided that a new character this late in the game was unnecessary. Larry picked up the love interest. Meanwhile, since Bonnie’s love emotion was the runner-up (2-1), I deemed that Bonnie did NOT know Clyde’s fate either. Which retroactively puts a new spin on her scenes, maybe.

See? The runner up vote can be important too.

14. COMPANION. Major influence? Also a tough call. First, wow, this was close: 3-2-2. Also the first time I’ve ever had a 7-vote poll; the 7 votes back in #12 were spread over two weeks (6 then 1, which I’m pretty sure was a repeat, as I’d encouraged people to go back and keep voting). Granted, I kept #14 here open an extra 24 hours too, which changed it from a 3-2-1 vote.

Like last time, this actually WASN’T a poll on the characters, even though it seemed that way. It was a poll on the plot. Namely the scenario Axiom would find on TechWorld. Had Kat been chosen, there would have been a hardware issue to deal with; swapping chips or something to free Clyde and/or blow out the portal. Had Para been chosen, there would have been a design issue; modifying portal plans or something. Instead, it was Alijda, so we got a dimensional portal that kept her at Clyde’s size, and drones that she could hack.

Except she didn’t hack. So… still a major influence? Maybe not?

15. ESCAPE. Major influence. The “worst” option was chosen!

Okay, good and bad is relative, but I think the best end would have been Alijda figuring out how to shrink Axiom (which she ultimately alluded to in part #17). Think about it - having all the characters the same size would have made the density shield more manageable, and they would then all be the same size upon returning. Next best was the distraction idea, with hacking the drones.

Instead, their fate was put into the hands of the guy who’d been held prisoner, now possibly suffering from post traumatic stress, or Stockholm syndrome, or who knows what. It also meant they were no longer masters of their own fate. Now, I was fine with this, and I suppose there’s something to be said for the people of that world solving their own problems instead of Alijda - but is Clyde really the best plan if you think a bit harder about it? Am I out of line here?

Anyway, Clyde was originally going to do some sort of massive self-destruct. When I started writing, it became taking control of the sleep ray instead. I’d needed a non-lethal way to knock Mook out, and saw a way to repurpose that tech on a bigger scale. In the end, this choice may have helped Alijda rethink whether she should have become involved? I don’t think she was happy with how it turned out. Were the readers?

POOR ALICE

16. OBSERVING. Marginal influence. More sadness!

Obviously saying “do you want a sad end?” isn’t valid, as most people will say “no”. But Kat’s closing remark in #16 about Alice and trouble, plus the “Alice has been good” in the choice was meant to be a big red flag, particularly after the last decision. To be clear, I’m not against the choice that was made, but I WAS trying to alert readers as to what Alice “helping” would entail - the end should not have been a complete surprise.

Had Alice been good, she might have been a little frayed at the edges mentally (like me) and needed a vacation. Had she only looked, she would have been given a partner to work with on the Station. As it is, yup, she is FIRED. If and when Epsilon ever resumes, someone else will be running things, and that’s on your heads (okay, and mine, for putting the choice out there).

Alice leaving with Alijda wasn’t planned, but I wanted SOME happy feels in the end, which is also why the part ran a bit longer than usual. Some other things that weren’t planned in there were Kat’s callback to Tara with Bonnie (although Bonnie doing something with techno-magic was intended), and the dragon itself.

Yeah, I figured if Alice was going out, she was going to do it with style, plus the dragon allowed for a call back to MagicWorld. I’m not sure how Kat and the rest would have generated the fire otherwise. Fireworks, or blowing something up, maybe? Also, prior to the dragon, I was pondering Alice’s interference as saving one of them from a possible death by laser.

17. CHARACTER. I’ve done one of these each story. After Story1, it was Alijda unanimously, 4-0. Story2 was Chartreuse unanimously, 2-0. (Those polls are still open by the way.) A couple things surprised me this time, as of the time this is posted (six votes registered).

First, the strong showing by Kat, a MALE character, with thanks to Kayla for telling me that he was relatable. Early on, I worried he was coming across as objectifying women more than being a flirt, so I tried to redirect him a bit (you notice he didn’t hit on Chris). Second, the props for Alice along with Alijda; maybe that was due to Alice getting her own part this time? Who knows. I’ll keep that last poll open for a while yet.

This website will now be returning to “Time & Tied” for another 44 episodes/weeks, meaning about ten months. In brief, it’s a time travel story about a war in the future, which has spilled into the past, and is affecting one teenage girl in particular. But like “Epsilon”, you can start reading with the next post, no prior knowledge of the serial needed!

I hope you stick around for it; Chartreuse, the most popular character from the second “Epsilon” story, features more prominently this time. (That said, her appearance in “Epsilon” is AFTER the coming parts of T&T, so hold off on “Story2” if you want to avoid minor spoilers. At the time, I hadn’t been sure I’d put up T&T at all.)

I do hope you enjoyed reading this look behind the scenes! As always, thanks for voting/reading, and feel free to comment below about that which was unexpected, or anything else that jumps out at you. Have a great day!

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART SEVENTEEN: FIRING LINE

“What’s your suggestion?” Michaela asked.

Kat gestured at Bonnie. “As she said, a firewall. Literally. To push back the invasion. Does anyone have magical experience controlling fire?”

Michaela shook her head. “We tend to steer clear of the elemental magic. I might be able to craft an illusion of fire?”

“That won’t convince them,” Kat sighed. “It’s fine, I can do it. I just hope it doesn’t get me fired, pun not entirely unintended.”

“How can you make a real fire which is not only big enough, but created fast enough so that the invaders don’t have time to stop you?” Bonnie challenged.

“Erm. With help,” Kat said. “Like, if Andi can run fast and drop some matches…"

The thunderclap in the air made everyone turn their heads. A second dimensional rip was appearing, roughly 100 yards away from the first one. “Oh, that can’t be good,” Para sighed.

Kat wasn’t sure if the bunny mathematician was referring to the tear itself, or the red dragon that flew through as it opened.

On the bright side, either the dragon was small, or a larger one had been reduced in size by the transition - the winged animal wasn’t much larger than the size of a house. On the down side, the dragon didn’t look happy.

It seemed even less pleased when one of the invaders let out a shriek and fired a projectile weapon at it. The dragon responded by breathing fire, setting a wide band of the grassy field by the train station alight.

“We never know if it’s TechWorld or MagicWorld who will drop stuff,” Michaela said, rubbing her chin. “Has it ever been both?”

“Alijda and Axiom are back!” Para cried out. She pointed above the fire, to where the flying carpet had reappeared. Originally aiming for the sky, it made a quick course correction back into the smoke upon spotting the dragon.

“I’ll try an illusion, to get the dragon to go back into its rift,” Michaela decided. She held up a weed whacker, previously selected as her focus. “Can you guys handle the fire?”

“I…" Kat glanced at Para, who was already activating her Epsilon communicator. “Para! Wait, give me… thirty seconds?”

Without waiting for a response, he ran off towards the fire, barely aware of Bonnie running after him.

“When you sang about going down in flames, I didn’t think that’d be literal!” Alijda protested.

Their carpet had clipped the edge of the fire, in trying to avoid both the tech invaders below, and the dragon above. Clyde stamping out the smouldering material wasn’t very effective, seeing as both he and Alijda remained doll sized as compared to their surroundings.

“Hold on. I see an open door,” Axiom panted, evidently deciding that some sort of refuge was the best option.

They smashed through a flimsy screen covering, tumbling from the flying carpet onto the floor of a kitchen. Alijda automatically adjusted her fall with a teleport, and as such was the first to spot Queeny and Larry approaching.

“You’re back! You made it!” Larry said, clasping his hands. “And you have Clyde, and he’s… he’s, um, wow, very… tiny…"

“Yeah, that was not a typical rift,” Clyde said, staring up at Larry. “A reunion hug will have to wait.”

“Actually,” Alijda spoke up. “The spell that Chris - er, Axiom - used to stabilize me? And keep Kat and Para from shrinking? I was thinking it could be used to vary your density the other way.”

“Fine, talk later. Please,” Queeny said. “For now, help us search this house for anything to drive away those invaders!” She gestured outside, then did a double take. “And what the hell is breathing fire on my city?!”

Axiom let out a breath. “I’d better seal off our dimension, before anything else appears.”

“In that case, I’m off to link up with my friends,” Alijda noted. She eyed the smouldering carpet. “By teleporting, I guess. Thanks for everything!”

With a final wave and a smile, Alijda disappeared in a small cloud of purple smoke.

Kat was worried. He had never previously attempted to manipulate any fire larger than what you might find in a fireplace. And as he exerted his will, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to handle all of it; only enough of it to move the flames towards the invaders, pushing them back towards their dimensional rift.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Bonnie, halting his advance. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to snuff this thing out. You’ll want to call a fire brigade.”

“Explain to me how you’re controlling it.”

Kat shook his head. “This isn’t something you can learn to do in the time–"

“If the spell casters can channel their spells by using technology, it’s high time someone tried to activate the technology properly, by using a spell!” Bonnie shot back. Kat watched as the older woman pulled a crystalline object out of her pocket. “This is supposed to manipulate the weather. Tell me how you’re manipulating the fire.”

For a moment, Kat was reminded of Tara, the woman he’d encountered right before this whole “Epsilon” escapade began. Except instead of him looking for occult information from an asian, Bonnie was now looking to him for the information. The information which he had first learned about from Fate, way back in high school.

It made him want to get back to his Earth, to continue his search.

“Clear your mind,” Kat suggested. “Focus on the flame, or rather, your device there. Making any physical motions can actually help, as you’re learning. Say whatever comes to mind.”

As he spoke, he pushed his own arms out, making the grass fire leap forwards. Although he couldn’t see all of the invaders due to the smoke and flame, the fire was in some sense an extension of himself, and he sensed that they were back-pedalling. Back towards the dimensional rift.

Bonnie said something that he didn’t catch. That’s when the griffin appeared in the sky.

“It’s an eagle-lion?” Para wondered.

Michaela swung her weed whacker in a wide arc. “Griffin,” she explained. “Enemy of dragons, if the fantasy stories I read as a child are to be believed. I hope I made it look convincing.”

“That will scare the dragon away?”

The redheaded woman cut through the air with her garden implement again, making the griffin move. “Maybe? I’ve never made such a massive illusion before, and dragons are smart. Still, he may decide our world is too crazy to be worth investigating.”

“Right.” Para finished counting down the rest of Kat’s thirty seconds, then initiated communication with Alice.

“You’re all alive, right?” was the first thing Alice said. “Please?”

“Uhm, yeah!” Para assured. “But we need extraction, is there a doorway somewhere we should use?”

“This isn’t ‘The Librarians’! No matter what it looks like down there,” Alice countered. “Tell me when you’re within two metres of each other, with nobody else around. Oh, and make that happen fast?”

Para nodded eagerly. “Will do!”

A small cloud of purple smoke puffed into existence on the ground. Para crouched down. “Alijda! Great timing - we need to get to Kat, fast!”

“Riiight. I’m teleported out, give me a ride?”

As Para offered her hand to Alijda, a gust of wind blew through the area, resolving into the form of Andi. The older woman was breathing hard. “Invaders are… are leaving…" She rested her hands on her knees. “Oof. I’m spent. Does Bonnie have any extra PROM?”

“The dragon’s leaving too!” Michaela added, narrowly missing Andi with the weed whacker as she continued gesturing. “Though I’m a little worried about the storm clouds forming…"

Para glanced into the sky, but only briefly, as that’s when Alijda grabbed onto a fistful of her hair. “Sorry, nearly slipped. Just go, get to Kat,” the brunette suggested. Para nodded, and began to run, Alijda perching on her shoulder.

Kat knew better than to ask Bonnie if she was the one affecting the clouds. Since if she was, any disruption in her concentration could cause things to go haywire. Instead, he did his best to try and dampen down the grass fire, to keep it from spreading. He hoped the last of the invaders had departed.

“Kaaaaat!” came Para’s familiar voice.

Thunder rumbled overhead as Kat turned to see Para approaching. It had probably been longer than thirty seconds, hadn’t it. Before he could shout an apology, he noticed that Para seemed to be gesturing vigorously off to his left. He turned.

“SEALING MODE,” came a voice that Kat identified as Minerva, the consciousness which had been born of Chris’ transformation into Axiom. Then he saw the magical girl (woman?) herself, standing in front of a nearby house, her arms outstretched.

Which was when Axiom’s USB staff grew in length. It seemed to be mechanically transforming as it did, getting larger and larger… Kat turned away and started to run to meet Para.

“I think you’ve got the hang of it, good job!” he tossed over his shoulder back at Bonnie.

They were done here. The invasion was no more. The fire wasn’t exactly under control, but a few drops of rain had started to fall. Between that, and the static charge that seemed to be building in the air, a swift departure seemed to be in order.

Para obviously concurred, because as Kat reached her, she shouted into her communicator, “Alice, we’re good to go!”

The last thing Kat heard as a blue portal opened up in the ground under them was Minerva’s voice intoning, “ANGELIC BARRIER.”

The trip through the whirlpool was becoming standard fare for Alijda. What was different was being spit out into zero gravity, with her momentum sending her up towards the ceiling.

Flipping her body around, Alijda spotted Alice holding onto a console with one hand as she typed with the other. They were back in the main control room of the Hub. As Alice finished typing, the whirlpool below them was covered by the familiar iris, and then Alijda felt the tug of gravity gradually reasserting itself.

“Okay!” Alice said, turning to look up at them. “There should be just enough time left for us to get Alijda back to her normal size before we all have to evacuate! In fact, Kat, Para, I can return you to your worlds right away if you want. Well, once you remove the density suits.”

“Evacuate?” Alijda asked. She blinked as her descent pulled her past a console display. “Wait, what the hell is that about?”

Alice looked at where Alijda was pointing, namely the screen which read in big letters, ‘YOU’RE FIRED’. There was a timer underneath, counting down past three hours.

“That? Oh, well, I’m fired. Fired like Future Marty McFly.” Alice swallowed. “See, I told myself, hey, I’ll simply look in on Smallville, to see if we’ll need to send another team. To replace you guys. But after I looked, I had Mr. Smith run some extra calculations, and it all led to, well…"

Her voice trailed off. Kat’s feet reached the floor first, and he walked towards her. “The convenient dragon - was that you?”

Alice smiled sadly. “Bingo. And a dragon is about as far from a tiny alteration as you can get! Of course, I’d already bent protocol, sending you off with knowledge of the third incursion, so maybe my getting kicked off the station was a foregone conclusion?”

“But if you leave, who will run the ‘Epsilon Project’?” Para protested.

Alice shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe no one? I do hope Ziggy and Mr. Smith will be okay, not that they even have emotions b-but…" The brunette technician let out a choking sound, then quickly ran her arm over her eyes. “N-Nevermind. Let’s get you home.”

“No, stop, this is ridiculous!” Alijda shouted. Her feet finally touched down, allowing her to stamp her foot. “I’m not turning over any dimensional information from these tech glasses unless you’re reinstated!”

Alice shook her head. “Oh, Alijda, don’t insist. Please, no. God has spoken. Besides, I deserve this!” She again tried to smile, spreading her arms out. “Look at this this way, you got what you wanted - we’ve been shut down.”

Alijda swallowed. The worst of it was, Alice was right. And yet… “It shouldn’t be happening like this. Not like this. I mean, where will you go?”

“Oh, not back to my hell dimension, so that’s good. I’ll find some quiet world somewhere, I guess. It’s fine.” Alice sniffled.

“It’s not fine!” Alijda objected. Then, without even thinking about it, she added, “How about you come to my world.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “I… I’d love to. Except you hate me.”

“Actually, Alijda hates herself more than other people,” Kat put in. “Meaning I might feel better knowing she had someone else around.”

“Alijda also pushes away the people she likes the most!” Para agreed. “So she might like you even more than me.”

Alijda glared at her companions. “Stop helping. I’m not asking Alice to move in with me, I’m thinking I can hack up an identity for her, and give her someone she knows on an otherwise foreign world. Which seems to be more than this Project is doing for her.”

“Oh, no. No, I’m not going to be a charity case!” Alice asserted. “If I go with you, it’s going to be as your friend, or not at all!”

“Hah! Kat, Para, tell her how I’m a terrible friend.”

Kat shook his head. “You said to stop helping.”

“Oh Alijda, no matter how small you shrink, your heart stays huge!” Para declared, clasping her hands.

Alijda rolled her eyes. “Look, Alice, I’ll give you the lowdown on my world as you unshrink me. That itself may be reason to change your mind.”

Alice simply nodded, though the genuine smile spreading across her features implied that she wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded. Alijda sighed. So, hopefully having a friend wouldn’t be so bad? As long as Alice could tone down on the pop culture references.

--END OF STORY 3--

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART SIXTEEN: Perchance to Dream

Kat watched as Alijda and Chris - or rather, Axiom - flew through the dimensional rift on what appeared to be a throw rug. He didn’t question it. Partly because he didn’t know the specifics behind the current magic-technology blend, but more because he didn’t have the time to think about it.

Four masked men (women?) had emerged from the rip between Earths, carrying some sort of ray guns.

For a moment, the arrivals seemed disoriented. Possibly an effect of being shrunk down, Kat reasoned, given the difference in scale between TechWorld, and the world they were on now. Either way, that moment gave Tom the time he needed to act. He sat up from the ground and took aim with his walkman.

“Click,” the young man with the bright red hair intoned, pressing the eject button.

Instead of spitting out a cassette, when the walkman popped open, a pulse of energy shot out. It travelled the 50 metres necessary to strike the first of the masked men. In the process of reaching for his head, the guy seemed to freeze in place.

Tom slapped the walkman closed and took aim again. He managed to get off two more paralysis spells before the last of the individuals realized what was happening, ducking behind one of his companions, out of Tom’s line of sight.

“How many shots do you have with that?” Kat asked, on the ground next to him.

Kat scanned back over the area of the train station. The Magic User’s Club, along with Queeny (of the government), plus Bonnie and Larry (of the DEO), had constantly gathered there, at both sunrise and sunset every day. That being the time of day when the invasion was supposed to occur. This morning, they had finally been proven right.

The lone non-paralyzed Invader poked his head out from behind his friend, seemingly firing his ray gun off in Tom’s general direction - but nothing happened. No beam of energy, no explosions, nothing.

That’s when Mook, one of Queeny’s faithful guards, charged in. The remaining invader spun ninety degrees, pointed his ray gun at the man, and seconds later, Mook face planted down into the dirt. Seemingly unconscious. Kat heard Queeny let out a shriek.

“I guess their own TechWorld tech still works fine, assuming the gun was designed to do that?” Tom mused.

Keeping low to the ground, Kat circled away from Tom, over towards where Mook had come from. He saw Queeny and Larry, flattened back against a nearby building.

Kat and Para had agreed to hang back, acting as backup more than anything else. And while Kat was stretching the definition of “hanging back”, if Queeny was getting reckless, it could impact Alijda’s safe return.

“How could I know?!” Queeny was saying as Kat got within earshot. “That gun hadn’t worked, and his friends got zapped easily!”

“Your habit of issuing orders to people based on superficial information is why people like Bonnie and Shemp don’t tend to tell you things,” Larry sighed.

Queeny did a double take. “Why bring up Shemp?”

“Please. I know he was reporting to you. How else could the guy afford new business cards?”

Queeny fumed. “Well, maybe if people told me things, I wouldn’t have to issue orders using only superficial information!”

“People shouldn’t have to state the obvious, Queeny. As Tom said, listen, and become a better observer,” Larry suggested. He peered back around the corner, raising a pair of binoculars. As the rift wasn’t that far away, it seemed to Kat like this was a signal he wanted to end the conversation.

To her credit, all Queeny said was, “I hope he’s okay.” She looked towards her fallen bodyguard again before lapsing back into silence.

As the stalemate continued to play out, Kat retreated.

“PROM away!” came a new yell. Kat looked back up, in time to see a fast moving woman in a dress approaching the last Invader from behind. Andi, moving faster than human limitations really allowed, completed a right hook to the guy’s jaw before he could turn and bring his ray gun into position.

The last invader crumpled to the ground. Then Andi started hopping around in a circle, still moving at triple speed, shaking out her punching hand while yelping, “Ow! Bad idea! Ow! Ow! Bad idea!”

“Andi! Grab the ray guns!” came Kendall’s voice.

Kat glanced at his watch; it had been barely a minute since Alijda and Axiom’s departure. As if on cue, at least a dozen more people emerged from the rift.

The carpet streaked through the sky, weaving around flying drones. Alijda was pretty sure she had the capability to hack into those helicopter-like devices, what with the magic infused tech glasses she was wearing. More to the point, doing so might provide the TechWorld people with something of a distraction.

She didn’t do it though. After all, she was meant to be taking readings and providing support, not actively sabotaging anything… though she was also rather preoccupied too. Giving Axiom a better bead on Clyde.

“Veer left!” Alijda called out. They had, what, ninety seconds left? Before their density shield failed? “Great, Clyde will be almost right below us,” Alijda noted. “I think it’s best if I teleport down to grab him.”

“But I was going to be the one who–"

“Rescued him, I know,” Alijda finished. “Except you can’t cast spells on account of maintaining the shield. It’s fine, life and death situation, I’m the same size as Clyde, and I’ve got the density suit. Just, you know, catch us when I teleport up?”

“Okay,” Axiom yielded, simultaneous to her USB staff Minerva stating “Affirmative.”

If Alijda had to guess, she’d say they were flying over an abandoned military air field. Or formerly abandoned - the largely open space was currently home to maybe a hundred individuals, and some large equipment. Nearest to the rift, the front line seemed equipped for an assault. At the back, where they were now, there was more equipment, technicians, and possibly the higher ranked officers. And androids.

“Wait, what?” Alijda muttered. There was no time to consider it - they were almost directly overhead.

In a cloud of purple smoke, Alijda vanished, reappearing in an open space on the ground, near to where Clyde was being guarded by the pale android-looking bodies. She got her bearings, and then teleported next to their prisoner. He was easy to identify, not merely due to his size, but from being in a cage. Handcuffed to the bars.

Alijda reached out to grab Clyde’s arm, then willed for the both of them to be teleported back up into the air, picking a place that would avoid possible rematerialization inside an airborne drone.

They began falling. Seconds later, they landed on Axiom’s magic carpet. It immediately shot back up, high into the air again. Alijda felt out of breath, but they seemed none the worse for wear.

“What is going ON?” Clyde said, nearly back-pedalling off their improvised vehicle, but grabbing at the rug fibres instead.

“Magical rescue mission,” Axiom said. “Hold tight, we’re headed back for the rift.”

“About that rift,” Alijda began. Then she stopped herself. Was her thought of shrinking Axiom down even feasible?

Clyde quickly came to his senses. “If we’re out of here, I’ve got a script to execute. Is that a VR keyboard chip in those glasses? Give me those.”

“Hey!” Alijda bristled as Clyde plucked the glasses off her nose, severing her link with the portable keyboard and technological surroundings. “I need those readings!”

“Sorry. I’ll give these back, but I’ve had a parting shot planned ever since these goons forced me to help them assemble the damned portal generator.” Glasses on, Clyde began to run his fingers over what Alijda assumed was the virtual keyboard. “Move in close to me, I’m not sure if my exclusion field will cover everyone.”

“Exclusion field?” Axiom said, crouching down.

“Yeah. Don’t want you to be caught in the sleep ray.”

“Sleep ray?” Axiom parroted again.

“It’s some ray these guys can fire to stimulate alpha waves and induce unconsciousness,” Clyde explained as he typed. “Only reason I never attacked them this way before is because the ray doesn’t affect those damn droids.”

Axiom shook her head. “But why wouldn’t the rest of them be protected against their own weapon?”

“Oh, they are. But not at the force I’m invoking. This program will set off all the possible sleep ray pulses for miles around, simultaneously. And they’ve got a bunch here, what with the invasion. Even us, this far up in the air, and within an exclusion field, we’ll probably still feel tired.”

“Miles?” Alijda broke in. She glanced back out at the landscape, noting what looked like houses in the distance. “But what if there are people within your zone who aren’t part of this invasion force? Could they end up in trouble, like if they’re driving past or something?”

“Do I look like I care?” Clyde countered. “Damn place has been keeping me prisoner for over a year! And they want to mine MY world for oil and other natural resources! Screw them. I gather most of their vehicles are self driving anyway.”

Alijda felt like she should continue protesting, but that was when a laser sliced a hole in their carpet. Axiom executed a sudden stop, then flew higher, beginning evasive maneuvers.

So the brunette hacker held her tongue. Again, she was meant to be primarily an observer, right? She didn’t know the people of TechWorld like Clyde. This wasn’t her call. Never mind that she’d executed the jailbreak, making this possible…

To avoid thinking too hard about it, Alijda instead wondered whether she’d looked as bizarre as Clyde now did, waving his hands over on an interface that was invisible to everyone else. It did look a bit like he was trying to invoke some form of magical spell.

“Boom. Good night,” Clyde said, punching his finger into the air.

A brief humming noise surrounded them. Axiom yawned. Then, on the ground, everyone began to keel over. Some of the drones also dropped out of the sky, as others began to spin in circles.

“Ten seconds to density shield failure,” Minerva noted. “Accelerating our departure.” The carpet went into a dive, as Axiom yawned again.

Clyde pulled off the glasses, handing them back to Alijda. “Thanks.”

Alijda accepted them, unable to turn away from the sight of an uncontrolled drone landing on top of a military man who was lying unconscious below them. “You’re welcome,” she murmured.

Para’s job was simple. As soon as she saw Alijda and Axiom return, she was to use her (recently returned) Epsilon communicator, and call Alice. That way, their group of three could still get picked up, before the spell could be cast to seal all dimensional breaches.

Granted, there was no guarantee that such a spell meant the Epsilon Station itself would become inaccessible. But there were a lot of unknowns at present, including whether Alice would even be able to make a portal for them as quickly as they hoped.

Not to mention whether Para would be the only one left conscious by the time Alijda reappeared.

“They knocked Tom out. We’re not going to be able to contain this force much longer,” Michaela decided. The magic user had been keeping herself out of the thick of things, along with Para and Bonnie.

“You may not have to,” Kat said, crawling back to reach their position. “Looks more like those ten are trying to establish a foothold. Meaning the real problem is convincing them to retreat, now that they’re wise to ranged attacks and Andi’s speed.”

“Hrmph. We need some real life version of those blasted tech security systems those people run,” Bonnie declared. “Firewalls, I think they’re called.”

Para felt her ears drooping. “Should I simply call Alice now? I mean, she’s like the inter-dimensional police… so maybe she can help?”

“No, don’t,” Kat asserted. “If Alice interferes, she’ll probably end up in even more trouble than us.” He grimaced. “I’ve got a suggestion.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART FIFTEEN: RESCUE STRANGERS

Some people were good at waiting. Alijda really didn’t understand those people. After all, it was during the waiting that the demons would creep in, telling you that you were worthless and alone, making you second guess all of your decisions. In this case, the key decision burning at Alijda was the one that had her accompanying Chris on the mission to retrieve Clyde. Why had she insisted on that?

Alijda burst into tears about 36 hours after telling Kat and Para that she was going, bar none, so that any consequences would all be on her. Alijda’s sobs attracted the attention of Chris herself, who was sitting on the other side of the room. After a good couple of minutes of crying, the brunette drew in a long breath, and strode up to the Magic User.

“I’m sorry,” Alijda sniffled. “This was a bad idea.”

Chris dropped the magazine that she’d been busy ignoring. “What was?”

“Having me here.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because I’m a damn DOLL!” Alijda said, rage surging up through the sadness. “It takes forever to cross a room, I can’t handle doors, I’m bathing in a sink and drinking from a thimble - what use am I going to be on your rescue mission?? If I were a character in my own fiction stories, I bet a majority of readers wouldn’t even want me to be the one doing this. You better go find Para instead.”

Chris half smiled. “Bit late for that,” she noted. “The tech glasses were fitted for someone of your size. Besides, didn’t you insist to me that you’d be the best person to deal with a technological world?”

“I have an exaggerated sense of my own importance,” Alijda concluded. She pulled the glasses off her face, wiping tears from her cheeks. The spectacles had been fitted with a microchip and imbued with magic, to allow the wearer to take readings of things like the dimensional tear.

“Para can re-fit these. She’s great at that square-cubed stuff. Here.” Alijda tossed the glasses onto the floor, then turned away. “Go find her, I’ll be hiding in a cabinet somewhere until this is all over.”

Alijda hesitated, but turned around again. Chris had leaned forwards. Despite the purple haired woman sitting on the floor - or rather, on a sleeping bag - she still towered over the brunette hacker. Or that’s what it felt like, being around eight inches tall.

“Would you like us to find you some medication?” Chris offered. “Kat mentioned that you were a depressive, and that cutting off your communications with Alice might pose a probl–"

“NO! I would NOT like that, I’d like you to LISTEN to me and do as I SAY! Understand?!” She stamped her foot for emphasis.

It was a bit hard to interpret Chris’ reaction to that. While there was a bit of shock in her expression, the best word Alijda could find to fit that expression was bemused. Perhaps bewildered. “WHAT?” Alijda fired off, before she could stop herself.

“Well,” Chris began, “first, you say you’re upset that you’re too small, and then you start issuing orders. You’re torpedoing your own argument, by making it clear size doesn’t matter, only strength of character. And second… second, Gods, Alijda, you look super adorbs! I guess I don’t know how to take seeing you cry. Sorry.”

“I look super–" Alijda wiped at her cheeks again, then crossed her arms. “Exactly WHAT ELSE has Kat been mentioning to you?!”

“Nothing! I swear, only the meds thing, because he was worried about you. And while I grant some of the ‘adorbs' factor is your size - I used to play with dolls growing up - you’re obviously the sort of woman who doesn’t have to do things like dye her hair lavender in order to get noticed. Kinda envy that about you.”

“Well, don’t. I’m dateless in my mid-thirties, on track to being forever alone. Which is just as well, I’d hate to inflict my kind of misery on a parter. Or worse, a daughter.” She laughed. “Can you imagine how awful THAT would be?”

Chris continued to stare. “You don’t have to lie to me, Alijda,” she said. “I mean, when this is all over, you’ll probably never see me again. So why not be honest?”

“I am being honest!”

“Really? Then how did daughters even enter this conversation? Is it because you’re lying to yourself too?”

Alijda found herself doing a mental double take. She didn’t enjoy it. “Shut up. Para’s on my mind, and she’s a bit like a daughter to me, that’s all. What with needing an adult to explain to her about human interactions and all that nonsense. Don’t change the subject!”

Chris tilted her head. “Okay. And what was the subject? You, deciding to send your surrogate daughter on this dangerous mission with me, rather than going yourself? Because you somehow think she’s more qualified? Explain to me how that makes sense.”

It felt like Chris was twisting her words, yet at the same time, she wasn’t. “K-Kat then,” Alijda said. She winced at her much less assertive tone.

Chris pushed herself up onto her feet. “Or how about this idea. I see about getting you some medication, and then we chat for a bit about how life kinda sucks no matter what Earth you come from.”

“That sounds like a terrible plan!” Alijda said, kicking her toe at the floor as she eyed Chris’ giant shoe.

“Even so, let’s try it. I’ll be right back. Please don’t go anywhere?”

For at least a minute after Chris’ departure, Alijda continued to stare at the rumpled sleeping bag on the floor. Eventually, she walked over, picked the glasses back up, and replaced them on the bridge of her nose. “I bet these make me look stupid,” she declared to the empty room.

They knew where the invasion would come through - the fairy mirror had identified the new weakest dimensional spot as being near the train station. They also knew the approximate time of day - a vision potion some weeks back had shown Kendall a bunch of masked men charging through a fissure at either dusk or dawn.

But the day itself was a mystery. Which was why Chris and Alijda were effectively camping out in an abandoned house, with everyone continuing to prepare the best defence possible in whatever time they had left. They needed something that wouldn’t make the invaders turn around completely, at least not right away, but rather something that could contain them long enough to allow for the rescue of Clyde.

“The most impressive thing,” Kat remarked to Alijda, when he stopped by one afternoon, “is how this whole ‘being united against a common enemy’ thing is working out. Bonnie even gave Andi back her PROM.”

“Oh yes?” Alijda smirked. “I’m thinking the fact that said PROM is now useless, without having some sort of magic to blend with it, might have been a factor.”

Kat chuckled. “Cynical, yet probably not wrong. Still, I wonder if Queeny, Bonnie and Kendall will continue to work together like this in the future. And if the techno-magic limitation will even hold once the dimensions are sealed.”

“We’ll never know,” Alijda shrugged. “We’re already overdue with Alice. I’m actually starting to feel bad, what with keeping her in the dark for this long.”

Kat’s eyebrow went up. “Wait. You’re feeling bad for the woman who you claim watches our every move? Who can abduct us without warning, and who puts us into these life or death situations in the first place?” He leaned in closer. “Is your new medication working out?”

“Ha ha, you can shut up,” Alijda suggested.

“Not before I tell you how sexy you look in those glasses.”

“And now you can leave,” Alijda concluded with an eye roll.

“All normal then. Excellent,” Kat said, giving her a thumbs up before departing.

The invasion began the next morning. As soon as the loud thunderclap sounded, Chris was grabbing for her USB. “Pretty Phlebotinum, Henshin Go!” she blurted.

A glowing circle formed on the floor, and Alijda heard music playing as she ran for the window. As the song faded out, she heard Chris’ voice declare, “Technical problems? I’m the cure. Cure Axiom! So it’s gonna be forever, or it’s gonna go down in flames.”

Alijda glanced over her shoulder. Axiom was dressed as Kat had described, wearing a dress of purples and blues which was covered in bows. Her hair was held back by a hairband with a small blue witches’ hat stuck onto it. “New catchphrase?” Alijda mused.

“I guess?” Axiom sighed. “These songs are stored on Minerva’s drive, I’ve never heard them before. Am I really a nightmare dressed like a daydream?”

Alijda shrugged. “Talk about it later?”

“Right.” Axiom stepped forwards, next to Alijda. She tapped the end of her staff, which remained in the form of a USB cable wand, onto the throw rug beneath them. The rug lifted off into the air.

As their magic carpet shot out of the window, Alijda tapped at her glasses, chanting “I spy with my little eye…" Scrolling text lit up on her lenses, and a glowing keyboard appeared in the air in front of her.

“Rift bearing at 50 degrees left of straight ahead, right above the train tracks,” Alijda noted. “It’s expanding.” She began typing, to take more in depth readings.

“I see it,” Axiom noted. “Looks like everyone else is getting into position too.”

Alijda risked a quick glance down at the ground. She immediately regretted it, as her flight through the air, coupled with her size, made her feel like she was falling from a great height. On the bright side, she had been able to spot Para’s bunny ears, registering that the blonde was waving at them.

“They’re coming through,” Alijda noted, as the numbers started to surge up.

“That won’t stop us,” Axiom countered. The rug went into a dive, and Alijda barely had a chance to register the masked people appearing amid a crackle of energy before they were over their heads - and into the dimensional rip.

Naturally, this was the cue for things to go very wrong.

Axiom let out a shriek of pain, the rug spinning in a circle as it blasted out into it’s new environment. Alijda herself felt a bit like throwing up. “Mass error! Emergency density shield activated!” came a female voice from the USB staff.

‘Oh, hell,’ Alijda realized, as the scene coalesced around them. ‘The size conversion - it’s not attached to the stuff and people that TechWorld is sending. They’ve somehow baked the scale differential into this rift itself. Meaning we’ve been enlarged, and are now the same size, relative to them. Complete sitting ducks.’

“Axiom! Go up, up, UP!” Alijda shrieked. She had registered enough to know that they were outside, rather than confined to a building. Thank goodness for small mercies.

The light on the cable wand flashed. “Up, up, up, can only go up from here…"

The rug stopped it’s spin, and immediately blasted towards the sky, on a path perpendicular to the ground. Alijda was pretty sure that the only thing that kept them from being shot at by the dozens of military-looking men on the ground was the element of surprise.

The sky itself wasn’t devoid of hazards though. A number of flying drones were zipping back and forth, and there was no way of knowing if any of them were armed or not. It was all happening too fast.

“Density shield will fail in under two minutes,” Minerva’s voice warned.

“Of course it will,” Alijda groused, typing furiously.

“And it’s taking all we have to maintain the carpet and the shield,” Axiom croaked. “We can’t handle any more spells.”

“Of course you can’t,” Alijda reiterated. She tapped at her glasses. Finally, some good news - she had a bead on Clyde. Meaning he was not only in the vicinity, but in order to appear on her scan, he had to still be shrunk down relative to TechWorld. Alijda supposed that meant he was about her size. Well, that was potentially convenient.

But with Chris, aka Axiom, being a big, obvious target - how were they going to get everyone safely back through the rift?

WHAT’S NEXT?

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VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY JUNE 7th EDT.

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART FOURTEEN: BAD PLAN

Para wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. She wasn’t upset by that though, as the only person in the room with access to the entire story was Chris - the member of the Magic User’s Club who had interfaced with the USB drive taken out of the Department of Extra-Dimensional Objects.

Granted, Kat and Queeny seemed to know at least part of the story as well. Para wondered whether Tom, also sitting at the conference table, was as confused as she was. At the least, she knew that Larry, the DEO agent and most recent arrival, was completely in the dark.

“What do you MEAN the truth about what happened to Clyde?” Larry sputtered. “He died, because of our premature use of portal technology. We shouldn’t have been so arrogant as to try and generate our own method to traverse dimensions without proper testing.”

“Oh, drop the front!” Queeny shouted. Fortunately, the head of government hadn’t shouted it into her megaphone. “We know Clyde’s really alive.”

Larry gripped the door frame. “How DARE you! Bonnie has been doing her best this past year, there’s no way Clyde is pulling the strings!”

“That’s NOT what we mean,” Queeny declared. “If you keep playing dumb…" She waggled her finger.

“Queeny, isn’t it possible he truly doesn’t know?” Para ventured. “I mean, I don’t really know what this is about Clyde, and I’ve been in the room longer than Larry.”

“You mean Bonnie could have been keeping the truth a secret?” Kat mused.

“Transported?” Larry choked. Para noticed that the DEO agent was now holding onto the side of the doorway, seemingly to keep himself from falling down.

Chris nodded. “I’m certain that Clyde was sent to an adjoining world. The very one this USB drive originated on, in fact. That’s why Minerva recognized it.”

At last, it all started making sense for Para. “Oh, okay! So Clyde’s arrival on TechWorld alerted them to the dimensional weaknesses. Which led to that world’s subsequent tests. Meaning sending those large scale objects to this world.”

“Which also led to Alice and the Epsilon Project noticing the problem,” Kat added.

“Which will eventually lead to an invasion,” Chris concluded. “As TechWorld plunders us for who knows what reason. The good news is that I can now prevent it. The bad news is, that would strand Clyde on the other side.”

Larry swallowed. “H-How do you even know that Clyde is still alive over there?”

“The fact that all the huge incursions were in our town, and nowhere else in the world, is a hint that he’s got a hand in things,” Chris explained. “But even if we assume that’s related to the original breach, Clyde stored some personal data on Minerva too. When we correlate it with the objects that arrived, namely a hat, an iron, and a thimble, well…"

“Oh my God.” Larry sank down to his knees. “Me and Clyde used to love playing that ‘Monopolize’ board game together. How did I miss that?”

“Good thing they didn’t send through a racecar,” Kat observed.

Para pushed her chair back to keep the DEO agent in view. “Um, Larry, you okay? You want a glass of water or something?”

Tom leaned forwards. “Just a vibe I get, but, dude, did you have a thing for Clyde?”

“What?! I… no… I… I’m fine, that is…" Larry pulled himself back up to his feet with the help of the wall, stammering incoherently.

Tom smirked. “Okay, yup, you totally did,” he concluded, before lapsing back into silence. Larry looked like he wanted to run.

Kat frowned. “Wait. Larry, Clyde was your BOSS, right? And yet Tom is saying you two–”

“Being his BOSS is your issue? Clyde’s also another GUY!” Queeny cut in. “What freaky stuff was going ON in that department?!”

Para stood, moving for Larry even as she spoke to Queeny. “Isn’t it true that, when two people love each other, it doesn’t matter what–"

“Shut it, or I’ll throw you in jail!”

“We’re kinda losing the thread here,” Chris said, raising her hand. “Invasion?”

“Yes!” Queeny said, grabbing her megaphone to yell into. “Which you can prevent. So go do that. Never mind about Clyde, the good of the many and all that.”

“Hold on! Didn’t you say the DEO ran less shady with him in charge?” Kat wondered. “We’d agreed–"

“Changed my mind! Now you can shut it too!”

Para reached Larry’s side, gingerly taking him by the hand. “Do you really think Bonnie didn’t know?” she murmured.

Larry shook his head. “I don’t think she would have kept something like that from me. Besides, when Clyde died, the whole project got a rebuild from the ground up. If she’d known he had been successful, why she would have done that?”

“You can’t blame yourself then,” Para stated. “There’s no way you could have known.”

Larry sniffled. “Oh, Clyde… you were the only one who liked my poetry…”

“Look, Queeny,” Chris said, rising to her feet. “It’s very possible that Clyde is being tortured over there for information about our world. The fact that all TechWorld technology in this city went offline after that thimble came through can’t be coincidence. So retrieving him isn’t merely the humanitarian thing to do, it’s also the best thing strategically.”

Queeny narrowed her eyes. “Killing Clyde would also fix that problem.”

Kat whistled. “That escalated quickly.”

“Either way, we would need a mission to find him,” Chris countered.

“What’s your proposal?” Larry asked, squeezing Para’s hand as he straightened out his posture. “I gather that’s why you wanted Bonnie here? To discuss bringing Clyde back?”

Chris didn’t speak, still staring at Queeny, so Kat cleared his throat. “Two rescue options are available. The first, which I’m pretty sure is a no-go, would be us getting our communicators back. With those, we contact Alice, and she sends us, or some other rescue party to TechWorld.”

“Actually, that’s feasible,” Larry said. “I can spin it as you getting your gear and leaving, which was frankly our preference from the beginning.”

Kat shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Doing that would mean we’re actively helping you, and I don’t think that’s the point behind ‘Epsilon’. It’s more likely that you’ll need to do it without our help.”

“So what’s plan B? Try to reconstruct Clyde’s original portal designs?”

Queeny finally blinked first, meaning Chris shifted her gaze over to Larry. “No, there’s no time,” she sighed. “We’ll need to piggyback a rescue on TechWorld’s invasion itself.”

Larry stared. “That’s a bad plan.”

“You’re damn right it is!” Queeny asserted, sounding increasingly desperate. “We need to seal ourselves off now, and–"

Tom reached out, grabbed the megaphone out of Queeny’s hand, and walked over to hurl it out the nearest window. “Loosen up, el Presidente!” he snapped. “Did you ever think that maybe the problem isn’t that people can’t hear you, but rather, they don’t like what you’re saying? Try listening for a change.”

Queeny stared, open mouthed, her fingers twitching.

Chris flashed Tom a quick smile, then nodded at Larry. “The plan isn’t perfect,” she admitted. “But if we’re in and out fast enough? TechWorld won’t gain a foothold here before we block them off for good.”

Para saw a problem with that. “Um, but Clyde is the same size as the rest of us. No bigger than a small bird on TechWorld,” she pointed out. “How are you going to find him?”

“We’re hoping we can adapt the DEO’s density sensors,” Chris admitted. “Another reason we need Bonnie’s co-operation.”

“And what if Clyde’s in a jail or something over there?” Larry asked.

“Well…" Chris pulled out the USB drive from her pocket, turning it around in her fingers before turning to look at Kat. “Would borrowing your friend Alijda’s teleportation ability be allowed, as a method of non-active assistance?”

Para walked over to turn off the sound of the oboe coming from the phonograph in the corner. “Is that better?” she asked.

“Yes,” Alijda responded. “Also no.”

Para blinked. “No?”

“No, I can’t teleport someone of your size,” Alijda sighed. “I just tried to teleport along with this lovely silky pillow here, and I nearly passed out. I think I’m stuck teleporting doll sized items until my scale problem gets fixed.”

“Oh.”

“Guess that’s what happens when you’re shrunk. I take it that’s a problem?”

“Possibly?” Para said, wringing her hands. “Again, not sure I’m the best person to explain…" Which was when Kat walked into the room. Para let out a breath of relief - it didn’t take long for the military man to bring Alijda up to speed.

“Okay,” Alijda said, once Kat was finished. “So, the hope was to be able to teleport Clyde, because Chris’ communication spells allow her to bleed spell effects off of fellow Magic Users?”

“Assuming they give consent, yeah,” Kat affirmed. “Of course, no idea if it would work with us, since we have abilities, not spells, but then, Chris is already interfacing with otherworldly tech so…" He shrugged.

“Except it’s all moot, since I can barely teleport a banana,” Alijda concluded.

“Apparently,” Kat agreed.

Para glanced back and forth between her two companions. She hesitated to bring it up AGAIN, since they never seemed to like the option, but wasn’t it the right thing to do?

“So shouldn’t we leave?” Para asked. “I mean, I’m not saying I’d be happy doing that, but Alice said to warn these inhabitants. We’ve warned them. They now believe us, and seem to have a plan going forwards.”

“Valid point,” Kat acknowledged. “Plus here’s an extra conundrum - when Chris seals off dimensional access, will that seal off our way home too? I’m not keen on wearing this pink under-suit for the rest of my life.”

Para had to do a double take. She hadn’t expected Kat to support her. Alijda seemed less sure though, crossing her arms and glaring at the floor.

“Know what though?” the brunette woman said, after a moment. “We should get some up close readings on these dimensional weaknesses. Could be really valuable information for future “Epsilon” missions, since the project itself doesn’t seem to be as good at monitoring us as I thought.”

Para should have known. Her human companions never did the rational thing. She wasn’t upset, of course - merely confused. “I thought you wanted the project shut down!” she reminded Alijda. “Why do you want to HELP Alice now??”

“I think Alijda has thought of a convenient excuse to stick around,” Kat said, smiling. “Because on the inside, she’s much prettier than she believes herself to be.”

Alijda rolled her eyes. “Hey Kat! Speaking of ‘Monopoly’, you are sorely tempting me to access your world’s computers and program a bank error very much NOT in your favour after all this.”

Kat winked. “At least I’ll know you’re thinking of me.”

Gesturing dismissively at him, Alijda turned her attention back to Para. “Here’s the thing, Para - Chris apparently saved my tiny little life. So I’m not comfortable simply running away if she still needs us. Besides, can you tell me the data WOULDN’T be useful?”

Para half smiled herself, as she realized more fully what Kat had been saying. “I can’t. Okay, I’m still with you both then - but if we all join Chris, we’ll just be in the way. Right? So which one of us should go with her?”

“The person who can fare the best on a technological world,” Alijda concluded. “Me.”

“We all have different strengths though,” Kat countered. “You’re good with programming, but Para’s good at technical designs, and I’m decent at actual hardware configuration. Moreover, none of that might be even relevant to a rescue operation.”

“So who?” Para reiterated, her bunny ears twitching.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9430691]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY MAY 31st EDT.

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART THIRTEEN: Transformation

It’s strange, the common bonds that can bring people together. Kat was reminded of that fact after their retreat to City Hall. With the shrinking Alijda having been brought to a convenient break room with Para, Kat had set his goal as having both Queeny and the Magic User’s Club on board with helping him to save his companion… his friend.

“We can argue later about who was in the wrong here,” Kat began. “Right now, our focus HAS to be on keeping that woman from shrinking away to nothing!”

“Wrong!” Queeny shouted into her megaphone, making Kat smack his hand against his ear. “You’re not even from this world. You can’t waltz in and tell us, the local government, what our priorities should be!”

“She’s right!” Chris asserted. “Society has to have rules. We can’t break them without considering the consequences!”

“Are you two willing to let someone die because you delayed?” Kat protested.

“Magic and technology seem to be going haywire,” Chris noted. “Unless we know more about what’s happening, we could make your friend’s problem worse.”

“Exactly!” Queeny agreed. “Maybe this mystery spell I have will go wrong, and make that woman grow to be the size of that thimble, destroying this whole building. We don’t know!”

Chris eyed Queeny. “You know, for being a government person, you’re making more sense than usual.”

Queeny lowered her megaphone. “And you seem a lot more practical to me than I’d expect of someone who believes in magical abilities.”

“Awesome lesson, individuals aren’t necessarily the same thing as their collectives, blah blah, can we leave yet?” Tom asked, stifling a yawn.

Kat saw the opening. Despite having some reservations, he decided to take it. “Enough! You have to listen to me - and not waste your time trying to form an alliance against that shady Department of Extra-Dimensional Objects!”

“Who still have my PROM,” Andi huffed.

“Speaking of, why DID you want Bonnie to see us at the motel?” Kendall asked Queeny. “You seemed to think the real one would show up instead of Andi.”

“Bonnie DuChessy always knows more about what’s going on than I do,” Queeny complained. “She certainly figured out my doubles plan faster than anticipated. So, I wanted to know if she’d be as surprised by your attempted murder of a gov… by whatever you were doing,” she amended, off Kendall’s look.

“Is Bonnie also the reason you were tracking us, trying to find the weak dimensional locations?” Michaela asked.

“Yes, since you weren’t always subtle about your activities,” Queeny admitted. “So, after seeing your interest in that motel five or six days ago, I paid off the owner to advise me of anything unusual. Either with respect to Bonnie herself, or arrivals like this guy’s package,” she said, jerking a thumb at Kat. “Or the rest of you trying to jam an oboe into an unusual location.”

“That’s why you moved our meeting,” Andi concluded. “You were told about the rest of them setting up for the spell.”

“Right. Thought I’d have one up on Bonnie, but SOMEHOW, she knew to stay out of danger.” Queeny adjusted the straps of her red silk dress. “That department was much less shady under Clyde’s direction.”

Tom slapped Kat on the back. “Okay guy, good job in getting us to unite against the DEO rather than against you. What’s your next play?”

Kat winced. “Okay. I admit that was my goal there. But it’s because I have intelligence for you, that I took from the DEO base.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out the USB drive that he’d grabbed, back before Alijda had teleported them away. “This was in a hidden back room, where the DEO seemed to be trying to build their own portal technology. It could explain a few things.”

Queeny’s eyes narrowed. “What?! You mean they’re continuing that project? That’s crazy, that’s what got Clyde killed!”

Kendall let out a low whistle. “Okay Kat, what’s this thing you’ve got? Does it project a hologram or something?”

“No, it needs to interface with a computer. Queeny, can you get us access to one?”

The head of government hesitated, then finally grimaced. “Oh, you’d likely figure it out - no, no, I can’t, not without Bonnie knowing. Her department regulates all the useful stuff. All we have on hand is confiscated odds and ends that haven’t been classified yet.”

Kat rubbed his forehead, considering alternatives. “Would any of those items include a USB on-the-go cable? Plugging the drive into something like that might at least activate it. Like the trigger on those laser cutters. Then one of the magic users could channel a spell to read the data.”

“Oh, I’m all about communications, spells or otherwise,” Chris affirmed.

Queeny snapped her fingers, and the security mook in a suit, who had been silent for as long as Kat had seen him, stepped forwards. “Go look into that,” she ordered. “Bring all the tech odds and ends to my office.”

“And could we maybe hurry?” Kat requested. “I am providing this information in the hopes that–"

“You get help for your companion in exchange, yes, I haven’t forgotten,” Queeny said. “We’re under a bit of a deadline here too, you know! I’m sure the press will want a statement about the thimble incident within the hour.”

“Some of us can run interference in the public for you,” Kendall offered. “Assuming you drop this sudden vendetta you’ve acquired, painting us as assassins…"

Queeny let out a noise of exasperation. “Yes, fine. But I reserve my right to change my mind about ALL of this when we learn about whatever’s on the DEO’s Sub drive thing!”

“Good to see that, underneath it all, she’s still the same old Queeny,” Michaela muttered to Andi.

They were ready to attempt data retrieval less than half an hour later. Para was still with Alijda, while the others were dealing with the fallout from the third major incursion, so only Kat, Chris, Tom, Queeny and her security man stood in the office.

Chris eyed the USB drive she had in one hand, and the USB OTG cable she held in the other. “You’re saying I plug these together, then channel a spell?”

“Best plan I’ve got,” Kat said.

“Rock on,” Tom said, giving a thumbs up.

“Hurry up,” Queeny sighed.

Chris murmured a few words that Kat didn’t catch, then carefully fit the two pieces of technology together. For a second, there was nothing. Then the magic technician jerked her gaze forwards. “OH.”

Five glowing purple lines traced themselves out sequentially on the floor. They formed a five pointed star with Chris in the centre. She rotated her arms ninety degrees. There was a flash of light from the USB. Then the jumpsuited technician smiled. “Pretty Phlebotinum, Henshin Go!”

Incredibly, Kat heard music playing as a glowing circle formed around the star on the floor. The last thing he saw of Chris before she was enveloped by a column of purple light was her hair magically undoing itself from her usual ponytail.

When the purple light burst away, Chris was gone. There had been barely enough time for Queeny to stammer and for Tom to curse. Which was weird, because the musical interlude had felt like it had gone on for much longer.

Where Chris had once stood there was now a slightly younger woman, wearing a pretty dress of purples and blues, covered in multiple bows. Her hair was even longer, now held back from her face with a hairband that had a small blue witches’ hat stuck onto it. And in one hand, the woman held a very long USB cable wand. She spun it in her hands a few times like a quarterstaff before tapping it’s base against the ground.

“Technical problems? I’m the cure. Cure Axiom!” the woman announced. “If you can’t do the math, then get out of the equation.”

The stunned silence that ensued was finally broken by Kat. “Chris?”

The purple haired woman rolled her eyes. “Did I, or did I not introduce myself?”

The light on her USB cable wand flashed, and a feminine voice that Kat didn’t recognize intoned, “Interface confirmed. Introduction verified. Auditory assessment required.”

Kat exchanged an uncertain glance with the others present. Honestly, his first instinct had been to compliment the technician on her makeover, kiss her hand, and ask whether she was doing anything that evening. But it hardly seemed the right approach. Besides, what if it wasn’t Chris? First impressions, as Alijda had said.

“Yeah, okay,” Tom said at last. “Look, Chris–"

“Cure Axiom!”

“–you’re 28, isn’t that a bit old to be playing dress up?”

“I didn’t authorize any of this!” Queeny asserted, finding her voice. “Give me a good reason not to throw all of you in jail!”

Axiom adjusted her hairband. “Fine, it’s me - yet somehow more, so it helps if I don’t think of myself as Chris. In fact, the two of us realized very quickly that communicating through that spell was liable to give Chris a brain aneurysm, so the form of a techno-mage was adopted as a safer way of interfacing. Isn’t that right, Minerva?”

The USB wand flashed. “Affirmative.”

Queeny snapped her fingers. “Mook, go find us a psychologist. Fast.”

“Hold on,” Kat protested, prompting Queeny to motion for Mook to wait. “Chr– Axiom might not be crazy. In fact it sounds like she can access the data, so we should hear what she has to say! That way we’ll have something we can act on while she’s being assessed, and maybe we can also finally–"

“Save your friend Alijda?” Axiom finished, making Kat wonder if his requests were becoming something of a broken record. She smiled, and it was a brilliant smile. “I can do that.”

The purple haired woman then looked to Queeny. “In fact, with Minerva’s help, I can resume channelling magic safely. Meaning I can not only save the teleporter, but also use the necessarily wavelengths to seal the dimensional rifts.” She grimaced. “Yet based on this data, which is related to why Bonnie has been acting the way she has, that spell might be a bad idea. It will take some time to explain.”

“Time we don’t have,” Tom objected. “Chris herself was the one who called today’s meeting, saying the dimensional alien attack was imminent. If she’s in there, you must know that!”

“I remember. Worse, I am not sure how much longer I can maintain this form. But we need to take the time to do this right,” the magical woman asserted. “For the sake of our world.”

“Okay, whatever, Mook go find that psychologist NOW,” Queeny demanded. “For ME,” she added, before Kat could speak up.

It was night before another formal gathering could occur. By then, things had calmed down. The government had released a statement about how they were looking into the thimble incident. The older members of the Magic Users’ Club had left to take some readings, leaving Tom and Chris - who had been forced to temporarily dispel her Axiom form - at City Hall. Alijda, while cured, remained unconscious.

Queeny had made the main conference room available to them. She had already sent a message to the DEO, telling Bonnie that the jig was up, and to come and discuss their next move. Instead, at the allotted time, it was Larry who appeared in the doorway.

“Huh. Is he your DEO spy?” Kat wondered.

“No,” Queeny sputtered. “And shut up about that.” She rose from her position at the head of the table. “Where is Bonnie?!”

“She’s pretty sure the entire government has been corrupted by this point,” Larry said, nonchalantly shoving his hands into his trenchcoat as he leaned against the door frame. “I can’t say I blame her. I see you’ve met the offworlders, and haven’t thrown them in jail?”

“Hi Larry Appleson!” Para said, waving energetically. “Did you miss us?”

“Bonnie thinks WE’RE corrupt?! Why that–” Queeny reached for her megaphone. “You tell that power crazed department head that I–"

“We know, Larry,” Chris interrupted. She was as loud as Queeny, yet her tone was gentle where Queeny’s was abrasive. “We know the truth about what happened with Clyde. About what happened to the former head of the DEO. We know.”

Kat wondered if that would be enough.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9424687]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY MAY 23rd EDT. ALSO, LAST WEEK’S VOTE REMAINS OPEN! VOTE AGAIN, OR FOR THE FIRST TIME!

My first two “behind the scenes” posts were for my first serial on this site, in 2014. I’ve decided to do another now, since:

a) I want to talk about my frustration last week, for possible solidarity with other writers, if nothing else.

b) There will be stats, for people who like that sort of thing.

CONTEXT

Note: There is a good chance I am not quite right in the head. In April 2015, I transitioned this serial site from “Epsilon Project” to “Time & Tied”, in large part because the latter is me editing a work from 15 years ago, versus writing 2,000 words weekly. I’m not saying editing is easier (particularly when deciding to add illustrations), but with edits, a backlog/buffer is at least possible. That’s handy in April. Since April is one of the worst months of the year, in terms of writing.

See, I’m a math teacher. And April is a report card month. So along with November (not too bad, but NaNoWriMo’s out), June (exams on top of the reports) and January (the worst, exams plus organizing second semester in 24 hours or less), April ranks up there as “a month where only schoolwork is occurring”. Add to it my tendency to help with the school play, meaning I don’t necessarily take weekends off that month, and in 2015 I figured I’d lose my mind maintaining “Epsilon”.

So what did I do in 2016? I shifted back to “Epsilon” at the end of February. At the same time as I was writing, illustrating and publishing a weekly math webcomic too. I did this KNOWING April was coming. As I said, not quite right in the head.

Yet you might have noticed that I didn’t miss an update.

WEEK 9

Let me set the scene for Story 3: Week 9. Sunday, April 17th, and I had just published “Half the Battle”, where the cast breaks out of the DEO. That was my 20th straight day at work (since Easter). In fact, it was tech weekend. I ran rehearsal of the play to start the morning (9am) because the director was also organizing a student trip to Spain. (She’s even more ambitious than me.)

I don’t remember exactly when I left the school on Sunday. Definitely after 4pm. Then I still had to finalize report cards and generate comments. I didn’t get to bed until after 2am. On the bright side, my math webcomic was self-updating on Monday, because I’d queued up four comics at the end of March.

Monday, April 18th was my 21st straight day at work, on less than five hours sleep. That night was dress rehearsal, so I left school after 9pm. Tuesday I did NOT work 12 hours. It was a unique day. Wednesday was opening night, Thursday was Cappies night (I’m the school’s advisor, I left work after 11pm), and Friday was a matinee show in the afternoon followed by closing night.

It was before the matinee on Friday afternoon, my 25th straight day at work, after working for over 60 hours since my prior serial update (at least 30 of them paid), that I closed the poll. It had 5 votes. I’d need another update in less than 48 hours.

I started writing “PROM, Committee” about 4pm Friday. The new characters were names from the play, with personalities as amalgamated with an anime about magic that I remembered from years ago. About 25% of the dialogue was repurposed (humorously) from the play. I made it through less than 500 words at the time. The rest of Part 9 was written on Saturday.

Oh, not Saturday morning. I went to a mathematics professional development session (voluntarily) that morning! Good speaker. No, I wrote the rest Saturday afternoon, then published on Sunday as per usual. I’m betting you didn’t know that, because I don’t think anyone who did know actually reads my fiction.

WEEK 11

Now, writing-wise, what did I have to show for Week 9? Well, “PROM, Committee” actually had 30 views by my birthday three days later (oh, I turned 40, woot), largely because I posted it to the FB group for the play, and the director said she loved it. It also got a comment from kaleidofish. Meaning the self torture felt kind of worth it. Contrast Week 11.

The first week of May, I was going to a math conference (Thursday to Saturday), a 5 hour drive away. Tuesday I was still pulling together lessons for the substitute teacher, packing, etc, so I kept the “Epsilon” poll open. Wednesday was the day Cappies nominations were announced… er, long story short, I made it to the conference at 11pm. Found wifi, and closed the poll.

Similar to Week 9, I didn’t get a chance to start writing until late on Friday - actually not so unusual - except now I knew I had limited time on Saturday. Could I do it? Well, a 70 hour work week on the tail end of 25 days' work didn’t break my streak. I was damned if this would do it.

I wrote Friday night. I wrote for an hour Saturday afternoon, after the conference. I wrote in a diner and edited at a rest stop during my 5 hour drive home. And I published on time the next Sunday morning. Not quite the effort of Week 9, but more so than Week 10.

What did I have to show for it this time? In 48 hours, I got five views. Two votes, the lowest yet. And it was a damned tie. And all I could think is Why am I killing myself here? Would anyone have noticed a missed update? I tweeted out twice that I had a tie, looking for people - and I got a response from Curtis, saying he was already one of the two existing votes. That’s it.

Except that message is very possibly what kept me sane. Because I hadn’t actually known Curtis was reading, let alone voting.

Before going to bed, I posted an addendum to the poll saying I’d keep it open until the damn tie was broken, and when I woke up, it had been, so poll closed. Except the silence had done what 25 straight days of work could not - I no longer felt like writing to the deadline.

And YET - it hadn’t been silence. Curtis had called it a “great story”. And one of my FB friends tossed a “Like” onto the WP post after me mumbling there, which was the first time that’s happened all year. And Scott was still sharing my entries too, and he’d commented previously. So… fine.

The serial got my half-hearted attempt last Sunday, on Week 12, less than the usual 2,000 words (though not by a lot). This week? I’m feeling more grounded. So onwards we go.

Now, why does ANY of that matter?

Because sometimes it’s nice to have one’s efforts appreciated - but readers aren’t psychic. They don’t know when you need it. And there’s probably other writers out there who have felt depressed in the way I did, at times. Who knows? (Comment below?) There’s so much we struggle with that other people don’t even know about, and yet despite those problems, those blocks, as a writer we make the effort and put it out there - and get nothing?

But not nothing. A lot of that is mindset. Things are rarely as bad as you think. Which brings us to…

STATISTICS

I seriously wonder if I post up my statistics merely so that other writers can look at them and go, “Well, at least I’m not THAT guy”. (It certainly feels like it’s my primary function at “Web Fiction Guide”.) As long as this data is serving a purpose, I guess? My plan here though isn’t to be “THAT guy” but more to compare against myself, to see that things aren’t so bad. Let’s rewind over a year and a half.

Those are my statistics from “Behind the Scenes 1”, showing the first five weeks of serial episodes on this site. The anomaly on October 5th was due to a couple extra Facebook shares. Now, compare that to my statistics below, as grabbed in Week 11, when I had that two-votes-tied thing happening on Monday night.

That’s a difference of 18 months. And… the only reason my maximum view count jumped from 30 to 40 is because of Week 9’s recent Facebook share (on the 24th). But let’s look deeper. That means Week 9’s effort was worth it. Moreover, Week 11 didn’t start too bad, compared to Week 10. And hey, I’ve gone from 10 zero view days to only 1 zero view day. These are little things that have meaning.

Now here’s a breakdown of how the individual parts themselves have fared. The “within 3 days” mean Sun, Mon, Tues – how long the polls are open.

EPSILON THE FIRST Ep 1: 21 views within 3 days; 5 votes. (Views to date: 233) Ep 12: 5 views within 3 days. Poll kept open, 4 votes of 13 views to date.

EPSILON THE SECOND Ep 1: 9 views within 3 days; 3 votes. (Views to date: 80) Ep 12: 7 views within 3 days; 4 votes (Views to date: 31)

EPSILON THE THIRD (CURRENT STORY) Ep 1: 12 views within 3 days; 4 votes. (Views to date: 30) Ep 12: 14 views within 3 days. Poll still open, 6 votes of 17 views.

So… that’s a progression? Certainly Story 3’s episode 12 has more votes this week than any prior #12. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, I’m MILES ahead of my time travel story…

T&T THE FIRST Ep 1: 26 views all April 2014 (Views to date: 282) Ep 12: 4 views all June 2014 (Views to date: 10)

Yeeeeah. You may see why I felt I had to switch my serial up, despite April being one of the worst months. T&T was depressing me. I simply cannot find an audience for the majority of my writing. In part because I have little time to market. Which, honestly, makes it all the MORE impressive that some people have latched onto the current story. So - look for more this Sunday.

If you’re one of my current readers - thanks! If you’re not - maybe give it a try? I also webcomic personified math, which is heading into an election. Or here’s some other places you might look into: *Curtis makes a bunch of videos over at Basement Electronics. *Scott blogs about his writing at The Chaos Beast. *And kaleidofish has an interactive serial at Redwood Crossing.

I appreciate you reading to the end. Here’s hoping that June, with more report cards, is better for my writing than April. (Prediction: Hell no, it won’t be.)

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART TWELVE: Thimbolism

When you’re under three feet tall, objects sized for a more typical person will appear to be much larger. Thus any object which is truly out of scale, such as the house-sized thimble Alijda saw hovering in the air, seemed gigantic - more like a spaceship.

It was hard for Alijda to judge how the others around her were reacting to the object’s arrival. Largely because she couldn’t hear anything over Queeny, the city’s head of government, shouting “Go away! Go away!” into the megaphone she was holding. Yet the thimble maintained it’s existence.

Alijda’s companions, Kat and Para, drew closer to her. It seemed like Kat was doing so protectively, Para more seeking reassurance, but Alijda figured it was equally possible that she was merely seeing what she expected of them.

Honestly, the most pressing concern seemed to be one of gravity.

“We can’t hold it!” Tom yelled. He had joined hands with Michaela and Andi, the three of them standing in a line, both women with their arms in the air.

“Wait, I’ve got this!” Chris hollered back, trying to drown out Queeny. The hand she didn’t have interlinked with Kendall was tracing shapes or symbols into the air. “The rift, I can–"

The thimble smashed down, covering them, the lawn and wiping out the edge of the motel building too. Bricks and mortar rained down. Thankfully, the thimble’s opening was at the bottom, meaning everyone was simply engulfed by it, rather than flattened outright, and no one was seriously injured by debris.

There was a brief silence. The blue glow from the magic five pointed star on the ground made for an eerie light, coupled with the sun being filtered in from above, through the thimble holes. Then the magic went out.

“I can’t channel the magic,” Kendall said, sounding surprised.

“Whaaat is even the hell?” Tom chimed in, releasing Michaela and Andi to look down at his own hands in surprise.

Queeny cleared her throat. “I’ve changed my mind. Everyone is under arrest for attempted murder. Mook, cut us out of this thimble with your laser thingie.”

One of the guards reached into his suit jacket, producing an object that looked vaguely like a screwdriver. He walked over to the perimeter of their temporary prison, pointed it at the thimble, and thumbed a button.

The thimble shuddered and rose maybe a foot into the air before smashing back down again. Mook blinked and looked down at his device in surprise.

Michalea cleared her throat. “Hey, um, did that thing just fire off the anti-gravity spell we’ve been attempting to use?”

“It sure wasn’t acting like a ‘laser thingie’,” Tom agreed.

The thimble shuddered again - and shrank in size, constricting around them.

“Quick, fire the laser again! Again!” Queeny shouted into her megaphone.

“No, STOP, you’ll kill us!” Alijda countered. Actually, she was pretty sure they’d be fine. If the thimble was acclimating, it would become light enough to lift before it smashed them all in together. But the hyperbole didn’t hurt, and self-preservation seemed the best tack to take to get Queeny on board.

Sure enough, “Stop, wait!” were the next words out of Queeny’s mouth. She eyed Alijda suspiciously.

“Give the laser screwdriver to one of THEM,” Alijda said, pointing at the Magic Users. “They know the spell it’s apparently channeling.”

Queeny’s expression implied she was not fond of the suggestion, but when the thimble shrank in a second time, forcing Chris and Kendall to step in closer, she relented. “Yes, fine, do that. You’re all still under arrest.”

“Really?” Kendall remarked. “Because if you arrest us, word might get out to the public that the government is trying to hide something by silencing us.”

“Hide WHAT?” Queeny sputtered. “You’re the ones who tricked me into coming here by leaving me that package! And then you tried to kill me by dropping an oversized object onto my head!”

“We’re under here too,” Andi pointed out.

“Plus that package was actually ours,” Kat interjected. “Don’t be upset with them.”

“And we weren’t trying to kill anyone!” Para protested.

The thimble shrunk once more, down to about half the size it had been on arrival.

“Let’s discuss this outside, maybe?” Michaela said. She held up Mook’s device. “If I hold down the button, will that sustain the spell?”

“Holding it sustains the laser, but it’ll shut down automatically after a few seconds,” Queeny said, before Mook could speak up.

Michaela pointed the device at the thimble. “In that case, we run for it in five… four… three…”

Alijda started running at ‘one’, knowing she was at a disadvantage in terms of her shorter legs. She charged out as the thimble levitated up, aware of Kat pacing her without overtaking - even though he was capable. Still being protective? The military man was bothering her more than she’d expected him to, though not in the way she’d originally expected.

The thimble now hovered about ten feet in the air, confirming Alijda’s suspicions that, for whatever reason, local technology was doing better in the hands of magic users. Michaela inched toward the perimeter as everyone else got clear, her arms thrust up, holding the laser device… and then the thimble shuddered and shrunk down again.

Whether it was that change, or the laser device powering down, Alijda didn’t know. But the thimble was falling again, and tilting, and there was no way Michaela would get out from underneath in time.

Alijda didn’t even think about it. She teleported over, grabbed for the older woman, and teleported them back to her prior location. Which at least signified that her own brand of “magic” was unaffected.

The thimble crashed down onto the ground for the last time, having shrunk to be about the size of a small shed. And this time, it kept shrinking, while above them, the rift, or rip, or whatever it had been, closed up.

A crowd of onlookers was gathering. The crazy splash of colour caused by their outfits made Alijda wonder if the townsfolk ever tried to coordinate better, for meetings at City Hall, or the like. Wait, the dizzy sensation wasn’t merely due to their bright outfits…

Alijda fell to the ground. Everything around her wasn’t quite in focus. It had been the teleporting - she shouldn’t have done that. But the jolt of fear was quickly replaced with a feeling of resignation. Fine. If she was going to die, at least it had been for a purpose.

She wondered fleetingly whether she’d get buried on this world, or whether Alice would transport her body home.

“Okay Queeny, good idea,” Kat announced loudly. “You should bring all of us somewhere to get statements, while filling Chris in on the information from our package. Because that information is the only way we can save this woman, who has valuable intelligence!” He gestured towards Alijda.

Alijda half smiled. It was nice of him to try. But Queeny didn’t seem too pleased by having words put into her mouth. Then again, the head of government had yet to seem pleased by anything.

Alijda closed her eyes. The last thing she heard before falling unconscious was Queeny’s megaphoned voice saying, “Let us through, nothing to see here, merely a shrinking thimble, move along…"

As had happened after being knocked out by the fairy dust, it was the sounds which came to her first. Again, Alijda gave no hint of movement. It wasn’t voices she heard this time though, the noises were resolving themselves into some sort of classical music. And the fabric beneath her was silky.

She risked cracking an eye open. The light around her was bright, making her wonder first whether there was an afterlife, and second whether it was run by Alice’s God. The huge head belonging to Para that swung into view chased those thoughts from her mind.

“Are you awake? Are you okay?!”

Alijda brought one hand up to block her ear, the other to her forehead, to shade her eyes. “Hi! Can not shouting be a thing?”

“Oh, sorry - but I’m SO glad you’re back! I’d hug you, except, um…"

“Yeah,” Alijda sighed. “Incredible shrinking girl is still a thing.”

“No, you’re okay now!” Para assured. “I mean, yes, you’re under a foot tall, but you won’t shrink any more. Chris was able to cast the spell in time, and I’m hoping I can rework my density calculations to restore you to your proper size. Makes hugs difficult, that’s all.” She tapped her index fingers together.

“Mmm hmm. I suppose it makes clothes shopping easier, I can wear doll outfits.” With effort, Alijda pushed herself up to take in the room.

She was lying on a pillow, on a couch, in a room that seemed to only have a lamp, a chair and a small table as other furnishings. The classical music was coming from a phonograph in the corner. “Where are we?”

“Government offices.”

“Not jail?”

“Not yet. We’re still running on Queeny’s goodwill. Thanks to the intelligence you gave to her.”

Alijda squinted. “Intelligence I gave… while unconscious? Do I talk in my sleep?”

“No. Well, I don’t think so,” Para amended. “See, it’s like this. Chris wouldn’t have stumbled on the information if it weren’t for her needing to interface with technology in order to use her magic to heal you. So in that sense the intelligence is from you.”

Alijda pushed herself off the cushion, onto the couch. “Wait, you mean that magic-technology blending thing is still an issue? Then what’s with the functional phonograph?”

Para turned to look at it, then turned back. “The technology of this world is okay. But anything that came through dimensional rifts now seems to need magic to work in any way. Magic which can’t be channelled in the usual way. It’s all a bit confusing.”

“Prelude to the invasion?” Alijda hypothesized. “So how did Chris fire off her spell on me?”

“Oh, Chris interfaced with the USB drive that Kat took out of that secret room in the DEO. Hence, information.”

Alijda lifted her eyebrow. “The…” Right, when she’d teleported over to grab him, he’d said ‘It’s been thirty seconds, all I’ve found is this–' USB drive? Okay then. “What exactly did Chris find out?”

Para bit down on her lip. “I’m not sure I’m the best person to explain about Clyde. Kat should be back any minute though. We’re under a bit of a deadline now too - you were actually out for a whole day. Do you feel… normal?”

“Doll sized normal. What are you getting at?”

Para sat back, her bunny ears twitching. “We kinda need to know - are you currently able to teleport someone of my size? Or are you limited by the scale of your own body?”

“Beats me. One request before we try anything though?”

“Of course!”

Alijda pointed. “Turn off that music. The last thing I want right now is to be reminded of Chris’s oboe.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9417792]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY MAY 17th EDT

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART ELEVEN: FIT FOR A QUEENY

“Go on without me.”

“Not happening,” Kat answered.

“My shrinking legs are too goddamn short to keep up!” Alijda said. “I’m going full tilt, and you’re practically walking!”

Part of Kat’s brain suggested he say ‘Would you like me to carry you?’. But the rest of him knew that was less than funny, so instead he countered with, “Being a couple minutes later than Chris and Para won’t make any difference.”

“You don’t know that. At this point, I’m a liability. I can’t even teleport without potentially making it worse!”

“Well, I’m keeping my eye out for a skateboard.” Kat wondered belatedly if he should have filtered that thought too.

“Fine,” Alijda said, stopping to put her hands on her knees. She took in a deep breath. “Forcing your hand. Gotta catch my breath. You keep going.”

Kat stopped too. “Sorry, not letting you out of my sight. We need you on this mission. No matter how much you might wish we didn’t.”

Her hands curled into fists. “Right, because I’m doing a HELL of a job with non-interference. What with allowing Para to tell the Magic User’s Club about the third big breach, leading us to this!”

“I see our actions with the magic club as levelling the playing field against the DEO. Besides, it was me and Para who convinced Chris to do the spell to reach Alice. You kept quiet about it.”

“I could have overruled you. SHOULD have overruled you. My shrinking doesn’t really matter.”

“Alijda, stop.”

The brunette shot him a look. “Stop WHAT? Being a depressive bitch?”

“Oh, because it’s just that easy. Thanks for that life tip.” She resumed running, perhaps hoping to end the conversation.

Kat wasn’t willing to let the topic simply drop. Not now that he’d managed to articulate what had been bothering him. Hell, it had been bugging him long enough that he hadn’t even considered hitting on Chris.

“You’re harder on yourself than you are on us,” Kat said, matching her pace again. “Why? I want to get you, but I don’t.”

“Yeah, sure, I know how you ‘want to get’ me. Is it more of a turn on for you now that I’m the size of a midget? Or does that kill the mood?”

Kat clenched his jaw. “That’s not fair. To either of us.”

Alijda glanced at him, then away. “Sorry. Still, maybe don’t bribe women to eat with you right off an introduction next time, it sets a certain tone.”

“While abduction doesn’t? But okay, okay,” Kat said, as Alijda drew in another deep breath. “Sometimes I have a one track mind, and that was a bad track to start out on. But don’t change the subject. I do want to understand you.”

“What’s the point? We’ll be going our separate ways soon enough.”

“If I can understand you better, I might be in a better position to help like minded people on my Earth. Or maybe I’ll learn something more about myself. Alijda, don’t dismiss this. Please.”

Alijda ran her fingers back through her hair, sweat beading on her forehead as she continued to run down the city street. “Look, there’s nothing to understand. For whatever reason, you seem to think I’m pretty on the outside - except on the inside, I’m really frigging ugly.”

“Prove it.”

“I steal. I hack technology. I cut corners when I don’t want the rules to apply to me. I have a bunch of enemies, and no friends to speak of. Moreover, whenever I think maybe, just MAYBE life’s getting better, reality beats me down with nonsense like my shrinking away to nothing. The multiverse is trying to tell me something.”

“That you have the determination and drive to succeed against overwhelming odds?”

“Ha! If this is success, I’d hate to see failure.”

“Alijda, I think failure is when you give up. I hope you don’t. Your moral compass doesn’t seem completely out of whack, and I’m starting to believe that meeting you is the only bright spot for me in this whole crazy mission.”

Alijda glared. “You seem to have forgotten to shut the hell up when it comes to concern for my welfare.”

“I didn’t say I was concerned about you. I said I hope you don’t give up. Also, news flash, you don’t get to control what I tell you.”

“Mmm. Hmph. We’re nearly there.”

Again she was deflecting, but it seemed like he’d given her something to think about. As she had with him - namely, his first impressions needed work. Kat decided not to push the point further.

They rounded the last corner, on their jog towards the outskirts of town. The motel sat there, in the middle of the block, with members of the Magic User’s Club standing around on the front lawn. Chris seemed to be arguing with Tom. Not a good sign.

Kat figured asking Para for an update was a better plan than interrupting the spell casters. “What did we miss?”

Para frowned. “Um, Chris is upset the others didn’t do a magic sweep during the setup. She told Tom to do one now, to find Alice’s package. Tom said that’ll interfere with said setup. Chris said no, that’s an excuse for it not being set up properly in the first place. We’ve reached the point where Tom is saying Chris can take her oboe and jam it up her–”

“Is there anything we can do to help them?” Alijda interrupted.

“I don’t see how,” Para said, wringing her hands. “Chris said that Alice said that the stuff would be found with magic fu, yeah?”

Alijda grimaced. “We are lacking in that. But we know about the dimensional issues.”

“Right, Alice would have to shrink a package down,” Kat offered. “Granted, by now it’s ‘acclimated’, to use Larry’s term - might be why Alice had to send it back in time in the first place - but maybe it can be identified in some other way.”

Para tilted her head. “Except, what if the DEO got to it before it acclimated. Maybe THEY have the package right now!”

Alijda shook her head. “If they had it, I think Bonnie would have asked us about it.”

“But what if it didn’t exist back then? Not until we contacted Alice! And so Bonnie DID ask us, but it’s in this new timeline, rather than the old timeline we remember?”

Alijda stared, then struggled to speak, settling on, “Stop that.”

“The magic users said they use a fairy mirror to track these things, right?” Kat noted, feeling the need to escape from the causality conversation as well.

Para nodded. “So could THEY have the package, without realizing?”

“Let me check.” Kat headed for Michaela, deciding not to get between the increasingly rude gestures that Tom and Chris were making at each other. “Hey, question for you - when did this motel register as your weakest dimensional spot in town?”

The redhead rubbed her chin. “About five days ago, I guess? But these spots can register for months before anything actually comes through. We try to wander by whenever we can, so that we can be the first ones to get any objects. Or, you know, to actually see a breach.”

“So you haven’t picked anything up in the last five days?”

“Nah. Besides, the mirror usually shifts to a new weakest area after an incursion. That’s our key to really comb through a location - after it changes.”

Kat blinked, as a thought occurred. Namely, if someone wanted to track dimensional portals, and didn’t have the means to do it themselves… the next best thing would be to track those who DID have the necessary technology. Or magic. Right?

He wondered if Alijda’s paranoia about the government was rubbing off, but considering it from a military point of view, it also made sense.

“Your club - it’s hardly a secret, is it? I mean, Chris was doing spells for hire.”

Michaela gestured vaguely. “We don’t advertise the club. But people know we’re among the few who have magical abilities, sure.”

Kat motioned for Alijda to join them. “Could the government be tracking you, and through you, these breaches?”

“Why bother? The DEO has their own technology to do it.”

“I didn’t say the DEO. I said the government.”

Michaela blinked. “What - you think Queeny’s monitoring us separately? But then why call attention to it by hiring Andi? Unless she hoped to learn more about the glamour we used, to help with the resemblance to Bonnie.”

“You used a…” Alijda cut herself off. “Kat, government involvement makes total sense. Do you think Queeny has been tracking artifacts too?”

“Maybe QUEENY has the package,” Para said, having approached along with Alijda.

“It’s a setup!” came a shout from across the street.

Kat turned, and was as surprised as Michaela to see Andi running towards them. She was still recognizable, despite having changed out of Bonnie’s business suit into a flowery dress.

“My meeting with Queeny,” the older asian gasped. “It was moved here, why here, cuz they’re gonna take your stuff, so get outta here, run…!”

“Excellent! You’ve arrived!” came yet another voice, this one substantially louder.

Kat spun again, this time seeing a woman dressed in a red silk dress marching out of one of the motel rooms, holding a cone up to her face. She was flanked by two men in dark suits, presumably some sort of security detail. As if that wasn’t enough to give away the new woman’s identity, the amethyst crystal she wore on her head like a crown clinched it.

Behind them, Chris leaned towards Tom, their earlier disagreement apparently forgotten as she muttered at him, “Why does she always have a megaphone?”

“We can hear you just fine, Queeny,” Michaela pointed out.

“Shut up,” Queeny said, not putting the cone down despite being a mere two metres away from the redhead. “Now don’t worry, I don’t want your trinkets today. What I want is Bonnie’s reaction to…” She paused. “You’re not real Bonnie. You’re my Bonnie. Did you escape using magic?”

“I’m not telling,” Andi said. “Unless you pay me, or give me back my PROM.”

“Hold the phone,” Kat protested. “How does Queeny even know about Andi having been captured?”

“Queeny must have a spy in the DEO,” Alijda said, rubbing her forehead. “Meaning the government didn’t need the Bonnie double. It was a ruse to lure out someone with magic.”

“Shows what you know!” Queeny sputtered. “I needed the double, my spy isn’t competent. Also, if you three are you’re who I THINK you are, you’re going to jail!” She snapped her fingers and motioned to the two men in suits.

“Oh, you do NOT want to start that now,” Alijda said. Kat recognized the same look and tone that Alijda had used in her staring match with Bonnie2. And while it lost some power from the brunette being under three feet tall, it still seemed to make Queeny hesitate.

“Correction, you’re going to jail AFTER I get my information.” Queeny snapped her fingers again, and the two men resumed their original positions. “In fact, no one’s leaving here until I find out why you magic people left a package for me, talking about a thimble appearing here today!”

“Thimble,” Chris breathed. “That’s–" There was a thunderclap, and a great rip seemed to appear above them in the sky. “Noooo, not yet!” she shrieked. “I don’t have time to adjust the spell for–"

“Chris,” came Kendall’s calm voice. He raised his palm, and only now did Kat realize that the blonde man had been quietly chanting off to the side the whole time.

Chris sprang over next to him, slapping her palm against his. A five pointed star, albeit somewhat skewed, began to glow on the ground beneath all of them. Queeny swore in a language Kat didn’t recognize.

And then things got a little crazy.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9410743]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY MAY 10th EDT

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART TEN: STATION AIRY

“What does it feel like… when a person is losing their mind?”

The response came instantaneously. “Ms. Vunderlande, your inflection would imply that you are not asking seriously, but rather quoting Lieutenant Commander Data from the ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ episode ‘Masks’. Is that the case?”

Alice smiled. “Mostly. But maybe not? I don’t know.”

“I have registered no signs of delirium since you woke up,” the female voice continued, echoing around the fitness room. “You do seem a bit distracted, but that is understandable given the peculiarities inherent to Epsilon’s current mission. Shall I give you a test of mental acuity today?”

Alice stood back up and wiped at the sweat on her forehead, before walking over and tossing her towel into the room’s laundry chute. She idly wondered when she’d taken to running on a treadmill early in the morning. It had to be after her recruitment to the Project. Meaning less than a year ago. Whatever a ‘year’ really meant now. She needed the exercise though, as she didn’t see a lot of activity up here.

Up here. On the Epsilon Station. Well, it beat living in a Hell dimension.

“No, it’s fine,” Alice answered. “But I wish I had someone else around, you know? I wait so long for my love vibration, and I’m dancing with myself…”

“Billy Idol, a song with an initial release of 1980 on most Earths where it exists.” The tune began to play through the overhead speakers.

Alice sighed. The station’s computer had a near 100 percent track record on her references, yet still failed to understand her at times. “Ziggy, that wasn’t a cue. I’m done working out.” She began to strip off her workout clothes.

Alice shook her head. “Don’t get like that. That’s not what I meant either. I probably got too used to Para being around those last couple days, that’s all.”

“Perhaps you would like a video link to another world today? Or if your preference is to reach out and touch someone, a visit to the holography deck?”

“No, no, I’m not going to start goofing off during an active mission.” The brunette technician kicked her pants aside. “You’re sure there’s been no word from Alijda or the rest since that one communication device self destructed last night?”

“I would have told you.” The computer’s voice sounded petulant.

“Right. I know. Sorry.”

“Should I override protocol and do a scan?”

Alice threw her clothing into the laundry chute after the towel, then stepped towards the showers. “Ohh, that’s so funny, I forgot to laugh!”

Ziggy didn’t respond that time. Alice passed into the adjacent room, twisting the nearest available knob before leaning both palms against the wall. The water sprayed down on her, making her shudder at first, before it warmed up. A hazard of not using the sonic facility, but for whatever reason, real water felt better after a workout.

Slowly, her hands curled into fists. “Gorram, frakking, frelling Shroedinger!” Alice shrieked, using up her quota of scifi swears for the day.

The problem with a scan was in how the station existed outside of regular space-time. Or simultaneously in all space-times? Either way, as soon as the Epsilon Project registered something actively, rather than passively, the probability waveforms surrounding that Earth would collapse, making the event all but inevitable. Whereas parallel time tracks remained an option until that moment.

Put another way, so long as Alice didn’t know her team’s fate, they had every chance of succeeding. But if she looked, and saw that one or more of them were dead, she likely wouldn’t be able to prevent it.

Alice drew in a sharp breath, then put the usual smile back onto her face. “Fake it ’til you make it.” She reached for the soap. “Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, that’s how this refrain goes…"

Alice jogged for the central control room with toast in her mouth. Not because she hadn’t had time to eat it. It was more a form of research into how things worked on an anime style Earth. One never knew when such things would come in handy.

As such, Alice almost choked when the internal alarm went off, simultaneous to the woman in her late twenties wearing a blue jumpsuit appearing in the corridor.

“Alison Vunderlande?” the woman asked.

Alice grabbed for her toast as it fell from her mouth, flinging it at the apparition. The food passed right through the woman’s body. Which told Alice two things. First, Purple Hair Woman was some sort of hologram, or magical projection. And second, given how the intruder failed to react, there was a lack of visual acuity on her side.

“Silence alarm!” Alice called out, after swallowing. The noise stopped. “What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favourite colour?”

The projection blinked. “Uh, I’m Chris. I’ve been hired by your friends to tell you that they’re shrinking down to nothing. And lavender, I guess?”

Alice felt her pulse quicken. “What’s the deal with their communicators? Why send you?”

“Their stuff was taken by the DEO. The DEO loves new technology.”

“I’ll need proof you’re speaking for them. Tell me what reference I made to Alijda when she first arrived on your world.”

Chris turned her head. “Your Alison wants to know the first reference she made when you got here. … Attack of the 50 Foot Woman? Is that seriously what this invasion is going to be?”

“Enough,” Alice said. She began to sift through the new data that had been provided.

Fact 1: This world was at a higher level of technology and/or magic than initial scans had implied. She had suspected as much, but for Chris to communicate this way, there had to be a greater awareness of the dimensional weaknesses. Perhaps other trips had occurred, either into, or out of, that world? She would get Ziggy to boost the sensors to verify.

Fact 2: According to her watch - Alice had aligned the Station to the time frame of that smaller Earth - they were now too close to the third incursion event for her to recall the group by any conventional means, or even to open a portal to send them supplies. Not without interfering on a greater scale than regulations allowed. But there was a way around that.

Fact 3: The shrinking circuits had misfired, been somehow incompatible with the density suits Para had designed, or… something else had set them off. Insufficient data. How could she get more information there, without completely collapsing any probability waveforms?

“Is the shrinking problem affecting all of them equally?”

Chris shook her head. “Just Alijda, she’s now about as big as–"

“No superfluous information,” Alice snapped. “Please. Just answer my questions.”

“Wow, calm down. Okay, and Para now says it’s affected all of them, but it’s less noticeable for her and Kat. So far.”

“Do their clothes still fit?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did I stutter? Do. Their. Clothes. Still. Fit.”

“Well, sure…"

It had to be the teleportation. Alijda must have teleported almost immediately upon arrival, before final calibration. Now the density suit was constantly changing it’s baseline, whenever Alijda transported herself - and the suit - through space. Which could also affect Kat and Para, if she teleported with them, due to the field extending out past their clothes.

The chances of this happening had been very remote. But now that it was occurring, the error could accelerate exponentially with subsequent teleportations, perhaps to the point where it would be a problem every time the suit did a systems check. Worse, Alice didn’t know how to fix something like that.

But she knew where she could find relevant information.

Now Chris was saying something else. Something nonsensical. “Alijda and the others already told you everything,” Alice answered.

Chris shook her head. “No, they said only YOU might know what this third incursion item would be.”

Oh, that. Alice shook her head. “Even assuming I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Then we have a problem,” Chris said, crossing her arms. “Because that information was my payment. This isn’t a free spell. Rules are rules.”

Alice matched Chris’ posture and tone. “Having information about the future could be extremely dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, they could backfire drastically! You’ll find out through the natural course of time.”

“Not good enough. After all, you’re willing to tell us about this ‘invasion’, and that’s in our future.”

“That’s an issue external to your world, with unresolved probability waveforms.”

“And this new huge thing landing on our planet is different how?!”

Alice grudgingly yielded the point to Chris. “Fine. That information will be included in the package I will have sent to your world to deal with all these issues.”

“Fine. When are you sending it?”

“Have sent. Space is warped and time is bendable. Thank you for choosing the Epsilon Project for all your household needs. Please proceed to the site of the third incursion, and use your magic fu to obtain the package.”

Without waiting to see Chris’ reaction, Alice spun on her heel and dashed back towards the auxiliary control area. “Unsilence alarm!” she shouted as she ran. The klaxons didn’t start up again. “I said unsilence–"

“The apparition has departed, so there is no need for the alarm,” the computer’s female voice assured her.

“Awesomesauce. Ziggy, prepare for a rollback in time of approximately five days.”

“Warning! Loss of space-time synchronicity may result in–"

“Override. Authorization code Picard-Four-Seven-Alpha-Tango.” Yes, this was why she ran the treadmill every morning. So that she could still talk through these sorts of emergencies without getting too short of breath. “Also, increase sensor gain by 500% and re-scan for dimensional incursions in Smallville over the last, let’s say, two years. We’ll also want the identity of the next major item, the one Chris referred to.”

“Affirmative.”

Alice burst into the station’s auxiliary control room and skidded to a stop. “Mr Smith! I need you.”

A musical fanfare began to play. With a whoosh of air, one wall panel lifted up, two more panels swinging out into the room, revealing a large alien computer behind them. “Good morning, Alice. What seems to be the problem?” came a male voice.

For obvious reasons, Mr. Smith ran independent of the station’s main computer. So he wouldn’t know the situation. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary to tell him everything. “Scan all known databases for problems with miniaturization feedback, and solutions involving a baseline density reset that can be achieved through technological injection or mystical spell casting,” Alice ordered.

“By your command.”

Alice turned her attention to the main computer console in the room, setting up the sequence that would phase shift them through time. The greatest headaches would come from activating the dimensional bridge upon arrival in the past. It was a huge power drain. So if there were other incursions going through on that world, and she could piggyback…

Alice froze in place. Her eyebrow twitched. “Ziggy,” she rasped. “Please confirm. Over a HUNDRED dimensional breaches in the last two years?”

“Affirmative.”

“Holy Hannah. How did we miss that?!”

“We weren’t scanning for events on a scale proportionate to the size of their Earth. It required your increase in sensor settings to spot them.”

“Son of a motherless goat. When this is over, remind me to put some fractal protocols in place to fix that!” She resumed typing. “Okay. First, we turn the time circuits on…"

“Scan complete,” came the voice of Mr. Smith. “No solutions found with a hundred percent effectiveness. However, there is a ritual spell that is statistically viable, with an error margin of only 3%, 19 times out of 20.”

“Can we synthesize the components for that spell on this station?”

“We can indeed.”

Alice smiled. “Perfect. And Ziggy, the third incursion artifact was?”

“A thimble.”

“Okay, I got this!” Alice hit the enter key, then made a swooping motion with her arm, as if she were wearing a cape. “Let’s get dangerous.” With a maniacal grin, the brunette woman fled the room.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, “Ziggy, has Alice had any caffeine today?”

“She has not, Mr. Smith.”

“I recommend you keep it that way.” His advice dispensed, the computer system retreated back behind the wall of the auxiliary control room.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9403749]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON WEDNESDAY MAY 4th EDT

I started this style of post with the second Epsilon story, and have decided to continue it here. It’s a look at the choices NOT taken by you, the audience. Because every time I offer a choice, I do have an arc in my head - and if that choice isn’t taken, it’s either temporarily set aside, or disposed of. What were these aborted arcs? SPOILERS follow, in case you haven’t been reading up to Part 9, and want to be surprised.

GETTING STARTED

0. STORY CHOICE itself. The high school story was probably the most set up in my mind - I would have used some old teacher characters of mine (and likely Expona instead of Para), with Alison working in the office. Granted, the supernatural element I was less sure of. The story on the station, with Alice, was the least set in my mind; that’s about all I had.

We got: “Scale factors”, which I had intended to base on the “April Fool” written for me back in 2015. It won by a comfortable margin. I had no characters (aside from probably someone wearing a crown called “Queeny”), or plot (aside from some “invasion”), but I had a basic setting and starting point.

1. KAT. Marginal influence. This vote set the tone for Kat’s future interactions. Would he be more pleased, indifferent, or displeased to be included? We got: Displeased. Ever since then, I’ve tried to portray him as more keen to get the mission over with. His interest in Alijda had always been planned.

2. SCALE CIRCUITS. Major influence. With no problem, Alijda would have attracted someone’s attention upon arrival; with circuit problems, she would have been too large or too small. We got: Effectively, a delay. Without this vote, Alijda wouldn’t have ended up shrinking. We might have still had the DEO, but I’m not sure. We got stealth, but at a price.

3. THE WAY. Major influence. If they hadn’t gone with Larry, they’d have ended up with the government. If they’d gone willingly, they would have met Bonnie early and discussed the situation. We got: The hard way. And I didn’t know what that would be - how do you knock out a teleporter? Without this vote, no fairy dust, possibly no magical items on the world.

4. GET OUT. Negligible influence. We got Larry listening in, which did set the tone of mistrust between Alijda’s group and the DEO (versus a more amicable working relationship). But there would be later opportunities to change that, for better or worse… not that a better relationship ever materialized.

AROUND THE DEO

5. OFF TO… Major influence. Had they gone back to the Epsilon Station, they would have found themselves unable to return by any conventional means. Possibly they’d have had to arrive again before their first arrival, or simultaneous to the “third incursion”. Had Alijda gone to City Hall, I would have had to think about the government’s part in this.

We got: The Department of Extradimensional Objects. I didn’t have a set plan. I vaguely based it on what I’d seen in “Supergirl” and “Agents of SHIELD”.

6a. FOOLED. Negligible influence. First tied vote. Thus two of the results for this latest “April Fool” were seen in Part 6b. Had “someone’s dream” won, Bonnie’s arrival in 6b would have been punctuated with comments about a nightmare.

6b. REACTION. Major influence. First unanimous vote too. Had Bonnie locked them up, they would have attempted a jailbreak (not unlike what ended up happening later). Conversely, had Bonnie confessed, we would have had a revelation - that may still happen, so I cannot tell you what it would have been.

We got: Distraction, in the form of Bonnie2. I hadn’t thought about it beyond the doppelgänger concept. Honestly, the vote blindsided me a bit. I decided I didn’t want to drag the concept out, thus Para’s revelation.

7. POLITICS. Major influence. Had they not interfered, the incursion would have happened, likely preventing Bonnie from returning to HQ, prompting Larry to ask them for advice. Had they tried to warn Queeny, I’d have thought about the government, something I have yet to really do. Instead, we got trouble.

You chose the danger! Again, I had not expected the vote to be so high for that, given Alison’s remarks. I suppose it’s good that things wouldn’t be boring?

WHERE TO NEXT

8. NEXT STEP. Marginal influence. Talking to the government and lying low would have routed back to the prior poll, merely with Alijda much shorter and on worse terms with the DEO. I wonder if it’s the same person who wanted to wait it out both times? Instead, we got more with Bonnie2.

I initially envisioned Bonnie2’s acquaintances as being actors, but once the choice was selected, I thought maybe they should have magic to offset the DEOs tech. And then I was working 12 hour days on the school play, with not really any time to write (I even kept the poll open, not that it did anything). So the new characters became amalgams of those in the play and in an anime I used to know.

9. ABOUT CHRIS. Major influence. I didn’t really expect anyone to pick Andi and the government, but hey, maybe third time was the charm? It would have revealed Bonnie’s confession (see #6b above), while simultaneously putting Alijda in a position of needing to find Chris again before time ran out. Having Chris do the setup was the safe bet - with the downside of possibly getting her arrested after the readings were taken, leaving Alijda in peril again.

Instead, here we are, able to contact Alice, to deal with the shrinking thing - but does Michaela REALLY know where that oboe goes? Oh dear.

I’m curious now whether you saw my hints for any of those alternate paths as you were reading. (For instance, Alijda noticing how she could have arrived out in the open, back in Part 3.) Either way, as always, thanks for voting/reading, and feel free to comment below about that which was unexpected, or anything else that jumps out at you!

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART NINE: PROM, Committee

Para hesitated to speak as she walked up, wondering if it was proper to interrupt the silence between Alijda and Kat. Fortunately, Alijda spoke first. “So, Para, who’s your new friend in red?”

The blonde cleared her throat to answer. “Well, while me and Andi - er, she’s the one you’ve been calling Bonnie2 - while the two of us were out learning where the DEO’s secret exit had left us, we encountered someone she knows.”

“My name’s Michaela,” the redheaded woman announced. “I’m part of the Magic User’s Club.”

Kat blinked. “This city has a magic users club?”

“Ooh, visitors from another dimension not knowing about our magical abilities. Shocker,” Andi observed. “Of course, I’m of the opinion that such fantasy stuff’s overrated. I think we should have PROM!”

Alijda rubbed her forehead. “I’ll probably regret asking this, but… PROM?”

“Programmable Read Only Memory,” Bonnie’s double clarified. “I was starting to figure it out, when the government took it away from me. Proving once and for all that dimensional technology like PROM is more useful than dimensional magic. Otherwise, why would they regulate it so strictly?”

“Hey, magic is regulated too,” Michaela protested.

“Except the Department of Extradimensional Objects doesn’t have the authority to permanently confiscate your magical items, like they did with my PROM!” Andi countered.

Para tilted her head. “So, is it the police that are out of control? Or is it the criminals?”

“Hey, guys?” Kat broke in. “Let’s not talk about this stuff in the middle of a park. Did you happen to come across a building where we can lay low for a while?”

“Oh, sure. We’re in my neighbourhood, so you can come see our magic club,” Michaela offered. “If anyone’s there, they’ll jump at the chance to meet actual dimensional travellers.”

Andi nodded. “We might as well, my meeting with Queeny isn’t for a couple hours yet.”

“Okay. Whatever,” Alijda agreed, hopping off the bench.

Para bit her lip as she looked down at her now much shorter friend. Alijda seemed to have shrunk even more since their jailbreak. Was that a delayed reaction from the earlier teleportations? Or was Alijda now in the process of shrinking away to nothing? Para wondered if she should say something.

“Don’t even,” Alijda said, as if reading Para’s thoughts. “Just lead the way.”

The house Michaela led them to was pretty nondescript. But then the club member brought them around to a large shed out back, and the people they were introduced to there seemed quite the opposite.

Of everyone in the room, Para reasoned that dark haired Andi was the oldest. Given how she was doubling for Bonnie, head of the DEO, who was in her early fifties. Michaela, with her short red hair, was perhaps fifteen years younger, and had been hard to miss, what with her bright red vest matching her pants.

Kendall seemed younger still, around the same age as Alijda and Kat. The man had flowing blonde hair and sported a practical button up shirt and slacks. Meanwhile Chris, or presumably Christine, Para judged to be in her late twenties. She had the longest hair, tinged purple and tied into a ponytail. Her blue jumpsuit and the goggles she wore implied she was a technician of sorts.

Finally, there was Tom, a twenty-something with green hair, who wore a casual shirt underneath a black leather jacket. As Michaela was finishing the introductions, he jumped up from behind a stack of tires, swinging a flail. Andi hit the ground just in time.

“Tom, stop, it’s ME!” Andi shrieked.

“Oh yeah? How do we know you’re not the REAL Bonnie, here to shut down our club?!”

“Ask the blonde bunny girl! She saw that Queeny had tailored my suit too well, and got me locked up. Though, to be fair, Para and the others also helped me to break out of the DEO earlier this morning.”

“It’s really Andi,” Michaela added. “Unless Bonnie DuChessy has intel about how much our techno-loving actress friend misses having her PROM.”

“Hmm. Okay, but I’ve still got my eye on you,” Tom said, pointing.

“Where did you even get a flail?” Andi asked, standing up and brushing herself off.

“My dad bought one. He’s a renaissance enthusiast.”

Kendall chuckled. “Tom, you told me yesterday that it was because your dad LARPs.”

Tom glared. “Shut up, spider farmer.”

Kendall simply rolled his eyes and resumed leafing through the file folder he was holding.

Para leaned in closer to Kat. “Um, wait, is that an… insult? An actual job…?" she whispered. Kat merely shrugged, making Para glad she wasn’t the only one who was unsure.

“So, you’re dimensional travellers, huh?” Chris mused, placing a cane she’d been examining onto a nearby table; the object seemed to have the image of a duck on one end. The brunette pulled her goggles up off her eyes. “I knew it was only a matter of time. How long have you been observing our society? Do you know the rules? Define ‘anarchy’.”

“Calm down, Chris,” Michaela said. “Give our guests a moment to process… I didn’t actually expect the whole Cabinet to be here, not this early in the morning.”

“Seriously?” Chris sighed. “Then did you not get my message either? Committee meeting, here.” She glanced at her watch. “In one hour.”

“She’s doing her covert ops thing again,” Tom explained, off Michaela’s look. “Publishing in the local newspaper, using code, instead of simply talking to people. Good thing I met up with Kendall last night. Chris, can you please just be normal for once?”

Chris shot him a look. “Noted.”

“I saw the message, Chris,” Kendall soothed.

Tom shook his head. “Kendall, you’re the only one who reads the paper. And you only do it so that you can get annoyed at the articles.”

“Tom, you used to read the newspaper too,” Chris protested. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have seen the ad that brought us together in the first place.”

“Ha ha ha, false. My ex used to read the paper.”

“Guys, me and Michaela are here now, that’s what matters,” Andi offered. “So, what’s the magic club meeting about? Here to debate pizza versus poutine?”

“No,” Tom said. “Chris is worried about the imminent zombie uprising.”

“Alien attack!” Chris corrected, visibly exasperated. “Tom, you know the Magic User’s Club is Earth’s only defence against the aliens.”

“Whoa!” Para gasped. “You have space aliens attacking this world too?”

“No.” Kendall closed the file folder, tossing it onto the desk next to the duck cane. “Aliens, as in anyone who arrives on our Earth illegally. As in, you three qualify. Unless you’ve got government papers explaining your presence?”

“So not happening. Our decisions on this mission never seem to involve the government,” Alijda admitted.

“But as aliens go, we’re mostly harmless,” Kat added. “Granted, we’re now kind of stuck here. The DEO took away our communicators.”

“Oh?” Chris smiled. “Did you want a spell caster who can communicate with another dimension? For a very reasonable price? Granted, you wouldn’t be able to talk directly, only through me. And there’s a waiver you’ll have to sign, signifying you’re not trying to call Cthulhu, while exonerating me from any side effects you might experience.”

“Yeah, hey, make sure you stand completely inside her magical symbol,” Tom noted. “My hair hasn’t been the same since I accidentally bent over during her last spell.”

Para had to do a double take, as she realized that at some point, the young man’s green hair had shifted to being a very vibrant red.

“That sounds really great,” Alijda admitted. “But first, about the dimensional invasion - why exactly does your club think it’s imminent?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Kendall fired back. “Aren’t you the aliens’ advanced scouting force?” He was seeming more and more like the leader to Para, though she saw no signs the group was that structured.

“No. Granted, we can’t prove we aren’t,” Alijda admitted, anticipating the next question. “Though if we were, we’re doing a pretty lousy job of it. What with telling people the invasion is coming, losing our communicators, and me shrinking down to two thirds of my usual size due to faulty density circuits.”

“For real?” Tom asked. Alijda nodded. “Man, that sucks out loud.”

Inwardly, Para winced. She wished she knew what had gone wrong between her mathematical theory, and it’s practical application. Alijda’s teleportation ability had to be a factor.

“Either way,” Alijda continued, “You obviously scheduled this meeting before knowing we were coming.”

“Touché,” Kendall conceded. “Very well then, we believe it’s imminent because of a potion which gives whoever drinks it a hint of the future. Other signs point to the invasion event being less than a week away. We met this morning in large part to give the information to Michaela to do the math.”

Para perked back up again. “Oh, math? Maybe I can help with that.”

“Be my guest,” Michaela said. “Trouble is, while we are really close to a magical method for temporarily blocking off dimensional travel, we can’t get the readings we need. I mean, sure, there’s a fairy mirror that shows us where the weakest spot is in town with respect to the next incursion… but we never know when the next event is going to take place. So we never know when to cast our spells.”

Para found she was getting better at looking to Alijda before blurting things out. “It’s happening mid-morning today,” Para said, off Alijda’s shrug. “Roughly 24 hours after our arrival yesterday.”

Chris gasped. “This morning?”

Para nodded. Then Tom yelped, as Chris stepped on his foot in her hurry to get to a box of assorted items sitting in a corner of the shed. “Great!” the purple haired technician declared. “I can set up my monitoring equipment with no danger of it being confiscated! That way we’ll know exactly when to cast!”

“Confiscated? Oooh, Chris, are you breaking the rules?” Andi teased.

“Hey, I have permits for all this stuff,” Chris protested, hauling the box back to the main table. “Thing is, my documentation doesn’t stop the authorities from impounding it for days at a time, citing ‘verification purposes’.”

“Well, at least you always get it BACK, unlike my–"

“Don’t say PROM,” Tom groaned.

”Is that a clarinet?” Kat asked, pointing to an object inside Chris’ box.

Chris looked down. “That? Is an oboe,” she corrected. “With a special mouthpiece sent in from Orleans.”

Para tilted her head. “Wait. You play French reeds?”

“We’re getting off track here,” Kendall interjected. “Focus - this is the first and possibly only time we’ll know both the location and timing of a dimensional incursion. With luck, we can get the necessary data to block off any future invading force.” He turned to Alijda. “What do you recommend we do? What’s landing on our world this time?”

Alijda leaned against the table. “Pray. And we don’t know. The person running the Epsilon Project doesn’t give details. Now, we could try the spell Chris mentioned to contact her - in fact, we kind of need to, and soon, to fix my whole shrinking thing - but no guarantees.”

“No way! I’m the only one who can perform that spell,” Chris objected. “And I’d have to do it here, and I can’t, not if I’ll be busy setting up my equipment!”

“The rest of us could set up your equipment for you,” Michaela offered.

“Oh my God. Do you even know how to position the oboe??”

“On the other hand, Chris, if you know what’s coming through in advance, the data you’ll obtain will be more useful,” Tom pointed out. Chris frowned.

“Tom’s right,” Kendall agreed. “But at the same time, we don’t want to lose our one shot at getting any data at all, by someone positioning the equipment incorrectly.” He looked to Alijda. “Any thoughts on that?”

Alijda looked down at her smaller body. “No, but I think we’re sticking with Chris either way.”

“What? Hello!” Andi gasped. “I’d like to revisit my Queeny meeting. Just because you’re all keen about dimensional magic, doesn’t mean we can ignore the country’s politics! What if the DEO turns out to have technology, like the PROM, which renders all of your efforts completely moot? Alijda and her friends need to come with me, to learn more about what Queeny and Bonnie are up to!”

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9396014]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY APRIL 26th EDT

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART EIGHT: HALF THE BATTLE

“You can say ‘I told you so’.”

Alijda stared out at the sunrise, swinging her legs back and forth off the park bench. She’d needed help to reach the seat. As she was under four feet tall relative to their surroundings. “Why?” she asked Kat. “What would that accomplish?”

“Might make you feel better?”

Alijda shook her head. “I’m a depressive. I always feel lousy. Sure, sometimes I hide it better, but now that we’re trapped on this Earth, just wait. Without my meds, I’ll be throwing myself off a building pretty soon. Assuming I’m still tall enough to climb one.”

“We won’t be stuck here forever,” Kat assured her. “Alice is sure to realize there’s a problem when she can’t contact us. At that point, she can scoop us off this Earth the same way I was teleported off of mine. By walking through a door or the like.”

“Hah. First, you’re assuming that the scale factor thing won’t be a problem for retrieval. And second, you’re assuming that Alice is paying more attention to us than to the latest movie out of the Marvel universe. Which, come to think, is probably an actual universe out there. I wonder if she visits.”

“Alijda, don’t be like this.”

She snapped her gaze over to him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I acting too much like myself here? Because if you wanted happy chipper perky, you should have gone with Para to map out the neighbourhood.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m… worried about you.”

“Well DON’T be! Okay?” With effort, Alijda managed to not grab fistfuls of her hair and yank, simply to feel the physical pain. “You didn’t even KNOW me a day ago! So don’t pretend like you really care. Or if you’re a lunatic who always cares, do me the courtesy of not saying so. I’m tired of mattering to people. It’s exhausting. Let me shrink away to nothing in peace.”

Alijda closed her eyes, resting her palms on her face. Seconds ticked by into minutes. Only when the silence started getting to her did she look back up at him. He hadn’t changed position. “Look, thank you for worrying. But don’t. It’s easier that way.”

“Easier on who?”

“On everybody.”

Kat turned to face her once more. Whatever he was about to say though, he seemed to change his mind based on her expression. “Look, there’s no question that we’ve suffered a setback. So why don’t we review how we got here. To keep it from happening again.”

“Right. Because we’re so likely to be breaking more people out of fortified government installations.”

“Maybe not. But we might end up selecting another idiotic suggestion of mine, which is at the heart of all this.”

Alijda sighed. “Oh, don’t even. It wasn’t an idiotic suggestion.”

“You did point out that we’d never pull it off without the DEO knowing.”

“I did. And then you pointed out how we might want to get out anyway.”

With that, the whole sequence of events began to replay itself in her mind.

“The longer we stay here,” Kat argued, “the more we’ll end up accidentally influencing things. So, if we’re caught breaking Bonnie2 out? We merely make a run for it ourselves.”

Alijda shook her head. “Again, communicators…"

“If things go south, we have a look for them before leaving,” Kat assured. “I know where they’re keeping their technology.” He glanced over towards the radio, as if to check that it was still broadcasting static. “In fact, here’s the thing. In a hidden room at the back, the DEO are building a dimensional doorway of their own.”

Alijda, who had just thrown herself back onto the bed, sat back up. “What? Are you sure?”

Kat nodded. “On my world, I’m part of a secret interstellar program. I also remember what Alice’s setup looked like on the Epsilon station. The setup here is much cruder, to the point where I don’t know if it’s operational, but it’s portal technology. I think it was constructed using the tech that landed here from the adjacent dimensions.”

Alijda frowned. “Well, damn. Could Alice have royally screwed up? Is it possible that THESE people are the invaders?”

“Or the adjacent world is invading them, to take their technology back,” Kat suggested. “The hat and the iron could have been test items, as opposed to objects that slipped through naturally.”

“Which would be why they weren’t accompanied by a density shift and change in size!” Para offered.

“Maybe,” Kat agreed.

“Well, that changes things.” Alijda crossed her arms. “Explains why it felt like the DEO was only holding onto us until they found a reason to have us exiled or locked up for good. They probably think we’re here to shut down their portal technology.”

“Do you think that’s what the government is trying to do too?” Kat mused.

Alijda shook her head. “No way of knowing. All we know is that Queeny’s suspicious of their reports - which could be timelines for when their portal is complete.”

“How about we ask Larry?”

Alijda winced. “Para, no. Telling them we know will freak them out. Hell, maybe there is something to their fears. They’re using technology that isn’t supposed to be here. Can we really allow that?”

“Alijda, non interference!” Para reminded.

“We’d be removing an interference that’s already here!” Alijda countered.

“I don’t think that’s our call,” Kat interjected. “But I do think that, to let things play out normally, we’ll need to get Bonnie2 out of the DEO.”

“Ugh, that again. But okay, I do see the logic now.” Alijda rubbed her forehead. “Look, let’s try to get some sleep first. Partly so we’re fresh, partly because I see our best bet as occurring a little before sunrise. That’s when they’re liable to have a shift change.”

They briefly discussed a plan, then Alijda and Kat went to bed - the latter having been hit in the face with a pillow. Given his quip about the two of them sleeping together.

Fortunately, the room they had all been left in was equipped with a clock, a bowl of fruit, and an adjacent bathroom. So they were up, fed, and ready to go at 5am the following morning.

Kat started by sabotaging the toilet, then asking the guard at the door to use another bathroom. “Plan A” continued to work, as the guard was subsequently convinced to take Kat somewhere else, saving the trouble of knocking the man out.

The guard did lock the door after he left. But since Alijda could see through its window, she was able to teleport to the other side. Then to the end of the corridor. Then, somewhat trickier, across the DEO’s central hub, towards where the holding cells were. Alijda found she also had to teleport past the cafeteria, as someone was eating breakfast by the large picture window.

By the time she reached the cell block, teleporting past the lone guard at his desk, her equilibrium felt off. She ignored it.

“Hey, Actressy,” Alijda hissed. What was Bonnie2’s name anyway? In another cloud of purple smoke, she teleported into the cell to shake the Bonnie lookalike awake.

“Don’t make me read Shakespeare,” moaned the semi-conscious actress. “I don’t like the bard, I prefer playing a cleric…”

Alijda shook harder. “Hey! Wake up. We’re trying to get you out of here.”

“What?” The asian woman opened her eyes. “You? You got me in here.”

“Things change. Stand up, I’m going to teleport us out, then towards the exit.”

Bonnie2 shook off the remnants of sleep. “Great. Can I do my reconnaissance first? I need to get paid for this gig.”

Grasping Bonnie2 around the shoulders, Alijda teleported them both out of the cell, back into the corridor. “No,” she answered. “But we had a tour, we’ll give you the gist of things - if you can give us the info about today’s meeting.”

“Queeny already told me the layout of this place.”

“Even the location of the secret room?”

Bonnie2 raised an eyebrow. “That was on your tour?”

“Hold onto me.” Alijda teleported them again, out past the guard, then again past the cafeteria. Back at the central hub, they hit a snag.

“What are we waiting for?” Bonnie2 asked.

“There’s a couple agents talking where we’ll need to teleport next. They’ll see us.” Alijda scanned the area for an alternative route. It didn’t help that her head was starting to hurt. Naturally, that’s when their luck ran out.

“Hey, what the hell are you two doing there?”

Alijda spun - the agent in the cafeteria had come out, and seen them. She tried to think of a way to talk them out of the situation. After all, Bonnie2 looked like the head of the DEO…

“We’re escaping, what does it look like, idiot?”

Dammit, Bonnie2. “Plan B,” Alijda sighed, grasping the asian woman by the shoulders again. She teleported them out to the next corridor, right by the two agents she’d seen. Without even watching for their reaction, she continued on her way to the break room, throwing the door open upon arrival.

Para turned, then gasped. “Alijda? Y-You look…"

“I don’t want to know! Plan B, get Actressy out front, I’m going for Kat.”

“But if your teleporting is messing with the sizing circuits, you can’t–"

Alijda teleported away. They were committed to Plan B now. She was going to see it through. They’d reasoned that the nearest other bathroom would be over by the medical bay - and indeed, Kat was now being escorted back from that vicinity by their guard.

Alijda teleported over, grabbed Kat, and teleported him over towards the hidden room he’d investigated before. She then teleported randomly, to draw everyone’s attention to the purple smoke, then teleported up to the second level. Where the railing seemed too high. Her head was now pounding from the frequent teleports. And because of something else?

“I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.” It was fast becoming her mantra.

As soon as someone spotted her, she ran. And stumbled. And teleported again, down next to the guard taking aim. He was taller than she’d expected. Alijda grabbed his gun on her second attempt. But now agents were mobilizing for the weapons lockers. Why had she signed off on this plan again?

Alijda teleported back to where she’d left Kat. A doorway now stood ajar. “Kat! Time’s up!”

“It’s been, like, thirty seconds! All I’ve found is this–"

As soon as she saw Kat poke his head out of the opening, she grabbed his shoulder, and teleported back across the central hub. Startled, he dropped a flaming chair leg that he’d been holding. It fell right in the passage, which would buy them a bit more time, so Alijda decided to try running instead. But again she stumbled. Then was horrified to see how much bigger Kat’s strides were…

On her third step, she fell to the ground. Kat spun. “Alijda! Are you okay? You look–"

“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!”

She hadn’t meant to scream. She bit down on her lower lip. Hell with it.

Alijda pushed herself back up and slapped her hand against Kat’s back. She teleported the two of them further down the corridor. Kat quickly took out the guard questioning Para and the DuChessy Double at the entrance.

They ran most of the way after that, Kat helping Alijda along. But five more teleports were required, because the final doorway had been locked down, and Alijda could only bring one person through at a time.

“What I SHOULD have done,” Alijda decided, resting her head against the back of the park bench, “was tell Bonnie2 to impersonate the real Bonnie from the start. Instead of telling her it was a jailbreak. I’m the idiot. So I’m paying the price.”

“Still might not have worked,” Kat asserted. “Hindsight is 20/20.”

“Fine. Apply the same hindsight to your suggestion.”

“Well, fine.” Something in his tone made Alijda think he wanted to say more, but again, he didn’t. In fact, the two of them said nothing more until Para returned.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9387809]

UPDATE: VOTING WILL CLOSE NOON ON FRIDAY APRIL 22nd EDT.

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART SEVEN: DOUBLE DOWNER

Para felt nauseous, to the point where her bunny ears drooped. So while she wasn’t “tripping” on the hallucinogenic gas like Alijda, Larry and Bonnie, she still followed them as they stumbled out of the passageway, back into the central hub of the DEO - the Department of Extradimensional Objects.

Para spotted Kat right away. He was running towards the wall furthest from their original entry. But that’s when the lighting in the room gained a red tinge, and an alarm blared briefly.

“Whoa! Call off your goons,” Alijda said, rubbing her eyes. “I’ll figure out why Kat freaked.”

“Didn’t turn that on,” Bonnie said curtly, the older asian woman’s attention going towards the main entrance tunnel. She pointed at Larry. “You deal with these three!”

Bonnie strode off, looking a bit unsteady on her feet. She seemed to be in better shape than Larry though, who had both hands on his head and appeared ready to fall over at any moment. “Candle? Collections? What?” he gasped.

“Let me help you sit down,” Alijda offered. She grasped Larry by the arm and steered him for a desk chair. Then she made a head motion at Para. One which Para was pretty sure meant, go for Kat. So she did. No one stopped her.

Para reached Kat as he was feeling around the wall. “What are you doing?”

“Technology,” Kat said. “Larry mentioned magic style items, but also a Macbook, implying at least two worlds feeding artifacts into this one. Yet most of their tech items? Which they seemed to colour code blue? Weren’t in storage. Plus you said they might have a perimeter network.” He pointed to the floor. “And there’s cables feeding into this part of the wall.”

“Oh! So they’re using the technology artifacts? Maybe with a power source back there?”

“Maybe. There must be something.” As Kat’s hand hit a knothole, there was a click, and a door swung out towards them. Kat grasped it and pulled it open.

The region behind was shrouded in darkness. Kat pointed to a nearby desk chair. “Bring that over?”

Para hurried to retrieve it. As she handed the chair off to him, he snapped a leg off, then struck a match he must have had in his pocket. He held the flame up to the wood. Para shook her head. “You can’t light that…" With a whoosh of flame, Kat was holding a torch. “…so easily?”

Kat ducked into the darkness, pulling the door mostly shut behind him. “Keep an eye out, I’ll be right back.”

Para turned to scan the central hub again. Some armed agents were taking up a position near the main corridor, while others were heading into it. Alijda was gesturing at her, in a manner that either meant “hurry up” or “spin in circles” - likely the former.

Para leaned in towards the crack in the wall. “Kat, hurry?”

There was a low whistling noise. Moments later, the door swung back open and Kat stepped out. “Okay, close it,” he said.

Para threw her weight against the door, and it clicked back into place against the wall. When she turned back around, Kat had somehow managed to snuff out his torch. He tossed the burnt chair leg back on the floor, looking troubled. But Para decided there would be time to ask why later.

“Back to Alijda,” the blonde said, grabbing his arm.

Kat nodded, and they both hurried back. Para let out a breath of relief - with the excitement over, her bunny ears were returning to their state of minimized depression. They reached Alijda as Larry pushed himself back to his feet.

“What the hell was that about?!” Larry shouted at Kat.

“Sorry,” Kat apologized. “Had a flashback. A gas canister once attacked my father.”

“Oh. In that case– wait, what?" Larry glared. “Walk. All of you. In front of me. That way.” He pointed.

Once Alijda and Kat were facing away from Larry, Para saw them exchange a glance. Alijda looking… frustrated? Expectant? Kat simply shrugged. Para followed along, their trajectory taking them towards one of the other agents, a woman who hung up her phone as they arrived.

“Mary, have someone get a gas mask and do a quick cleanup outside the medical bay,” Larry ordered. The woman nodded back, reaching again for her phone. “As for the rest of you, keep moving, you’re off this Earth as of–"

“Larry!” an agent cried out, running back into the room. “You’ve gotta come see this.” He hurried up to them.

“Ahem. Joe, I’m dealing with these three. Ms. DuChessy’s orders.”

“Which Ms. DuChessy?”

Larry blinked. “What do you mean which Ms. DuChessy?”

“Come see for yourself. In the break room.”

For a moment, Larry seemed torn between his orders, and going to see what Joe was talking about. Then he decided he could accomplish both things. “I’m not leaving you three here,” Larry asserted. “You’re still off this Earth as of very soon! Joe, follow behind us, and if any of the offworlders step out of line, make sure they regret it.”

“Can do,” Joe affirmed. He eyed them. “No false moves guys, or I’ll read you some of Larry’s poetry.”

Larry, who had seemed about to say something else, palmed his face instead. Para missed whatever he mumbled as he spun away.

The whole group of them backtracked to the room they had been shown earlier, the one containing the pool table and the couch. There were now a few agents with guns there, along with Bonnie DuChessy. Or rather, two Bonnie DuChessys. Larry froze in place, his eyes darting back and forth between them.

“Oh. A shapeshifter?” Kat mused. “Seems like your DEO has a J’onn J’onzz problem.”

Alijda frowned. “Kat, was that a reference? We do NOT do references.”

Larry ignored Para’s friends, instead turning to Joe. “Is one a double? From another dimension, another Earth?”

Joe shook his head. “Doubtful. If so, she didn’t come through recently. We’ve seen no activity today, aside from the arrival of those three. So, are you sure the Bonnie you were with was the real deal?”

Larry turned back to the two Bonnies, who were currently standing and glowering at each other. “I WAS a little surprised she agreed to the tour.”

“What?!” one of the asian women snapped. “It was to deal with these visitors. Something you don’t seem capable of doing alone!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the second Bonnie cut in. “I’ve been tied up in my house all day. Who knows what my double has been doing to our organization??”

Joe rolled his eyes. “The guard on duty out front registered Bonnie Two’s arrival. He sounded the alarm, knowing she was already inside. The doubles encountered each other in the hall and have been sniping ever since.”

“Huh. Is one of them in a wig?” Larry said hopefully.

“Natural hair,” Joe countered. “Similar features. Same outfit.”

Para nearly laughed. “Same outfit?” she blurted. Only to feel embarrassed as most of the eyes in the room turned to her.

“Grey business suit, cut the same way,” Joe said, pointing. “DuChessy has a closet full of them.”

“But…" Para caught herself. No. No, she was NOT going to finish her thought out loud. Not this time.

“But what?” Larry pressed.

Para swallowed, looking towards Alijda. A hint of a smile formed on the face of her first human friend. Then Alijda turned to Larry and the Bonnies. “Oh, look! We know something you don’t know. But we have no incentive to say anything, not when you’re kicking us off your planet before our investigation is concluded. Perhaps you should reconsider that plan?”

“Oh, seriously?” Larry said, frustrated. “I thought you were worried about shrinking away to nothing if you didn’t leave soon.”

“At present? I’m worried about a lot of things. Including your poetry.”

“Larry, let them speak,” Bonnie1 put in. “Maybe they can break this stalemate.”

“Yes, or at least give us more reasons to get rid of them,” Bonnie2 agreed.

Larry clenched his jaw. “Fine. Talk, and we’ll reset our relationship back to how it was before that stunt Kat pulled.”

Para waited. Alijda considered, and then gestured for Para to continue. “Okay,” Para said, smiling. “Second Bonnie’s outfit? It’s more expensive. Same cut, sure, but fits her better, nicer material, and a bit less worn. See, at the sleeves?”

Joe grunted. “I can’t believe we’re being lectured about clothing by a blonde wearing a hot pink dress overtop of a neon pink bodysuit.”

“I know suit jackets, I wear one when I’m in factored form,” Para protested. “And our jumpsuits are density adjustors.”

“More to the point, she’s right,” Larry realized. “No way can Bonnie afford new suits, not on our department’s budget. Someone grab the one on the left!”

“What?! This suit was a gift! I got it last month from my, um, er… aw, hell with it,” Bonnie2 sighed. Two armed men had grasped her by the arms. “Queeny didn’t pay me enough to do such extensive role-play.”

Para was unable to hold back her gasp at hearing Queeny’s name. She felt her cheeks darkening further, to match her outfit. So much for self control. Though it was reassuring to feel Kat patting her shoulder and murmuring, “Good job.”

“Interesting. Seems our head of government disbelieves my reports SO much that she’s stooped to sending in a spy,” the true Bonnie said, pacing slowly around her doppelgänger. “How fortunate that I ended up cancelling my evening plans, and coming down here instead.”

“Score another one for us there,” Kat pointed out. Alijda frowned again.

“Rather remarkable resemblance,” Larry agreed. “Queeny couldn’t find someone like that overnight. She had to be planning this for a while.”

“No doubt,” Bonnie agreed. She completed her circuit, coming eye to eye with her double. “How long has this been in the works?”

Fake-Bonnie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know nearly as much as you think. I’m an actress, I was hired a couple weeks ago to come and do reconnaissance.”

“When are you reporting back?”

“Midday tomorrow.”

Bonnie nodded. “Then you will give me all the details, so I can report in your place. Oh, and we will, of course, hold you here until then.”

“Meaning we throw Actressy in a cell with these three?” Larry asked, jerking his thumb at Para and her friends.

“No, they can stay in this room until the meeting. The couch has a roll out bed.”

“And we get back one communicator,” Kat reminded.

“Oh no.” Bonnie shook her head. “No, you could still have planned this whole charade. We’re not letting you talk with your project, not unless you’re going to leave immediately afterwards.”

Alijda seemed troubled. She eyed Kat and Para before saying, “You’re not getting rid of us that easily. Someone bring us bed linens.”

Less than an hour later, Alijda, Kat and Para were alone in the DEO break room.

Peering through the window in the door confirmed that they were being guarded. “I can keep an eye out, while you two sleep,” Para offered. “I don’t rest quite the same way as you. I mean, they already drew blood, but you never know.”

“I’m not that tired,” Alijda said, after switching on a radio in the corner of the room and tuning it to static. “Here’s the thing. We were supposed to warn them, and go. Instead, it got complicated. And now, we’ve interfered significantly.”

“Have we?” Kat asked.

“Yes! Without us, that spy might not have been caught,” Alijda said. “We’ve affected the whole political landscape. And Alice had us arrive before an incursion - what if our actions here have messed that up?”

“Should I not have said anything?” Para worried.

“No, you did fine,” Kat said. “Alijda, we didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

“Maybe we didn’t. But we have a choice now. Namely, should we simply let things play out? Or should I teleport out of here and go warn Queeny about Bonnie?”

Kat’s eyebrows went up. “Whoa! That’s kind of drastic. We could simply help Bonnie2 escape.”

The brunette shook her head. “Please. There’s no WAY we pull that off without the DEO knowing. Then we’d never get our communicators back.”

Para cleared her throat. “Ah, the more we do, the more we might mess stuff up,” she noted. “If Epsilon is about non-interference, doesn’t it make more sense to wait?”

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9380404]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY APRIL 12th EDT

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART SIX: FOOL ME TWICE

“We can’t go back to the station so soon, Para,” Alijda asserted. “If we leave this world now, we could end up causing more issues upon our return.” The personified parabola bit her lip, but didn’t protest again.

“That said, why not tour this place before risking your life, Alijda?” Kat insisted. “For all we know, your teleporting is causing the glitches in your size. We should stick together until we figure it out.”

Kat saw the brunette woman considering his words. While she had claimed to have suicidal tendencies, hopefully she would see the logic in his statement.

Larry cleared his throat. “You keep talking tour, yet I have not authorized anyone to wander around our facilities, LEAST of all you three.”

That statement seemed to make up Alijda’s mind. “So authorize it now. Convince us that you’re ready for the inter-dimensional invasion.”

He shook his head. “From my perspective, you might BE the invasion! Or at least the advance scouts! What possible motive would I have to show you our defences??”

“Consider that we obviously didn’t want to be here,” Kat suggested, off Alijda’s hesitation. “You had to bring us in the hard way. Plus she can teleport, and she’s immune to your dust,” Kat added, gesturing to both his female companions. “I may have abilities too. Given that, why would we invade the slow way? We’re even under a shrinkage deadline ourselves.”

Larry’s frown deepened. “Look. I’d have to make some calls.”

Kat couldn’t resist. “What, all out of minutes on your phone plan?”

Larry went back to his desk. Alijda’s no-nonsense face morphed into a quick smile, flashed in Kat’s direction. He couldn’t help but smile back. She really was quite attractive - despite wearing a black dress over a pink bodysuit. And Kat couldn’t think of anyone he knew who could even partially pull off that look.

Well, okay, maybe Alijda wasn’t pulling it off. But her attitude implied she was.

“Okay, here’s another–" Para cut herself off, as Alijda held her palms out, motioning for a quieter tone. Larry was now on the phone, speaking in hushed tones himself; Kat tried to catch what few words he could.

“Okay, here’s another thing,” Para resumed in a murmur, once she’d figured out Alijda’s gestures. “These guys aren’t high tech, right? Yet they can detect density fluctuations in the city. That implies they HAVE to employ some kind of - perimeter network? At minimum? Meaning they might have some equipment to diagnose our shrinking issue here too.”

“Good point,” Alijda muttered. “And I can probably get past whatever ancient electronic firewalls they might have.”

“What about a magic firewall?” Kat asked. As he said it, he wondered if that’s where his pyrokinesis would come into play. Alijda simply crossed her arms in thought.

Meanwhile, Larry was now on his second call. From what Kat had been able to overhear so far, this call was an escalation of the first one, where he had mostly been dealing with arguments or excuses. Of particular interest was the phrase “night shift”. How long HAD they been unconscious? Para hadn’t said.

“Uhmm, this is weird,” Para said. She’d grabbed a book from off the filing cabinet, and was flipping through it. “Seems to be about us. Going to a ‘Collections’ room.”

“What?!” Alijda said, peering at it.

Larry finally hung up the phone. “That book’s an artifact. Generates stories about the reader. Put it down.” As Para did so, Larry leaned on the desk. “Also, be impressed. You’ll not only have your tour, my boss will be leading it.”

“Okay… and who’s that?” Alijda asked.

“Bonnie DuChessy.”

Kat decided that it was impossible not to be impressed by Bonnie. Sure, the asian woman wasn’t that tall, and she looked to be in her mid forties to early fifties. But her posture, her practical attire and her severe expression spoke volumes before she even uttered a word. She carried herself as if she owned the place. Then again, Kat supposed that she did.

“Here’s the deal,” Bonnie said, following a period of scrutiny from the door of Larry’s office. “We let you look around. We give you one of your devices back. You leave our world.”

Para gasped, even as Alijda’s shoulders shifted back to match Bonnie’s posture. “No deal. If you’re doing something illegal, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Like hell,” Bonnie snapped. “You have no authority here. For all we know, the colour plaid is illegal on your worlds. What gives you the right to waltz in and claim the high moral ground here? How would you feel if we did that, visiting whatever land you came from?”

Alijda took a physical step back. “Look… some things are just wrong no matter where they occur,” she said, with much less conviction. Kat grimaced.

Based on Alijda’s expression, and what he knew of her, he imagined that the brunette’s thoughts were along the lines of ‘How did this even become an argument? I don’t support Epsilon being in charge of the multiverse any more than Bonnie does.’

“Only ONE device? We had three,” Kat put in, hoping to deflect the conversation.

Bonnie’s gaze fell upon him. “Our techs tried to open the others. They self destructed. Very nice failsafes you have.”

The communicator devices had a self destruct? Kat supposed it made sense. Alice hadn’t said they did, but there seemed to be a lot Alice hadn’t said. Of course, even if there was a self destruct, that didn’t mean the DEO techs hadn’t circumvented it somehow.

Bonnie’s gaze tracked back to Alijda. “Rest assured, we’re not killing and eating anybody. So, deal?”

“That’s not…" Alijda let out a breath through her nose. She resumed her earlier posture. “Deal. Under one condition.”

Bonnie, in the process of turning away, turned back. “Oh yes?”

“Oh no,” Larry muttered, barely audibly. Kat didn’t even look at him - the guy had been pretending to do paperwork at his desk since before his boss’s arrival.

Alijda set her jaw. “If there IS anything sketchy going on? We’re not leaving alone.”

Para’s ears twitched. “Alijda, the field put out by the suits won’t–"

“Hush,” Alijda said, raising her palm in Para’s direction. “Understood, Ms. DuChessy?”

The women now seemed determined to stare each other down. Bonnie blinked first. The only evidence Kat saw that the older woman was displeased by that was in how the side of her mouth twitched. “Understood, Ms… what IS your last name?”

“Van Vliet. Here with Kat Conway and Para, um, Bola.” Alijda quickly recovered from the stumbling uncertainty of whether Para had a last name. “Hoping that you’ll return our honesty with more of your own.”

Bonnie resumed her earlier scrutiny. “Mmm.”

A throat cleared. “Well, hey, my full name’s Larry Appleson…”

“They don’t care, Larry.” Bonnie spun on her heel. “All of you, follow me.”

Kat let Alijda and Para leave the room first. Though when it became apparent that Larry wasn’t about to let Kat depart last, he fell into step behind the blonde. Larry locked up behind them.

“I’ve heard Bonnie’s voice before,” Para whispered at him as they walked. “She’s the one who said to throw our unconscious bodies in a closet.”

“I gathered, based on your gasp when she spoke,” Kat admitted.

“Oh.” Para’s bunny ears twitched. “I’m the worst Epsilon agent ever, aren’t I.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You’re our best math tech.”

She perked at that. Kat was glad - in the brief time they’d had to talk before Alijda came to, he’d decided that Para was a decent sort of person. Or, well, being. Granted, not really the sort of woman he would date, even assuming math was date-able, her ingenue vibe was too strong. Just as Bonnie’s attitude leaned too far in the other direction to be appealing. No, Alijda was the only one here whom Kat felt was worthy of taking out to dinner.

He rubbed his forehead. Okay, he really had to stop going off on such mental tangents. Particularly such female centric ones, it was kind of sexist. As if to atone, Kat glanced over his shoulder and tried to picture a dinner date with Larry.

Their trip took them all the way down the hall, towards a reception area. They bypassed the guy in the fedora at the desk, proceeding directly to the elevator. “Oh, hey Larry,” the secretary said, waving as the other man passed. “Want to see my new business cards?”

“Not now, Shemp,” Larry said curtly.

Bonnie produced a key from her business suit. Once everyone was in the elevator, she inserted it into the main panel and turned it before pressing and holding the button for the lowest floor.

“So. In the vein of honesty, how about you tell us more about Simon?” Bonnie asked, as the elevator lurched down. “The guy who showed up here last April 1st.”

“We don’t know anything about that,” Alijda said. “Our boss doesn’t give us any particularly useful information.”

“Hmph. Smart woman.”

“Hah. Matter of opinion,” Alijda muttered.

The elevator doors opened on another reception area. A bored looking military man stood there. Granted, he was in regular clothes, but Kat recognized the signs. “Passwhoa, Ms. DuChessy, I… I didn’t expect…"

“As you were.”

There were two passages out. Bonnie led them down to the right. “The other way is an emergency exit,” she stated. “I’ll show you the main rooms, if you promise not to bother anyone.”

They passed through a vault-like doorway, where there was another man sitting, doing a crossword. Bonnie pointed to the placards next to the doors in the wall as they approached. “Research and development. Figuring out what the stuff that falls onto our Earth does. Also how we can use it to boost our tech - and repel an invasion.”

There was a window in the door, but Bonnie opened it anyway. Kat let the women look in first before giving the room a glance himself. It seemed to be set up like a laboratory. There were two techs on duty, one of them glancing up from a microscope. Kat barely had time to wave before Bonnie was moving on.

“Filing and records,” Bonnie stated at the next room. It did seem to be mostly filing cabinets. Next came “Storage”, which contained windowed cabinets and a ladder on wheels. Kat found himself wondering as to their databasing. Something about it bothered him. The crudity of it, maybe?

Then there was some sort of break room, containing a pool table, a couch, and a few individuals. Then a larger open area that stretched at least two stories up - some people were on catwalks above. No windows; Kat was now pretty sure they were underground. The larger area did contain a number of tables, desks, cables for phones, wardrobes… and weapon lockers.

“Central hub,” Bonnie said airily. There were a couple of additional passages out of the large room. She strode briskly towards one. “Down here, cafeteria, weight room, holding cells… we might have left you in one, were it not for the teleportation.”

The rooms weren’t anything out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until they were headed back to the central area that Kat realized what had been bothering him about the storage room. The colour coding. Green and blue. Green cabinets had held vials, bags, and crystals… while a lot of the blue ones had been empty. What had they held?

Kat scanned the central hub area - and saw what he’d expected. But would they simply let him wander over there? Larry in particular was keeping a close eye on them. It seemed unlikely. And then, they’d passed into the opposite passage.

“Medical bay,” Bonnie said, pointing out the first room.

But there was his best chance. Kat decided he had to do this - if he was wrong, he could always claim he’d gone rogue. He grabbed the canister by the medical room door, the one labelled as containing hallucinogenic gas, and bashed it against the doorframe, fracturing the seal.

“What the hell?!” Bonnie said, spinning.

Holding his breath, Kat dropped the canister and ran.

“Kat, what– whoa!” Alijda said, stumbling. “Okay, trippy… I-I’m now seeing that story Para had before? Collections! Black market?”

“A candle?” Larry said, tilting his head.

Kat didn’t slow down. The hallucinations wouldn’t fool them for long.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[polldaddy poll=9372319]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE ON TUESDAY APRIL 5th EDT

FULL SCALE INVASION, PART SIX: Tour Ism

Alijda pondered over their options. As much as she wanted to investigate City Hall, she knew that leaving Para and Kat alone presented too many risks to be worth it. Her life was one thing to gamble, but theirs was another matter entirely.

Going back to the station would give the Lilliputians ample time to cover up whatever it was that they were hiding. Although Larry’d been tight-lipped, he’d said just enough to ping as suspicious on her radar.

“We’ll go with the tour idea,” she decided. “We can eke out more information from Larry and the rest of his cohorts that way.”

“I’m more interested in what the DEO could be housing,” Kat said. They were bound to be storing worse things than fairy dust there. The items Larry had mentioned may have only been the tip of the iceberg.

“But, the shrinking—” Para tried.

Alijda cut her off. “We’re not leaving. Even if we wanted to, we can’t. They’re holding our communication devices hostage.”

“I’m still standing here. My ears work,” Larry reminded them. “Hostage is a poor choice of words, by the way. I’d call it collateral. We’re keeping your things until we’ve determined you’re trustworthy.”

“I’ve been more than gracious to you, especially after your little stunt with our coats.”

“Blowing fairy dust in our faces counts as gracious? Sorry, I couldn’t tell.”

“It does?” That was news to Para. She’d have to update her definitions.

“Do you mind showing us around the DEO?” Kat jumped in. He gave Larry a friendly smile. With Para being off in la la land and Alijda being… well, herself, he figured he was in the best position to charm him.

Larry’s mouth stayed flat. “Alright. I suppose I can do that.” He strode past them, to the door. “Follow me this way. I’ll take you to the archives. Perhaps this will make you lighten up.” He shot Alijda a pointed look.

“Lightening? I can explain the Boolean arithmetic for that!” Para exclaimed. “There’s an even simpler expression for lightening, though, but either works.”

“That’s not what he meant,” Kat clarified.

“Glad you think this situation is appropriate for a math lesson,” Alijda said, her bitter sarcasm continuing.

“Thank you!” Para missed it.

Larry cleared his throat for attention. “Can you step out of my office already? I need to lock it up.”

Kat, Para, and Alijda stepped out and off to the side. Larry took care of the door—another sign that he had something to hide, Alijda noted—and led them through the building. People were hunched over at their desks, clacking furiously on their typewriters. They looked up briefly to say Larry’s name as they passed. He grunted in acknowledgement. Kat overheard someone shouting for Johnson to get the McDougal files and a blacker than black pen.

“They’re serious about ink here, aren’t they?” Kat remarked.

“Signatures aren’t the same when they’re not in blacker than black ink,” Larry explained.

They reached a desk occupied by a familiar face: Shemp, one of the trench coats from earlier. He was missing said trench coat, his fedora propped next to his typewriter. “Larry, you sly dog. What are you doing with these three?”

Para whispered to Alijda, “why is his foot bouncing if he’s sitting down?” Shemp was the trench coat that had gotten hit with the friendly fire. Para wondered if the foot thumping was aftereffect of the fairy dust. If it was, then that was strange… Alijda and Kat didn’t seem any more fidgety than usual.

“They’re covering something up,” Alijda whispered back to her. Why were they making it so obvious, though? There had to be something more to all of this.

“Or he has Restless Leg Syndrome,” Kat joined in. Alijda’s paranoia wasn’t warranted. Plenty of people suffered from RLS. Even if this was a different dimension from where they were from, it was likely the Lilliputs had RLS sufferers in their midst, too.

“I’m giving them a brief glimpse of the archives,” Larry explained to Shemp, “but not of any of the areas someone would need level 2 clearance to see.”

“Ah, alright. Hey, you wouldn’t be able to tell me which color I should use for my business card, would you?” Shemp held up three color swatches. “Bone, egg shell, or pale nimbus?”

“They’re all white. Am I missing something?” Kat scratched his head. Larry and Shemp glared at him. Great, he probably lost a few points for that comment.

“I prefer the subtlety of ivory.” Larry flashed him his card. He stuffed it into his shirt pocket before Alijda could read it.

Shemp’s eyes widened. “Oh, I see.” He laid his color cards down. His foot quickened. “I have to get back to work. Remind Joe to drop my trench coat off at the cleaners if you see him.”

“Will do. See you later, Shemp.” Larry reached up to tip his fedora at him, but realized he wasn’t wearing it and lowered his hand awkwardly. He turned to Alijda, Kat, and Para. “C’mon, the archives are this way.”

He took them down a hallway, far removed from the office noise. Alijda made sure to memorize the path they took, in case things got hairy. They stopped in front of a door marked COLLECTIONS. Larry fished for his key ring.

“Why is it called that?” Para asked.

Alijda sighed. “Archives. Collections. It’s all the same. Will you stop asking so many questions?”

Having found the ring, Larry jingled it around to find the right key. Once he did, he pushed it into the lock. The door opened with a click. He held it open for them. “After you.”

They shuffled in. Larry closed the door behind them and made sure to lock it. When he caught Alijda looking at him funny, he said, “it’s DEO policy.”

“Locked doors and general shiftiness, yeah, I figured that,” she said.

Tall cabinets loomed before them, going from floor to ceiling. A ladder on wheels leaned against the wall. Labels and signs kept the maze of cabinets organized. The place reminded Kat of a library. It made him cringe to think that they were databasing their collections manually. Perhaps they should boot up that Macbook Pro and start an analog-to-digital conversion.

“You can stop glaring at me now,” Larry said to Alijda. “I don’t appreciate it.”

“Show me something from your collection. For all I know, you could be collecting beige cabinets.”

“They’re cream cabinets,” he corrected. He leaned down and pulled open one of the shelves. The trio peeked inside to see a folded basketball jersey. Larry held it up for them. “It’s from The Ulrich F. Gephardt Academy for Unruly Girls. Our planet doesn’t have a school called that.”

“Yeah, that’s a rather specific name,” Kat said. “I believe him.”

“I don’t.” Alijda shook her head. “Show us something else.”

“You’d think the fairy dust would’ve been enough. Fine,” Larry said. He re-folded the jersey and slid the drawer shut. “Take a look at this extradimensional object.” He walked them over to one labeled BELT, and pulled it open. “This is an artifact. It’s called a belt ornament. Whoever owned it kept it in impeccable condition.”

“Larry. You brought guests.” A woman came out from around the corner. Her glasses were pink crystal-studded. She wore an elaborate, high-collared Victorian dress that clashed with the true ’90s kid light-up shoes on her feet.

“Dutchessy, I didn’t know you’d be in the archives,” Larry said.

Dutchessy? She had to be one of Queeny’s people, Alijda thought to herself. She should’ve been someone that the DEO was trying to hide its operations from, if the royal naming trend was anything to go by.

Kat held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Your shoes bring out your eyes.” Alijda rolled her eyes. Kat never passed up a moment.

Obviously, there was something strange about this woman, too. Judging by her outfit, her sitcky fingers were dipping into the archives like it was going out of style.

She might as well cut to the chase. “Are you one of Queeny’s people?” Alijda asked the woman.

Dutchessy stiffened. “I wouldn’t say that. We don’t see eye-to-eye on many things. How do you know Queeny?”

“Wait, I know this woman!” Para blurted out. “I know her voice. She was with them earlier when we were getting dumped off in this place, back when they took our blood.”

“They took our blood?” Kat clapped his hand over his arm. “Why would they do that?” He looked over at Larry and Dutchessy, and amended his words. “Why would you do that?”

“Para, why would you say that in front of everyone?!” Alijda screamed.

“I’m sorry!” Her bunny ears fell.

“We need your blood to know what price you’ll fetch for on the market. Certain materials sell for more. We do that for all the extradimensional objects that make it through here,” Dutchessy told them, as if all of that was common knowledge. She lifted her glasses. “Sweethearts, we’re black market traders. You’re standing in our trading hub.”

“Did she really just say that?” Kat took a step back. His eyes roamed the area, looking for something he could use to his advantage. A convenient candle happened to be in the corner.

“We’ve got a surveillance team monitoring this whole building. There’s no way for all three of you to escape,” Larry announced.

Dutchessy added, “and we’ve got things worse than fairy dust stored here. You haven’t seen half of what we’ve got in storage all over the DEO.”

“And I can teleport. I’ll stop you before you can try anything,” Alijda said. She wasn’t going to fall for the same trick twice.

“You’ll abandon your friends?” Dutchessy turned away to laugh. “You care too much about them to do that, otherwise you would’ve gotten yourself out of here a long time ago.”

Para’s bunny ears perked all the way up. “Wow, I thought you didn’t like me. Thanks, Alijda.”

“Yeah,” Alijda muttered. “This is not the time, but, yeah, I do like you.”

Kat glanced at the burning candle. Larry and Dutchessy were distracted. Their attentions were too focused on Alijda to notice what he was doing. If Kat timed this right, Alijda would be able to teleport out of there, get through the building, find their devices, and get in touch with Alice. What would happen to him and Para because of this, he wasn’t looking forward to finding out but he’d have to deal with that later. As long as Alijda made it out, things would be alright… mostly.

He focused in on the flame.

The room flashed. Larry and Dutchessy threw up their arms to shield themselves from the sudden heat.

It faded just in time for Kat to catch sight of a cloud of purple smoke. He grinned.

“Whoa!” Para rubbed her eyes because everyone else was, not because she needed to.

“What was that?” Larry’s head whipped back and forth. “What happened to my mother’s candle? I’ve had that lit for years!”

“Alijda’s gone, that’s what that was,” Kat said. He crossed his arms. “It’s only a matter of time before she contacts our headquarters and gets us out of here.”

“No, that’s not happening. I’m stuck in the wall,” Alijda called out. Her voice was understandably muffled.

Para held her hand over her mouth. “Her voice! It’s sounding smaller and smaller. She’s shrinking exponentially.”

Dutchessy, now recovered from the flashbang moment, clapped for them. “Good show, everyone. You made this too easy for us. Larry, tag ‘em and price ‘em.”

APRIL FOOLS!

Gregory Taylor (aka mathtans), who normally writes this story, has today created their own piece of tomfoolery for J.A. Waters who writes SyncPoint. (Find Gregory’s entry at this link.)

For a full list of all April Fool’s Swappers and their stories, as well as dozens of other serial novels that will tickle your fancy, check out The Web Fiction Guide Forums.

Thanks for reading and remember, the best way to support your favourite serial novelist is to tell all your friends about them.

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART FIVE: Info Swap

A voice came from the other side of the door; Alijda recognized it as Larry. “If we let you out, are you going to start teleporting around the base? Or teleporting our clothes away?”

Alijda took a step back, crossing her arms. “No,” she called back. Given the danger that their group might still be shrinking, she figured they needed to cooperate in order to get their communicators back. Besides, playing along now seemed like their best chance of escape.

The door opened, and Larry poked his head in, sweeping his gaze across Alijda, then Kat and Para. He was still in his trench coat, but he no longer had the fedora. “Follow me,” he said, backing up.

Alijda did so, finding herself in an ordinary looking hallway. “So, going to give us our stuff back?”

“No,” Larry said. “But we’ve decided your intentions aren’t malicious.”

“Then you WERE listening,” Para said, wringing her hands.

“We were. More or less.”

“I didn’t see a receiver,” Kat remarked. “So your technology must be at a higher level than what’s implied by the rest of society out there.”

Larry chuckled as he led them next door. “Honestly? A glass held up to a thin wall is surprisingly effective. It’s YOUR technology that I want to know more about.”

As they entered, one of the other trench coat people from before exited, lifting an empty glass in a “cheers” motion. Larry went around to sit behind the desk, motioning to three wooden chairs. Para took a seat. Kat went over to scrutinize one of the maps on the wall. Alijda leaned in against the desk, eyeing the man who was essentially their warden.

“If you heard us, you know we’ve got a shrinking problem,” she stated. “Given that, withholding our devices isn’t in anyone’s best interests.”

“At this point, all I know is that trusting you outright isn’t in OUR best interests. But we are willing to hear you out - so where are you from?”

“We’re from other worlds,” Para offered. “Ones which are much larger than your own. Well, their worlds are, my world is a bit two dimensional, so I suppose I could be any size relative to–"

“Para!” Alijda interrupted, turning her head. “Let me handle this?”

The parabola clamped her lips shut, looking apologetic. Not for the first time, Alijda considered how Para’s innocence and naiveté were such enviable, and yet simultaneously infuriating qualities.

“We did know as much before listening to you,” Larry offered. “It’s why we didn’t want you talking to Queeny.”

Alijda looked back at him. “Explain.”

He shook his head. “This is my office. You first. Other larger worlds?”

Alijda pushed herself back from the desk. Great. He didn’t seem too flexible there. So how much should she say? Information might be their only bargaining chip.

Rather belatedly, Alijda realized that Kat was a resource she was leaving untapped. Hell, perhaps she should have let him weigh in before their abduction too. She really preferred the predictability of technology over people. She turned his way. “Kat, what do you figure?”

He didn’t turn, still looking at the map. “We’re supposed to warn this world,” Kat noted. “Our mission didn’t specify who to talk to. So, a warning, with as much context as is necessary, would seem like the best way to get us out of here.”

Kat had a point. Alijda took a deep breath, quashing her fears of soon fitting into a size 4 dress in the worst way possible. After all, she hadn’t even noticed the shrinkage until Para had mentioned it. Besides, so what if she died? In the end, the multiverse would probably be the better for it.

“Okay. We explain, then you give us back our tech,” Alijda said.

Larry shook his head. “You explain, then I tell you about Queeny.”

Alijda grimaced. “And about your organization here,” she countered.

Larry considered it. “Fine, as long as you tell me if you’re from an organization too.”

“Okay then.” She wasn’t married to the damn Project anyway. Alijda thought back to what she’d read earlier in that ‘Mission Statement’ document. “What if you could find brand new worlds, right here on Earth?” she began. “Same planet, different dimension. Well, there is a gateway - but it’s not always stable.

“Enter the Epsilon Project, someone’s last, best place for hope. A self-regulating station, tracking right and wrong, located in neutral territory. It targets people and objects that aren’t in the dimensions where they’re supposed to be, then strives to put right what might otherwise be going wrong.”

Alijda gestured at the window blinds. “And your large iron problem out there? That qualifies,” she concluded. “In particular because there will be an invasion, following enough such incursions. Unless you all get your act together and do something.”

“And do what?”

“Beats me, likely depends on what you’re already aware of. For instance, how were you able to target us so soon after our arrival?”

“The dimensional gateway problem has been going on for a while.” It wasn’t Larry who spoke then, but Kat. He tapped at the map on the wall. “If I’m interpreting this correctly, you’ve had two major incursions of scale - but they were hardly the first ones, were they?”

“What?” Para gasped, rising to her feet.

Alijda walked over to have a closer look at where Kat was indicating. She saw now that there were a number of ‘X’s drawn on the map, in various locations all over the city. Two of them were large, but there were over a dozen smaller ones as well.

Alijda spun back to face Larry, who had leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Your turn,” she said, hands on hips. “Talk.”

He regarded them for another few seconds before sighing, and rising to his feet as well. “Very well. I am part of the DEO.”

“The Department of Extranormal Operations?” Kat hypothesized.

“Department of Extradimensional Objects,” Larry corrected. “Fairy dust. Mystical potions. A device called a ‘Macbook Pro’. All items which have found their way onto our world over the past decade or more. And I do mean world - we have branches in other towns across the globe. That map only shows the local appearances.”

“And these items, they were normal size for you?” Para asked. Larry nodded, prompting the parabola woman to turn to Alijda. “Okay, so, being that small, Alice’s equipment might not have registered them.”

“Peachy,” Alijda said, feeling a headache coming on. “So, this DEO has started tracking the dimensional breaches.”

“Not so much the breaches as what comes through them,” Larry said. “There is a window of a couple hours that allows us to pinpoint anomalous objects before they… ‘acclimate’, for lack of a better word. That’s how we found you.”

“Are you spotting fluctuations in density, perhaps?” Para wondered.

Larry shrugged. “I’m not a technician. Thing is, the breaches were all very hush hush. Until a year ago.” He walked around to the front of the desk. “A giant person appeared. He mentioned someone called ‘Alice’, did some card tricks, mumbled about an invasion, then vanished.”

Alijda’s eyes widened at Alice’s name. Then she rubbed both her hands against her temples. “He’s the someone she sent to this world already. Damn it, Alice…"

Para walked over to place a hand on Alijda’s shoulder. “Alice isn’t trying to cause you problems, you know. It makes sense that she only realized the scale problem after he arrived, which is why she pulled him back. Then had me work on the situation, leading to us…”

“She could have SAID something.”

“You don’t seem to like it when people tell you things.”

“Government oversight things, Para! Not what would ultimately be blindingly obvious. Not mission relevant information. I mean, was Alice embarrassed or something?!”

Kat spoke up again, from where he now leaned against the filing cabinet. “Just a vibe I get, Alijda… but maybe Alice thought you’d use her blunder as ammunition for why the whole project should be shut down?”

“Yeah, well, maybe she’d be right!” Alijda fumed. Para drew her hand back. Which made Alijda realize the extent to which she’d tensed up. She forced herself to close her eyes and count down from five. “Fine. It’s in the past. Larry, you were saying? Not hush hush now?”

“No,” Larry said, after a moment’s pause. “Not hush hush. A week after that incident, a huge top hat fell into the middle of the town, big enough to cover a building. It provided the ruling council with just the excuse they needed to clamp down on the population. Claiming other dimensions were coming after us, that there were spies among us, and that anyone with ‘Extradimensional Objects’ would be considered a traitor.”

“Meaning, if we’d actually gone to city hall?” Kat mused.

“Jail,” Larry confirmed. “Or some sort of detention. Even now, Queeny and the rest don’t know half of the things this department is doing. We were nearly shut down, back then.”

“So YOU say,” Alijda felt compelled to point out. Maybe she was still being paranoid, but she didn’t like how all of this was being filtered through one individual.

“True,” Larry said. “Of course, if we assume that what I say is true, I’m in danger of being called a traitor right now. For simply talking to you. A little gratitude would be nice.”

“Right, yes, thank you,” Kat said, speaking before Alijda could. “I suppose we should also assume the rest of the planet is just as concerned? As you pointed out earlier, this is only one town.”

Larry hesitated. “The few countries we’re in regular contact with feel similarly,” he admitted. “Though they haven’t all enacted laws against anomaly objects. And some countries keep to themselves, and others deny the truth, so I can’t speak for everyone. But we’re a pretty typical snapshot of the world here.”

“Wait. This doesn’t make sense,” Para protested.

Alijda sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Para…”

“No, listen, it sounds like we’re here to warn a world about an invasion - that they already know is coming! How does that make any sense?”

They had to make a filter for the cute bunny woman. They HAD to, somehow. Biting back her first instinct to chide Para yet AGAIN, and her second instinct to knock her own head into Larry’s desk, Alijda managed to simply roll her eyes. “Para makes a good point,” she said to Larry in resignation.

Larry’s response was to shrug. “Maybe your ‘Epsilon Project’ got it wrong. If giving us a warning was the only reason you showed up, we can send you on your way.”

“Yeah?” Kat said, sounding hopeful.

Now Larry was lying. Or at the least, not telling them something. Alijda could see him trying too hard to look relaxed. Damn it. “Hold on,” Alijda said. “We can’t simply leave, not without corroborating any of this.”

“But Alijda!” Para gasped. “Our shrinking problem - we can fix that, back on the station!”

“No, Alijda’s right,” Kat granted. “We should at least get a tour of the DEO first. To be sure.”

“I was more thinking I should go visit this Queeny,” Alijda said, clenching her jaw. “Because if they try to arrest me or anything, I can teleport away.”

Kat shook his head. “Your ability has limits. There’s no need to risk yourself yet.”

“There’s no need to risk any of us,” Para said, wringing her hands. “What use will we be, if all of a sudden we’re three feet tall? Relative to our surroundings, I mean. Why can’t we go back to Alice, at least for now?”

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART FOUR: Small Problem

“Or we can not do ‘this’ at all,” Alijda countered.

Inwardly, Kat sighed. He wondered, would it really be so bad, to simply go along with the strange man in the trench coat and the fedora? Maybe the guy had come to tell them that, guess what! Everything had been solved, and they could get back to their normal lives!

But Kat wasn’t in charge. Thus, outwardly, unless there was any obvious benefit to disobeying, he resolved to follow Alijda’s lead. And not merely because he believed there might still be some sort of compatibility between them.

“You’re crazy,” the short man was saying. “No one, seeing the position you’re in, would have picked THAT option.”

“Not crazy. Occasionally suicidal, that’s all,” Alijda countered. She moved to walk around him.

Kat decided to dub their aggressor Shorty. Granted, Shorty didn’t look to be much under five feet, but this whole world was small, so height was relative.

Shorty moved to block Alijda, slipping the device he held into a pocket of his trench coat. “Last chance,” he remarked. And Shorty snapped his fingers in the air. The action prompted four other men to amble out of the alley, dressed identically to him. They began to circle around the group.

“Huh. Store must have had a great ‘buy one fedora, get four more for free’ deal,” Kat remarked. He said it not only to lighten the mood, but also to draw Alijda’s attention to the number, as she seemed focussed on Shorty.

“Really?” Alijda sighed.

“So,” Shorty stated. “The easy way, or–"

Alijda reached out to grasp the sleeve of Shorty’s trench coat. And before he could even flinch back, in a puff of purple and black smoke, the brunette was no longer there. Nor was Shorty’s coat. The guy now stood in a black button up shirt and pants.

Kat immediately shifted his attention to who would be the fifth, and final man in the circle. Sure enough, he was looking at the guy next to him, and raising his arm to execute a punch - not at Alijda, but at where she was going to appear next. Beside him.

These guys weren’t idiots. They’d been trained. Well, either that, or they were accustomed to seeing teleporting people. That said, Kat was no idiot either. To punch, you needed to draw your arm back. So Kat stepped forward, grasping the man’s arm and continuing the movement back, throwing the guy off balance, and preventing the punch.

And then Shorty’s last friend was also without his coat, and Alijda was standing in front of her original quarry. Kat wasn’t sure if she’d even noticed his maneuver - the whole area around them was now cloaked in a purple haze, due to Alijda’s rapid teleportations. Kat wrinkled his nose. It also smelled vaguely of sulphur.

“So, as I’ve likely disarmed you now,” Alijda remarked. “Do we leave, or do I pull the same trick with your pants?”

“Hard way it is,” Shorty declared. He grabbed a bag hooked onto his belt, and swung it out in a wide arc. Sand spilled out, except it was multicoloured sand, glittering as it flew through the air… and even as Kat flinched back, he felt his legs cease to properly support his weight.

“Well, damn,” Alijda commented.

As Kat fell forwards, he saw their brunette teleporter crashing to the ground too, on top of her collection of trench coats. His landing wasn’t as soft. The last thing he registered before losing consciousness was Para’s knees giving out next to him.

The arguing, the teleporting, the throwing of the dust - it had all happened too fast for Para. As personified math, she could calculate the foci of a conic in the blink of an eye. Yet by the time she’d decided that ‘the hard way’ meant a threat, versus - for example - taking a derivative from first principles, the whole spectacle was already over.

She wondered briefly why her companions were keeling over. Then the man next to her also dropped to the ground. So, suspecting that the dust was causing it, Para mimicked their actions, letting her knees give out, and closing her eyes as she sank down.

“Oh, nice throw, Larry!” came a sarcastic voice from her left. “You knocked out Shemp too!”

“Shut it, Joe,” Para heard the short man called Larry sigh. “If I hadn’t had the fairy dust on me, we’d all be in trouble. What in hell is that woman capable of??”

“Teleporting these huge objects away from our town?” posited a third voice.

“Or INTO the town,” Joe said.

“We’ll know soon enough. Hurry up and get them out of here,” Larry ordered. “We’re calling attention to ourselves. And here, put your coat back on.” Para felt a rush of air and heard a ‘thwacking’ noise as the object was thrown over her head.

“This isn’t mine. It’s Shemp’s.”

“I don’t care! Hurry up!”

There were a few seconds of shuffling about, after which Para felt one of the men grasp her under the shoulders. He hauled her body up, then pulled her back towards the alleyway, her feet dragging on the ground.

She decided to focus more on where they were going, versus what the men were saying. Since their talk was only general complaining. As such, Para registered being brought back into the nearest building - but at some point, after standing in a room for a while, they went back out the same way.

An elevator? Then there were echoes, so it was possible that they were underground. And then she was being laid onto some sort of cart. And then Alijda was being laid directly on top of her.

That proved to be distracting. Para couldn’t help but become aware of the ways her own curves differed from Alijda’s human ones, not to mention the properties of friction that came into play as the cart began to bump it’s way down what was likely a tunnel. Something about Alijda sliding against her felt strange.

Para managed to keep her eyes shut. She strained to hear - her bunny ears were chiefly cosmetic. It did sound like Kat and Shemp were enjoying a similar ride behind them.

More than five minutes later, but less than fifteen, they were unloaded from their carts, and the “elevator” process was repeated. This time, as they emerged (even lower down? higher up?) someone said “Password?”. The response was either mumbled, or non-verbal… either way, Para didn’t catch it.

More dragging. Then a female voice: “They’re UNCONSCIOUS?”

“They resisted,” Larry’s voice retorted. “And the brunette female can magically relocate. It was fairy dust or nothing.”

“What a waste of several hours. But very well. Confirm your readings, grab any devices they might have, then throw them all in a closet somewhere until they wake up.”

“Shemp too?”

The woman didn’t seem to want to dignify that with a reply. And ten minutes later, after nearly giving herself up with a yelp when a needle jabbed her arm (seemingly drawing blood), Para found herself dumped into a tiny room. Alijda ended up on top of her again.

Consciousness returned quickly, once Alijda realized there were people around her. But she resolved to make no movements or noises until she had more information. After a minute or so of stillness, the voices resolved in her head, and she realized it was only Kat and Para talking.

“You’re right,” Kat was saying. “Katherine isn’t a typical boy’s name. But my parents thought I’d be a girl, and then my mom died giving birth to me. Complications, no hospital, you know how… actually I guess you wouldn’t know how it is.”

“True,” Para admitted. “I was named by Apollonius, long after my discovery. Of course, I didn’t gain sentience until this author saw ‘Hetalia’ and wondered - oh! Alijda, you awake?”

Alijda had decided to open her eyes to learn more about their situation. They seemed to be in a small, white room, around seven feet in every dimension. There was a light in the ceiling, which was on, and a door, which was closed. Nothing else.

She reached for her wrist. Their communicator watches were gone. “Yes, I’ve been awake for a minute or so,” Alijda said. “Figured I’d fake unconsciousness, in hopes of learning something.”

“Great idea!” Para said. “I faked being out myself, ever since that Larry guy first threw the fairy dust on you.” She smiled.

Alijda sat up fast, a bit too fast. She smacked her palm into her forehead. “PARA. You did NOT just say that.”

“Um, yes? Why, should I have tried to escape? I’m sorry, I didn’t want to leave you…”

“No, it’s not that,” Alijda sighed. “It’s more that our captors are probably monitoring this room, and so now they know that too.” She stumbled to her feet, leaning against the wall.

Para’s ears twitched. “Oh. I… I never considered…"

“To be fair to Para,” Kat broke in, “You weren’t exactly hiding your teleportation power. Is that ability commonplace out in the multiverse?”

“What? No,” Alijda said. She tried the door. Naturally, it was locked. “Where I’m from, I’m it. And people want to catch me and dissect me to replicate the accident that made me this way. But hey, I’m not there now, so I figured…" Her voice trailed off.

“You figured different people could catch us and dissect us?” Kat mused.

“I guess. Shut up.” Alijda rattled the door handle a bit harder, then banged on the door with her fist.

“Sorry,” Kat apologized. “That wasn’t funny. Here, look on the bright side! If they wanted to dissect us, they’d probably have done that while we were knocked out.”

“I think they believe we have information they can use,” Para ventured.

Alijda looked back over her shoulder. “What information?”

Para shrugged. “I don’t know? I didn’t hear as much as they think I did.” She cupped her hand to her mouth and called out at the ceiling, “You hear that? I really didn’t!”

“If we’d simply gone with this Larry, we might know their motives,” Kat pointed out. “Maybe we can try that next time?”

“Oh, well, pardon my paranoia,” Alijda said. “I figured we were safer dealing with things out in public versus wherever this is.”

“Alijda, there’s… something else you might want to know,” Para ventured, her bunny ears twitching. “Something strange. But I don’t know if I should say, if they’re listening.”

Alijda sighed. “Come here and whisper it then.”

Para nodded, and did so. Alijda’s eyes widened. She felt her mouth go dry. She grabbed Para by the shoulders, looking her in the eye. “No. No way. Are you SURE?!”

Para nodded. “I felt you, when you landed on top of me. Definitely smaller now.”

Alijda took a step back, staring down at herself. From the corner of her eye, she became aware of Kat’s eyes also tracking down over her body. “Um, what’s smaller?” he wondered.

Alijda swallowed. “All of me. Para says I’m still shrinking.” She pressed her hands against her belly. “Merely slower than what happened through the whirlpool.” She looked back up. “What about you two? Is this some delayed problem with the circuitry?”

“I don’t have a good frame of reference for myself,” Para said, wringing her hands. “If we contact Alice, she could check.”

“Which we can’t do while trapped in here,” Alijda said, fighting down a rising panic. “More to the point, if I’m going to die, I’d rather it NOT be by getting stepped on!”

She resumed pounding her fist against the door. “Hey! Trenchcoat boys! You hearing this? Let us out before we shrink away into nothing!”

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART THREE: Whirlpool

“You hate the suit?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Para frowned, trying to read Alijda’s expression. “Then you like the suit?”

“I didn’t say THAT either.”

“How about we agree that it’s good our normal clothes can be worn overtop,” Kat broke in. “Since pink’s not really my colour.”

The group had assembled in the station’s control room, prior to heading out on the mission. Part of their preparations had involved each of them putting on a specialized jumpsuit, so that the shrinking process would be non-lethal. Para had helped design it, but it had been Alice who had actually had the clothing synthesized. And who had used pink material.

Para wondered if she should say as much. Being math personified, she tended to second guess her human interactions. Would they take the information as a statement of fact? Or as an accusation on Alice? Kat in particular was hard to read. The women had suggested to Para that she be out of the room for his initial arrival, so she didn’t really have a baseline.

Para settled for, “I think pink could be anybody’s colour!”

“It does the job, that’s what’s important,” Alijda said, running her hands over her waist once more before gesturing dismissively.

It occurred to Para then that the pink showed through on Alijda’s legs and arms, while the brunette wore a black dress overtop. Was that bad? At least Para’s dress was a similar colour. But the suit could be mistaken for leggings. Should she say as much?

Before she could, Alijda continued. “We CAN remove the body suit for short periods of time though, right? Like call of nature?”

Para bobbed her head. “Oh yes. The main issue here is density. After all, if you remain the same mass once you’ve shrunk down, your density’s going to increase.”

“Right. More density, making us stupider,” Kat stated.

“He knows, Para,” Alijda sighed. “He’s trying to hit on you or something.”

“Trying to lighten the mood, actually,” Kat countered. “To hide the fact that I’m getting unnerved by all this.”

“Oh. S-Should I stop talking?”

“No, please, finish your thought,” Alijda said, smiling.

Para ventured a smile back. It was hard to stay mad at Alijda. Even after effectively betraying Para’s faith in her, in hacking the station’s computers, Para couldn’t help but feel like the woman meant well. She hoped that they were moving on from that new low point in their friendship.

“Right, so, increased density would be a problem,” Para continued. “Not neutron star levels of problem, but problem. Yeah? Thus, as you lose volume, you need to lose mass too, in order to maintain your density. This suit helps your body deal with that process, preventing you from losing any vital organs. That said, after the initial transference to their world, it’s mostly doing a checks and balances thing. So you can remove the bodysuit temporarily.”

“So, this mass issue…" Kat mused. “Exactly where does it go? I mean, if we simply threw any untreated objects into the portal, would sublimation occur, as mass got expelled?” Kat glanced to Alijda. “Sublimation refers to going from a solid to a gas with no liquid state in between.”

“Yes, thank you, I took grade school science,” the brunette woman retorted.

“I guess the objects would at least distort?” Para hypothesized. “Though, as long as they’re within the same field now surrounding all of us due to the suits, they’d be fine. Like how our clothing and supplies will be fine. The suit itself is more a living tissue necessity.”

Kat nodded. “Which brings up that mystery field. It would be…?"

Para glanced towards Alice, who was typing something over at the computer banks. “Classified, I guess? Alice didn’t show me. The initial schematics weren’t mine.”

Alice glanced over her shoulder at them. “It’s MAGIC! So baby, don’t kill, don’t kill the magic. Ohhh!”

Alijda’s brows knit. “Alice, was that another cryptic allusion?”

Alice beamed. “Why you gotta be so rude?”

“Hey, if you think that was rude…"

“Wait!” Kat pointed at Alice. “I understood that reference. Canadian band.”

Alice clasped her hands together. “Yes! Alijda’s SO much better at setting me up than Simon. I think on some level, she really gets me. If only we got along better, we could have a real ‘Skye’ and ‘Agent Coulson’ vibe going. You follow?”

Kat eyed Alice’s eager expression, then slowly shook his head. “Lost me again.”

“Okay, not Skye, Daisy. Maybe? No?”

Alijda crossed her arms. “She’s mentioned Skye before. Something about ‘Agents that YIELD’.”

Alice sighed. “I should probably track which of your realities include the pop culture things I like, but I can’t be bothered.” She reached out to hit the enter key on her virtual keyboard, and the whole room began to marginally vibrate. Para watched as a light around the central ring in the floor switched on.

Para hadn’t seen a whirlpool activation since their first mission. Along with teleportation, it was one of the things in the station that took a fair bit of power, thus was done sparingly. Or so she had been told. This was why testing of the square-cube circuits would be done in tandem with the start of the new mission.

A second light switched on; Para noted how there seemed to be nine chevrons in total. Then a third - but Alice had approached and was now talking again, diverting Para’s attention.

“So, I’m bending protocol a bit,” Alice admitted. “You’ll be arriving on their world roughly twenty four hours before the third incursion. You can’t stop it - and my God, for the sake of causality, don’t try - but predicting it for the locals might give you some credibility. Also, if the new circuits DON’T work, this gives us a window to try again.”

Kat frowned. “Back up. Incursion being…?"

“You’ll know it when you see it.” Alice handed out WristWatch devices. Their digital readout was blank, and a small epsilon symbol was engraved on the back. Behind Alice, a fifth light switched on. “These can be used to keep in contact with me. Try not to split up, turning me into messenger girl, okay?”

“Hold on. I thought you sent someone to this world already,” Alijda noted. “So do we have any contacts or other inf–"

“No,” Alice interrupted. “We got nothing. Beyond the fact that the place might be a matriarchy. So, warn them and protect them from the invaders from the fifth dimension!”

Para flinched at that. “FIFTH dimension?” Despite all her talk of volume, she was still two dimensional at heart. Thus handling the third dimension - outside of the theory - was still was a struggle, never mind a fifth.

“Yeah, okay, not really,” Alice apologized. “Watch ‘Bride of Chaotica’. But not now.” She pointed at the floor. Para looked back in time to see the covering on the ring iris open. For an instant, the huge circular gap revealed only an inky blackness, the portal/door big enough to drive a vehicle through.

Then the ninth chevron lit up, and a shimmering blue light rushed in from the portal’s circumference, covering the ring’s interior, making it look a bit like a pool. “Good luck!” Alice declared.

Alijda shouldered her backpack of supplies. “Right. So, don’t any of you come through until I radio with an all clear.” She eyed the shimmering circle. Five seconds passed, then ten.

“Want a push?” Alice chirped.

Alijda bristled. “Want a smack in the face?”

“Look, I can go first,” Kat offered.

“No, I’m the most expendable one,” Alijda sighed. And with a cry of ‘laten we gaan!’ she jumped forwards into the whirlpool.

Alijda had been through the whirlpool once before. It was a bit like travelling down a water slide. Her hesitation hadn’t been about the journey itself, more how it might feel while getting miniaturized.

Was the pink body suit pinching in a bit harder? Was this head rush a symptom of a bigger problem? What if parts of her stayed regular size, while the rest of her got tiny? And why did she even care, given how she felt like killing herself anyway?

She’d barely had time to think about it, before she was being shot out of the swirling portal of blue light - and into a tree. Or nearly into a tree. Without really thinking about it, some self preservation instinct kicked in, and Alijda teleported herself back and to the left.

Her velocity was preserved, so she still hit the ground rather hard. But not tree trunk hard, not enough to knock her senseless. Indeed, the brunette woman managed to roll, then came up on one knee. She looked around.

No one had noticed her. She was on a pathway, between two rows of trees. It looked like a park - good thing she hadn’t ended up several metres to the right, where there was some kind of children’s play area, right out in the open.

Alijda took off her backpack and patted herself down. Everything felt like it was in the right place. And relative to everything else around her, she seemed to be the right size. Her lips pursed. Okay, relative to ALMOST everything else around her. But first things first. She tapped at her watch device. “Alice?”

“Hi!” came the technician’s voice. “You re-enacting ‘Attack of the 50 Foot Woman’ yet?”

Alijda was glad that the connection was audio only. Because she couldn’t immediately mask her surprise at understanding a reference. “No, I’m not,” she shot back. “In fact it’s looking good. The circuitry hasn’t caused any immediate problems. Want to wait five minutes to be sure?”

“Nope, whirlpool’s a power drain. And shutting it down means it might move. So I’m sending the others now.”

“Okay. Oh! Tell them to watch out for that tree!”

“George, George, George of the jungle…" The connection clicked off.

Alijda shook her head, and hurried to stand in front of the offending tree trunk. As long as Kat and Para came out one at a time, she could teleport them - her limit was somewhere around 300 pounds.

Yet as she watched, the swirling portal rotated left about ten degrees, so that when the others emerged, they fell on the path running between the trees, rather than partially into them.

Alijda moved to help Para up, as the portal shrank and vanished into the air. Para smiled up at her. “Thanks! Wow, so do you feel smaller? I don’t, but I’m kind of used to vertical stretches and compressions.”

“I feel normal,” Alijda answered. ’Or as normal as I can be, given what I’m wearing,’ she mentally added. With Para standing, she looked over towards the brown haired military man. “Kat?”

“I seem to be fine.” He was already brushing himself off. His gaze shifted to past Alijda’s shoulder. “Also, I think I know now what Alice meant by incursion.”

“Right.” Alijda turned herself, to look back at the enormous clothing iron. Way out of scale with everything else, it towered in the air, perhaps a couple blocks away. “I guess that would look normal size, if we weren’t shrunk?”

“You want me to do the math?” Para offered. Alijda slowly shook her head.

“I think I saw this anime,” Kat noted. “Not really a fan.”

“Oh, don’t you start referencing,” Alijda grumbled. She moved to retrieve her backpack. “Okay, best guess, it’s mid-morning. Let’s try to figure out who’s in charge around here. If we’re not done with the mission by sundown, we’ll need them to give us lodgings.”

There weren’t many people out wandering the streets. At first glance, Alijda judged this world’s technology level to be early 20th century - some vehicles, no television aerials - but fashion seemed to trend closer to the 1960s. So she and Para shouldn’t stick out too much. Their group did get a couple raised eyebrows, but they also got directions to City Hall.

About a block away from their destination, a short man in a trench coat and a fedora stepped out of an alleyway, directly into their path. He looked down at something in his hands, then up at them. “Come with me,” he asserted.

“Why?” Alijda shot back.

The man sighed. “Look, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART TWO: Kat Scan

“People usually have a reason for disappearing.”

“I’m aware of that,” Kat retorted. “I still want to find her.”

“Obviously. For yourself, or for the military?”

Katherine “Kat” Conway leaned forwards, resting his arms on the table. The asian woman he was speaking with - one Tara Aizawa - was drawing out their conversation deliberately. And he supposed he couldn’t fault her for her caution. Heck, under other circumstances, he might have found it charming. But at present, it was a pain.

So, apparently she knew he was military, even though his clothing wasn’t. Meaning either she was picking up on some non-verbal cues, or she had done research in the twenty four hours it had taken him to get into town. Or John had told her.

“This is personal,” Kat countered. “I knew Fate in high school. Before joining up with the Canadian military.”

“Meaning over fifteen years ago.”

“Yeah. That’s why I don’t exactly have any useful pictures to show, or handy terms to plug into a search engine,” Kat said. He wondered if he’d been able to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “But she helped me back then. If she ended up in trouble, I want to return the favour.”

“Fifteen years later. If she wanted your help, perhaps she would have contacted you by now.”

“Except perhaps she couldn’t. Or perhaps she’s dead. And perhaps you have no useful information for me, and merely wanted to be seen out in public with a good looking guy. And if that’s the case, perhaps I should leave.”

As Tara herself had pointed out, his friendship with Fate had been half a lifetime ago. He’d given up actively searching for her. He’d nearly given up passively searching, as his life had become rather more complicated since becoming involved with the “Doorways” project… the joint Canadian-British-American operation working out of Nevada. The project that allowed travel to alternate worlds.

Either way, the universe was far too vast to waste any more time here. Kat was pretty sure that there was a better chance of Fate having been abducted by aliens, versus hiding out in British Columbia all this time. He stood, dropping five dollars onto the table for his drink. “Thanks for nothing. Give my regards to John, I have no idea why he suggested I use my leave to get in contact with you.”

Kat turned away, only to have her reach an arm out in his direction. “Wait,” Tara said. Kat paused, but didn’t turn back. “Can you prove to me that you have a personal interest in the occult?”

Kat kept his face impassive, quickly doing a scan of the coffee shop. No one was paying attention to them. So he turned, maneuvering himself to block the view for what he was about to do. He pulled a pack of matches out of his pants pocket. Then he struck the match - and tossed the flame towards the dark haired woman.

Tara flinched back. But before the match could reach her, Kat concentrated. The match burst into brilliant light, burning up in less than a second, pieces of ash and soot floating to the ground.

“I have a personal interest.”

Breathing harder, Tara slowly lowered herself back down into her seat. “Pyrokinesis. I see.”

“So, am I leaving? Or am I sitting back down?”

“You’re leaving, but with information,” Tara decided. She pulled a card out of her jeans pocket. “There’s a new woman in town who calls herself Fate. I don’t know if it’s your friend or not, but John recognized the name on your behalf. She’s been trying to organize an occult group. Don’t call that number before 8pm.”

Kat took the business card from her. One side was all black. On the other, there was a phone number underneath some occult symbols. He pocketed it. “All right. Thanks.”

Of course, if he couldn’t call that number right away, this meant he now had the rest of the afternoon to kill. And Tara was pretty, and only slightly younger than him. He flashed her a smile. “I can still sit back down.”

“If you do, I’ll get up. Military was already a strike, now that I see your interest in fire, I’ll pass.”

Oh well. It had been worth a shot. “All right,” Kat yielded. “Though for the record, I’m not interested in fire. It’s interested in me.” He turned, and walked out of the coffee shop.

It was that same series of steps that brought him right out of his reality.

In a blink, Katherine found himself in a large, cylindrical room. He spun. Despite having just passed through the shop’s doorway, it was gone. Everything was gone. Instead, behind him there was now a pair of brunettes, standing at some sort of large computer terminal against the curved wall. One woman in a black dress, the other in jeans and a white T-shirt.

His military training kicked in, and he automatically dropped to a crouch, hand poised to grab the gun from his ankle holster. But at the same time, he’d been witness to some pretty strange things in the “Doorways” program. Was this some offshoot organization? With beaming technology? “What’s going on?”

Jeans Woman turned to look at Black Dress. “Well, go ahead and explain it.”

“Me?!” Black Dress objected. “Your station, your project, your God!”

“Your mission.”

“Yeah, well, not if the square-cube circuitry kills me.”

“It won’t do that. Unless you hacked in and messed with Para’s protocols. Kind of hoping you weren’t that suicidal.”

“Oh, well, you would know, wouldn’t you? What with tracking everybody on Earth and randomly abducting them?”

“Hey, speaking of abductions?” Kat broke in again. “What’s. Going. On?”

Inwardly, Kat allowed himself to marginally relax. The room was largely empty, and these women didn’t seem to pose an immediate threat. They weren’t armed, and seemed more focussed on each other. Also, Black Dress was attractive, and there was no point in messing up his chances for a date twice in one day.

Actually, as they both turned back to him, Kat was forced to admit that they were equally attractive - but Black Dress looked to be closer to his age, early to mid thirties. He really hoped they were both human, not aliens concealing themselves under some illusion.

“Hi!” Black Dress chirped. “Welcome to The Hub, the main station for a scary oversight organization tracking dimensional anomalies across a multiverse. I’m Alijda, and I’ll be your commanding officer.”

Kat frowned. Dating was out then! “What’s your rank?”

“My RANK?” Alijda frowned back, then turned to Jeans Woman. “Do we have ranks?”

She shrugged. “Katherine’s probably referring to how he’s a Sergeant on his Earth.”

“Of COURSE he is.” Alijda faced Kat again. “This is Alice, by the way. She doesn’t provide any useful information until AFTER we need it.”

“‘Just bring him in,’ you said,” Alice remarked, half smiling. “I could have given you lots of data, but you said–"

“Yes, fine, I elected not to be a creeper, point made,” Alijda interrupted. She looked back to Kat, and sighed. “Yeah. So. Mind if we conscript you for a while? We have a ‘small’ problem.”

“Actually, yes.” Kat decided that his patience had worn out. This obviously wasn’t a military program. And while that potentially put a date with Alijda back on the table, he really did have more important things to do. “I’m in the middle of an investigation. Please return me back to that town I was in.”

“Fine.” Alijda turned to Alice. “Who do we try next?”

The younger brunette shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. The station targeted Katherine. We need him.”

Alijda made a sound of exasperation. “Fine. So put him back now, and pick him up later in his timeline. When he’s more amenable. After all, I get the impression that less time passed for you up here than it did for me, between my visits.”

Again, a shake of Alice’s head. “Waste of power. Too many variables involved. Also…" Her voice trailed off.

“Also?” Alijda pressed.

“Also, we aren’t able to retrieve Katherine on the occasions when he’s away from his Earth.”

With effort, Kat kept his expression neutral. Somehow, Alice knew about “Doorways”! Yet based on Alijda’s surprised expression, she did not? Kat decided he really needed to get out of here. Because he would now have to report this, and based on what they were saying, he was in danger of drowning in paperwork for the rest of his leave, instead of potentially seeing Fate again.

“Return me,” Kat asserted, drawing himself up to his full height.

“Is he an astronaut??” Alijda asked.

“‘Just bring him in,’ you said…”

“Oh, shut the front door!” the older brunette snapped. She spun away from Alice, and took a few steps towards Kat. “Look, stalemate. We apparently can’t ‘return you’. So you can either hang around here until me and Para have dealt with the Lilliputians, or you can join us, and thus potentially get back to your life sooner. What do you say?”

Kat gave the brunette woman another once over. Neither option seemed preferable. Yet if he was truly stuck here, should he start making the best of a bad situation? “Join me for dinner, and I’ll consider it.”

“Join you for…" Alijda turned back to Alice. “The hell? Is this guy for real?!”

“‘Just bring him in,’ you said…”

“Oooh, I hate you SO much right now!”

“A coffee, at least? Or tea?” Kat requested. After all, Alijda seemed like the better prospect in terms of getting him information. And if they actually had a pleasant interaction on top of that, it could be win-win.

Alijda shot him a look. “I’m a teleporter with suicidal tendencies. You really, REALLY don’t want to be chatting me up.”

“That wasn’t a ‘no’.”

Her eyes rolled. “Fine. We’ll have a tea, then go to Lilliputia Earth.”

“I still go under protest,” Kat noted.

“Whatever.” Alijda gestured to one side of the room, where there was a table and some chairs on wheels. “After you, Katherine.”

“Call me K.C.,” he offered. “Or simply Kat.”

Kat found himself sipping his tea slowly, and deliberately drawing out the conversation. He could only assume that Tara would have found this reversal HILARIOUS. A twist of irony, or karma, or something. At last, Alijda sat back to glare at him, with her arms crossed and an annoyed look on her face.

“You know what? I’m done talking,” she stated. Kat smiled amiably, and took a sip of his drink. In doing so, he mentally sifted through what his ‘mission leader’ had revealed so far.

This whole “Epsilon Project” wasn’t too dissimilar from “Doorways”. It merely involved teams travelling to other dimensions, instead of to other worlds. And it seemed to be for the purpose of cleaning up “anomalies”, rather than for exploration or trade. This project was also relatively new, with not many personnel. All reasons why they might have targeted him.

All of which meant that, had Fate been abducted by aliens, it probably wasn’t these aliens. He wondered idly what the non-human “Para” looked like. At least Alijda was human. And although she had been born in the Netherlands, she was also Canadian, like him. And she seemed nice enough, for a depressive. Maybe a little paranoid. Which wasn’t necessarily bad.

“Know what? You’re an interesting woman,” Kat remarked, lowering his cup.

“While you’re becoming an annoying man. Finish your tea already. Or, better plan, how about you tell me more about the secret program YOU’VE been alluding to?”

“It’s classified,” Kat apologized. Her jaw tightened. Okay, she’d been pushed to her limits. “But maybe another time.” He downed the rest of his tea. “For now, on to your ‘Lilliputia’! These circuits that you said will adjust our size, you’re sure they’ll work?”

“Hell no,” Alijda countered, rising. “That’s why I’m going through first, as Alice’s guinea pig. I’ll let you know if it kills me.”

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FULL SCALE INVASION, PART ONE: Data Integrity

“I want to kill myself, but I can’t.”

Para pushed herself out from under the computer console. “What?!”

Alijda didn’t respond right away, busy typing into the same console. Once she’d activated the screen saver, she looked down at the blonde, who was now lying prone beneath her. “What?”

“KILL yourself? Still?”

“Yep.” Alijda shrugged. “Look, you asked how I’d been doing. Don’t panic though. The reason I can’t kill myself isn’t because I don’t have the means… heck, I can teleport myself into a wall any time I like. Pretty sure that would off me.”

Alijda crossed her arms, looking towards the ceiling of the small room they were both in. “No, the reason I can’t kill myself is because I’ve realized some people actually care about me. And might miss me. It’s weird, and in stark contrast to the first 20 years of my life, but fine."

“Besides,” she added, shrugging. “I still want to take down this entire ‘Epsilon Project’ oversight organization here, and it would be hard to do that when dead. Can zombies even code?” Alijda smiled. Para said nothing, causing the brunette thirty-something to look back down.

Alijda’s smile grew. “Oh Para… you’re not thinking of me as normal, are you? Remember, I embezzled money from the shady Canadian company where I worked, fled to the US under the alias ‘Alison’, gained special powers via Marshall Biochemical Engineering - who, incidentally, are probably still after me - and now I cavort with aliens in a space station run by some God. Most humans don’t experience such things.”

The brunette teleporter saw the parabolic bunny ears on Para’s hairband twitch.

“Point to you, Alijda,” the blonde yielded. “But you’re also the first human I ever met in person. Meaning you’re kinda the benchmark for all my human interactions. It’s not like we mathematical personifications get out much. Or at all.”

“Which is unfortunate on all accounts. I pity you. Except for the bit where I’m jealous of your sexy cuteness. Now, are you going to finish plugging in the extra memory we need to run this square-cube program?”

Para nodded slowly, the blonde bunny-girl finally pushing herself back under the console. Alidja noticed how the personified parabola took care to keep her legs together and her pink dress from riding up. “Math” really needed to consider a wider variety of outfits.

Then again, Alidja was wearing a dress too, in black, so she was hardly one to talk. Alice really needed to give her employees a better “heads up” before conjuring them onto the station. With a sigh, Alijda glanced over towards the security camera she’d already neutralized, before deactivating the screen saver and resuming her typing.

“I am sorry things haven’t improved for you since our last mission,” Para said after an extended silence.

“I never said they didn’t improve. In fact, I’ve been writing fiction. To help me cope with life. And I’m publishing it online, as a serial.”

“Oh?” Para mused. “That’s neat. What are people saying about it?”

“Next to nothing. It’s been running for, like, a year, with over 100 posts, and I still had a day this month with zero views. I’d hack the various social media outlets for more publicity, but I’ve decided that wouldn’t draw the kind of attention I want.”

“Oh. And… that’s improvement?”

The brunette woman grinned. “Me, using a computer mostly for writing? And deciding not to hack servers merely for the fun of it? Yeah, that’s improvement.”

“Aha. Is that technological reformation the reason Alice has let you help me reprogram the station’s computers?”

“Um, could be. Hope not.”

Alijda’s screen lit up with an indication that Para’s hardware had been installed, and the blonde girl began to push herself back out from underneath. But at this point, Alijda was so close to being finished that she didn’t bother to stop.

“What… what are you doing?” Para gasped as she stood up.

“This,” the hacker concluded, tapping the enter key one last time. The screen before them blinked, then came up with a folder labelled “MISSIONS”. Alijda reached out with a finger to double tap on the touch screen.

“Alijda! You… no!” Para gasped, grabbing the brunette by the arm. “You were supposed to be configuring–"

“I set up a script to configure within the first two minutes of access,” Alijda interrupted. “Come on Para, how am I supposed to take down ‘The Epsilon Project’ without having more information?”

“But I VOUCHED for you! I told Alice I needed your help, and now you’re using the opportunity to break into their–"

“Para!” Alijda pulled her arm free and reached out to clasp the bunny girl by the shoulders. “Calm down. I’m not setting the station to self destruct. I’m not even trying to give myself root access. I’m merely getting myself - actually, the both of us - a bit more information.”

Para’s lower lip quivered. “Behind my back. I thought we were friends.”

Alijda found she couldn’t meet the blonde’s disappointed gaze, so she looked down at her own boots instead. “You don’t understand. I’m a terrible friend. I’m the sort of woman who prefers to push people away, so that I can kill myself in peace.”

“Except maybe you push people away because you hate the thought of seeing harm come to them. Come on, Alijda - aren’t you better than this?”

Alijda released Para’s shoulders, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “No.” And before she could change her mind, she reached out to tap at the MISSIONS folder. She reasoned it would now be less than a minute before Alice shut the terminal down centrally, so she tried to put Para’s words out of her mind.

Interestingly, there seemed to be only three case files inside. But there was also some sort of “mission statement” document too - Alijda opened that file first and scanned through it. “The Epsilon Project,” she mumbled aloud. “Our last, best place for hope. The Hub is a self-regulating station, tracking right and wrong, yadda yadda, know this … Oh!”

As predicted, the whole console shut itself down some forty seconds later. But Alijda now had something more to think about.

Para didn’t speak to her at all as they headed back towards the station’s central control room. Even after Alijda irised open the doorway in the floor, and offered to teleport them both down, the only response she got was a shrug.

Damn it. She had gone too far. The voice in Alijda’s head went on to point out that, had she simply killed herself months ago, she wouldn’t still be presenting such a horrible example of a human to personified mathematics today. But, while accurate, the thought was also nonsensical enough that Alijda decided she’d simply ignore the accusation.

Alijda looked down through the opening in the floor, into the large, cylindrical control room. That room was big enough to fit over a hundred people. Alice was presently standing to one side, over at the computer banks. Which were positioned directly opposite to the large view screen, with the Gate device embedded in the floor between them. With that in mind, Alijda reached out to grasp Para by the shoulder, then activated her power.

The both of them vanished in a cloud of purple and black smoke. They immediately reappeared next to Alice, accompanied by the faint aroma of sulphur. It was faster than lowering the ladder. In fact, Alijda could have teleported them right here from that auxiliary control room - except it wasn’t safe if she couldn’t see where she was going.

Alice reached out to tap a key on the panel in front of her, and the doorway - now in the ceiling - irised shut again. “You could have asked,” she remarked.

Alijda was in no mood for a chat about ethics with the station’s primary - only? - permanent employee. But she couldn’t simply let that comment go, not with Alice being ten years her junior. “You would have said no!”

“Well, yes,” the brunette technician admitted. “But that’s mainly because if I’d told you about the missions, you would have chosen to hack into a different part of our database instead.”

“I am SO SORRY,” Para broke in. “I didn’t think she’d do that!” The blonde looked to be on the verge of tears, and as Alijda watched, Para’s bunny ears drooped down. The parabola’s depression had now been maximized.

Alice merely smiled in a self-assured way, which made Alijda dislike her even more. “Don’t worry, Para. Alison has to be Alison. Or - can everybody call you Alijda now?”

“I don’t give a damn what you call me,” Alijda sighed. “But fine. Para had nothing to do with this. If you’re going to punish anyone, punish me.”

“Punish you?” Alice spread her arms out to the sides. “What, do I look like Frank Castle? In this shirt?”

Alijda grimaced. The shirt was white, the jeans were tacky, so what? “You look like someone who makes references no one gets.”

“I’m not even Richard Castle. But very well. Alijda, your punishment will be acting as the first human guinea pig for the circuitry you both helped to install.”

“Peachy.” Alijda looked to Para. “So run me through that square-cube problem again? I think I’ll actually need to pay attention this time.” Actually, she’d been paying close attention the first time. But she hoped that the technical explanation would improve Para’s mood, and return her depression to a minimum. One suicidally depressed female in the room was more than enough.

Para’s bunny ears twitched. “Well, surface area is units squared. Volume is units cubed. So if you scale the size of objects up, say by doubling, you’ll get four times the surface area… yet eight times the volume. Similar issue scaling down. Which is a big problem.”

“But you said the scale down thing is safer, right?”

Para’s parabolic bunny ears gradually rose back up as she spoke. “Neither’s really SAFE, but yes, shrunk down you’re more likely to have trouble with heat loss, versus collapse into immobility due to your increase in mass. The mathematics involved are really kind of fascinating.” In thinking about it, she almost smiled.

“Right.” With Para seeming happier, Alijda looked back to Alice. “So you’re going to shrink me down and send me in to chat with some Lilliputians?”

Alice frowned. “How much of that file did you read?”

“Not enough. I spent most of my time looking at the one labelled “mission statement”. You know, Alice, you could have simply told us that your whole setup here was to track dimensional anomalies across a multiverse. That almost sounds sensible. You’re too cryptic for your own good.”

“The more you know, the more at risk we are,” Alice countered. “After all, our goal here is to make next to no alterations out there. Hence our name, the Epsilon Project! Right, Para?”

“Oh! Epsilon, mathematically speaking, should be a very tiny value,” Para realized. “That’s very clever!”

“And here I thought this station was your fifth attempt,” Alijda said dryly. “But fine. Will you be sending me off with Para and Mason once again?”

Alice shook her head. “Nope! You’ll get to indoctrinate our newest recruit. Katherine Conway!”

“What? Who the heck is she??”

“He,” Alice corrected, waggling a finger. “You might need a male viewpoint. And I can’t send Simon to this world again, it really didn’t go well last time. What with him still being regular size and all.”

“Fine! So who the heck is Katherine?!”

“It’s hardly my place to speak for him,” Alice countered. “I can tell you he’s human, like the both of us. And, as with you, our software has pinpointed him as an individual with useful skills who is unlikely to turn us down.”

“Oh, of course. So will he be as bitter about your oversight as I am?” Alijda sniped.

Alice raised a finger to her cheek, looking thoughtful. “You know, I’m not sure.”

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ɛ PROJECT

WB (Writing Bufferless) presents…

STORY 3: FULL SCALE INVASION

The Epsilon Project, was their last, best place for hope. It failed.

And in a year of serials galore, it becomes something later: A lost quest, graced with mystery.

The year is 2016. The plot, in readers' hands.

STORY #3:

There is a world out there in the multiverse where the people are small, but the problems have become unexpectedly large. Is the appearance of large scale objects a prelude to an invasion? Will employees of “The Epsilon Project” be able to help? And will there ever be more than 10 votes cast from beyond the fourth wall??

CAST:

ALIJDA VAN VLIET (aka “Alison”) … A Depressive Hacker Teleporter

PARA BOLA … A Personified Quadratic Function

KATHERINE CONWAY (aka “Kat”) … A Pyrokinetic Occultist

(For more in-depth character information, see this page.)

EPISODE INDEX:

(Each installment to be roughly 2000 words.)

1.Data Integrity (Feb 28)

2.Kat Scan

3.Whirlpool

4.Small Problem

5.Info Swap

6. BONUS: Tour Ism

6.Fool Me Twice

7.Double Downer

8.Half the Battle

9.PROM, Committee

10.Station Airy

11.Fit for a Queeny

12.Thimbolism

13.Transformation

14.Bad Plan

15.Rescue Strangers

16.Perchance to Dream

17.Firing Line

STORY #3 CONCLUDED!

“Time & Tied” Book 2 will be wrapping up this Friday. I need a break, partly because I’m only halfway through edits on Book 3, partly because I miss writing something brand new. (Well, something new that isn’t my personified math webcomic. Feel free to check it out here, it updates on Mondays!) Hence the return of “Epsilon Project”.

For those unaware: The epsilon project was their last, best place for hope. A self-regulating station, tracking right and wrong, located in neutral territory… manned by one Alice Vunderlande. You, the readers, will choose the plot, and make decisions for it along the way. No knowledge of prior stories is necessary!

INITIAL POLLS WILL CLOSE LATE TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23rd.

This time only, that’s more than a week. Normally polls will be open for 3 days: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Then I write. Each instalment will likely be about 2000 words, coming out early Sunday morning. I’m rather hoping that the longer initial voting period here might net me more than 11 votes, my previous maximum. Your plot options:

[polldaddy poll=9301843]

The first topic would lean more to mathematics, the second more “day in the life” of teaching, and the last more the origins for this story itself. All things I know something about, so majority voting will decide.

CHARACTERS

[polldaddy poll=9301879]

Some additional information: If personified math is selected, the choice of Para or Expona will likely be made by me, in part due to the plot we get… but if you have a favourite, let me know in the comments. I’m flexible. Note also that if we get “no third character” but the plot “trouble on the station”, Alice Vunderlande is liable to get a larger role in the story. Need clarification on anything? Email, or drop me a comment below!

If you’re not keen on this detour, know that once this story is done (which could be anywhere from 10 to 20 parts) the plan is to resume “Time & Tied” Book 3. If you ARE keen on the voting idea, check out “Redwood Crossing” where the author is doing something similar every week! Either way, I hope you’ll stick around here. Remember:

THESE INITIAL POLLS WILL CLOSE LATE TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23rd.

Thanks for voting!