Page 100 of Tidal Creatures

“Temporal causality is hard to think about without getting a headache, and most people never need to,” says Dodger. She starts walking again, heading for the exit. “Let’s go see if our backup has been captured by alchemists or eaten by aufs or something. I want to get this over with.”

Mare Serenitatis

TIMELINE: AUGUST 18, 2017. THREE DAYS TO THE ECLIPSE.

The ones waiting in the hall have not, in fact, been captured by alchemists or attacked by additional constructs, auf or otherwise. Roger is leaning against the wall, eyes on the ceiling, listening to the hum of the concrete around them and trying to figure out why it makes him think of the moon. There’s something about this place that Erin isn’t explaining to them just yet. Whatever it is, she’s figured it out, he’s sure of that; she looks like she’s standing in a graveyard, arms wrapped around herself in a defensive posture.

He’d feel bad about making her wait here with the rest of them if not for the fact that Artemis and Kelpie are near the gate, talking in hushed voices. Kelpie doesn’t move her hands much, and her facial expression doesn’t give very much away, but her tail—maybe it’s the lack of people with tails to have modeled herself after, or maybe it’s just her natural body language. Either way, her tail is endlessly expressive. It lashes side to side as she and Artemis speak, and he finds himself staring at it, trying to decode the meanings of the individual motions. It’s almost hypnotic.

Then, with a burst of sound and thought as loud and sudden as a shotgun blast, Dodger is back. She brings color with her, the hall and its occupants going from grayscale to full Technicolor like Dorothy stepping into Oz, and he wonders whether she even realized her depth perception was gone on the other side of that strange appearing, disappearing doorway. It’s been so long since they were distinct from one another. He doesn’t want to admit that he depends on the soft hum of her thoughts to go to sleep at night, but he does. The silence of her absence was nearly deafening.

As before, she flings herself across the space between them and into his arms, clutching tight and clinging for dear life. It’s like she thinks she can burrow into his skin, like she’s the hermit crab and he’s the shell, and while he might normally try to remind her that he enjoys not having her nails digging into his skin, right now he only folds his arms around her and holds her in return. If the silence was as loud for her as it was for him, she probably needs the reassurance.

I hated that so much, she thinks, and it’s the first coherent thought he’s had from her since she emerged. Roger throws back his head and laughs, utterly delighted.

Dodger pulls back and frowns at him, clearly perplexed.

“You are so weird,” she says, letting go. She rubs her arms as she does, shuddering. “Let’s never do that again. If I’m stepping outside the boundaries of normal reality, you need to come with me, or I won’t go.”

Roger nods. “I’d feel better if you didn’t. And Dodge? We aren’t going for another reset, there’s only so much I’m willing to risk, but…”

“But we have to find a way to fix things for Kim and Tim,” she says, finishing his thought. She sounds oddly relieved, and when he looks at her quizzically, she shrugs. “I was thinking that while I was inside the everything with the Lunars, and how is that a sentence that makes sense? It shouldn’t be. Anyway, if having all that silence in my head was that upsetting when I knew you’d come back, what is it doing to them? To have all that silence there all the time? They were in each other’s heads from birth onward, and now they’re just … they’re alone, Roger. We have to find a way to make this better.”

“We will,” he assures her. “Now that we understand what they’re going through, we’ll find a way to fix it.”

While they’ve been talking, the Lunars have closed and reopened the gate once again, this time with Artemis making the first strike. She steps into the everything, and Kelpie follows her as Chang’e turns to face the others.

“It’s time to go, if you’re all ready,” she says. “Erin, I can help you through.”

“I’ve got Roger and Dodger,” says Máni.

“You’re sure you can handle them both?”

“I think if he holds her hand, she’ll pull him through as soon as she’s on the other side.”

Chang’e can’t argue with that, and so she simply holds out her hand, waiting for Erin to accept it. Erin looks at her with suspicion, but slips her cool fingers into Chang’e’s own, even as Máni is taking hold of Dodger’s hand, both of them pulling their passengers toward the reopened gate. Dodger grabs Roger’s sleeve, pulling him with her. It’s clear from how easily he comes that he would have followed anyway, but this way, they aren’t breaking contact.

Erin looks back, sees him grimace as Dodger passes through the gate ahead of him, sees his face relax as he passes into the everything for the first time and their impossible connection is restored. They just need to be on the same side of the door.

(The gate, as opened by Artemis, is less Chang’e’s glitter and calligraphed organic curves, less Máni’s spiking mercury swirls of frost and rime; her gate is a silvery cascade of branches twisting together into knots that can’t be broken, spirals without end. There are so many moon gods. Every one of them is different.)

Roger pulls his arm from his sister’s grasp as he passes into the everything, straightening and turning a slow circle, eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open in his awe. Chang’e watches him and smirks, just a little.

“Welcome to our version of reality,” she says.

“The lights…” His voice lacks the strange harmonics it has in the outside world. It’s still pleasant, still compelling in the way a charismatic person can be compelling, but it’s not supported by an intangible need to do anything he says, all for the sake of keeping him happy. He seems to realize it even as he speaks, because he grins, a narrow tension slipping out of his posture and leaving him standing even straighter than before. “Can you read them?”

“Read them?” asks Artemis. “They’re lights.”

“I was able to spend some time studying with an older incarnation of myself before Judy’s studies brought us here,” says Chang’e. “She taught me the lights were possibilities the universe considered enacting and was unable to commit to. They come here to flare out and fade away, because they were never meant to be.”

“If we’d had access to this place when we were still working on our perfect run…” Roger’s voice trails off. He turns a slow circle, staring in open awe at the rainbows flashing around them. Then he stops, shaking it off, and turns his attention to Artemis. “All right. What do we do now?”

“I lead you to my window,” she says. “Once we’re there, Dodger tells us whether she can do the geometry we came here to ask her for, and then one of two things happens: either we swing over to Aske’s window and find out what happened with her before I start my passage across the sky, or I start my passage. Either way, Chang’e and Máni will be able to walk you out.”

“What about me?” asks Kelpie.

Artemis looks at her, expression softening into something lost and longing. “I’d like you to stay by my window until I get back, if you don’t mind. We’ll be coming out way underground, and there might be alchemists, or constructs. I want to walk you out myself.”