

### Quatra: Realities

By Stefan van Vliet

Copyright 2013 Stefan van Vliet

Smashwords Edition

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Dedication

For the old friend, that I have known forever and yet feel I am only just getting to know,

And the new friend, that I am only just getting to know and yet feel I have known forever.

## Chapter 1

"Wake up! Mister! You have to wake up!" a voiced called, as if from far away. Groaning Jacob opened his eyes and glanced around to see who was trying to wake him. "Are you awake yet Mister?" the voice asked, a girl's voice, a voice he didn't recognize but with a cadence and tone that seemed familiar.

"I think so," Jacob replied, "but I'm not sure as I don't seem to be able to see anything _and_ , what's more, I don't know where I am. Where am I?"

"You have to get up Mister, they are coming. If you don't get up, they will kill you."

"Kill me? For lying down? That seems a _bit_ extreme," Jacob said as light suddenly burst forth in a rectangular shape. He sprung to his feet realizing he was in a room, a room best described as a cell. The silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway, the light streaming in around him. Jacob shaded his eyes from the glare and woke up.

He lay staring at the ceiling, musing over his dream for a few moments before he heard the door slide open with a gentle hiss. Turning he could make out, like an echo of his dream, the vague outline of a figure, backlit slightly by the dim corridor lighting.

"Jake?" Tabitha asked, crossing the room.

"'Lo Tabs," Jacob replied, sensing her standing beside his bed and shuffling himself over to make room for her.

Tabitha slipped into the bed and Jacob felt her watching him. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"Of course, I am," he paused for a moment. "Legs, feet, arms, hands, head! All still there so I must be all right. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, I just thought I felt... something."

"Again?"

"Yes, again. Did you see anything, hear anything?"

"Nothing other than the usual, Tabs. A girl's voice, a dark room and a silhouetted figure. It never changes, which is quite bizarre really."

"Do you think it's me?"

"You?"

"Yeah, the owner of the voice. Could it be me?"

"I think I would recognize my own –" Jacob stopped short.

"Your own what?"

Jacob remained silent, wondering both at what he had been about to say and what he should say now, he instead, however, elected to remain silent.

Tabitha sighed gently, "I know _that_ feeling, I don't know what I should call you either, don't worry about it."

"Good," Jacob replied, "I wasn't going to."

"Liar," Tabitha laughed. "Anyway, could it be me?"

"It could be I suppose. But the owner of the voice doesn't seem to recognize me. Surely you'd recognize me and I'd recognize you... unless..."

"Unless... we had both forgotten each other?"

"I wonder how that could even happen; I mean how could I forget you? It'd be like waking up one morning and going about one's business, all day then realizing one was missing a leg."

Tabitha laughed again, "I love your analogies. I suppose you're right though, as I'm in here," Tabitha tapped Jacobs temple, "as well as out here in the real world."

"And as more than just a thought, or a memory, as well."

"Exactly."

"So, no, no I don't think it is you. But never say never, it's _almost_ an infinite universe - anything is possible really isn't it."

Tabitha rolled over and lay still, seemingly falling asleep. Jacob lay awake, staring at the ceiling think about his dream and wondering if perhaps it _was_ Tabitha, if the dream was some sort of premonition it would make sense if it was her. She _was_ made up of the energy of the universe and that flows in either direction, independently of time. Though why _he_ would see it and not _her_ was a little confusing, as was why he should start having premonitions all of a sudden - in all the time he and Tabitha had been connected he couldn't recall once having seen the future.

Suddenly, causing Jacob to jerk slightly with fright, Tabitha reached over herself, grabbed Jacobs hand and then pulled his arm over her, as one might a blanket. Jacob half smiled and after at least another hour of thought he drifted, slowly, to sleep, arm still draped across Tabitha as she held his hand, gently stroking his thumb in her sleep.

Jacob side-stepped through the still opening doors, glanced quickly around the bridge and took his seat at the forward, slightly lowered, console facing the three large windows – all still blacked out. He flicked a switch and the heavy steel visors slowly retracted upwards to reveal a brightly shining starscape. He spun in his chair to face Tabitha, "Lovely view this morning isn't it?" he asked, Tabitha gave a nod and a smile and silently returned to her work.

A short while later Angela and William walked onto the bridge, taking their own respective positions at either side of the bridge. "Quiet in here this morning," Angela remarked.

"Good, good. Quiet's good, except when you need it to be loud and noisy," Jacob replied, not looking up from the screen he was reading off, he sat in silence for a moment before he speaking once more, "That's a bit odd."

"What is?" Angela asked.

"Check your logs for anomalies around... oh an hour and a half to two hours ago," Jacob instructed, still not looking up from the screen he was looking at. William and Tabitha exchanged looks, raising their eyebrows at one another before silently returning to their own tasks.

"I've got a dimensional fall-off," Angela suddenly said, "fifteen minutes long."

"Tabitha can you -"

"Already doing it, running drive system scan now."

"Will, run a computer diagnostic please."

"Got it running," Will replied, "it's returned no errors so far. I'm thinking it's not a computer glitch."

"Fruig Drive reports a fifteen-minute power interruption-"

"Computer system checks out fine, although the secondary clock is out by fifteen minutes-"

"Navigational log reports a complete dimensional void for fifteen minutes. It seems we were nowhere at all."

"Or parts of us were," Jacob mused. "William, can you run a diagnostic on the primary clock – find out why it wasn't affected. Angela get us our estimated position when we hit that anomaly. Tabs, did the interruption damage the drive system?"

"It seems not. The drive just seems to have not been running for a while. The computer reports that it was, but there was no activity at all so that implies it wasn't. The drive is undamaged, it's like it was just... just... not there-"

Will interrupted Tabitha's train of thought, "Primary clock was unaffected, according to its systems nothing happened-"

"Anomaly bearing 180.16 by 45.9 by 23.7 degrees, we're almost two hours from it." Angela said, speaking in turn over top of Will.

"Alright, I'm setting a course. I think we need to know what exactly is going on here. Can the three of you, from what systems were interrupted, figure out if all or part of the ship was affected? And where the boundary of the affected area would have been?"

"Shouldn't be too hard," Tabitha said, "Just have to find out what systems are out by fifteen minutes. I've disabled the auto-sync which should stop any systems that were affected being updated by the primary clock at the four hourly re-sync that was due in a few minutes time."

"Good thinking. The course is set and she'll pilot herself to within twenty minutes of the occurrence. I'm going to check the Fruig Drive visually, I'm afraid it's going to be a slow trip."

"We'd all rather be safe than sorry I think," Angela replied.

Jacob leapt from his seat and walked to the bridge door, again sliding through them sidewise as they slid open. He ran around the slowly curving corridor until he reached the doors to the number one lift. The doors to the lift already sat open, and he dashed inside, hitting the button for the Engineering, or E-deck, as he did so. With a hiss the doors slid closed and a faint hum and vibration filled the capsule he stood in. "Come on, come on!" he muttered impatiently. With a gentle thud the lift stopped and the doors rolled open. Jacob dived through them and looked at the displays showing the computer readouts for the various engine components that stood at the end of a steel catwalk that stretched from the lift across the engineering. "Normal, normal, normal. Everything is normal..." he said as he read through what the screens told him.

He walked slowly down the length of the catwalk, looking down on the vast array of metalwork, electronics and cooling systems that made up the Fruig Drive system. As he walked, he muttered to himself, checking off the various components as he saw them, he had nearly reached the end of the catwalk when he stopped. "Wait. What?" he said, as he took a couple of steps backwards and leant over the catwalks handrail, looking down at the drive system with a look of confusion on his face. He glanced along the catwalk for the nearest communications station and walked over to it, "Tabs," he said, "run a high intensity scan on E-deck, section G- fifteen."

"Why? What do you see?"

"Run the scan. Then bring me the report, in person. I think you, all of you, are going to want to see this," Jacob replied leaning out over the catwalks handrail and staring at the giant sphere that hung, unsupported, in the area between two of the Fruig Drive's magnetic coil chambers.

The longer he looked at it the more it seemed to change; at first it was black and oily, reflecting colours in a rainbow-like pattern before it slowly changed to white with the same oily reflectivity before changing once more to a mirror like reflection that faded back to the black, oily appearance of earlier. Its material state seemed in a constant flux, it changed from appearing solid, to dripping and rippling like a liquid and then turning almost transparent and gaseous - sometimes it appeared to be all three at once.

Fighting and overwhelming urge to reach out and touch the sphere, Jacob headed towards one of the ladders off the catwalk that would take him down to the level the sphere hovered on. He slid down the ladder and approached the sphere, now that he stood beside the strange object it seemed to have grown in proportion - from above it had looked half its current size. He held his hand up just above its surface and at first felt heat radiate from it, before the heat faded and he instead felt a coldness wash from it before the heat returned once more. He paid closer attention to the changes of state and form and realized there was no predictable pattern, they didn't change in time with one another nor with any set pattern of what change came next - it seemed to change randomly before his eyes, sometimes instantaneously and other times lingeringly.

"What _are_ you?" Jacob muttered to himself, as he stared at the sphere.

## Chapter 2

Tabitha transferred the results of the scan onto a handheld computer pad, a device that looked like nothing more than a pane of glass, "Come on you two," she said, motioning to Angela and William, "he wants us all down there."

"What does the scan say?" Will asked her.

"I am not entirely sure, there appears to be a... hole. For lack of a better term."

"A hole? In the ship? Why isn't it decompressing?" Angela asked.

"It isn't a hull breach, apparently. It's just a hole. The sensor reads a sphere of absolutely nothing floating on E-deck."

"Nothing?"

"No light, no dark, no heat, no cold, no gas, no vacuum. No left, right, up or down. Just nothing."

"Properly nothing then, how unusual is that?" Will asked, as they walked down the slightly curved corridor to the number one lift.

"Very, very unusual. I've never seen it it's so unusual... yet the sensors could see that it was nothing, so that must make it something."

"Sounds like whatever it is, it is right up Jakes alley," Angela said with a quick grin.

Tabitha smiled back, "It sure does."

The lift doors slid open and the trio walked along the catwalk, seeing no sign of Jacob. "Jake?" Tabitha called out.

"Down here," came a faint reply, over the noise of the decks cooling systems and other machinery.

"Where exactly is 'here'?" Will asked, though Tabitha knew he didn't actually expect an answer. She, however, closed her eyes and focused on Jake and within a fraction of a second, she knew where he was within the vast cavern that was the Engineering Deck. She motioned the others to follow and soon the trio stood looking down at Jake, his hands clasped in front of his mouth with his chin resting on his outstretched thumbs and his index fingers sticking up and resting on the bridge of his nose.

"Jake," Tabitha said, "I've got the report."

Not taking his eyes off what he was looking at he held out his hand before seeming to realize that Tabitha was calling to him from at least two floors up.

"What are you doing up there for?" he called up to her. "Come down here and look at this thing _properly_."

"No pleasing him sometimes is there?" Angela asked her, with a roll of her eyes and a slight grin.

"No there really isn't, but you know what? I forgive him it."

"And you always will, won't you?"

Tabitha smiled at Angela, knowing she needed no answer and thinking 'of course.' Signalling to William that should head down the ladder to the lower level first, she followed Angela down and the three approached Jake, who continued to stand exactly as he had been when they had looked down on him from above - his hand still outstretched waiting for the computer pad. Placing the sheet of electronic glass in his hand caused him to held grasp it, almost snatchingly, and she raised an eyebrow at hi, holding the device tighter.

"Sorry, sorry," he muttered.

"I thought so," she replied letting the computer go, as it lit up and began displaying the information from the ship's scans.

Tabitha approached the sphere, feeling compelled to get closer to it, to look into it, to reach out and to touch it. Instead she fought her instinct and unknowingly mimicked Jake, holding her hand just above its surface before retracting it and stepping back from the strange object, a look of thoughtful confusion on her face. "The scan said there was nothing," she whispered.

Angela and William also approached the sphere, William reaching out to touch it causing Angela to hurriedly grab his arm and pull his hand away. "Don't touch it!" she hissed.

"Why not?"

"Just... I don't know, a feeling I have. Just don't."

Tabitha saw William frown at Angela before she turned her attention back to Jake, who was now clicking his tongue as he looked at the scan data, as if he disagreed with what it said.

"What is it?" Angela quietly asked.

"Perhaps a better question would be 'what isn't it?'" Tabitha replied, once more watching the sphere as it changed material states and textures.

"Ok," William said, "What _isn't_ it?"

Jacob looked up from the glass tablet he had been reading and broke into a grin, "It isn't _anything_!" he laughed.

"Why is that funny then? Do you know what it _is_?" William asked.

"Yes, yes I do. What it is, well, what it is... is everything!"

"But you just said it wasn't anything."

"I know!"

William let out a noise of irritation, "How can it be _everything_ and yet not be _anything_?"

Jacob gave no reply, but instead approached the sphere, holding his hands out just above its surface.

"I think what Jake is trying to say," Tabitha said, as her own mind tried to catch up with Jake's thoughts, "is that it is everything _at_ _once_ which, in turn, makes it _nothing_. If something is all things at the exact same time, it can't be any one thing so it's... nothing." Tabitha glanced at Jake who caught her eye and smiled, pointing at her.

"That's the one," he said as he began to pace back and forward, tapping his fingers on his thumbs and occasionally running a hand through his hair.

"So... it's a great big ball of everything... and nothing?" William asked.

"Seems like it," replied Angela watching Jake pace back and forth.

"How is that even possible?"

"Honestly? I couldn't even begin to guess, I have travelled with these two for a very, very, long time and I've never seen anything like it."

Like Angela, Tabitha watched Jake pace, but unlike Angela, who was watching him waiting for answers, Tabitha watched him for a different reason. As he paced his expression changed subtly from one of concentration to one of a deep-rooted excitement, but more than that he gave off an energy so raw, pure and powerful that it took almost all of Tabitha's self-control not to follow her instincts and throw herself at him, absorbing as much of that energy as she could. Jake stopped pacing and caught her eye and she smiled at him. More than the energy that he produced she loved when something caught Jake's attention like this, for it never failed to bring out the almost childlike wonder and excitement he had always had when he was younger, it had been the wonder and excitement that had drawn her too him before she even knew who the grey-suited men were, before she knew anything about him other than he wanted to see long dead planets; there had been a look in his eye, the same look he had now. But that Jake... that version of him, he was long gone: crushed, defeated and hidden away after a lifetime of victory-less war. But every once in a while, like now, something new came along and that long lost Jake made one of his rare appearances.

"Where are you?" Jake asked, interrupting her thoughts yet, apparently, not William and Angela's own conversation.

Tabitha smiled at him, replying in her mind just as he had asked her with his, "Oh, back before any of this began. When you were just a boy and I was just a girl."

"Sentimental much?"

Tabitha laughed aloud, "A little, but sometimes I just miss those people."

Jake approached her and brushed a strand of hair from her face, the strand that no matter what she did always seemed to find itself floating around her face, tucking it behind her ear as she felt the energy from him flow into her from his touch. "I know," he said, "I do too."

Abruptly he turned away and began pacing again, stopping every once in a while, to peer at the sphere as it changed state.

Sighing slightly, Tabitha approached the sphere. "Do you think I could... affect it?" she asked, more to herself than to anyone else.

Jake looked at her, "Are you sure you want to try? We don't know what it is, it could eat you for all we know."

"If it does, you'll just have to come and get me, won't you?"

"I'd better."

"Yes, you had." Tabitha replied, blowing that stray strand of bright red hair from her face and closing her eyes. Immediately she felt the energy from the room around her as it coursed through the various parts of the engine room, creating a vibrant picture in her mind. She felt the energy falling down on her from the lights high above and in the lights herself she could see the currents of electricity as they passed through the filaments and wiring, beside her she saw and felt the life energy of Angela and William. But, shining brighter than everything else, stood Jake, her mind's eye saw the tendrils of energy as they snaked out from him, slowly disappearing into the heat and light that filled the engine room.

In front of Jake, however, was a strange void. A giant spherical orb of blackness that gave off no energy at all, Tabitha focused all of her will power on it, to try and crack it open, to see what lay within but the sphere didn't react - at least not in a way that she could perceive. She opened her eyes and looked at Jake, who was staring transfixed at the sphere.

"Well?" he asked without looking at her, seeming to know automatically that she was ready to talk to him.

"It's like a... void. A terrible hole in the fabric of reality, no energy comes out, no energy goes in and it's not made of any energy at all," she shuddered and rubbed her upper arms, a strange fear washing over her. "I don't like it, it feels... unnatural" she glanced at Jake, wishing he would pay her the attention he was focusing on the strange sphere. He jumped slightly then surprised her by stepping back towards her and leaning against her shoulder gently before grabbing her hand. Tabitha felt the tendrils of energy she had seen before begin to snake their way around her as he held her and the strange sense of fear that had seized her when looking at the sphere's energy, or rather lack thereof, instantly began to fade.

"So, you couldn't do anything to it?" Will asked.

"No, I couldn't, it was just nothing."

"Interesting," Jake said.

"Why?"

"It was distorting, twisting and changing," Will replied, his voice uncertain.

"It can't have been though; nothing I did seemed to be able to touch it."

Jacob cocked his head to the right, "I wonder..."

"My turn then?" Angela asked, stepping up to the sphere.

"If you don't mind," Jake replied, as Tabitha felt a flash of worry pass through his energy.

"Right then mysterious nothing, let's see how you like this!" Angela said, turning to face the giant sphere as Tabitha felt the air seem to vibrate around her. The sphere rippled and distorted as Angela spoke again, "It's strange. My matter-sight can see it there, but I can't seem to grab it. It's more like... it's more like my matter-sight _isn't_ seeing it there. It's as if there is a hole in the fabric of the universe -"

"But it's distorting, just like before!" Will interjected.

"It sure looks that way," Jake said, walking closer to it and pulling Tabitha along behind him.

"It really isn't having any effect at all," Angela told them as she stepped back from the strange orb. "It must just be the air moving around it."

"Very, very strange," muttered Jake. "Anything to add?"

"It's just like Tabitha said. It's a hole, no matter seems to travel through it, not even air and yet it there is nothing coming out of it either. But, most weird of all, is that even though we can see it and it keeps changing state it's made of... nothing. It's just... a hole."

"And yet, when you tried to do whatever to it – as it did with Tabitha – it rippled and distorted."

"It _can't_ have, there is nothing there!" Angela insisted.

"But it _did!_ You saw it, when Tabitha did it. We all saw it when you did it," Will mused.

"Or did we?" Jake asked, "Did we see anything?"

"Of course, we did, we can see it right now," Will argued.

"But are we actually seeing it? Tabitha and Angela have _both_ said there is nothing there and when one is travelling with... physical manifestations of the visible aspects of the universe, one should take heed."

"Physical manifestations?" Angela said, her tone incredulous, "You make it sound like we're some sort of disease."

"Wait, no. That's not how I meant it to sound," Jake replied, Tabitha noting he sounded worried and knew he feared he had offended Angela.

Angela however burst into laughter, " _Too_ _easy_!"

"Thanks," Jake replied, sarcastically.

"So," Tabitha began, "if the physical manifestations of the visible universe, matter and energy, can only see a void, a hole in the universe, what does the Man of Shadows, the physical manifestation of the invisible universe, see? Or what does he think?"

Jake replied, "He sees... nothing except what is in front of him. A sphere of everything that is somehow able to be seen and yet doesn't exist as matter or energy."

"And he thinks?"

"He thinks that we should not touch it, but he wonders how it came to be here, how does one transport nothing? For that is seemingly what our ship is now doing..."

Tabitha and the others looked around, as if they would get a clue as to how to transport something that wasn't there from their surroundings.

"Could it be," Will began, pausing slightly as everyone looked at him. "Could it be something to do with the magnetic coils? We are in the middle of the coil chambers right here."

"Magnetism," Jake muttered, "magnetism." He grabbed his mouth with his right hand, squashing his lips between his thumb and clenched fist. "I think you're on to something there. This spot, at the centre of the coil chambers would be surrounded by magnetic fields. It's probably the only place on the ship where there are sufficiently powerful fields to create a fully enclosed 'container' if you will." He looked at Tabitha for a moment and she knew what he was asking.

Closing her eyes, she looked around the room, this time focusing on that faint movement of electricity in the air that gave away magnetic fields. Opening her eyes, she nodded, "Yes, it _is_ like a container. The fields are all around us except on that exact spot that that sphere is floating."

"So, you can trap nothing with a magnetic field, who knew!" Jake announced. "Which makes me wonder: did we fly through an entire area of nothing space? Or did part of the ship go through it. Certainly, this part did in order to have trapped some of the nothing here..."

Letting go of Tabitha's hand, he again approached the sphere holding both of his hands to it. "If you're nothing, why can I see you? How are you here? Why do you keep changing appearance?" he asked it, as the feeling of emptiness Tabitha always felt when she wasn't in contact with Jake rushed through her once more. "There is something I am missing," Jake continued, "something blindingly obvious." He spun on his heel and faced Tabitha, "Think! It's a sphere of nothing that we can see with our eyes, and yet you and Angela can't see with your abilities. So, it has to have something doesn't it, else how are we even here to have this conversation, we wouldn't know it existed!"

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking," Tabitha replied, a small smile slowly spreading across her face in anticipation.

"You two!" Jake waved his hand at Angela and Will, "I hope you are thinking! It has something, it has to have something or it wouldn't be here, can't be here, but I can't quite place my finger on it..." He began his pacing back and forth again, tapping the fingers of his right hand, pinky to index, then index twice, across his thumb once more.

Suddenly he stopped and looked at Tabitha, "Have you got it yet?"

Still softly smiling she shook her head.

"What about you two?"

Both Angela and Will replied that they hadn't.

Tabitha knew what was coming, and broke into a grin. To many who didn't know Jake - and especially her and Jakes somewhat unique relationship - the game he was about to begin to play with her always seemed to come across to others as him disregarding her own intelligence, or as him belittling her. The truth, however, was that she loved to play the game, it was like seeing how he thought about the universe, while encouraging her to think about the universe in a different light. Of course, every once in a while, she would turn the tables at play the same game on him and he never protested, in fact he seemed to enjoy it as much as she did, once saying 'You see everything so differently to how I see things, it's like looking at a completely different universe when I see it through your eyes.'

"So, the question," began Jake, "is what does this big ol' ball of nothing have? The answer is, surprisingly, all around us. Or maybe not so surprisingly once you know what it is."

"Well what is it then?" Will asked, causing Angela to elbow him in the ribs.

"Play the game Will," she whispered, "or at least be quiet while those of us who want to play do so." Losing the whisper, she replied, "Up and down?"

Jacob turned to face the sphere again, peering intently at it. "Nope, if we turned it up the other way it'd be exactly the same. It's everywhere, all around us. Everything that we do needs it, uses it."

Tabitha smiled at Angela, knowing that, like her, Angela liked to see into Jakes thoughts from time to time as well. "Everything we do needs it? Uses it? Well... it's not energy because I just saw a hole."

"No, not energy but the longer we stand here thinking the more of it we use up, and yet there never seems to be any less of it."

"Wait... we're using it right now, using it up, but there is never any less?"

Jacob smiled at her, "Now you've got it. Angela?"

Angela's face was lined with concentration before cracking into a smile, "I've got it," she said, as she turned to Will. "Did you get it?"

"I think so, if you're all thinking of -" he hesitated, but Angela and Tabitha nodded their encouragement, "time?"

"Time!" Jake yelped. "Yes, it has time! If it didn't have time it couldn't be here, everything that exists also exists in time. Else the entire life cycle of everything would happen in an instant! It'd be here and then gone again in an instant, less than an instant! And so, it would seem that time applies to balls of floating nothing as well!"

"But... you said it was everything earlier. And if it is everything all at once, doesn't that mean there is no time?"

Jacob paused, cocking his head to the right as he looked at Will. "Yes..." he trailed off, looking confused for a moment, before his expression changed back to one of excitement, an almost manic grin spreading across his face. "It does mean that, it means exactly that!"

"So now you're telling me its everything and nothing and has both time and no time all at once?" Will's tone was exasperated.

"That is exactly what I am saying! And you know why? Because we're thinking about it wrong! How are we thinking about its Tabs?"

Tabitha was caught off guard at suddenly being called upon, and her mind went completely blank. "Um... wrongly?"

Jake laughed, "Yes, we're thinking about it wrongly, we're thinking about it in a very _solid_ manner and that's our problem isn't it?"

Tabitha caught on straight away, "It isn't solid! It's more like a... a... bubble."

"Yes! A bubble, a bubble of nothing caught in a magnetic field."

"Ok, so it's a bubble. Why does it have time and not time?" Angela asked.

"Because," Jake said, spinning to face the orb once more, "because it's inside is at a different time to its outside. Its outside is on our time but it's inside is not. And where the two meet there is no time at all, or alternatively, there is every time at once!"

"A time bubble of nothingness?" Will asked.

"A time bubble of nothingness!" Jake half yelled. "I wonder what happens if you touch it?" he leaned forward reaching his hand out towards it.

"No!" Tabitha yelled; her tone full of warning and a hint of panic, her unease at the sphere had not yet entirely passed. "No! Jake! No!"

He stopped and looked at her, eyebrows both raised.

"If the outside is all time and, simultaneously, no time if you touched it you would be alive and dead, being born and dying, healthy and sick all at the same time. When you removed your hand there would be no way to know when you'd end up, you could be dead and just be dust or you could be just being born, or you could be younger than you are now and not even know me!"

"Now, _that_ is a good point," Jake said quietly, withdrawing his hands. "And it gives me an idea."

"Just don't touch it. _Please._ "

"I won't, but imagine this. If I was to walk into the bubble, what would happen?"

"You would end up inside it," Angela said.

"Yes, but think about the _time_ aspect. If all of time is on the outside and I walk through it to the interior what would happen?"

"Time... travel?" Will suggested, quietly yet with confidence - his earlier correct guess seemed to have helped him understand that no matter what he said the answer would have been welcomed. Another of Jakes rules, sprung to Tabitha's mind; 'in the face of the unknown, no idea is a bad idea.'

Jake pointed at Will, "Give that man a prize! This isn't a ball, a bubble or anything else. It's a portal through time, a time machine! It could throw you out anywhere though, the whole of history and the whole of the future of the universe lies at its edge."

"Anywhere... and any _when_ ," Angela muttered, awestruck. "I agree with Tabitha. Don't anybody touch it."

The faint rumble that had been echoing through the ship suddenly abated.

"Well, Jake, it seems we've arrived at the location of the anomaly," Tabitha said, as a chill rattled down her spine, she wondered at it, wondering if perhaps the universe was trying to tell her something.

"To the bridge then," Jake said as he walked towards the ladder back up to the catwalk high above them.

## Chapter 3

Angela entered the ships bridge first, the others following along not far behind. She slipped into her seat as Jake slipped into his and the ships view-screen visors slowly rolled their way up, Angela thought this was odd as she recalled them having been left up when they left the bridge.

"Jake?"

"That's me," he replied.

"They were up."

"Sorry?"

"The visors, we left them up."

"Up?"

"Yes. Up."

"Then why were they down?"

Tabitha interjected, "Ummm Jake?"

"Why is my name always a question? One of life's lessor mysteries I suppose."

"We've moved in space..."

"Thanks for that, we're on a spaceship travelling to the location of the anomaly that has led us to this point. I'm assuming there is more to this story?" Jake asked, unable to keep the tone of sarcasm from his voice.

"Yeah there is, it's just... confusing. It seems we haven't moved in time. We haven't moved in time since before we came to the bridge this morning."

"That's why the visor was down," Angela thought aloud, "if we haven't moved in time it would mean that we never put it up."

"But I watched it going up," Will said. "We all did, and we left it up when we went down to E-deck."

Angela glanced around at Tabitha and Will, catching each of their eye in turn. Their expressions gave away their thoughts and simultaneously how experienced in meeting the unknown they were. Tabitha's face was a mix of curiosity and worry whilst Will's wore an expression of confusion. Turning to Jake she saw him drumming the fingers of his right hand, pinkie to index and then tapping the index finger twice and knew he was lost in thought. He was probably trying to think if he had seen anything like this before, if anything like this was even possible, he caught her looking at him and flashed her a smile - unlike the others there was no concern or confusion on his face, instead a youthful excitement filled every corner of it.

"Tabs," he said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen on the bridge, "is time moving now?"

"It would seem so; all the clocks _are_ counting."

"Yet the time is what it was when we first entered the bridge this morning?"

"Well it was, but it's moving on from that a bit now."

"What if... we all leave the bridge and come back."

"What is that going to achieve?" Will asked.

"Just a little theory, up and out!" Jacob replied leaping from his own seat and leading the way out of the bridge, Tabitha following close behind.

"The Shadow's shadow," muttered Angela laughing as she watched them, before she got up from her own seat and motioned to Will to follow her.

"I don't see why we have to do this," he complained.

"I think I do, but we'll see," she replied following him out of the bridge and turning to face the group as the doors to the bridge slid shut.

Angela counted to five and then opened the bridge doors and re-entered. "Well, is it as you thought?" she asked over her shoulder as Jake entered.

She saw him note the closed visor, saw him glance at Tabitha's station and check the clocks. "Yes, yes, it is."

"The visor is down again," Will said as he entered the room. "What's going on?"

"Time has gone... funny," Jake replied, a smile on his voice.

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Think about it, down on E-deck we have caught ourselves a 'Time Bubble of Nothingness', as you so aptly called it, and here on the bridge everything is resetting every time we all leave, when nobody is experiencing time passing it resets itself. I'd go as far as to say if we were all in here and someone was outside the bridge looking in, they wouldn't see us, nothing we do in here would affect them as it would appear that the bridge is in its own sort of time bubble."

"That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Nobody said it had to make sense," Jake said as he slipped into his seat and raised the visor once more. "But look at that!" he waved at the now uncovered windows and Angela felt her jaw drop, before she quickly snapped her mouth shut again.

"I'm cold," Tabitha whispered as a chill shuddered through Angela.

"Me too," she said.

Jake turned to look at the pair of them, seeming to drag his eyes from the view outside the ship as Will approached the window and leant on it in order to see all that he could of what was outside. "What do you see? What do you feel?" Jake asked.

Tabitha nodded slightly and Angela spoke first. "It's like the ball down in Engineering, only bigger, much bigger. And it's a bit different, it feels... "

"It feels like it's reaching out to grab you, to... take you," Tabitha said.

"Yes! That's it!" Angela agreed. "It's like it wants to consume everything living. I can see it sucking in the few particles that exist out there in the vacuum-"

"It's absorbing all the energy-"

"And it's getting bigger," came Will's voice from where he stood at the windows.

Jake turned away from Angela and Tabitha and walked to stand beside Will. "We must have flown straight through it," he said as he looked out the window, at what Angela knew was a giant rip or tear through space, its edges constantly changing like the sphere trapped in engineering.

"Flown through? Then how come we're still in the right time? I thought you said all of time was on the surface of that bubble," Will argued.

"Yes, but think about it. The bridge keeps resetting itself, we have a Time Bubble of Nothingness trapped in Engineering and something tells me if we went to other parts of the ship, we'd find more and more inconsistencies."

"What do you mean?"

"I told you already."

"Times gone funny?"

" _Exactly_."

"What kind of explanation is that?" Will muttered, barely loud enough for Angela to hear.

The ships internal communications speakers suddenly crackled into life. "Oh well done, you finally got it. I wondered how long it would take, I am surprised it took _this_ long however." Angela looked around at everyone, all of whom were in turn looking around at everyone else. The speakers crackled again, with that persistent crackle Jake had never been able to fix, and the voice filled the bridge once more. "I wonder if you'll be any faster in figuring out the next bit?"

Angela breathed in sharply, she had just placed the oily voice that seemed to ooze from the speakers and seep into her ears.

"Murray," she whispered.

Will turned and put a protective arm around her waist, "You sure?"

"Positive."

Jake frowned at her and turned to Tabitha, who slowly nodded a silent agreement. Angela was left uncertain if Jake had asked her something telepathically or if she was just agreeing with Angela's assessment, either way Angela felt far from reassured.

"I thought you said they wouldn't come after us anymore," Will said, turning on Jake and unable to hide the rising anger in his voice.

"William!" Angela snapped. "This is not his fault."

"He said it, _he said_ they wouldn't come after us anymore!"

Angela began to speak, but was cut off by Jake, who was keeping his voice calm, almost monotonous. "What I said was that there would be no more hunting for Angela _specifically_."

William stammered for a moment before falling quiet, Angela deciding he had remembered that was exactly what Jake had said, deciding he had remembered what she herself had said about there being armies upon armies of the suited men out there in the wilds of the universe, many with an axe to grind against Jake, Tabitha and herself.

Laughter crackled over the speakers, "Dissent amongst the ranks already! You _really_ should keep a better control over your crew."

Jake's frown deepened, something Angela wouldn't have believed possible just moments ago.

Tabitha spoke now, her voice loud, strong and clear - nothing in it betrayed the stress written on her face. "What do you want?"

More laugher came from the crackling speakers, "You know what I want."

"Our deaths?"

"Well, they are inevitable. But I'd like a little tiny bit of you before that happens of course, just to... complete me a little."

"Well, I have news for you -"

"Oh yes, you think you are going to fight me. You think you are going to win. But not this time. No, this time I will be victorious... and you won't even know it."

'Won't even know it?' Will mouthed at Angela, who shrugged her reply.

The ship suddenly shuddered, much as a seafaring vessel would when striking rocks Angela thought, grabbing a chair to use as something to steady herself with. The shaking eased as a loud groaning noise began to fill the air and alarms began to sound around the bridge, warning lights flashed and the smell of ozone began to fill the room.

"What the hell is happening!" Will yelled across the noise.

Jake fell into his chair as the ship rocked and rolled yet again, looking from screen to screen as more and more alarms sounded. "I think... we've hit it."

"Hit it?" Angela asked.

"Yes, hit it."

"But we've flown right through it without any of this happening already."

"Exactly," Jake yelled, "so what's changed?"

The faint crackle of the speakers could be just heard, "I think you know."

"SHOW YOURSELF!" Jake yelled, as he stood from his seat, a strange flicker like a black flame seeming to appear around him.

"Oh, all right then. Since you've asked _so_ _very_ nicely."

Angela watched, fear creeping through her and making her spine tingle as through the bridge doors walked a trio of grey suit wearing men. Each was smiling and each carried a battered brown briefcase which, before anybody could react, they opened and from each burst one of the strange bubbles that Angela had seen on the Engineering deck. The spheres began to slowly move around the bridge, directly targeting Will, Jake and Angela.

"Don't let them touch you!" Jake yelled, as he leapt out of the way of the one that was floating, as if rolling in the air, towards him.

"What if none of this happened? What if you chose left instead of right? Up instead of down? Turned back instead of pressing on? What if you went against your nature and said no when you said yes, yes when you said no?" asked the suited men, all speaking in unison. "What if you had held your hand and not pulled the trigger? What if you _had_ pulled it? There are so many ways things could change."

Angela continued to run around the bridge, trying her best to avoid touching the sphere that chased behind her, but the more she ran the faster it got until she heard a sudden yell.

"Angela!" Will's voice filled the bridge, drowning out every other sound.

Spinning on her heel Angela turned just in time to see Will's outstretched hand vanishing into the sphere that had been hunting him, before it slowly faded away.

"Why are you doing this!" Tabitha demanded, standing before the three suited men, a white light, like flame, flickering around her.

Angela ducked as the sphere that hurtled after her flew suddenly over her head before she continued running, trying her best to listen and run at the same time.

"We don't need them, not yet anyway. But we do need _you_."

Tabitha's hard expression flickered and Angela thought she saw a flash of fear on her face in the moment before she leapt to the side to dodge the sphere that chased her.

"Jake?" Tabitha asked.

"Just do it!" Angela heard him yell, "I will find you!"

The suited men broke into laughter, "Find her, _find her?_ Where you're going you won't even remember her!"

Angela saw Jake run behind Tabitha, the sphere following close behind. Then to her amazement Tabitha stepped backwards, into the path of the sphere and disappeared, the sphere soon following.

"NO!" The suited men yelled as Jake turned to smile at them, a hard and cold smile.

In a panic Angela ran into Jake who caught her and held her at arm's length, before lifting her chin to force her to look into his eyes. "I will find her; I will find Will and I will find _you_. But you have to trust me, you have to let this happen. It's one of the few times where you have to do exactly as I say, without arguing, without thinking."

"But -"

"No, no buts. Not this time," Jakes voice was soft and low, "there is no other way out of this. But I have it figured out, but to cut things down to size and something you might remember, remember the following; time jumping spawns universes."

Angela has just enough time to raise an eyebrow at him, wondering why he was reminding her of the dangers of time travel, before the sphere that hunted her towered behind her and swallowed her up.

Angela's head reeled suddenly, "Time jumping spawns universes," she muttered.

"Would _you_ have asked? Asked us all to kill ourselves?" Tabitha asked Will, who offered no response.

"I thought as much," Tabitha said.

Angela ran her hands through her hair, thinking as she did so that she was doing a very good impersonation of Jake under stress. She almost laughed, but managed to control herself, "So... life without Jake, or near-certain death."

"They're the options," Tabitha replied, swinging her seat around to continue plotting the course on the vast console before her, pulling up star charts on one of the screens.

Angela frowned as a sense of déjà vu swept over her, she was certain this had all happened before. She caught Will staring at her, "What do we do?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he replied quietly, "I just don't know."

"We do what he told us to do," Tabitha insisted.

"Is that what you want?" Angela asked her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Tabitha placed her hand on top of Angela's, "It's what he wanted, so... it's what I want," she sighed.

"So be it then," Angela replied, though in her mind she heard herself yelling 'stop!' and ordering Tabitha to turn the ship around. She shook the thought from her head, wondering briefly at its memory-like feeling.

Moving to her seat at the right-hand side of the bridge she sat heavily in it, and smiled softly as Will dragged a seat across to sit beside her.

"I was just starting to like him," he whispered. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Okay? No... I don't think I'll ever be okay again."

"He meant a lot to you, didn't he? In ways other than what I used to think."

"In ways I can't even begin to explain. He saved me and gave me a life! Ever since that day he has protected me, protected everyone, and now -"

Tabitha suddenly yelled Jakes name and then slumped forward onto the control panel. Angela and Will leapt up and rushed to her side, gently sitting her back up.

"What the hell?" Will muttered.

"He's gone," Angela whispered.

"How do you know?"

"She was part of him, he a part of her. I think she just lost that connection."

"How can you be sure though?"

"Look at her."

"I am."

"No, look at her properly."

Will again looked at Tabitha and was startled by what he saw. Her youthful face seemed to have aged at least ten years, fine lines had grown around her eyes, mouth and across her forehead. But worst of all, the faint hint of light she had glowed with, that faintest of glows that he, and he suspected Angela, had found comforting was gone.

Angela gently tapped Tabitha's face, hitting slightly harder until Tabitha's eyes slowly dragged themselves open.

"Back with us then?"

"Yeah," Tabitha muttered, "though I wish I wasn't."

Angela found she had no words to say, her throat seemed to tighten whenever she tried to utter something, anything, to comfort one of her dearest friends, the person who had always seemed somewhat like a mother to her.

"I think I need a few moments, a few hours, a few days... I need time to sort things out in my head."

"Of course," Angela managed to choke out. "Anything."

"The ships programmed to continue to the Quelt system, he said... he said he would meet us there."

"But he -"

"I'm sure he'll try," Angela cut across Will. "I'm sure he'll try."

Angela helped Tabitha to her feet, then watched as she slowly walked across the bridge and out the doors, watched as they slowly slid closed again with a gentle hiss.

"So, he isn't dead?"

"Of course, he is."

"But you said he'll try to meet us."

"I did, but what did you want me to say? That he is dead and gone? Never coming back? She _knows_ all that Will, trust me she _knows_."

"Then why are we going there?"

"Where else do we go? What else do we do?" snapped Angela, causing Will to fall silent.

After a few moments Angela spoke up once more. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped."

"No, no. It's all right. I can't begin to imagine your loss and believe me when I say this, I feel some of that loss as well."

Angela smiled slightly and sat down on the edge of the raised portion of the bridge, Will soon joined her, putting his arm around her waist. "I've known him _all_ of my life Will. _All_ of it. We've been together across two different universes, friends for as long as I can remember. But as much as I hurt, as much as I miss him, I'm going to have to keep it together, keep strong."

"For Tabitha?"

"For Tabitha. No matter how great my loss, or your loss, feels, it is but a drop in the ocean to what she will be feeling right now."

"How long has she known him?"

"Now that, _that_ is a question that would take a lot of answering. It's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string."

"You must have some idea?"

"Honestly? No. All I know is they have been together long enough for legends and myths to be written about them by many different species and civilizations that have lived out their entire life-span in the universe and gone extinct. As have the civilizations after them and the ones after them. I think when you could conceivably live forever time has no meaning anymore."

"That seems to have answered the question... he said to me when I first came here that he wasn't quite as old as the universe. I thought he was joking, but after what you just said I don't think he was."

"No, he wasn't."

"And she has known him nearly as long as that?"

"Yeah... he liked to remind her every now and then that he was older than her and therefore had more experience in matters of importance."

William laughed, "He is - was - quite something, I think I was only just beginning to see it. When you're both almost as old as the universe does it matter who is older?"

"I wouldn't think so."

"He never seemed to act like he was that old though, are you sure he was?"

Angela thought for a moment, "Yeah.... yeah, 'cause every now and then you can - could - catch him, and Tabitha for that matter, just standing, or sitting, there. Staring into nothing. And if you looked into their face when they were doing that you could see some of the years, and if you dared look into their eyes you could see all of them, and that... that scared me – it always did, and it always will." Angela sighed heavily and slumped against Wills side. "Everything has changed now," she whispered, "and I am scared, scared we won't survive much longer before the grey-suited men catch us."

Angela felt Will squeeze her as he rested his head on her own, that lay on his shoulder. "Well there is something else we've got in common, a mutual fear of what comes next."

## Chapter 4

"Angela!" William yelled as the sphere he was trying to outrun caught up with him. He reached out towards her as she spun around to face him, apparently in slow motion but it was too late. Everything went dark.

Williams head was reeling all of a sudden and for a moment he forgot who was yelling at him.

"Why the hell did you do that for!" yelled Jacob, turning around to face William.

"Ummm..."

"No, don't tell me. It was because you could wasn't it? Listen to me and listen _carefully_. If you're going to travel with me, you're going to follow my rules -" began Jacob.

"And if I don't?" William challenged, some of his earlier anger returning to him, encouraged by the anger Jacob was showing him.

"If you don't follow my rules? I leave you here. Simple as that, if you think you can find your way around this world be my guest. But remember, without me there is no getting back to your old life on Earth. So, you follow my rules. Yes?"

"How about... no?" William replied, turning the gun at pointing it at Jacob.

"You don't want to do that," Jacob said, his voice calm and his face expressionless.

"Oh, I think I do. Everything is about _you_ isn't it? So, if I get rid of _you_ all the problems go away."

"Not quite how it works," Jacob said, turning away and beginning to walk.

"Yes, it is! TURN AROUND AND FACE ME!" William roared.

To Williams surprise Jacob turned slowly back around, "You have no idea what you're dealing with."

"I don't need to know!" William noted that at this announcement something flickered across Jacobs face, he wasn't sure what it was. Fear? Sadness? Anger? Amusement?

"You need me," Jacob said quietly. "If you want to see her again, you need me. There is a _lot_ you don't understand. Killing me is _not_ the way back to her, if she learns you did it, she will not thank you, she may even turn on you. So, as I said, you need me."

"No, I don't! _You_ are the reason this has happened!"

"I'm the... you _cannot_ be serious!"

William raised the gun once more at Jacob, "Oh I am serious. I'm very serious." Pausing for a moment William had the strangest feeling things weren't meant to be going like this, but seeing no way out of the current situation and no other way to get away from Jacob and his insufferableness he pulled the trigger.

Jacobs expression changed to one of surprise as the impact of the weapon hit him and then, to Williams bewilderment, something truly bizarre happened: Jacob continued to stand there. He slowly raised his hands out in front of him and William thought they had taken on a slightly transparent look, thought that they seemed to leave faint trails behind them.

"Honestly?" Jacob whispered, barely audible, "I never thought it'd be like this. I mean, I know what I am like and I kind of understand your points, what you must be feeling. But, still, I never expected so much anger. Well..." Jacobs breath rattled, "I think I will be going now."

William watched horrified as Jacob seemed to collapse in upon himself, seemed to suck the very darkness from the night in towards himself as he did so. Then, suddenly, he was gone and William was left standing alone in the dark, a strange ringed planet appearing above the horizon made him wonder where exactly he now was.

"Good riddance," William said to himself, trying to mask the sudden onset of terror at finding himself so totally alone. He looked around for some sort of trail to follow. No matter how much he searched, however, he couldn't find anything at all to follow, not a snapped twig or folded bit of grass or whatever it was people looked for when trying to track someone. His idea to get rid of Jacob seemed, moment by moment, to become one of his more idiotic plans. Eventually he gave up searching for some sort of sign, remembering some of the rubbish Jacob had said about it having been ten years in 'this universe' since Angela had been captured. Sighing he closed his eyes and turned, randomly, to pick a direction in which to walk, opening his eyes he began to run, getting to Angela as soon as possible seemed important to him despite Jacobs ridiculous claim that it had been ten years. "Impossible," he said as he ran, "absolutely impossible."

Williams legs soon began to tire, the ground was hilly and uneven and made running difficult, let alone the fact that he was a bit out of shape. Soon his run had turned into a jog, then a walk, until finally had petered into a dawdle. As he dragged himself along, he became aware that he was being followed, two people carrying guns were rapidly approaching behind him.

Before long the duo had caught William up and moved to stand in front of him, blocking his progress. "In the dying hours of last evening, an energy weapon was discharged in this vicinity, discharging an energy-weapon in the sanctuary zone is illegal and carries a compulsory prison sentence. Are you the holder of said weapon?" enquired one of the newcomers.

William felt the weight of the weapon slung on his back and thought that this was some sort of trick question.

"Are you the holder of said weapon?" the other of the newcomers pressed.

"What if I am?"

"The discharging of an energy-weapon in the sanctuary zone is illegal and carries a compulsory prison sentence."

"So, you are going to lock me up?"

"Affirmative."

William panicked for a moment before he knew what he had to do, he had to shoot these two as well. Just as he had shot Jacob. Fortunately, while both carried a weapon, neither had trained it on him. With a speed that surprised even himself William reached for his gun and brought it around to face the two strangers. Pulling the trigger in quick succession he blasted each of them, each bursting into a ball of flames, sparks and shrapnel.

"Robots?" William said, questioningly. "Maybe I _am_ somewhere that isn't Earth... I don't think our robots were that lifelike." He let out a yell of frustration and kicked at the smouldering remains, "Stupid!" he yelled. "Bloody stupid, bloody things!"

He sat down on a rock that stuck out from the hill he had been walking down and stared at the horizon. After a while he noticed something about it, but it took him a while to figure out what he was seeing; there was a smudge, a dark spot on the horizon almost as big as his thumbnail and while he looked towards it, he felt like it was sucking him in, draining the life out of him. "Angela!" he said with a yell, "I bet that's where you are!"

He got up and ran down the hill, in the direction of the smudge on the horizon, not noticing the strange shadow slipping down the hill behind him.

Feeling no more rested than he had earlier, Williams pace remained slow, though he felt more determined now he had a destination in mind - even though he knew, somehow, he was probably wrong, that Angela most likely was _not_ where that smudge was.

Hours dragged slowly by as William, eyes fixed just below the smudge of darkness in the distance, crossed the wilderness that lay before him. He had learned that if he looked at that smudge directly, he rapidly began to feel tired and drained of life, despite this, however, he continued to drag himself towards it, it was the only vague plan he had now.

As another night slowly fell across the strange world, he had found himself on, a glow on the horizon gave him sudden hope for it looked like the glow of a city's lights at night, here, at last, he could maybe find someone to help him or, at the very least, find somewhere to rest his aching body and exhausted mind.

After what seemed like an entire lifetime, he finally found himself on the city's outskirts, the light he had seen in the distance was almost dazzling now he was under it. He had carefully crept around several of the buildings, but bizarrely none seemed to have any sort of door, or even any sort of window. Several times he had thought he had seen people leave or enter a building, but when he had stood where he thought they had appeared or disappeared he could find no trace of an entrance way.

At last William decided there was nothing else for it, he would have to ask one of the residents for help. After a while he spotted one of the locals walking down what he assumed passed for a street - it was a line of lights sided with around five meters of concrete. The resident was easily twice his height and grey skinned with long slender arms and legs, and was wearing a figure-hugging sort of fabric that still managed to retain some resemblance to the clothes William knew. Atop a long neck sat an almost triangular head, that seemed small in comparison to the rest of the creature. Three eyes peered out of the nose-less face and tracked William as he darted from the shadows and called out to the creature.

"Hey! Wait! I need some help!" William stood in front of the creature and watched on as it seemed to consider him. It tilted its head one way and then the other before stooping over to bring its face level with Williams own.

"Shhhauak shhheasis," it said.

"What?" William asked.

"Shhhauak shhheasis," the created repeated. "Shhhauak shhheasis crrripkle grrreeesh," it added as it stood slowly back upright and looked down at William.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you," William said before a sudden realization dawned on him that this was likely what the creature itself was saying. He shrugged and gestured at the creature to continue on and after a few moments it began to walk in its long strides away from William, though he saw it occasionally glancing back in his direction.

'Probably call the cops,' he thought, 'you had better get out of here fast.' He turned and ran back the way he had come, he didn't see the point in trying to hide now he just needed to get away from where he was and fast. Something told him being held by the local police force wouldn't bring him any closer to finding Angela.

As he ran, the first of two suns appeared over the horizon and with it, he noted, the strange dark smudge was now a lot closer. He wondered why nobody in the city seemed to have noticed it, perhaps it wasn't anything to get excited about after all - but he thought, though why he did not know, that perhaps it was just that they couldn't see it. He turned to face it once more and walked on, on until he couldn't walk anymore. Then he sat down and fell into a fitful sleep, not seeing the shadowy shape of a man appear and stand over him, as if on guard, while he did so.

William awoke with a start, someone was kicking his side telling him he had to wake up and get to his feet or die, lying on the ground like the vermin he was. Leaping up William tried to make sense of what he was seeing, a comprehension slowly dawning as his mind woke from its slumber. Here before him were the people who had taken Angela! A group of men, all with slicked back black hair and grey suits, two carried briefcases and he could see his reflection in every pair of shoes.

"Who are you?" he demanded of them, "Where have you taken Angela."

Something pressed into his back and for the first time William noticed he was surrounded, completely and utterly.

"We'll ask the questions here, you worthless sack of meat."

William suddenly felt very out of his depth, he knew that if he gave one utterance of a word that wasn't an answer these suit-wearing lunatics wanted he'd be a dead man. Dead before he even had time to realize he was dead, though he began to wonder why they hadn't just killed him already.

"Where is the Shadow?" they asked of him.

"The what?"

"Answer the question!"

"I don't understa-"

"Playing stupid will not save you. We know he was with you. Where is the shadow?"

"On... the ground?" William replied.

"I bet you think you're funny," one of the suited men said, leaning close so speak right into Williams face. "But you're not, funny is dead. Now tell us where the shadow is."

"I really don't kn-"

"ENOUGH!" roared another of the suited men. "That is enough of your lies. He came through the portal with you, our scouts reported he was still with you until planet-rise two days ago. _Where_ is he?"

Something suddenly clicked in Williams head, "Do you mean Jacob?"

"Jacob?" The apparent leader of the group turned to one of the briefcase carrying suited men who nodded slightly. "Yes... Jacob. Where is the one you call Jacob?"

"I shot him. He's dead."

" _You_ shot _him_ and he's dead?"

"Yes! I shot him and he is dead!"

"Where is the body?"

"There isn't a body... he kinda turned to smoke or something and vanished."

"So, you continue to lie to us? What do you think you are going to achieve?"

"I'm not lying! I shot him and he's dead!"

"Lies! Where is the Shadow? Tell us and we may spare you, perhaps. Only if fortune smiles upon you though and you stop telling such lies!"

"I'm telling you the truth!"

There was a slight paused before one of the suitcase carrying suited men approached him and before William could react the man had his hands-on Williams temples. William felt the strangest sensation he had ever felt, it was as if his mind was suddenly out of his control. He saw flashes of his past racing through his mind's eye, until finally they slowed and repeated over and over his killing of Jacob. At last the suited man stepped away.

"He believes it," he said to the others, "the idiot believes it." The group of suited men began to laugh as one. "I think we shall give him to the Leech, it likes company."

Something about the way the suited men spoke alerted William to a sudden danger. "What's a Leech?"

"Something that likes to talk to its food," the briefcase carrying suited man said with a laugh and before William could react there was a sharp cracking sound and the world went black.

Slowly waking, William first became aware of a shooting pain on the back of his head and secondly became aware that he was inside some sort of room that was so brightly lit that when he opened his eyes he could practically see through his own skin, he could make out the bones in his hands, in his legs! His stomach reeled at the realization and he fought hard to keep down the little that was left in there.

"Hello?" he called. "Is anybody else here?"

He thought he could hear sobs from somewhere around him, but the light was so bright it hurt to uncover his eyes for anywhere long enough to locate the source of the sound. Screwing his eyes shut he followed his ears until at last, peering carefully through his hands that he had cupped around one eye he found the source of the noise. A fire-engine red-headed woman, quite a number of years older than himself, sat in a heap against the wall, holding her head in her hands and slowly rocking her body back and forth, her skin looked stretched over her skeleton; she was so thin it was painful to look at, as if she hadn't been fed in years.

Approaching her slowly, so as not to startle her he noticed cables and what appeared to be hoses coming from her back, arms and head. Made of some sort of polished metal they were hardly visible in the bright light but, whenever she moved, he saw them briefly. "Hello?" he asked, his voice low.

"Get away!" the woman screamed at him. "Get away!" Then as if talking to someone else she continued. "I won't do it! You can't make me do it! Why, why are you so cruel?"

William hung back slightly, unsure of his next course of action, while the woman continued to talk, this time seemingly too herself.

"They bring them here so I can see them before I kill them, I don't want to kill them, I can't control myself, they control me. I don't want to kill them, don't make me kill them." The woman looked up and William saw her startlingly bright green eyes focus on him. "You have to run; you have to escape. They will make me kill you soon. I don't want to kill you, but they will make me."

William suddenly realized that the most dangerous thing in this strangely bright room was this woman, who either appeared to not be in control of herself or completely insane. "They?" he asked.

The woman pointed upwards, "They are up there. Watching, watching, always watching."

William looked up and far, far in the heights above him he could see them. A small group of suited men leaned over a railing, looking down at him and the woman and he suddenly knew that this was a sort of sport to them. A 'let-us-see-how-long-this-person-survives' sort of sport where the only outcome was certain death.

"Oh Jacob," William muttered. "I think killing you was a mistake."

"Jacob?" the woman asked, suddenly more alert and calmer than William had so far seen her. She scrambled up, using the wall as leverage and stood before him. "Jacob?" she asked again. "Do you know him? Is he coming?"

William hesitated, before realizing this woman would never stop asking him these questions, even as she killed him, she would be asking, something in the expression she wore told him so. With a sigh he spoke, "I did. But he died."

"Jacob? Is he coming?" The woman asked before looking puzzled, "How did he die?"

William paused again thinking he could lie, but somehow knowing that even in her crazed state the woman would see right through him if he tried. "I shot him."

"Is he coming? No, he is dead! What did you shoot him with?"

"A gun," William said with a sigh, reaching around to his back but finding no gun there. "I don't know what sort. The robots said it was an energy-weapon."

"Is he coming? Jacob? Shot him with a gun. Bang! Robots said it was an energy weapon. He _is_ coming."

William looked at the woman strangely, musing over her change of phrase. Until now she had asked repeatedly 'Is he coming?' but she now stated 'He is coming' instead. William wondered what she knew that he didn't, even if she was a complete lunatic.

"He is coming," she repeated and a grin transformed her face, wiping away the years, and removing the deathly sunken look, her bright green eyes shone and for the briefest of moments the woman looked like the woman she used to be, before being driven insane and imprisoned. "Soon he will arrive and then we'll see him, oh yes. Then we'll see him!" She began to laugh manically and slowly slid down the wall, back into a heap of a person - though the sobbing was gone now, replaced by gentle giggles of laughter.

William backed away slowly, something in that grin, something in that laughter, was sheer insanity, there was something else in it that made him afraid. And then there was what she was saying, implying that Jacob would be back from the dead. And soon.

## Chapter 5

"I've figured it out," Jakes voice echoed in Tabitha's mind.

"You have?" she replied, sending her thoughts to him as he had to her.

"There's no time to explain! You're going to have to step into one of the spheres."

"Jake?" Tabitha asked aloud.

"Just do it!" Jake yelled at her, dodging the sphere that was chasing him and running towards her. "I _will_ find you!"

The suited men broke into laughter, "Find her, _find her?_ Where you're going you won't even remember her!"

Tabitha watched Jake approach; he ran right towards her with the sphere that hunted him following close behind.

"Find me Jake," Tabitha thought at him.

"I will, like I always have... but this time, this time, you will need to remember me, you will need to help me, you will have to find me," he replied as she stepped backwards, into the path of the sphere.

'I have to find him, make him remember me,' Tabitha thought as her head suddenly reeled, causing her to stagger forward her next few steps. "That was weird," she said, looking back to see what she had tripped on but saw nothing.

"Hurry up," one of her friends called, "we'll be late if you keep dawdling."

Blowing the ever-annoying strand of hair from her face she ran a couple of steps to catch up with the group, "Sorry," she said, "dizzy all of a sudden."

"It'll just be nerves."

"I'm sure it is," Tabitha agreed as the group entered the study hall, where they would sit the final exams before choosing their career paths within their government's science division. Tabitha had been weighing up between planetary exploration and station-based research, but hadn't yet settled on which was her preferred option, she hoped today's exam might present her with an answer.

Four hours later Tabitha emerged from the exam, her head ached from the telepathic link device which had been connected to her to track her thoughts, conscious and unconscious, to the questions presented. At the end of the four hours the machine had told her that she had passed her examinations and to please proceed to the allocation lounge for graduation proceedings and allocation.

"Tabitha! Wait up!" a voice called behind her.

Tabitha turned and smiled at her friend, "You passed as well then?"

"Of course, I did," Violet replied, "Not as quickly or as easily as you I'll bet. Made up your mind yet?"

"No. I sort of wish only one of the branches had wanted me to be honest."

Jen laughed, "No you don't, you're the _first ever_ person to be offered a position in _every_ science branch."

"Yeah, well good at everything, excellent at nothing."

"Come off it, you're excellent at _everything!_ Even piloting, I've seen you."

Tabitha laughed, "Yeah, I can just see that. 'Captain Tabitha Rose' of the thirty-first fleet. Not my thing, they'd probably deploy me to a damned military engagement anyway."

"Tabitha!"

"What?"

"You know you're not meant to speak out against actions of the government when you are _part_ of it."

"What does it matter? They already know _exactly_ how I feel on the matter, them and their machines. My parents told me that their parents used to just take written exams! Can you imagine that? None of this poking and prying into every part of your mind." As she spoke a feeling grew over her that this wasn't right. She could have been sure the war had been over when she had been this young, it had finished generations before she had been born. But that in itself was a strange thought; what did she mean by 'when she had been this young'? Her head reeled again and the confusing thoughts vanished as if they'd never existed.

"Sounds very inefficient if you ask me, imagine how long it would take you to write it all down!"

Tabitha sighed, while her friends meant the world to her she was, and always had been, a little different to them. 'Old fashioned' they, and everyone else, described her as. "Doesn't matter now anyway," she said.

"Too true," Violet replied then flashed her a smile. "You should come on planetary and outpost monitoring duty with me. Just think, we'd be eight light-years out from here, as far away as you can get!"

Tabitha had been seriously contemplating monitoring duty, something about being as far away from her home appealed to her, getting away from all of its ridiculous procedures and policies - though she thought she'd probably end up lumped in the trading wing of the station, as her records indicated she was an 'independent thinker', which was a polite way of saying 'doesn't follow rules'. Be that as it may, her considerable talents had her being head hunted by every branch of the science division, so maybe being an 'independent thinker' was some of the appeal. "I might just do that," Tabitha replied as the pair entered the allocation lounge.

After what seemed like an eternity of sitting around while the graduation took place, Tabitha at last found herself at the head of the queue at the allocation desks, still uncertain as to what path to take.

"Next," called an allocator.

Tabitha stepped forward.

"Serial Number."

"Twenty-four dash seventy-six dash thirty-seven."

"Ah. You're the one, they told me to keep an eye out for you."

"Sorry?"

"The one everybody wants. What've you chosen? What is your decision?"

Tabitha went to say Monitoring but before she could she heard herself saying "Planetary Exploration and Research."

"A good choice, mind you there aren't any bad ones! I had heard they were very keen to have you in Monitoring, need that brain power of yours to process data I suppose. But there is nothing better than setting foot on an alien world, a good choice, yes, a good choice." The allocator punched a few keys on the glass keypad and handed Tabitha badge. "Proceed to gate sixty-seven, you're reporting to the C.O. Jacob Franks."

"Jacob," she whispered and felt as if that name meant something to her, but she couldn't quite place why that should be, or _who_ it would be.

As she proceeded to gate sixty-seven, she couldn't help but think she should have chosen monitoring, the allocator had said they were keen to have her. Just as she decided to go back and change to monitoring, she arrived at the gate where the Chief Officer, Jacob Franks, stood waiting. He was a short, bordering on average, man in height but he more than made up for it in girth. Tabitha wondered, briefly, how he managed to find enough energy to transport all that mass around before her thoughts were interrupted by a nasal sounding voice.

"So, you've joined the Planetary Exploration branch," Jacob Franks said. "It's going to be interesting, believe you me. We'll just wait around here for the others; I've been told I'm getting twenty today. Twenty! Nowhere near enough, I need at least a hundred but you know what it's like, too busy fighting wars and other carry on to worry about science," he shook his head and sighed.

Tabitha found herself suddenly liking this man, it seemed he shared at least her views on war and she decided to test the waters a little. "Tell me about it. They _really_ wanted me in piloting, told me I'd have my own ship for 'exploratory' purposes in six months amongst almost every other thing they could think of to offer. But I am inclined to think that 'exploration' would be more akin to 'exploring' what it means to destroy a Shadow World."

"Oh, I agree. I heard rumour though, and it's a good one this one, that the Shadow-Army is in trouble, some sort of internal thing. Seems there is some new guy, coming up in the ranks, that likes to stir the pot a bit."

"Oh?" Tabitha inquired.

"Yeah, he was getting quite a following so they have packed him and a couple of his main cohorts off and sent them far, far, out of their system, well beyond their known occupied space. Spoke a lot of sense actually."

"What did he say?"

"Can't quote him exactly, but it was along the lines of 'Without light there is no shadow, without shadow there is no light' - which from a scientific point of view is bang on correct."

"So, what you're saying is, the Shadow-Army have a... peace maker in their ranks?"

"No idea if you'd call it that, but apparently they think so, enough to ship him off and away from the bulk of their fleet anyway. Ah, here's the rest of them. A rag tag bunch, as always. You're going to enjoy the work here girl, but I don't think you'll enjoy the company. We always end up with the lot that can just about figure out which end of a shovel goes into the ground for themselves, because apparently _all_ planetary research is just _digging_. Never mind that someone has to then analyse the samples, record them, compare them and all the rest. Oh no, all we do here is dig! Personally, I'm surprised they let you choose to come here and didn't force you somewhere else."

Tabitha was a little taken aback by the Chief Officers little rant, but on turning to see the approaching group he kind of saw where he was coming from. And to top it off there, at the back of the group, was Kris, 'with a K' as he always said, in an ill fitted suit of grey with unpolished shoes and unkempt hair. "Hello my dear, sweet, Tabitha Rose," he said with a flourish, "how fortunate our paths should cross once more." He made to reach for her hand but she snapped it away before he could get hold of it. "Ah, still a little shy, still a little shy," he muttered and moved slowly away, his eyes running her up and down while he smirked caused Tabitha to shudder. "Need my jacket," he asked.

Tabitha blew a strand of hair from her face and turned to enter the, now opening, gateway, not wanting to give the creep a response. Along with being a bit of a creep, whenever Tabitha saw him, she was half reminded of something else, but she was never able to stick her finger on what exactly. Whatever it was, she knew enough to know it wasn't pleasant in the slightest.

She stepped quickly though the opening doors and walked alongside C.O. Franks who seemed to be warming to her as fast as she was warming to him.

"It's not like they are entirely stupid," he said, "I mean, they are all incredibly bright to have ended up in the sciences anyway, but compared to everyone else who comes through the academy and goes off to this, that and the other they are the bottom of the heap."

"Not to mention creepy," Tabitha muttered.

"Ah well, we do our best with what we've got. I think though you should be prepared to be doing a lot of work, a lot of the time."

"Just no spade-work huh?"

The C.O. laughed, "No we'll let _them_ do the digging. There's a few great guys and a couple of great girls on the team you'll like – though nobody as bright as you of course."

"Can we keep that between us do you think? Even amongst my friends I'm treated differently because of it."

"Really?", he gave her an oddly sympathetic look. "Well, fair enough."

"Thanks."

Tabitha took a seat in the ship waiting at the end of the gate, and to her disgust Kris took up the one directly opposite her, so he could sit and watch her, his eyes greedy and a strange look upon his face. "I just remembered something about you," he said, before miming zipping his lips shut.

The ship shook gently as it lifted up and away from the gate and headed for the ship waiting, undoubtedly, in orbit just above the corona of the star they were departing. Tabitha listened to the excited chatter amongst her new co-workers, for many of them this was their first ever trip off the surface of their birth star and Tabitha shut her eyes, remembering the first time she had experienced that very moment. She laughed quietly to herself as many of the others screamed as the ship past through the last of the corona, causing it to bounce and jerk as if being sucked back into the star itself.

Across from her she glanced at Kris to see he still wore that same strange look on his face, Tabitha shuddered and was glad when a voice announced over the intercom system that they would be docking with the _Helios Three_ in less than two minutes.

Once the docking procedure had taken place the new crew of _Helios Three_ departed their transport shuttle and, following a guide, made their way towards their quarters. Tabitha was about to follow them when C.O. Franks approached her. "I like you, and you're more than qualified for any position on this crate." Tabitha said nothing, waiting to see where the C.O. was heading. "I think we'll put you in the officer's quarters -"

"Oh, you really don't -"

"I know I don't, but you'll fit in better there. And be away from certain... individuals."

Something told Tabitha that her exchanges with the suit wearing creep had been noted. "Thank-you Sir," Tabitha said, falling into her training.

"Pfft," the C.O. said, "call me Franks, everyone else here does. I can't have my officers worrying about 'yes sir', 'no sir' all day long - at the end of the day I'm just a scientist like the rest of us here; just I've been doing it so long they gave me a command position. Ridiculous really, must be someone more qualified – like you even, I've seen all your results," he laughed.

Tabitha thanked him again as he gave directions to her quarters and headed off along the corridor to find where she would be bunking. She was some way along it before she realized something the C.O. had said, he'd said 'I can't have my officers worrying' and Tabitha came to the surprising conclusion that within seconds of boarding the ship she'd been promoted several stations above what she'd been when she boarded the shuttle and was now an officer.

She arrived, at last, at the door that carried her name in the little electronic sign beside it and tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge.

After a few seconds of pounding on it, leaning on it, walking up to it and several other tricks that usually triggered doors to open Tabitha gave up and looked around just in time to see a woman with long green hair approaching her.

"You must be Tabitha Rose," she said.

"Yes," Tabitha replied tentatively.

"Franks forgot to give you this," and she handed Tabitha a small plastic card. "Hold it up to the electronic display there and it'll let you in."

"Thanks!" Tabitha said, doing as instructed and watching the door slide instantly upwards and open.

"I'm Briambrose, but everyone here calls me Bri or Rose as it's a lot shorter and easier to say in a rush."

Tabitha laughed, liking this woman already. "I know that feeling, I generally go by Tabitha. Never anything shorter though, don't really want to get into that right now though."

"Fair enough, I saw on your file something about the slave traders, don't worry, you're not the only one here with a bit of experience in that particular field," and Bri indicated to herself. "Thirteen years."

"Hell," Tabitha replied, "I was only seven myself and that was bad enough!"

"Just how it goes I suppose. Anyway, once you've dropped your stuff off here, I'm meant to escort you up to the bridge. Franks wants to introduce you to the other officers."

"I feel a bit..."

"Don't worry. Franks has a habit of picking his favourites and bumping them up to officers immediately. I don't think any of the officers on this ship actually worked their way up from the bottom. I didn't even get a foot onto the shuttle to come up here before he was calling me an officer and introducing me to everyone else in the same intake as such. Be lucky you at least made it up here before having to endure all your former classmates looking at you like you've somehow betrayed them."

"That doesn't sound much fun," Tabitha murmured.

"Not really, but you soon find that Franks is never wrong about people. If he's made you an officer it's because he knows you'll do better amongst the officers than amongst the 'diggers' as they're usually referred to. Anyway, we best get to the bridge so we can get under way - Franks is waiting on us." Bri smiled knowingly and Tabitha felt a little wary as to what was waiting for her on the bridge.

Following along beside Bri, Tabitha soon found herself on the bridge. The officers' quarters all seemed to surround it, probably to allow them quick access to it in times of emergency - though what situation constituting an emergency requiring its full complement of officers a science vessel could really come into Tabitha didn't know.

Emerging through the bridge doors Franks immediately spotted Tabitha and motioned her over to a vacant seat in front of the main view-screen, through which Tabitha could see hundreds of other ships carefully navigating around one another as they departed orbit and headed for their various destinations. A fleet of what she estimated was easily a hundred ships stuck together in close formation, "Military," she muttered.

"So, Tabitha, I heard they wanted you to be a pilot," Franks said motioning towards the tight-knit formation of ships. "How about you show them what they missed out on?" Tabitha looked up and Franks smiled at her, "Just get us out of the system and then the computer will take over on the predetermined course."

"Um, surely there is someone more qualified -"

"Oh, I'm sure there is. But it's a little tradition of mine to have every new officer pilot the ship out of the system when they join the crew. You never know, we are at war you know - one day you might _have_ to pilot it."

Around the bridge Tabitha heard murmurs of agreement and support and a few other mutters about the war and its pointlessness. Smiling, Tabitha at last felt as if she belonged somewhere as she reached for the console in front of her seat and pressed a few buttons, causing a pair of joysticks to pop-up out of the panel.

"Complete manual control? An interesting approach," Franks said settling into his own seat. "All hands," he began and Tabitha heard his voice over the ships internal speaker system, "prepare for departure. Helm, take us out."

Tabitha gripped the pair of joysticks, and as if she had been doing it all her life, slowly turned the ship and engaged its low-power engine system as smaller craft positioned to move around and away from her and she moved her own ship to move around the larger ones still waiting to depart. Smiling, she forgot her earlier moments of doubt as to if this was the right decision, forgot the strange feeling she got when she saw Kris, forgot that it seemed as if their shouldn't be war and forgot tripping in the corridor and thinking 'I have to find him, make him remember me.'

## Chapter 6

Jacob watched silently as Angela stepped backwards into the sphere that had pursued her, watched as both she and it slowly disappeared.

"So, my good fellows," Jacob said turning back the suited men. "What's the plan now?"

"To kill you. We always have a back-up plan and now with your friends gone, with nobody to make powerful than you ought to be, you'll be easy to get rid of."

"You don't scare me though; I can see what all of this is."

"You have no idea what is going on."

"Oh, I know _exactly_ what's going on." Jacob said, leaning close and straightening the man's suit. "You've stuffed around with something, one can only guess at what, and discovered you can create miniature universes, each fully contained inside its own little bubble. However, like all things created by you, they are just a mockery of the universe, echoes... a virtual reality." The men stood silent, glaring at Jacob, their amused expressions gone. "I gather by your silence that I'm right. But then, when am I _not_? You, gentlemen, have become very predictable and I... well, why be bashful? It's only us lads here after all. Now me, I am a genius, or at least a genius at figuring out whatever plan you have so cleverly come up with anyway."

"You have no idea what is going on."

"Resorting to stuck recordisms are you? A straight out and out copy of this universe would be too easy though wouldn't it? There'll be some catch..." Jacob spun on his heel and walked to the bridge windows, looking out at the tear through the reality of time and the universe and wondering how it related to the spheres. He presumed they had to tear a hole in the fabric of reality in order to create the copy universes, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out how that was done, or how it would work. "What was it you said? 'What if none of this happened? What if you chose left instead of right?' Yes, yes that was it..." he fell silent for a moment. "Ah, but that's it isn't it? Yes, that is most certainly it." Jacob turned back to face the suited men grinning, "You have sent everyone back in time, inside their own virtual universe to a decision they made and you have made them all pick the other option. But why would you do that? It wouldn't change this universe in the slightest... Oh! Unless the change lead to each of us being killed in each of the mock-universes, killed by our own decisions, then you win, don't you? Yes, I see it now. You can't win, can't defeat us, so you will have us defeat ourselves. One wrong decision at a time. Until we're each on our own. And then, yes, then you will strike. Or that realities version of you will strike."

One of the suited men smiled, a cold and heartless baring of pristine teeth. "Maybe you have figured it out, but we're not worried. You won't remember anyway." Jacob saw the suited man's glance shift off him to the space behind him and spun around to find a new sphere looming behind him. "You see, it's all over for you. Or is it all just beginning?"

"A new beginning? A chance to start over? To do it all again? You just watch me!" Jacob said, his voice low, while in his head he thought, 'This universe isn't real, it's not the real universe.'

Repeatedly he thought it as the sphere approached and one of the suited men pushed him into it.

"Whose fault is this!" the grey suited leader demanded of the team that had led the ambush on Jacob, Tabitha and the others.

"Well... it's nobody's fault. He figured it out!"

"One of you will pay for this mistake, mark my words. You had one _simple_ instruction. Capture the others, _do not_ capture the energy-being. How the hell can you have got it so wrong."

"It wasn't our fault it was him!"

"Yes, it was him, he -"

"SILENCE!" The suited man roared, "I will have _silence!_ " He turned to face the four spheres that hung in the air behind him, reflecting, distortedly, their surroundings. "It would seem, thanks to your incompetence that we shall just have to send someone to each of these realities to find her, to find what we're looking for. You three shall definitely be going."

"But we won't remember why..."

"Well that's not my problem is it? You can only hope that when you see her you damn well remember why you're there. Maybe there'll be others of our kind already in those realities, but we cannot know that from out here. But if, _if_ , we do exist in there, in whatever reality now exists, you will have to team up with them, convince them to see the truth, make them understand the plan. It's the only logical course of action."

"What do you mean we may not be there? We've sent them all to the past."

"Yes. We did. And who knows what changes, what repercussions having each of them change one little decision will have on our own fate in each of these artificial worlds. It could be they have been sent to a time before they knew we existed, which could make that universe not contain a version of ourselves. And, let us not forget our history; legend says that the energy being and her idiotic protector existed _before_ us."

"Impossible," one of the suited men proclaimed.

"Unlikely," said another.

The third spoke, seeming to accept the idea of a universe before them. "Surely you will send more than one of us to each universe? You'll have to send someone else anyway, there are more new realities than there are of us."

"Yes. I have considered that; I think I can afford to lose four hundred of you to each reality if need be. The ship will still have over three-quarters of a full complement." The suited man turned to the duty officer, "Get me sixteen-hundred men for an away mission," he ordered. "I want them here in five minutes."

Three minutes later the leader of the suited men stood before a vast host of his inferiors. "Due to... unexpected circumstances you will all be travelling to other worlds, other entire realities. You are to find the red-headed girl, the energy being, and to bring her back to me here. Chances are fairly high that you may _all_ encounter her. We have no way of telling where or when you may turn up, or of what has happened in each universe since it was spawned with the absorption of these idiots who defy us. You may not remember this meeting, so etch into your mind these words: _find the energy-being girl, bring her back_. Once you have found her, you will be able to harness her power to punch a hole in the virtual universe back to here, back to reality."

Before him the sixteen-hundred men stood silent.

"Go now. Go, find our future in their pasts!"

The men formed into lines and ran at the spheres that floated in the ships massive, converted, cargo-bay. The leader and the duty officer watched as they disappeared.

"Well that's that," the officer said. "Now what?"

"Now we wait for our long-deserved victory."

"And if they don't find the girl?"

"If they don't find her, we don't advance to the next stage, not yet anyway, we can always send more forces in if we need to. There is another option though, as it's a huge universe, I am sure that energy beings must exist elsewhere. We shall just have to find them, take them and make them our own. Then with all that power I will destroy these virtual worlds and _all_ that inhabit them. We will be supreme, the rulers, the Gods of all reality!"

"I look forward to that," the duty officer replied. "We could each have our own army of slaves to care to our every whim."

"And why stop with this reality? We would then have the power to seize the other dimensions, the parallel worlds. We could rule _all_ of the realities!"

"This is _not_ the real universe!" Jacob yelled, "Wait, what?" He dragged himself to his feet. He rubbed his aching temples and muttering. "Damn headache, wonder if I need a doctor..." He paused in thought for a moment. "There was something I was supposed to remember... something about the universe..."

"Woke you up too did it?" came a voice from above him.

"Sure did," Jacob replied. "Do you reckon we've entered the atmosphere?"

"Little else makes a bump like that," replied the voice as legs slowly swung over the edge of the bunk and a young man jumped down. "You'd think they'd give us some warning, wouldn't you?"

"It would be nice," Jacob replied. "I suppose since we're up we'd best go suit up. I don't even know why in all the hells we're out here."

"You remember the Admiral surely," Tom Seldrick deepened his voice. "We must set forth and find the reason for this destruction, understand what it wants and destroy it before it destroys us."

"That, as always, is an impressive imitation," Jacob said with a smile as he slipped into his environmental suit. "Still, doesn't explain anything though does it. We already know the reason; we _made_ the reason."

"Don't I know it. You know it and, hells, I bet the teeny tiny microbes on this damned crate they call a ship know it. But apparently that isn't enough."

"Apparently," Jacob paused as he slipped on his helmet. With a quiet hiss the suit pressurized. "Well I'm good to go."

Tom slipped his own helmet on and nodded in agreement and the pair left their bunkroom and headed for the armoury to pick up their weapons, before heading to the airlock to, once more, set foot on an alien world destroyed by the creations of their race.

"Gentlemen," the airlock officer said by way of greeting. "Scans report nothing alive within ten thousand units, so nothing new there. Atmosphere is breathable for short periods if you want to ditch the helmets for a bit, there's fair bit of ash content but you'll be right for about fifteen minutes at a time every couple of hours."

"Wonderful," Tom replied, "always nicer to breath the fresh air of a planet than the cleansed and re-circulated air of this flying box, even if it is full of ask. I don't care how well it's filtered on this thing; it still smells."

"Tell me about it," the air lock officer replied. "Well, best of luck." He hit a button on the console at his station and the first air lock door slid open admitting Jacob and Tom into the lock chamber. The door slid shut behind them and a light flashed green before the doors in front of them slid open, revealing exactly what Jacob had been expecting, a vast expanse of fine dust. Mountains of dust reared in the distance, behind their accompanying hills that stood at the far edge of the vast plain that they found themselves standing upon.

Jacob raised his hand in a wave as he left the ship and heard the doors clang shut once more behind him. "I wish they would just use the ships scanners for this you know, nothing we are going see here will conflict with them, it never has before."

Tom once more deepened his voice, "It is vital, _vital_ , that all inspections be carried out by qualified persons as well as by the ship computers."

Jacob laughed, "Never tell us plebs why though do they? Nope. We just get the job of walking around for days upon days in fields of dust beneath skies of ash. "

"Poetic," Tom said with a sigh. "Normally I'd have you on for waxing sentimental like that... but," he waved his arms around, "fields of dust and skies of ash."

"Come on then, best get started so we can get finished." Jacob pressed a button on his environment suits arm before speaking again. "Mission fifty-seven sixty-six. Galaxy Fral. Sector Fifty-Seven dash A. Captains five-oh-seven and five-oh-eight of the hundred and first reporting. Mission start," Jacob glanced at his environment suits sleeve, "ship time triple-oh-fourteen." Pressing the button on the sleeve again he nodded to Tom and the pair set out across the plain, away from the ship, careful to check their instrument readings to ensure they took a straight course from the ship in order to find their way back.

"Another uneventful day," Tom said some hours later. "No sign of any life, but that's completely expected... hang on." He threw an arm out that caught Jacob in the stomach.

"What?" asked Jacob, pulled suddenly from thoughts of his aching head and a bizarre feeling that he had lived this all before.

"There, about twenty degrees from straight ahead. You see it?"

Jacob looked where Tom was indicating, "Yeah I see it." Something was reflecting light off its surface, something fairly solid as the shine was far too steady to be anything that was moving.

"Things might be looking up for us old chap," Tom said. "Imagine if we actually _found_ something. Standard approach?"

"Standard approach," Jacob agreed and continued to walk along the dead straight line from where their ship had landed.

After some time, Tom and Jacob at last reached an angle that was exactly ninety degrees to object that was reflecting light in the distance. Marking their position in their log they set out, once more in a dead straight line, towards whatever it was that was reflecting the glow of the planets sun.

At long last the pair arrived at the shining object, they had been watching it grow on the horizon for the past four hours, but now, at last, in all of its triangular glory, it stood before them. As they had approached the object had slowly revealed itself to be a moderately sized landing craft, around half the size of their own.

"Someone else is definitely here, or has definitely _been_ here," Jacob noted both to Tom and to his log.

"Looks like a two-fifty- to three hundred-man to me, though it could be as much as five-hundred depending on the exact configuration." Tom replied.

"I suppose we should check it out properly, I'll just radio command," Jacob replied.

"Do you want me to go in first? Have a quick look?"

'Why Not?' Jacob heard himself saying in his mind but out loud he said, "No, we had better go by the book I suppose. Even though we know nothing is out here." He hit the button on his environment suits arm that gave him direct communication with his own ship, "Yeah, this is Exploratory Team One, we have ourselves a situation here."

"Go ahead Team One."

"We've located a landing craft, looks to be about a three-hundred man, minimum."

"Copy that, do you require assistance?"

Jacob weighed his options for a moment, "Negative Command, no sign of anything alive out here. Vessel air-locks are all open and the environment scan on landing revealed nothing, our suits haven't registered anything out of the ordinary either."

"We copy Team One, keep us advised. Command out."

For a moment when Jacob said no to the offer of assistance, he thought he could hear himself saying the opposite, saying yes and for command to 'send everything, _everything_ , it had. It was here! Shielded somehow from the scan and seemingly lying in wait!' He shook his head to dislodge the strange thought and motioned for Tom to lead the pair into the abandoned craft.

Dust had blown its way inside and coated every surface in a thick layer, which had its advantages. For instance, they could easily see where they had walked and that no others had walked anywhere, they could see in a very at any rate, for a very long time.

"It seems to me," Tom half whispered, "that this ship is as dead as the people that brought it here. Split up you reckon?"

"Yeah, probably best. Radio if you find the bridge and I'll do likewise. See if we can't find the ships logs or something."

"Sounds good to me," Tom said, turning and disappearing down the left-hand corridor.

"Right then, right it is," Jacob said to himself and headed along the corridor that slowly curved to the left so as to follow the line of the ship. As he followed the corridor around, he had the strange feeling that he'd walked these corridors before, but it was more than that. It felt as if he knew every detail, every screw in every panel, every uneven bit of floor. He even found himself instinctively ducking for overhead piping that he hadn't even been aware of until he ducked under it. "Something _very_ strange is going on here," he muttered.

Suddenly his radio crackled in his ear, "Jacob! I've found -" the radio crackled loudly and Jacob thought he could hear shots before falling silent.

"Tom?" The radio remained silent. "Tom? Are you there?" More silence greeted Jacob's query, "I'm on my way to you. Don't move!"

Jacob turned and ran back down the corridor the way he had come, until he came to the airlock the pair had entered the craft through. He slowed to a jog and followed the footprints in the dust along where Tom had walked, eventually they disappeared into a closed door. Jacob struggled with it for a while, but could not force it open. "If the ship has no power, how did this door shut?" he asked nobody in particular. He looked around the door and spotted a small panel to its lower right, almost at floor level. Immediately he knew this was the manual release. He kicked the panel out and saw the manual release handle and grabbed it, intending to pull it hard to open the door suddenly and fast. Instead he paused for a moment, and pressed a button on his environmental suits arm. "Command?"

The radio crackled.

"Exploratory Team One to Command, do you copy? Over."

A sound like wind blowing replied him, though he thought he could hear voices in it he couldn't make out what they said, or if they were even speaking his language.

"E.T. One to Command. Do you copy? Over!" he yelled.

The hissing, wind-like noise ceased and the familiar radio crackle returned. Frowning Jacob tapped his fingers against his thumbs and then nodding slightly reached for and pulled the manual release lever.

With the loud hiss of air, a dust cloud was kicked up by the opening doors and Jacob quickly stepped through them, not knowing what was waiting on the other side. Stumbling he looked down and saw he had tripped on Tom's helmet, he picked it up and looked at it momentarily before dropping it back to the ground. "Tom?" he called, "Where are you?" Something further in the near pitch-black room moved, catching Jacobs eye. "Tom?"

Light suddenly flared from the ceiling, momentarily blinding Jacob as he turned his head to shield his eyes from it. An oily voice spoke to him, "I'm afraid Tom's not here anymore," it said.

Jacobs eyes adjusted and he looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.

From behind him it came again, "No, Tom's not here. And you won't be for much longer either."

Jacob managed to half turn before he felt something wrap around his neck, pulling him backwards and upwards, choking him even through the environmental suits thick padding. Jacob clutched and his neck and throat, trying to pull whatever had grabbed him away, trying to free himself. He threw his arms behind him trying to grab whoever was there but grabbed nothing but air at last he deemed the situation desperate enough that he should change form, change to shadow to protect himself. The rules from Command prohibited any of the crew from revealing they were of the race commonly known as 'Shadow People' at any time - excepting times of extreme emergency or crisis. Jacob decided imminent death was a crisis and with a moment's thought changed himself to shadow and freed himself from his attacker. Traversing the room in the blink of an eye Jacob reformed himself and looked across to here he had been, but saw nobody.

## Chapter 7

Almost two months had passed since Jacob had died and Angela noted that Tabitha had locked out all the controls after setting the course for the Quelt System. Tabitha herself was rarely seen on the bridge and Angela often spied her aimlessly walking the corridors of the ship or, on the odd occasion, sitting on the bed in Jakes quarters, her head in her hands - not crying, or sobbing, but staring at the wall as if she might burn holes through it with her gaze. Once that gaze had flicked to Angela and she had reeled backwards away from it for what she saw there filled her with despair, they were terribly old eyes filled with nothing but the wish of a quick death. All the life and spark, love and laughter, had vanished from Tabitha the moment Jake ceased to exist and, in that moment, when her eyes had locked with hers, Angela had known that the Tabitha of old was gone, lost with Jake and never to be found again.

Sitting alongside Will, in their own quarters, Angela worried to him about Tabitha's mental state. "She isn't herself, not even a little."

"She'll come right."

"No... you know how I told you sometimes you would catch her or Jake just staring, and if you caught that stare you saw the whole history of the universe?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"It was like that, but I used to see the good things, but now... it's all the death, all the destruction, the torment and torture."

William made to answer but the ship suddenly rocked hard to one side and alarms started blaring. Angela leapt to her feet and ran from the room, heading for the bridge, hearing William's footfalls just behind her.

Emerging onto the bridge Angela found Tabitha already there, sitting in her usual seat and working the controls to try and stabilize the ship. "We've been fired upon!" She yelped, "In Fruig-Space no less, we're losing structural integrity. I'm shutting down the Fruig Drive."

Angela slipped into her own seat and punched the controls, "Inertial fields offline. Weapons systems standing by. Force-fields coming online now. Fruig Drive containment field activating." As she spoke, she thought she had said these _exact_ same words once before, but in the heat of the moment couldn't remember when.

The ship rocked violently once again. "Hull breaches on C and D decks. Pressurization doors are closing now." Will announced.

"Return fire," Tabitha ordered, turning the ship as best she could to face the attackers. "Prepare for ramming speed."

Will and Angela exchanged glances. "Um, Tabitha?" Angela half whispered.

Tabitha didn't acknowledge her at all.

"Damn it, Tabitha! Turn around and _face me_!" Angela yelled, while feeling a growing anticipation she couldn't quite place, something was about to happen, something good, she knew it. She glanced across the bridge to a screen at Williams station and saw a normal wireframe cube slowly rotating. "Now, Tabitha!" She yelled again and slowly Tabitha turned in her chair to face her.

Another alarm suddenly sounded, "They're onboard!" Will yelled.

Before anyone could react, the bridge doors slid open and three suited men appeared. "You will surrender to us!" the Murray nearest Tabitha in her seat ordered. "Or we will kill you all, slowly and so very painfully."

"Lived too long," Angela heard Tabitha mutter.

"You have no protector to save you now and now, oh yes, _now_ , you belong to us, you are _ours_ to do with as we please. So, what, in the words of your protector, do you choose? Will you surrender or will you _die_?"

A strange look flashed across Tabitha's face and she threw something towards William, which he caught more out of instinct than anything else. He looked at it, slowly turning it in his hand.

"To E-deck, _now!_ " Tabitha yelled, vanishing in a flash of light. Angela grabbed Williams hand and the air emerged on the Engineering Deck, only a handful of paces from Tabitha and only moments before the suited men appeared. Angela looked at Tabitha, tears were streaming down her face and her expression was manic. "I'm going to end this," she said, her voice oddly calm. "Angela, Will, I've been privileged to know you, it's been great. It really has, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart -"

"Shut up!" The Murrays, the suited men, ordered.

"- for the support you've tried to give me, but I can't stand it. I can't go on without him, I just _can't_. It feels as if my mind, my heart, my _soul_ itself has been ripped to pieces. Everywhere I go I see his ghost, hear his voice. I draw energy diagrams and see his face, as if he is watching me from another plane, another existence - I can't live with ghosts."

Angela suddenly knew what Tabitha was planning to do, she had noticed she was standing with one hand on one of the large anti-matter containment pods. "Tabitha. Tabitha Rose. You don't have to do this. Come with us, be free of this world."

"I can't do that; someone has to power it."

William held the object up that Tabitha had thrown him and began tugging at its edges.

"Please, Tabitha. _Please_."

Tabitha shook her head as the suited men moved to surround the trio, suddenly there seemed to be a lot more of them than before. "I can't. But I _can_ end this. Jake always feared it would come to this and now it seems it has, they can control matter and energy, nothing can stop them now."

Angela sighed realizing that no amount of argument would or _could_ change Tabitha's mind. She nodded at her friend, "It's been great Tabitha, it's been..." but she found she didn't have the words.

"I know," Tabitha replied, the briefest of smiles lighting her face for the scarcest of moments, bringing back that lost youth. "Now go!"

Grabbing Will as she rushed towards the trans-dimensional portal he had pulled open Angela looked back in time to see a peaceful expression come to Tabitha's face, a hard-edged smile graced it, a smile that was somehow unpleasant. As everything became too bright to bare looking at, she heard Tabitha speak, "Lived too long, _ty ulk kinpril Bygash-Ru_ " she said.

Will held her as they sat in the grass, the trans-dimensional portal had snapped shut and no amount of prying at it could make it stretch back out and open. "So," he said, "it's this world or nothing. What happened back there?"

Angela sat silently for a moment before speaking. "Jake figured it out. Ages and _ages_ ago. He discovered that as well as travelling _between_ universe, T.D.J.-ing, if things were just right you could, perhaps, collapse the universe in the moment of jumping."

"Collapse the universe? You mean he discovered how to destroy universes?"

"He wasn't ever certain, but yeah, pretty much."

"So, Tabitha... she destroyed the universe?"

"It was the only option left, those Murrays they would have killed everyone, everything and then spread between universes destroying as they went."

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Yeah, nobody ever really explained _why_ they want to destroy everything."

"Oh... I don't think anyone ever knew why exactly. No, not even Jake knew that. I always thought it was because they wanted to reshape the universe in their image, they always thought themselves to be perfect, but the universe wasn't perfect. So, they set out to make it perfect, which meant getting rid of a lot of things..."

"Crazy," Will murmured quietly. "Where do you think we are?"

For the first time Angela looked carefully around her. The sky was a pale blue, a single sun shone down on them. The grass was green, as were the trees. Birds were singing softly and when one took flight, she counted only a single pair of wings. "I think..." she said, "we're home."

"Home?"

"Earth. Oh Tabitha, how did you manage that?! We should have just come out randomly, some random planet in some random universe and yet..." She paused and took a deep breath, "Yes, yes this is certainly Earth!"

"You can tell? Just like that?"

Angela surprised herself by laughing, "Apparently!"

"I don't believe you."

"Well you should cause if you look over there, see? A mailbox. I even know exactly where we are."

"And where's that then?"

"Just up the road from my place! Come on!" She got to her feet and pulled William up, his expression still one of disbelief, "I know I'm right; you'll see!"

Running she headed towards the mailbox, then swung left and followed the road she came to. Ten minutes later she stood, panting, in front of a house as Will caught up to her.

"Well, what do you know," he half whispered, "it _is_ your house!"

Angela was about to reply when everything around her seemed to flicker slightly and her head reeled again. She staggered for a moment and Will grabbed her to support her.

"You okay?" he asked.

Angela wasn't certain what had just happened, it had felt like she was suddenly disconnected from reality, then reconnected. For a moment there had been nothing, no wind on her face or singing birds, no vision of her house nor smell of the grass. She shrugged, "I guess so, I think it was just a remnant of the T.D.J." Although, even as she spoke, she knew that wasn't right, this wasn't her first Trans-Dimensional Jump and so she knew this wasn't an after effect, nothing like that had ever happened before. Something was wrong, suddenly she felt like she was forgetting something someone had said, something vitally important. "Will? Do you feel like you're forgetting something?"

Will twisted his face in thought, "No... unless it's that we're both now... mortals again?"

"A normal life," Angela whispered and smiled. "A normal life! No wars, no living in fear, no _Murray!_ " she shouted. "A _normal_ life! Filled with normal things like... pets! Pets and friendly neighbours! And having to buy food and being able to walk in the grass whenever I want, no having to find a planet to land on!"

Will smiled at her, catching her enthusiasm.

Her expression fell as her eyes fell upon the tree that stood before her house, beneath it the many shadows from its leaves danced around flecks and patches of light that managed to filter through.

William surprised her, sticking his arm around her waist. "I know what you're thinking," he said.

"I don't think you do..."

"You're wondering if where-ever they are now, if they are anywhere, if they are together. If The Light and The Shadow are dancing together, like the sun through the leaves of that tree."

Angela half-laughed, "You know what, you _did_ know what I was thinking. Do you think maybe, just maybe, somewhere out there in whatever comes after life they are together?"

William paused, then slowly spoke. "I've seen so much in the last few months, that _nothing_ would surprise me. I've learnt a lot as well and one of the things I've learnt is that if there is the tiniest chance that something exists after life, those two will have found each other."

Comforted by Will's words and caught in her thoughts about Jake and Tabitha and her new normal life, on a normal planet, where she was as normal as every other person she encountered, she soon forgot all about that brief moment where this reality suddenly wasn't reality anymore, but a vast plain of nothing. "No more Murray," she whispered and grinned.

Six months after finding themselves suddenly back on Earth, Angela and Will were settling into their new life of normality. They had headed to Will's place, and found everything as it had been left - Jake's car was even still parked out front. They returned this to his house and left it there, hoping nobody would find it suspicious that Jake had now seemingly disappeared. Calendars told them that Will had been gone barely a day between when he left and when he returned and Angela reckoned that would be about right, as one day on Earth wasn't quite a year in Quatra - the _formally_ fourth oldest universe.

The pair had been forced to create a clever story to explain Angela's disappearance as, when they emerged, they found the Police were still looking for her - after all, they had still been on the hunt when Will had left this reality for another and it had only really been one more day. While the story, a group of Angela's friends had dressed up in grey suits and spirited her away overseas for an impromptu get-together, had seemed thin and vague on detail the Police bought it immediately and the case was dropped.

Will had moved in with Angela almost immediately as Will's argument for it had been convincing "What other man would hop across to another universe just to save you?" he had asked, but it hadn't mattered as Angela was merely winding him up by saying she wasn't ready for him to move in.

Angela liked having him around, especially at nights when the cold and the dark settled down upon their street and the noise of life was subdued. It was always then that memories of her past would wash over her, making sleep near impossible or sparking her awake in the middle of the night for hours on end. It was in these dark, quiet hours of the night that she felt watched, as if someone was sitting outside the window watching her. Or perhaps in the closet. Or under the bed. Or behind the curtain. Or in all of those places, like a child's bogeyman just waiting for her to drop her guard before it attacked. Always though, Will's gentle breathing calmed her and eventually she would fall away to sleep to once again face the nightmares of armies of suited men, strange creatures with either too few or too many limbs, eyes, ears or other appendages. Over and over the cycle would repeat, every night until the sun rose - then calmed by its light brightening all the dark places of both the room in which she slept and the rooms of her mind she would finally fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Naturally, Will awoke first and although he was as quiet as a mouse and tried not to disturb her, Angela would always be awoken by his stirring. Some days she managed to fall immediately back to sleep, but most days a return to sleep eluded her. "Sorry," he would whisper if he saw her lying awake, "how did you sleep?"

"The same," she replied, "I didn't. You were out to the world though."

"Don't I know it, try and catch some sleep while I'm away."

"You know I can't sleep in the day time," she half snapped at him. "I'm up now, so breakfast it is. Any preference?"

Will told her and she proceeded to the kitchen and prepared their breakfasts, the pair sat and ate talking quietly together like a long-married couple before William got up and departed for work.

"A kiss before I go?" he asked, his expression coy.

"Always!" Angela replied, kissing him gently. "Now, get out of here." She pushed him out the door and shut it behind him, sighing and rubbing her eyes. "So damned tired," she said to herself before beginning her rounds of the house, opening curtains and windows to let the warm summer air inside. Often when she performed this daily ritual she would, from the corner of her eye, catch some sort of subtle movement - like a group of people quickly darting for cover behind something. But, whenever she looked properly, there was nothing to be seen, just the soft movement of the plants and shrubs or maybe a cat, sitting quietly cleaning itself. On occasion she had ventured outside, still in her pyjamas, to investigate but found nothing to indicate anyone had been anywhere near where she thought she had seen movement - she soon wrote the strange perceptions of people off as an over-active mind running on far too little sleep.

"That was close," one of the suited men whispered to another. "I could have sworn she saw me, but I think she is in denial."

"Probably," another replied.

"I wonder why she hasn't realized this isn't reality yet?" the first asked.

"I'm not sure, I suspect it's because it's _her_ reality. Everything is just as she expects it to be, as it would be, so she doesn't suspect that everything _isn't_ what she expects it to be. Plus, I think by coming through as a group like we did there was always enough of us around to hear ourselves saying that this isn't reality. I think that because we each heard another say it wasn't reality, which corroborated with our own thoughts of it not being reality that we all managed to hold onto the fact this isn't real."

The first suited man mused, "Yes, I think that's exactly how it worked. It's quite a wonderful replica of a universe though isn't it. I had a report handed to me this morning that it's an _entire_ universe. Other stars, moons, planets, asteroids and species all seem to inhabit it."

"Amazing! I never knew a virtual reality could be so complex... I suppose, though, it's because it's based off her thoughts, her memories. She knew a lot about our universe and its sheer vastness and complexity that she has managed to create a vast and complex virtual world."

"A mind like that could help us tremendously," the first suited man said quietly. "We could imprison entire worlds inside a virtual universe created by her mind and they wouldn't even know they had been conquered."

"My thoughts exactly, I think we need a plan change." The suited man pulled a small hand held radio from his pocket. "Change of plan, we're going to capture not kill, repeat _capture_ not _kill_."

## Chapter 8

William backed away from the crazed, potentially dangerous, woman until his back hit the wall on the opposite side of the chamber. Despite the distance, William reckoned it to be a good two football field lengths, he could still hear her crazed laughter, the manic fits of giggling and the occasional whisper of "He is coming."

As William wondered what on earth to do to get himself out of the situation the world suddenly went black, he felt as if he was just a pair of floating eyeballs in a vast expanse of nothing before the world just as suddenly returned, it all its over-bright glory. William thought he must have blacked out for a moment, as nothing in the super bright room seemed to have changed at all, except that perhaps there was a few more suited men standing far above him than there was before. But, he reasoned, if he had blacked out, they could have come in while he was out to it.

Across the woman the crazed woman got slowly to her feet, "Don't make me!" she cried. "They're making me do it, I can't stop them. Don't have the strength to stop them..." Her eyes locked with Williams, "Run boy! _Run!_ I can't stop myself. But you don't need long, just keep back, keep away..." The girl staggered towards him, the cables, wires and hoses attached to her mixed with her staggering gait, loosely hanging arms and half-lolling head making her look all the world like a marionette, dancing on an over-lit stage.

"There's nowhere to run!" William yelled at her.

"Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide..." The woman said loud enough that the suited men high above laughed. Then William caught a quiet murmur, seemingly directed at him. "When The Shadow comes, everyone picks a side."

He looked at the woman as she continued to stagger, zombie-like, towards him, in her eyes he saw fear and pain beyond imagination sidling up beside their friend insanity but there was something else there and it took William a moment to realize what it was. When it dawned on him, he couldn't help but whisper it aloud. "Hope," he muttered, "hope".

He began to walk, slowly away from her, trying to keep her as far from him as possible. She continued to babble aimlessly while she approached him, usually telling him she had no choice and she was being forced to do this to him.

As he watched her, she staggered more violently than ever and fell, flat on the ground without casting a arm, hand or _anything_ to break her fall. She just fell, forward like a tree coming down, and landed on her face with a crack so violent William was sure she was dead. Moaning she hauled herself back to her feet and turned to face William, who couldn't believe that she seemed entirely unharmed. Her expression however had changed entirely, the madness, the fear was gone. A bright smile graced her face, once more creating the appearance of someone much younger in years. "He's here," she whispered. Before slowly lifting her head to look at the suited men far above. "He's here!" she yelled up at them.

Looking upwards, now that the woman didn't seem to be attempting to kill him, William could see movement on the viewing platform above, but could not - in the bright light - discern exactly what was going on. Suddenly, flying out of the light above came a suited man, he struck the floor at such a speed that his impact sent him smashing violently, no doubt painfully, through the floor to the rooms below. William tried to ignore the screams of terror as the man fell but they pierced his mind even when he covered his ears.

The red-headed woman laughed, a harsh and bitter laugh completely separate from the manic giggle of earlier. "Take that," she said.

William backed away from her again, suddenly fearing for his own safety once more. He managed fewer than a dozen steps, however, before he walked into something. No, not something. Some _one_.

They grabbed his shoulder, "Now William," came a familiar voice, speaking between great big gasps of air, "we're in a bit of a bind here aren't we?"

William spun around and saw, to his enormous disbelief, a man he thought he had shot and killed. "Jacob," he whispered.

From across the room came a cry, "Jacob!"

Snapping his head away from the strangely translucent Jacob, William turned in time to see the crazed woman begin running towards him and Jacob, her earlier staggering seemingly vanished.

"I dunno how to tell you this," William began, "but she's completely out of her tree and-" he stopped talking as Jacob stepped around him to face the oncoming mad woman. To his surprise Jacob didn't move to fend off the woman, did nothing but dropped his chin to his chest and then fell to his knees on the floor. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

The woman checked her pace and jumped, tucking her legs under her as she did so. She landed on her knees with a bump and slid across the floor, stopping just in front of Jacob.

Uncertain what the hell to do, William backed away again, glancing at the semi-transparent sword at Jacobs back and wondering if he could fend off the crazy woman with it.

"Look at me Jake," the woman said, her voice soft, the lilt of insanity missing.

Jacob shook his head.

"Look at me Jake," she repeated, this time cupping his face and lifting his head to force him to look at her.

"I know," she said. "I _know._ But how do we get out of here? I don't have the energy."

Jacob looked at her long and hard, "Neither do I," he said at last. "All this light, not a shadow to be found... they've got Angela. That's why William's here," he indicated in Williams direction and the woman's eyes flicked towards him for a moment.

"He any use?"

"Has potential," Jacob said by way of reply much to William's surprise. He had thought he would insult him, tell her that he was worthless.

"Where is she?" the woman asked. William felt as if he should understand what was going on, but he couldn't quite figure what as he watched Jacob press his hand to the woman's temple. He felt as if something was about to happen. Something big.

She nodded subtlety and then turned to William, "So I guess you're coming with me," she said, her tone matter-of-fact.

"Uh..."

Jacob turned now to face him, getting to his feet. "I want you to listen to me very, _very_ , carefully."

William nodded, still uncertain what was going on but with a growing feeling that his initial thoughts were correct; something big was about to happen.

"Tabitha is going to take you to Angela, after I help her get out of this hell-hole of a prison."

"Prison," the woman echoed and William noted her eyes flashed briefly with that earlier insanity once more. "Can't escape, tried to escape, can't escape. Always watching, watching, watching. But no! He is coming. He is here. Can't escape, tried too but -"

Jacob grabbed the woman's hand and immediately the insanity passed from her eyes and her voice fell quiet. "She has some different rules to me," William went to interject but was cut-off. "Yes, everybody has rules," Jacob said, "but this time _please_ for the love of whatever Gods you subscribe to - if any - _listen_ to them and follow them through. We don't want ourselves another shooting incident."

William began to utter an apology but was again cut off by Jacob.

"I don't need to hear it; you were under a lot of stress. But Tabitha is not me, you'll undoubtedly get along better with her - everybody does. But if she asks you to do something, _please_ do it. You're not going to get Angela back by yourself, they're too strong for you. Too strong for her as well. But all of you together, with Tabitha, you've got a chance."

"Where will you be?" William finally managed to ask.

Instead of Jacob answering, the woman - who William now assumed was called Tabitha - quietly replied, by touching her head and saying "In here."

Jacob turned to the woman, "One last time then?"

"One last time," she echoed a strange mix of extreme happiness and extreme sorrow on her face. "I'll make it a good one."

"You'd better." Jacob replied, before taking a couple of steps back from the woman, looking directly at her and adding, "I never thanked you for that day when you pulled me out of the queue and asked if you could help."

Tabitha laughed, a proper laugh, full of neither hatred or insanity but instead full of the memory of whatever Jacob was talking about. "I know you didn't, but you took me away and showed me the stars - that has always been thanks enough."

"If we do this, there is no going back. You'll have to follow me eventually and I fear that won't be long from now."

"I know Jake, but I am not afraid. I will go with my head held high and I shall see you again, in whatever life comes after this."

Jacob smiled, "You bet you will." He spun and faced William, "It's certainly been interesting. I would have liked to have gotten to know you better."

William didn't know how to reply, so instead merely nodded his head once in acknowledgement.

"Times up," Jacob said as man after man, the suited men poured into the brightly lit room from a door that William could have sworn wasn't there before. An army of them seemed to be pouring in, racing towards the trio. "Do it!" he yelled.

With a flash of light, somehow brighter than the surrounding room, the woman vanished amongst the sound of the wires, cables and tubes falling into a heap on the ground. The sound of running feet seemed to quiet, seemed to become only echoes and when William looked, he saw the advancing horde had stopped running, all were holding their distance watching whatever was going on. Slowly the leaders began to inch backwards, away from William and Jacob and William could see the fear in their eyes.

Looking at Jacob he could see a cigar shaped point of light flitting around him, through him, in looping figures of eight. Jacob himself seemed to be slowly fading away. Finally, he was little more than the after image one might see after looking at something bright for too long, William thought he heard a whisper, "Goodbye my dear," but couldn't be sure if he had or had not, or who had whispered it.

Another flash of light blazed through the room and the woman reappeared, looking quite a number of years younger than she had previously. She turned to William, "Now for it then, run when I say."

William nodded in agreement.

Tabitha picked up the various wires, cables and tubes that had once been attached to her she closed her eyes and for a moment nothing seemed to happen, then from far below them came a rumble. A thick black smoke began to billow through the hole where the suited man had fallen through the floor and William felt a hand grasp his, "Run!" Tabitha instructed and he did, as fast as he could, but somehow still being dragged along by Tabitha - towards the black smoke they ran before leaping down through the hole towards the source of the black, billowing, cloud.

William suddenly wondered just how far they were going to fall, but suddenly found his descent slowing and he touched the ground as lightly as if he had just jumped from a low step, not from several floors above. "How did-"

"No time for that," Tabitha said. "Explanations are for later." She placed her hand on something that looked a lot like a giant computer and sparks and smoke began to stream from it. "That'll probably do it I think," she said as a rumbling noise began from far above them. "Now to get back up," she paused for a moment, then looked at William, "Don't be afraid."

William watched in increasing horror and fascination as Tabitha grew to an enormous height before him, tentacle like things sprouting from her head and back. She reached down and grabbed him, lifting him up and sticking him back through the hole which they had just jumped through. Then with a flash of light she appeared, in her human-like form, beside William. "Sorry about that," she said, "but with so many grey suits around its best we stick together at all times."

Above him, William could hear the rumbling continuing and then, suddenly, the brightly lit room was plunged into darkness. Around him came the rushing sounds of footsteps, the suited men were advancing once more. "Stay behind me," Tabitha instructed pushing him behind her.

A bright light emanated from her hands and she moved them across in front of her, palm outwards, facing the oncoming suited men. As the light touched them, they seemed to explode, implode, melt or simply vanish before William's eyes, dropping swords, guns and briefcases as they disappeared. The footfalls slowed again and William could see them, in a slowly growing light from above, beginning to retreat once more.

"Grab some of those weapons for yourself, quickly!" Tabitha yelled at him and he rushed forward, picking amongst the weaponry to find something that felt comfortable in his hands. Beside him Tabitha did likewise, bending over to pick up a sword before softly saying, "Oh!" and dropping it. William looked at her curiously, wondering what she had just realized.

Sunlight streamed through the ceiling structure as it slowly opened - almost like a clam shell - and Tabitha stood in it, holding her arms out and looking up into it. "It's been so long since I've felt the sun on my face," she said with a gentle laugh.

William at last voiced what he had guessed earlier, "Jacob's not coming back is he?"

"Not in this lifetime, no." Tabitha replied, her voice flat and monotonous, the light that seemed to faintly emanate from her vanishing.

"But we're still going to save Angela?"

Tabitha smiled, "Oh yes."

"How the hell do we get out of here though? There are so many more of them suited men. Can you make them all vanish like you did before?"

"I _could_... but that would leave me a bit energy deprived and with Jake gone..." She screwed up her face and picked up a gun from the ground. "We'll just have to shoot our way out."

"But there is more of them than us! We'll never win!"

"I have a few tricks left."

"You think we're going to win don't you, you really do."

"No. I _know_ we're going to!" she said with a laugh and ran towards the suited men with a manic yell.

The ceiling had now descended almost to floor level and William could see that while they were still quite high up, all they had to really do was get to what was once the side of the room and then they would be outside of this strange structure. Letting forth his own yell he ran after the girl, swinging his newly acquired gun manically around and firing shots at the suited men. Somehow, while his shots always managed to find their target, all of theirs were missing him. Some screamed past so close to him that he could feel the energy from the shot burning his skin, some seared his clothes and others almost set his hair ablaze but none, not a single one, actually hit him. He glanced at Tabitha and saw that while she was firing single shots, every now and then, mostly she seemed to be doing something with her free hand, twisting it, waving it from side to side.

At last the pair reached the edge of the former room. "Over the edge then!" Tabitha yelled and leapt into the air at a run and, almost without thinking, William did the same. Glancing down he saw that he was a long way further up than he had even been able to imagine, below him the vast machine stood on massive tracks inching its way across the surface of the planet.

As before he fell at a tremendous speed before slowing smoothly and coming to a gentle landing on the ground. "Jake has a few suspicions about you," Tabitha said, "but I'd rather not put them to the test just this second."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll wait until we get to Angela, I think, before explaining anything as I would like to confirm his thoughts if I can. As right now you need to run, run as if your life depended on it, run as if Angela's life depends on it... because they do. You're going to have to keep pace with me and we're not going to muck around."

"The grey suits are coming, aren't they?" William said, slowly turning to look behind him for confirmation.

"Oh yes, they are coming all right. And they will keep coming from now until eternity. Once you take that first step, run that first step you've started running forever. Sometimes away from them, sometimes towards them, but always because of them; running and running and _running_!" Before William could react, she took off, leaving him rapidly behind.

With another glance over his shoulder he saw the suited men emerging from the vast tracked machine and he sighed heavily. "Running," he said and began to pursue Tabitha.

"Where did you come from?" a suited man asked the apparent leader of a troop of around four hundred that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

"I can't really remember," said the leader of the new group. "We were sent here for something... no, someone." He turned and faced the ranks behind him, does anybody remember anything?

"Find the energy-being," one of them called back.

"The red-headed one? The Leech? Do you mean her?" the first man pointed at a screen which showed a picture of a red-headed woman, cables, wires and tubes seeming to sprout from her.

"Yes, that makes things easy. Take us to her."

"You're a little late."

"Late?"

"She's just recently escaped."

"Well, no matter. We shall track her down and then we will have her, won't we?"

"I really should check with comma-" the suited man fell silent as his body fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.

"I don't think so," the leader of the new group of suited men hissed through his teeth. He turned once more to the ranks behind him, "Does anyone remember _why_ we have to find the girl."

Stony silence greeted him.

"Right then. What about where we came from? Anybody have any ideas?"

More silence.

"Well, when we catch her, we had better hope things become a bit more... clear."

"That would indeed be useful. What do we do about the others that are here?"

"The others of us you mean?"

"Yes."

"Force them to yield to us. Kill them if they don't. We can't have them getting in the way of things. Let's get right to it then," the suited man gave a wave of his arm and the troop dispersed.

## Chapter 9

Jacob panted heavily, still scanning the room for who, or what, had attacked him so suddenly. Running his hands through his hair, his helmet lost in the scuffle, Jacob tentatively stepped back out into the room, wary for any movement no matter how very slight.

A vision suddenly blazed across his mind, in it he felt as if he was chained to something and he could see a man in a grey suit who was carrying a briefcase in his left hand. The man appeared to be speaking but his voice was drowned out by another, the voice of a young woman, "Help me! I remember!" it said before the vision faded into the inky darkness of the unlit room in which Jacob stood.

Frowning Jacob found a nearby table, or bench - he couldn't be quite sure, and sat heavily upon it. Sighing he began to talk to himself, as he often did, drumming his fingers on the surface of whatever it was he was sitting on. "Something is going on here Jacob, now what is it? Why does all of this seem so familiar and what was that vision about? Why do I know that voice? That girls voice? Why did I recognize the man in the suit? Questions, questions, so very many questions and so very few answers."

"You forgot one."

"I did indeed, what just attacked me... in... here," Jacob leapt to his feet and looked around the room, searching for the source of the voice. "Who are you then?" he asked.

"Don't you recognize me? I suppose you don't. I _do_ sound a bit different." A shadow swirled in the middle of the room and a feeling of dread fell upon Jacob.

"Tom?"

"Yes, yes that was it. I was Tom. But now I am not, I can hear him, but I have him locked away deep within this mind that was once his. Soon I suppose poor Tom won't exist at all."

Jacob felt a chill to his very core and, miraculously, inside his helmet his radio crackled. "Command to Exploratory Team One, Come in E.T. One. Over."

Jacob glanced at the man formally known as Tom and muttered as quietly as he could into the microphone built into the collar of his environmental suit, "E.T. One here, code red. Repeat. Code red. Out."

Tom, or whatever the creature controlling him now was called, prowled slowly around Jacob, never taking its eyes off him.

"What do you want?" Jacob asked it.

"Why are you asking me what you already know? I can read this mind's thoughts; read its memories and I can tell you already know."

"To control the universe, to be a God."

"No, no, no, no, no. Not to be _a_ God. To be _the_ God."

"That is not why you were created."

"No, what was that for again? Oh yes, to infect your enemies, to weaken them to make it easier for you to destroy them. Was that not you playing God yourself?"

Jacob sighed, "It wasn't me. We didn't all sign on for that, we didn't all agree to that. Some of us fought to stop it."

"And yet, here I am."

"Yes, here you are... but before I kill you, I need to know something. Why destroy entire planets? What is your rationale behind that?"

"Destroy planets?" The thing occupying Tom paused for thought, then laughed. "You think it is me laying waste to these rocks and then tossing them aside?" The thing laughed again, "No that is not me, I just follow them, hoping to find them, to conquer them, to _become_ them."

It was Jacob's turn to pause for thought, "So you idolize whoever these destroyers are?"

"Only from destruction can something be created and these beings are destroying whole worlds! I would give anything to know what they are creating, _anything_!"

Something, somewhere, deep inside Jacob's mind fell into place. "This isn't your ship; you have no need for a ship..."

The virus inside Tom stopped piloting his body around in circles around Jacob, "Clever aren't you? This mind told me you were clever."

"Whose ship is this?" Jacob asked.

Tom's slightly altered laugh filled the room.

"Whose ship?!" Jacob demanded as the air around him shook violently and he knew his peoples ship had arrived, assistance had arrived on site.

"Oh tricky, tricky!" The virus hissed at him, "The tricky trickster has called for his friends!" Shadows leapt up from around the room and poured into what was once Tom before vanishing without a trace.

"Damn it!" Jacob yelled, running for the hatch in the ship in which he stood. "Should have called for damned back-up _before_ coming in here!" he muttered to himself as he ran, feeling as he did so that in some other time he had done just that but the virus had still managed to capture Tom, though they had, in the end, managed to stop it.

Emerging from the hatch Jacob almost ran into the approaching party, all in environment suits, running to his aide. "It's too late," he yelled, "it's gone. It's damn well gone!"

"Gone?"

"Yes! It took Tom and now it's gone!"

"Took Tom?"

"Yes, it's got itself a Shadow. A _Shadow_."

Jacob didn't stop walking as he told the others what was going on, he headed directly for his ships bridge, to demand answers as to why the virus hadn't been detected. He slid through the doors before they could open entirely, chucking the gloves of his environment suit to the floor as he did so.

"What was that about!" he demanded of the Commander and the bridge crew.

"Jacob, take a few breaths and calm down," the Commander replied.

"Calm down? _Calm down?_ I will _not_ calm down. Because of your ineptitude we lost a crewman today, I lost a friend, and you have the nerve to sit there and tell me to calm down. I won't stand for it."

"Don't worry, we're tracking the virus. It's still got the environment suit on."

"Tracking it? And what good is that going to achieve?"

"We'll kill it when we find it."

"Oh yes, just like every other time one has managed to capture a shadow. Oh wait, _that's never happened before_. How do you propose we kill this thing? It was hard enough before one got hold of a shadow, but now..." Jacob trailed off, feeling defeated. He ran his hands through his hair and collapsed into an empty seat.

The Commander approached and placed his hand on Jacobs shoulder, "We'll find a way. We're going to need a lot of light though and a lot of heat. The science guys always thought a sun would do the trick if one of us ever got infected."

"So, we have to lure it into a sun somehow?"

"Yes, well, they never explained exactly how to get the damned thing there."

Jacob sat silently for a few moments, remembering what the creature had said. "There's something else," he uttered at last, "I spoke with it."

"You _spoke_ with it?"

"Yes. I did... it claims it isn't responsible for the destruction of the planets, it claims it's just following whatever is responsible, hoping to meet it, to join with it, to help it build whatever it is it is building."

"The virus has... conscious thought?"

Jacob mused, "It either does or it was able to use the hosts brain to articulate itself, but I think conscious thought is much more likely."

"Amazing," one of the bridge officers muttered. "Who would have thought?"

"So... there is something else out there, destroying planets for who knows what reason?"

"Sounds like it, the virus seemed to think they were destroying in order to create."

"Create what?"

"Exactly."

Everyone on the bridge fell silent once more until at last the commander spoke. "So, what do you make of that other ship out there."

"All I know is that the virus says it isn't their ship. Well, that and it seems familiar to me for some reason."

"Familiar to you?"

"Like I had been there before."

"Obviously, but I was more asking _why_ it seemed like it."

"I do not know... all I know is that I knew where to duck for piping and the like without having to think, or even be aware there was anything there to duck."

The commander frowned. "We had best take this ship with us, I bet High-Command is going to want a look."

"When _don't_ they."

The Commander paused for a moment and Jacob could vaguely hear radio chatter. "The Tech team reports that the ship is, somehow, fully charged and ready to go, though they can't make sense of the control system at all but they can say it looks like it's designed for eight crew members."

"Let me guess, you think since it seems familiar to me that I might be able to pilot the thing?"

"Well..."

For the first time since he had stepped into the strange new ship a slight smile crossed Jacobs face, "I'll give it a shot," he said. "Any sign of the virus _this_ time."

"No, nothing. It seems it was just the one copy and it's now fled."

"I hope you're right this time, that's a fate I don't wish on anybody." Jacob said as he stood up, and walked towards the bridges exit. "What's the plan then? Pursue the virus?"

"No, we want you to take that ship back to High-Command and give a full report."

"You have to be joking!" Jacob argued, "We need everyone on this. _Everyone_."

The Commander gave Jacob a hard stare in response.

Jacob threw his helmet across the bridge. "Fine. Fine!" he yelled and stormed out, pushing people out of his path as he headed towards the strange ship.

Jacob stepped into the new ships bridge, at once a feeling of calm came over him, alongside the strange feeling of being home. He took the seat closest to the front of the somewhat oval shaped bridge, in the somewhat recessed portion of the bridges floor, and closed his eyes, hands held over the controls. As he let his mind wander, trying to grasp at whatever memory was stirred by being on this ship an idea occurred to him.

He spun in his chair, "You lot. I forgot to say the Commander wants to give you a quick briefing before departure, so if you would all just head off..."

Surprisingly, none of the Tech crew argued, they all filed out of the bridge and as the last one stepped through the doors Jacob leapt from his seat, grabbing one of the toolboxes left behind and rummaging through it until he found what he was after: electrical cable and cable joiners. He raced across the bridge and popped open a panel, not sure exactly what he was doing and acting entirely on instinct he pulled out several wires and joined them to the electrical cable he had procured. He ran the cable across to the centre, recessed station and repeated the process. With a quick look around he repeated the process for each of the various stations around the bridge, until they were all linked to the control station at the bridge's centre.

He sat back in the chair and his hand fell over a series of switches, flicking them all upwards he heard the rumble of the hatches as they closed, status lights changed from yellow to green as he changed several other switches to their 'on' positions. A sudden change in the ship's gravity let him know that he had successfully managed to retract the crafts landing gear and the ship was now floating above the ground.

Something beeped and a light flashed, Jacob pressed the button below it and the crackling sound of radio interference filled the bridge, emanating from hidden speakers. "Jacob," came the Commanders voice, "Jacob."

Jacob offered no response.

"If you do this, you'll never see the outdoors again. I'll personally see to it that you're thrown in a brig and never let out."

Jacob continued to offer no response.

"You're committing theft of High-Command property, under clause fifty-seven of the Treyioc Agreement any ship found on any exploratory mission is the property of Shadow High-Command."

Jacob at last broke his silence. "High-Command can shove it," he said. "High-Command's ideals are why we are in this mess to start with, them and their constant fear of war. I will not stand for it any longer."

"If you move that vessel, we will fire upon you. That is not a threat."

"I know," Jacob replied, pressing a pair of levers forward on the control panel and feeling the ship begin to gently vibrate. Deep below him a rumbling sound grew, "Some sort of faster than light drive coming online it seems, bit risky within the atmosphere. But you heard the man. They will fire upon us..." he said to himself and pushed another pair of levers forward.

The next few moments were lost to Jacob, as once more a vision blazed across his mind. Once again, he felt as if he was chained to something and the man in the grey suit who carried a briefcase in his hand still appeared to be speaking, his voice drowned out by the young woman's voice once more. Every aspect was nearly identical, the smells, the sounds, the dust kicking up from the man's feet as he shuffled them around as he spoke. Everything, that is, except for what the girls voice said. "I remember you Jake, I remember you and you have..." the voice faded at the same pace as the vision until Jacob could neither see nor hear anything.

"I have... what?" he asked the empty bridge, "and who are you anyway?" Thinking hard, Jacob once more tried to place the voice, it had a familiar cadence, a familiar tone, to it. Then there was the name, if it was a message directed at him it must be someone he knew well, as only those who did so called him Jake.

A new realization dawned on him, according to the ships instruments he was now well clear of the ashen planet and had managed to successfully out manoeuvre his former colleagues. In fact, the ship seemed to be moving at a speed in excess of that usually obtained by hyper-light travel. "Extraordinary," he muttered.

He leant back in the seat, wondering now as to what his next move would be. Undoubtedly either his former shipmates or another ship from Shadow High-Command would be in pursuit eventually, he was in "their" stolen property after all, even though, when he had first formed the plan, he had vaguely planned to take it back to them. "So," he said, "there's that..." he went on thinking. There was also another pursuit under way, that of the virus. It was imperative it was caught and destroyed as soon as possible, now that it possessed a physical body, a physical presence, things would undoubtedly only get worse - especially if it managed to catch up with those that it sought. Which, of course, presented another option to Jacob - to find those that the virus searched for before the virus found them. Though what he would do it if _did_ find them he didn't know, if they had the power to turn whole planets to giant balls of dust a single entity such as himself stood no chance against them.

Jacob frowned, slowly spinning his seat and drumming his fingers upon its armrest. For a moment he was certain he had seen people at the other stations scattered around the bridge, but when he looked closer, they weren't there at all. "A ship of ghosts and visions," he muttered, "but whose ghosts? And, why the visions?"

He stopped slowly spinning his seat. "What am I doing?" he asked. "Got to pick one, can't run forever. Could I? Suppose I could... but no. Running forever is not one of the options. So that narrows things down. Virus or Planet-Killers. Find the Planet-Killers, find the virus. So..." he paused, realizing he was talking not to himself as he usually did, but as if there was someone there to listen to him. "So..." he repeated, "Planet-Killers it is." He reached over the control panel and pressed a button, "what could possibly be wrong with that idea."

Hours later Jacob stood staring at the display-screens for the ships, seemingly very extensive, data-records. Trying to find a link between the 'Dead Worlds' as everyone he had ever encountered called them, but no matter how he arranged them he couldn't find a pattern.

Slowly a plan resolved in his mind, he would visit each of these worlds and see if he could find something that had previously been missed, some clue as to what was going on. Maybe a survivor. Anything, _anything_ at all that could turn what seemed to be randomly destroyed worlds into a pattern. His first instinct was to dock his ship at the nearest star port and request a shuttle to each of the Dead Worlds, in order to hide the fact that the same someone each time was investigating them lest the destroyers be monitoring the planets. On second consideration, however, using his knowledge of the worlds he had visited under the instruction of Shadow High-Command, he elected to just use this ship he found himself in possession of; never had any of the landing parties on any of the Dead Worlds encountered any sort of monitoring in the past. To use a shuttle was just a waste of time, both his and the shuttle's pilots.

Returning to the bridge Jacob programmed in a new course and for the briefest of moments he felt the ship tilt beneath him as it course adjusted, before the gravity system could compensate. While he had made his decision on his plan, something about it bothered him. He felt as if he was making the wrong choice, even though he had no logical reason to do so.

He sighed and leaned back, shutting his eyes and instantly his mind was filled with the woman's voice once more. "... to remember me! Remember me and focus on me!" His eyes snapped open. "Tell me who you are!" he yelled at the empty room.

Instead of a response his vision once more wavered and he saw the man in the suit. He was fractionally closer this time, his briefcase holding arm raised above his right shoulder, as if he meant to hurl the briefcase at whomever it was whose eye's Jacob was currently using. "Focus on me Jake, reach out for my mind and grasp it!" demanded the voice, the woman whose name was right on the tip of Jacobs tongue, he almost shouted it before he lost the vision and the name escaped him once more.

## Chapter 10

Bri approached Tabitha, "There's a digger down there, a Kris 'with a K' claiming to be your boyfriend or something and demanding to see you."

Tabitha sighed.

"I thought as much, he didn't seem to be your type."

"My type?"

"Yeah, your type. He's all... not your type."

"And you're an expert on my type now, are you?"

Bri laughed, "Yes. I know exactly your type."

"Do tell."

"You're one of those ones who likes a little bit of... mystery. Mark my words, you'll end up with someone who is affectionate when they sense they should be but is otherwise stand-offish, someone who will seem cold to other people, someone smart, someone clever, someone... people wouldn't expect. I bet, in the looks department, they will be completely ordinary as well and everyone will wonder how some bloke that ordinary ended up with an amazing girl like you. No, your type is not like that Kris character. Sure, he wears that ridiculous suit and is generally untidy but if he cleaned himself up the girls - of a certain type - would be queuing up before him."

Tabitha laughed, "It would seem, _Briambrose_ , that you have me sussed out entirely."

"Oh, here we go, going to contradict me now I suppose - after all, you've brought out my full name," Bri laughed along.

"Actually... you're right. I hate to admit it, but you are right," Tabitha replied, feeling as if she already knew this perfect match for her, had already met them once before.

"I always am," Bri smiled. "So, what's the deal with the creep?"

"Who knows? All I know is he appeared as if from nowhere in one of my classes one day and from that moment forth has stuck around like a bad smell. I wonder if I had picked something else if he'd have found his way to that as well."

"He _does_ seem the sort, doesn't he? Never mind, we'll work it with the guys to keep him off your teams when you're down on the surface."

"That would be nice."

"Not the first time we've had a stalker on board, I had one once. She was... difficult. Transferred off about two years back, thankfully."

The pair stepped onto the bridge and Franks greeted them warmly, "And how are my girls today?"

"We'll never be your girls Franks," Bri replied, "we've got minds of our own and know to stay away from anti-war campaigners like yourself, your type is trouble I tell you, _trouble_!"

The trio, and the handful of other officers on the bridge, laughed as Bri and Tabitha took their seats.

"We're coming up on orbit," Franks announced, hitting the loud speaker button. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll be in orbit around Dracius within the hour. Dracius is a Level-Five planet and its inhabitants have requested our assistance in locating the source of the disturbing shifts in their planet's magnetic field leaving them vulnerable to solar winds."

Franks released the loud speaker and looked around the bridge. "That's the official line anyway and it _is_ why were invited. But the you-know-who's in the you-know-what also want us to establish a closer relationship with Dracius for 'strategic purposes' - only they know why, we're so far from Shadow-Space here that I bet they have never even heard of this rock. But it'll be our heads if we don't get some sort of treaty signing out of them."

"Um... Sir?"

Tabitha, Franks and nearly every other head turned to look at Bri - it was unusual for anyone to address Franks as Sir, especially his more experienced crew.

"Bri?"

"I'm getting a... something. Some sort of transmission. It's like we're only getting bits of it, like the lower end of its frequency."

"But we're monitoring _all_ frequencies."

"Exactly."

Franks got up and approached Bri's work station. Curiosity blazing, Tabitha did likewise.

"What do you make of it then Tabitha?" Franks asked as Bri played the audio out loud for the bridge to hear.

Tabitha strained her ears, trying to pick up something, anything, in the garbled message. It sounded like Bri said it had sounded, as if only part of the message was being received - like it was travelling on a frequency they couldn't quite monitor. Looking at the display on the screen for the transmission Tabitha noticed something peculiar about the waveforms. "It's like... they're out of phase with one another. Can we split each different tone from each of the others?"

Bri carefully worked the computer controls and, after a few minutes, no fewer than 90 different wave patterns graced the control station screens.

"We need them to line up with one another - but only when they are supposed to. We'll have to run some sort of program on it to find the bits that are meant to line up, I'd suspect there are some hidden markers in one of the frequencies..."

Again, Bri worked at the controls until a screen on her right flashed green. "Well, there's the one with the markers. The computer says it's going to take six hours to compile it all back together."

Franks ran his hands through his hair and for the briefest of moments Tabitha was reminded of someone else. "I've got politicians and military breathing down my neck about this mission. We'll just have to press on and hope for the best. I'll head down to assemble the ground teams, maintain standard orbit until further instruction. Tabitha, with Bri working on this mess, you're going to have to take her spot on the ground."

"I thought I would be," Tabitha replied with the flash of a smile.

"Bri, once this thing is decoded, I want you to radio me _immediately_ and pass on what in the hells it is saying." He glanced at Tabitha, "Radio Tabitha as well. We'll need our best and brightest on it no doubt, as someone has taken a great amount of effort to hide it from us."

Tabitha nodded her agreement and silently fell in behind Franks as he departed the bridge for the lower decks. As they approached the shuttle bay Tabitha, at last, asked Franks what he thought was going on.

"Trouble," he replied. "There is someone else out here, probably been waiting for us and we've accidently stumbled onto their transmissions."

"Shadows?"

"If it _is_ Shadows this is a strange new twist, we broke their encryption keys ages ago, hells, they even gave up sending encrypted warp transmissions."

"So not Shadows?"

"No. But _something_ out there is waiting for us."

Tabitha was inclined to agree with Franks, not only had the Shadows stopped using encrypted warp transmissions but there was also the fact that Dracius was around ten light years from the nearest Shadow-World and they had shown no interest in expanding their occupied space – only in protecting what they had, she suspected their fleet was much less sizable than they wanted everyone to believe.

Entering the shuttle bay, Tabitha and Franks parted ways as she headed towards her shuttle and team of 'diggers' - which also included a small diplomatic team and an even smaller analysis team. She had read over the crew manifest on the way down and was happy to find she had a team that got along well with each other and, perhaps more importantly, her.

Stepping into the shuttle she indicated to the pilot to shut the hatch as she settled into the seat alongside him.

"Do you want to do it?" he asked.

Tabitha grinned, "You bet I do, but this is what you're paid to do isn't it? So, you probably should."

"I've been doing this since before you were even an idea in someone's head, so I say go for it. They tell me you're the one who piloted us out of orbit back home, which was some impressive flying. Then they said you went and did it the old way, which is to say manually, and even an old pilot like me was impressed by that. So, go for it, let me see what you've got."

Still grinning Tabitha started the pre-launch sequence by flicking various switches and calling them out for the actual pilot to check off.

"What's your name then?" she asked the elderly pilot.

"Jake," he replied. "And before you go asking, no it's not short for anything."

Tabitha glanced briefly at the pilot's face, something about the name and being old rang a bell somewhere deep in her mind but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't light the particular memory trying to surface. She shook her head and blew a strand of hair from her face, "We all set then?" she asked.

The old pilot, Jake, nodded and indicated at the control panel. "She's all yours."

Just like when she had piloted the main ship Tabitha elected for manual control and the twin joysticks popped up from the panel in front of her.

"Show off," muttered the old pilot, but Tabitha caught his grin in the corner of her eye. He flicked a switch and began speaking, "All hands, this is your pilot speaking we're all set for departure and once we get the go-ahead from control we will be leaving this musty old crate for a stint on the ground in the fresh air and sunshine."

A few moments passed and Tabitha could almost feel the anticipation in the air; hers, the pilots and the hundred and fifty crew sitting in the main cabin behind her.

The launch status lights on the control panel changed from red to green, "Control here, you're good to go. Remember, automatic control is essential within the shuttle bay and within one hundred trylos of the _Helios Three_."

Tabitha grinned even more widely and glanced at Jake. "As if," she said simply.

"Thought that would be the case," he replied with a grin of his own.

Grasping the joysticks Tabitha gently tilted the left one back and the right one forward and the shuttle, much more manoeuvrable than the main ship, lifted up off the shuttle bay floor and slowly moved forward and within seconds she had her craft dodging and diving around the slower moving shuttles.

" _Tabitha Rose_ ," the radio crackled.

Tabitha ignored it.

"I know that's you Tabitha, quit messing around. And that's an order."

Tabitha laughed, it was rare for Franks to give an actual order, in response she veered her shuttle hard away from the group and headed towards the pre-assigned landing co-ordinates. Being sure to throw in a barrel roll or two for Franks' benefit.

After a trip that lasted, to Tabitha's mind, nowhere near long enough the shuttle touched safely down at the assigned co-ordinates, just outside a moderately sized town, almost large enough to be deemed a city - Tabitha was certain that to this planet's inhabitants it was a city. She hit the control and both the cockpit and main cabin hatches opened.

"Well, that was fun," Jake said with a grin. "Been a very long time since I saw a pilot as talented as you."

"It _was_ fun wasn't it? Are you staying on?"

"I'm afraid not, I've got myself on maintenance duties for the next few weeks. You know, patching the old crate up there up while we're safely in orbit around a friendly planet. The usual."

Tabitha smiled, "Well... have fun with that."

"You're quite something you are," Jake replied. "Don't ever let anyone take that spark from you."

Tabitha frowned at Jake's parting words as the cockpit hatched closed and the shuttle, in a whirl of dust, grass and leaves, took to the air once more.

Turning to face her team the smile she was about to put on faltered, there standing right in front of everyone else was Kris, a cocky half smile on his face and his once unruly hair slicked down against his head and swept back from his face. "What are you doing here?" Tabitha demanded. "You weren't on the register for this team."

"Oh... I got, you know, transferred."

"Transferred?"

"Yeah. You know, that thing that happens when they want you somewhere else."

"And who is this 'they?'"

Kris made a clicking sound with his mouth, "Well, I would have thought _you_ would have known, being the favourite and all."

Frowning once more Tabitha elected to ignore Kris for the time being and look into this so-called 'transfer' once she had her team at work, some part of her suspected something was going on and she was determined to find out exactly what that was. She directed her team to their relevant tasks and joined the diplomatic squad on their mission to meet with the town officials in regards to what their intentions were, if accommodation would be provided and all the usual talk that always had to go on when they were planet-side.

As always, the meeting was longer than it needed to be and, as always, very little was decided upon. Mid-way through the afternoon Tabitha excused herself and made her way back to the landing site to check on the digger and analysis teams, to see if they had settled in more than to see if there was anything yet to report.

The radio piece in her ear crackled and Bri's voice was soon audible. "Can you hear me? Hello?"

"I'm here," Tabitha replied.

"Tabitha? Good! I can't raise Franks, there is some major interference going on in the atmosphere. I can't find a cause for it."

"Something to do with the magnetic field problems do you think?"

"I didn't quite catch that I'm sorry, I think it might be something to do with the magnetic field problems the planet is having."

"Bri, can you boost the signal at all?"

The radio crackled again.

"Bri?"

The radio fell silent and Tabitha sighed. "I hope they've got the radio station set up by the time I get back there," she muttered as she continued towards the landing site.

Soon she spied the tall aerial for the radio station on the horizon and she knew she would be within its range. "Bri? I'm piggy-backing off the radio station down here now, can you hear me any better?"

The radio crackled for a couple of seconds before Bri's voice worked its way through the static. "That's much better Tabitha, Franks can't have a radio station in place yet. I still can't reach him."

"If you want Franks, it must be news about this strange transmission?"

Bri's usually cheerful voice took on a more sombre, somehow darker tone. "Yes..."

"Well?"

"It came from us."

"From us?"

"The shuttle bay to be precise. _We_ sent the message, or at least someone in the shuttle bay sent the message. Which can only mean someone on our ship."

"I am gathering that whatever the message was it was quite something if it has you sounding so grim."

"Well, it's not so much the message. That's fairly... plain. A bit confusing since we don't know who it's for or who sent it but it's plain. What's got me worried is the level of encryption."

"Well, you best play the message then hadn't you. Let me hear what there is to hear."

"All right then, give me a couple of seconds..." the radio fell quiet and then a new voice came on. A man's voice, oily and calm. "She is here. Come." The radio once more fell silent while a feeling of knowledge swept over Tabitha, she knew that voice - but where did she know it from?

"That's it?"

"That was it. It repeated that same two sentences three times then gave the co-ordinates of Dracius."

"I recognize that voice, it's not quite how it usually sounds though, but I -" Tabitha stopped, suddenly placing the owner of the voice. "Kris," she whispered.

"What was that?" Bri asked.

"Kris. He somehow got onto my team down here. But that's his voice, he deepened it or something."

"Tabitha, I don't think tha-"

"Run an analysis. _Now!_ " she half yelled.

"Okay, okay," Bri said, sounding a little shocked to be yelled at by Tabitha. "Running the analysis."

"Sorry for yelling," Tabitha quietly whispered. "Something is going on here and that idiot has something to do with it."

"I'm sure he doesn't... Well. I'll eat my words; the analysis says it's a ninety-nine-point-nine percent match."

"I think I need to have a discussion with this chap. Can you keep trying to raise Fra-" Tabitha stopped mid-sentence hearing alarms start blaring over the radio.

"Bri? BRI! What's going on up there, talk to me."

"Six... no... seven ships have just emerged from hyper-light. Unknown configuration, they've locked weapons." In the background Tabitha could hear the panic on the ships bridge, the science vessel wasn't really equipped for battle of any sort.

"Bri?"

The radio crackled and Tabitha heard yelling in the background before Bri's voice once more broke through the static. "They're firing on us! We're sending surrender messages on all frequencies but they're still firing! We're abandoning ship while we still can! Get hold of Franks tell him th-" A roaring sound filled the radio waves before everything fell silent.

"Bri?"

Nothing.

"Bri?"

Nothing. Around her the occasional pillar of light flared briefly, stretching high into the sky above where Tabitha stood before transforming into a person, who more often than not fell to their knees. Radioing the landing site, Tabitha screamed for help, for anyone, everyone, to abandon what they were doing and to help the survivors.

A beam of light appeared right beside her and Bri fell suddenly into Tabitha's arms.

"Hello my friend," Bri whispered. "There were too many, we didn't stand..." her voice trailed off and she went limp in Tabitha's arms.

"Bri?" Tabitha called, "Bri?" But she knew it was too late, her eyes had fallen to the massive burns and scorching down Bri's side, her once bright green hair clung, melted, in clumps, charred and blackened down one side of her face. Placing Bri gently on the ground a fury rose in Tabitha like she had never felt before, around her the air crackled with electricity. "Kris," she hissed through her teeth. Surprising herself she impulsively elected not to continue walking to the landing site, but instead turned herself to a beam of energy that reformed behind where Kris was standing by a handful of meters.

He looked around when he heard her begin to walk towards him, she fully intended to grab him by his shirt and scream into his face, she didn't know what course of action she would take after that though. As she approached, however, she noticed something about him and her steps faltered. He was wearing a broad grin now, to go with his new hair style. But there was more than that, his horrible grey suit was neatly pressed and had been altered to fit him perfectly. His shoes reflected not just the light from the sun but the blue of the sky and the green of the grass, in his left hand he held a slightly battered brown briefcase.

"Hello my dear," he said, his voice the same slightly deeper, oily, tone she had heard over the radio. "Nice of you to come to me, it saves me having to find you. I hear my friends have arrived, they will be so very pleased to see you alive and intact, they seem so very eager to meet you. It'll be a little while until they get here though, they promised to let me have a little fun first."

Before Tabitha could react, Kris had covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye and grabbed her roughly by the front of her clothes. Pushing her backwards he breathed into her face and spoke in a barely audible whisper. "Yes... they said I can have some fun first. After all, I have been doing this little assignment for them for months and months now. It's only fair."

Tabitha strained against him, then tried to convert herself to energy to escape him but found she couldn't.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no," Kris whispered, his mouth against her ear as he continued to force her backwards. "My friends put a stop to that."

Tabitha felt herself bump into something, something hard and flat. 'The radio station building I suppose' she thought briefly, before the panic again filled her mind pushing out every other thought except of how to escape.

Kris leaned his body against her, still whispering in her ear. "Let's see how you like me after this shall we?"

He breathed in hard enough that Tabitha felt her hair pull towards his face.

"Ah, you smell so nice. It's almost a pity."

Tabitha suddenly found her voice again. "Don't you dare touch me," she hissed, spitting in Kris' face.

"Touch you? Oh no, I'm not going to touch you, I'm not going to do _anything_ to you... well there are some things I might do I suppose. But I wouldn't want to ruin you for the others, oh yes, they have been waiting so long, so very, very, long. No, for now I am just going to make you watch," he replied, wiping her spittle from his face and somehow procuring chain as if from nowhere, wrapping it around her wrists and ankles before securing her to the building she was pressed up against.

"Watch? Watch what?" Tabitha asked, her voice strong and defiant despite the fear coursing through her.

"Oh, you shall see. Yes, you shall see and then _we_ will see how much fight you have in you."

## Chapter 11

The world around the suited man seemed to blur, edges softened and movements speed up. When the strange disturbance ceased the world found itself in a different season than moments ago, a dusting of snow covered the ground that, mere moments earlier, was neatly mown lawn. As he moved to reach for his radio to report the event other reports began to flow in, it seemed it had happened everywhere throughout this virtual reality at once and the Commander ordered everyone to report in, to discuss what had happened.

Moments later, at a table surrounded by suited men in a room walled with electronic displays of yet more men, the Commander gave his briefing.

"Reality has slipped," he said, "or perhaps a better way of putting it would be that _time_ has slipped."

"Time has slipped?" asked a face on a screen.

"Our data centres advise that we've skipped forward some _fifteen_ years. Initial reports are that nobody and nothing else in this reality has noticed this change - though we are still waiting for a report on the Subject as to whether or not she has noticed."

"Is it some sort of... programming error in the code powering this reality?"

"Diagnostics report that it isn't, which means we can only assume this time shift has been brought about by the Subject, until we can confirm her status we don't know if it is a conscious or sub-conscious shift."

"How could it be sub-conscious?"

"The technicians aren't certain, but it's possible that the Subjects sub-conscious - it being what was used to create this universe - had some sort of pre-determined view of what this reality would be like it she had actually lived it. If that is the case, we can expect time slips to happen again without warning, making it even more imperative that we are not seen. If we _are_ seen due to one of these slips, we _must_ appear to be a native of this world, I don't care if you have to pass yourself off as a door-to-door salesman selling something you've thought up right then and there. Just make it believable."

"When will we know if she knows about the time slip?"

"Well, I just got word in my ear that she is waking up..."

Angela yawned, stretched and slip gently out of bed, making her way towards the kitchen. It had been years since she had suffered through those terrible nights of nightmares as everything about being from a different universe had faded from her mind like a dream, letting her sleep peacefully. As she walked along the hall she knocked first on one door, then the one beside it. "Get up you two," she said loudly, "breakfast is in five minutes." From behind each door came a reluctant groan but she soon heard the sounds of the twins preparing for the day ahead.

She stepped into the kitchen and Will slipped his arms around her, "Good morning Possum."

Angela smiled, "Good morning Husband," she whispered. "Now get out of the way so I can sort breakfast and lunches and God knows what else that needs sorting before the twins head to school."

Before Angela could take another step the sound of her children's footsteps filled the hall behind her.

"Ew," Jacob said on seeing his parents embrace, "get a room."

"We're in a room," Will said.

Angela turned to see Jacob roll his eyes at his father while Tabitha smiled sweetly and followed her brother to the table. Settling into their chairs as Angela produced cereal from the cupboard and milk from the fridge Tabitha asked a question that caught Angela by surprise, not because it was a peculiar question, but more because she found she didn't have an answer.

"So Mum, why did you name us Jacob and Tabitha? There _must_ be a reason, 'cause I remember when we were little you said we were too young to understand."

"Did I?" Angela asked, by way of reply.

"Yeah," chimed in Jacob, "you made it sound as if there was some big story behind it."

"Did I?" Angela asked again, feeling lost. She couldn't remember having this conversation with her children and was therefore surprised they remembered it.

"So, what's the story? We're fourteen now, surely we're old enough to know."

"Well..." Angela began, looking towards Will for guidance but he seemed oblivious to her doubt and sudden memory loss.

"She's still not going to tell us," Tabitha whispered.

"It must be quite the story," Jacob replied - as usual phrasing his words in a way that made him seem a lot older than he was.

Angela searched her mind, but could find nothing, no hint as to where the names had come from. She decided she would ask Will later, when they were alone, surely he knew why they had picked those names. She glanced at the clock, "Time you two were going," she said to the twins, before turning to Will, "you as well."

Will stood up, "Race you to the Bathroom!" he said to the twins and took off down the hall, the twins in hot pursuit.

"Don't run in the house," Angela called, half-heartedly after them.

A few moments later the trio re-emerged, "A kiss before I go?" Will asked.

"Always!" Angela replied and kissed him gently.

"Seriously, get a room," Jacob muttered.

Tabitha laughed gently and pushed her brother out the door.

Angela smiled, "Have a good day!" she called to the two disappearing backs. "You as well," she said to Will as he stepped past her and out the door.

"I always do."

"Don't I know it," Angela replied, closing the door.

Angela tidied the table and began her morning ritual of opening the curtains, not as many in the winter as in the summer. She stopped, as she often did, at the large window on the sun-side of the lounge.

Out of it she could see the large oak tree that had stood there as long as she could remember. In the cold months of winter its branches stood bare and yet still the sun's light danced around the shadows the branches cast. Seeing this interplay of light and shade always cast her into one of two moods, some mornings it made her happy, happier than she thought she could ever feel again, whilst other mornings brought on a sadness that bordered on depression. Today the tree brought a smile to her face as she saw Jacob and Tabitha walk past it, through the light dusting of snow, on their way to school. As always, the twins appeared to be playing some sort of game, this one appeared to involve trying to stand on as little snow as possible whilst the other attempted to push the snow dodger onto it.

Angela laughed, "I wonder what Jake would say?" she said, catching herself unawares and surprising the laughter out of her. She looked out at her son, her face wearing an expression of confusion, "What an odd thing to say," she whispered, "I can see him out there and he is laughing along with Tabitha..."

Her head feeling suddenly heavy Angela sat on the nearest chair, "With Tabitha who lets him, but nobody else, shorten her name to Tabs."

Before Angela could think whatever was trying to surface in her mind over any further, she caught sight of someone walking up the pathway, a man in a grey suit carrying a briefcase.

"Seriously?" she asked the empty room. "It's not even nine yet what on earth could someone want at this hour?"

Angela got up and walked to the front door, swinging it open before the man could knock. She was about to tell him to go away, she didn't want what he was selling, but then realized there was no man standing there. Nor was the snow on the path disturbed in anyway. Head aching, she slowly shut the door.

"A lie down, that's what I need," she muttered walking back towards her bedroom and casting herself heavily on the bed. "A few more hours sleep or something..."

Once again, the suited men sat at the meeting table, face after near identical face lining the screens on the room's walls.

"Tests have shown the Subject hasn't noticed the time slip," the suited Commander said, "and in even _better_ news it would seem she is forgetting, or has forgotten, all she knew of us and the Universe she came from."

"If that is the case it will be easier than taking, to use a local expression, candy from a baby to capture her."

"It certainly will be, it certainly will be."

"So, when do we make our move?"

"It seems she is slightly disorientated after the time slip, so after the next one we will make our move. Plus, if her apparent memory loss from this last slip is anything to go by, when the next one rolls around it'll be almost guaranteed that she doesn't remember us. What was that expression?"

"Candy from a baby?"

"Yes. Like candy from a baby."

Angela awoke and for a few moments listened to Will gently snoring beside her before she dragged herself up and out of bed. "When did I get so _old_ ," she asked nobody in particular as she slipped into her dressing gown and slippers, making her way to the lounge and settling into her chair as she turned on the television.

For a few moments she was distracted by the sun streaming through the leaves of the big old oak tree outside and she didn't hear what the speaker on the television was saying until the presenter mentioned the name of her street.

"Repeating once more, in breaking news, reports are coming in of some sort of gathering of men wearing suits, though they are letting some traffic and people pass, the Police are urging the public to keep their distance. We'll bring you more when information comes to hand."

The news broadcast cut to an advertisement and Angela called for Will. After a few moments he appeared, still in his pyjamas and looking like he hadn't slept at all well. Forgetting, for the moment, the news article Angela quizzed him. "Sleep badly did you?"

"Very much so, kept having the strangest dream that we were going along as happy as can be then suddenly it was years and years later but nobody seemed to notice."

Angela screwed up her face in thought, "I think I dreamt about something very similar last night. But I can't quite remember... anyway, look at this." She indicated the television which had returned to the breaking news story, now with live aerial footage which explained the noise Angela could just hear outside.

"There's our house!" Will exclaimed as he looked at the television.

"I hope Jacob and Tabitha can still make it, they said they were going to pop in and drop the kids off before they went on what they called a 'couples date' or something."

Will turned his attention away from the television, that was now repeating what Angela had heard earlier, for a moment, "A what?"

"A couples date. Apparently our two and their partners like to go out together every once in a while."

"You mean, the twins do and they just drag the others along."

Angela laughed, "Yes that seems a lot more likely doesn't it? Though I can see Mike and Jacob getting along I suppose, and we both know Astrid and Tabitha get along like a house on fire."

"Peas in a pod those two."

Angela laughed again, "Yeah, I suppose Jacob was always going to marry his sisters' best friend."

"I knew it the moment he met her, something in his eye." Will laughed. "What's more, they have made it through whatever's going on out there. I can see Jacob's car on the box."

Angela turned and sure enough, there on the television, she saw Jacobs car turning into their driveway. She watched as the doors opened and the people clambered out, first Tabitha and her daughter Rose then Jacob and his, slightly older, son Josh.

Angela made her way to the back door, "Come and give your Nana a hug," she said to the children.

"Hi Mum," Tabitha said with a smile.

Jacob, as always, gave her a slight nod and stepped round her and inside, before, just like when they were much, much younger, Tabitha followed him in.

"You should see it out there," Jacob said, "Cops and cars everywhere. Then those weirdoes in the suits, nobody knows what's going on."

"I'm surprised they let you through," Will said. "They seemed a serious looking bunch."

"Believe me Dad, I'm just as surprised as you. But Jacob drove on up to them and they just parted and let us carry on. The Police didn't seem too happy about that though."

Angela joined the conversation as her two grandchildren ran off to play. "Do you think they'll let you back out?"

"Well they let us in, didn't they? Probably just some sort of prote-" Jacob was cut off as Rose came running in.

"Mum, Mum!" She yelped, running to Tabitha and clinging to her leg.

Tabitha raised an eyebrow and blew a strand of hair from her face before bending down to talk to her daughter.

"What is it?"

"They shot the Policeman!"

"What?"

"On the telly, they shot him."

Tabitha looked at Angela, "Oh hell," Angela said, "the television is still on the news broadcast."

It took a few moments for Rose's words to sink in, the adults looked at one another then moved to the lounge to see the news report themselves.

"- in reports just to hand, the ring of suited men have opened fire on the Police on the ground. At this stage it appears as though several Officers have been hit, but no details are as yet known." The television cut from shots of Police Officers carrying wounded men towards cars to the aerial view from earlier, now cantered directly on Angela and Will's house.

"This property has been identified as the centre of ring of suited men, but Police have been unable to raise the occupants."

Will picked up the phone that sat on the table beside him, "Dead."

Tabitha and Jacob pulled out their own phones, "No signal," they said in unison.

"What is going on?" Angela asked, turning to Will as if he would have an explanation. "What the hell is going on."

The television reporter continued to speak, "Yes, it seems as if the ring is breaking up. Every second man has turned to face inwards and is walking towards the centre of the circle they had formed -"

From outside came a faint rattle of gunfire.

"- while the remaining men are still firing on Police and anybody else who happens to move."

"What's happening?" Josh asked, as a tense silence filled the room, each of the adults seemingly completely lost as to what to do.

Will took charge, "Get to the car, quickly."

Tabitha and Jacob scooped up their children and they all ran for the door, but mere moments before they could get it open it burst open seemingly of its own accord.

"Well, well," came an oily voice as one of the suited men appeared in the doorway. "This is going to fun."

"What do you want?!" Angela screamed, her head dully aching.

The man smiled, a somehow hard and cruel look, "You."

Will's arm pushed her backwards. "The other door," he hissed. The group turned towards the other door.

"I wouldn't," said the oily voice.

Ignoring him the group pushed forward, but found the front door was also open and in it stood another suited man. Angela looked around, at every window stood one or more suited men, some just standing and looking others with their hands cupped to the glass as they peered inside.

"Who are you people!?" Will demanded.

"You knew us once," came a reply from behind them. The first man had entered the house now, in his right hand he held a pistol and in his left a battered brown briefcase.

"I never-" began William.

"And so did she," the suited man said pointing at Angela.

"Mum?" Tabitha asked. "Who are these people?"

"I don't... I don't know!"

"Oh, but you do, you _do_ know."

"No, I don't! I DON'T KNOW!" Angela yelled.

Maybe this will remind you, the man said raising the pistol and pointing it at Tabitha.

"I don't know!" Angela pleaded.

The house seemed to shake as the pistol roared. Angela's ears were ringing and everything seemed to move into slow motion.

She watched on, helplessly, as Tabitha dropped her daughter, trying uselessly to get out of the way.

She watched as, as if from nowhere, Jacob appeared in front of his sister.

She watched as Jacob fell, wordlessly, to the ground half of his face missing.

She watched as Tabitha reacted, her legs seeming to give way beneath her as she fell to her brother's side, screaming.

She heard as William yelled at the stranger, calling him a bastard as he too fell to Jacob's side.

She watched as the children ran screaming from the scene.

At last some sensation came back to Angela, "Why?" she asked. " _Why?_ "

"For fun," the man in the suit with the oily, calm, voice said with a smile.

"Fun?!" She heard Tabitha yell. "Fun!"

Before anybody could react, Tabitha was on her feet, she ran at the stranger but he seemed to have anticipated this move. With another house shaking roar the pistol fired again and Tabitha staggered and fell, sprawling across the hall.

"I suggest nobody else tries to be a hero," the man said with a smile. "I have plenty more bullets and at least three more victims."

"Not the children," Angela pleaded, "please not the children."

"Well," said the man. "I only _need_ you. So perhaps if you'll just come with me."

"Don't," Will muttered. "Don't go with him. He'll kill us all anyway, he's insane! He'll kill us all anyway and then he'll kill you after he's got from you whatever it is that he wants."

The man in the suit put on a mocking tone. "Don't," he mocked. "Don't go with him. Shut up." The pistol roared again and William fell to his side, his face landing in the ever-expanding pool of blood on the hallway floor.

Angela stood dumbfounded. In mere minutes she had lost three of the five most important people in the world to her and her mind was left reeling. She was unable to think, unable to speak, barely able to continue standing.

"Still not willing to come with me?" the man asked.

From behind her Angela heard the screams of children, turning she saw that more suited men had entered the house. One had hold of Josh and the other Rose, each held a gun to the child's head and each wore an expression that plainly stated if Angela didn't do what she was told both of the children would join the pile of bodies on the floor.

Turning back to the first man Angela spoke, her voice flat and her heart broken. "I'll go with you."

"I thought you'd say that," the suited man said and nodded slightly.

From behind her came the reports of two gun shots followed by two thumping sounds and then silence, no more screaming children, no more gunshots, no more voices.

Angela collapsed to her knees, her head coming to a rest on the floor.

"Well," said the man, "I _did_ say we _only_ needed _you_."

He grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. From somewhere deep inside her Angela summoned what little strength was left in her aging body and swung her fist at the man, who easily dodged it.

"You've really got no idea," he said, sounding, if anything, faintly surprised. He raised his own hand, the one holding the briefcase, up above his shoulder and Angela knew what was going to happen next.

The briefcase swung towards her, time once again seeming to slow to a crawl, before the world was plunged into a sudden darkness as it struck her head.

## Chapter 12

At long last Tabitha came to a halt and William slowed to stand beside her, his entire body aching with cramp and overexertion, "You sure can run," he said, between heaving breaths.

"When you've had to run forever you get used to it."

"But you were in prison, how could you run? Keep fit? You know?"

"One word, regeneration."

"Regeneration?"

"It's simple really, whenever I do - did - that thing I did back there with Jake it puts me back exactly as I was on the day that I first met them creeps in the suits."

"Really?"

Tabitha sighed gently, "It's a bit more complicated than that, but that is the basics of it."

William paused to think for a moment, "So... you don't get any older?"

"Not if I regenerate."

"That is amazing!" William replied. "No, really, it is! Though... I have to ask... if you don't mind... how _old_ are you?"

"A little bit younger than Jake, and he was -"

"Almost as old as the universe," William completed the sentence for her. "But that doesn't really give me any idea."

"No, I suppose no, Tabitha replied and William sensed the conversation was over and sat heavily on the ground, rubbing at his aching feet and legs. After a few moments Tabitha sat down beside him, "So," she began, "who are you?"

"Uh... William."

"You're not from here are you? I can sense energies and yours is... different."

"Me and Jacob came through a... Trans Dimensional Gateway, I think that was what he called it."

Tabitha laughed, "So he figured it out, did he? Amazing."

"I suppose so?"

Tabitha just looked at him, with the hint of a smile still on her face.

"Uh... do you want to know about where I come from?"

Tabitha smiled properly, "Tell me a story of your world, I like stories and I like new worlds."

William began his story, telling Tabitha all he could think of about his home planet, Earth, told her about himself and his life both before and with Angela and finally, at her request, told her what he knew and remembered Angela saying about Jacob. As he finished this last part of his story, he noticed that the girl was quietly crying.

"Hey," he said, uncertain what to do, or say, next.

Tabitha sniffed and rubbed at her face, "I'm fine." She said, "I'm fine. Now Jake told me where he suspects Angela is. I dunno what his plan was for getting you there, or if he even had one, but we've got days upon days of running or walking to go if we're going to get there by foot."

"Is there any other way?"

"Well there is..."

"So, we do that then."

Tabitha sat silently.

"Don't we?" William pressed. "We do it the fast way."

"Let's sleep on it shall we, all that running has left me a bit tired."

William sensed that tiredness wasn't the reason Tabitha didn't want to continue right now, but he himself was absolutely shattered. His legs had almost seized in their current position and the moment she had mentioned sleep his eyes had felt heavy. "Yeah, sleep on it," he mumbled as he drifted off.

William woke with a start.

"Is coming back, isn't coming back. Is. Isn't. Not here now, gone. Gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. Still here? No. Gone." Tabitha talked and muttered to herself as she walked in circles around where William, and presumably she herself, had slept the night.

"Tabitha?" William asked.

"Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone," she said again, spinning on her heel to face William. "Have to get Angela. Can't teleport you, but have to get Angela. Can't teleport her, too well guarded, guarded, guarded..."

"Are you all right?"

"Guards at every door, every window, they will sense us, they will sense you, see you even if you were invisible. She controls matter, they control matter. Can't see me but have to get you in too. He's not coming back. Not. Coming. Back. Not coming back. Can't come back. Still lingering though, lingering here with me. He's not coming back, have to get Angela back."

William stood up and carefully approached the girl, who, to Williams mind, was clearly having another moment of insanity. She rapidly tapped her fingers of her right hand across her thumb, before she would pause holding her hand to her chest and rubbing her thumb over her index and middle fingers before drumming them once more. Her unfocused eyes darted around, seemingly to avoid eye contact with William and she seemed to sway, ever so gently, from side to side. William held out his hand to her, grabbing hers in his. "Tabitha?"

Tabitha squeezed his hand, "William. It's not going to be easy; you're going to have to trust me." Her eyes focused on him and her free hand fell to her side, relaxed. She stopped swaying from side to side and seemed entirely herself again.

William felt extremely uneasy placing his trust in someone who seemed to still be plagued with temporary breaks from sanity, who knew when the next one would strike? He certainly didn't, he hoped it wasn't in a time when she needed all her wits about her. "I'll trust you," he said, "but first I need a few questions answered."

"Questions answered," Tabitha echoed, before squeezing Williams hand and cocking her head to one side, waiting for William to speak.

"Okay," William said, not quite sure where to begin now that he found he might get some answers at long last. "Okay."

"Okay," Tabitha echoed once more. "We're going to have to walk and talk though. We've got to keep moving or they'll catch us up. And we can't be caught, not yet anyway."

William finally found his first question, "Not yet?"

"No, definitely not yet. We're inside the wrong cell," Tabitha glanced at William and saw his confusion. She sighed heavily, "Jacob."

"What?"

"Jacob. The man clearly hasn't explained anything to you, has he? I think he just assumes everyone can read minds or something. Right. So. Right. Yes. The men in the suits, they operate on the surface of a planet inside cells. Each is a contained unit sort of thing, but they do venture outside of their designated cells when they need to in order to advance their mission."

"Mission?"

"To take over the planet, take all that is there for the taking, then to move on. Anyway, one thing that doesn't transfer between cells is prisoners. Prisoners are retained within a cell unless orders come from much, much higher up the chain than the planet-based cells - we think it's for administration purposes or the like."

William nodded, "That makes sense, kind of."

"So, if we get captured now, we'll be inside the wrong cell. We need to be captured by the same cell that is holding Angela."

"So, your grand plan to save Angela is to get ourselves captured."

Tabitha nodded. "It's the only way without Jake. It'll get us inside. Once we are inside, we can make our move, before they transfer us to the cells. We won't have long, so you'll have to be ready. You'll have to grab an energy rifle or a sword or some other weapon off the nearest suited man when I give the signal once we're inside."

"So... what will the signal be."

Tabitha smiled before disappearing in blaze of light and reappearing on Williams opposite side.

"Well, I don't think I will miss that," William said with a small laugh.

"Questions," Tabitha said. "With an S, so what else?"

"Angela."

Tabitha raised an eyebrow, "What of her? What did Jake tell you?"

William looked at his feet, "He uh... didn't have time." He looked up again, "You said something about she control's matter?"

"I did? When?"

"Just moments ago."

"I don't think so."

William panicked a bit more, if she wasn't aware she was having these breaks from sanity that could only end even worse for him. "Yes, you did. When you were walking in circles and talking to yourself."

Tabitha stopped walking abruptly and turned to face him, her head cocked slightly to one side as she blew a strand of hair from her face. "Walking in circles and talking to myself?"

William almost screamed 'I don't know how to deal with this!' at the top of his lungs for the whole universe to hear but instead he steeled his resolve and decided he would need to explain to the girl a bit better. "Yeah, talking to yourself like you were when you were in that thing they had you in."

"Already?"

"What do you mean 'already'?"

"It's wearing off too fast, I've been burning through energy too fast. We should have had weeks before it started to wear off and the insanity came back. I wonder if it's because he is gone... yes, yes that might be it." She frowned, then screwed up her nose. "I guess you're going to have to try and keep me anchored then, aren't you?"

William nodded cautiously, "How do I do that?"

"Do whatever it was you did before, that brought me out of didn't it?"

"Seemed to... slowly."

"Good, good."

"So, I just grab your hand and call your name?"

"If that's what you did. Anyway, enough about crazy old me. You were asking about Angela. She is... the last of her kind, the rest were lost to the suited men. She was just a tiny baby and was, undoubtedly, destined to become the one that they would use to extract her kinds abilities from and add it to their own."

"Abilities?"

"Yes, she is able to see the fabric of the universe, every tiniest atom and control it, make it do what she wants."

William felt his mouth drop open and so quickly shut it. "So... how come they didn't get her?"

Tabitha laughed, "Jake. He stood in the ruins and rescued her."

William didn't know what to say, suddenly Angela's relationship with Jacob made a lot more sense than it did mere moments ago. "So, he raised her?"

Once again, the soft sound of Tabitha's laughter filled the air. "You have to be joking. No, it was me that did the majority of the work. Jake... well... Jake's Jake. He did his best and its thanks to him that she figured out how to control what she can do. But no, I wouldn't say Jake raised her."

Silence fell over the pair as William processed this new information, this information about his matter-controlling girlfriend and the strange childhood she must have had.

After a while something dawned on William, "You said 'she can do it, they can do it'. Does this mean the suited men can do what she can? Have they managed to get what they needed from her or whatever it was?"

"Jake said they've had her ten years, so yes I would say they have either managed to replicate whatever gene or otherwise it is they need, or are very close to doing so."

"So how do we know she is alive?"

Tabitha looked confused for a moment, then shook her head. "Stupid me," she said. "I saw her."

"You _saw_ her?"

"Well you've seen what I can do, I paid her a visit. That's how I know about the guards and the like. She is expecting you."

"Why didn't you tell me this before!" William demanded.

"Calm down. I have a lot going through my mind right now and, as you've noticed, it's not quite all there. And there are some new bits thrown in the mix. Actually... maybe that's why I've already started to lose it a bit sanity wise."

William was puzzled, "New bits?"

"Yes! New bits!" Tabitha said with a smile. "Jake left me with a hell of a lot of new knowledge I need to process and merge with what I know. Could even be that once that is finished the insanity will go away again. That would be nice wouldn't it?" She paused and looked at her right hand, which was once again drumming fingers across its thumb. "It's weird, but I'm not doing that you know... I think it's a bit of Jake... I can force myself to stop but if my attention wavers they start doing it again, by themselves." Tabitha laughed, then glanced at William briefly. "I think you'd feel a bit better about things it if it did go away, oh yes," Tabitha caught his eye, "I can see your worries. I share them, to go nutty in the middle of things when the grey suits turn up would not be ideal at all."

William was about to reply when Tabitha suddenly stopped and he had to rapidly halt himself to avoid colliding with her on the sloped ground they now found themselves upon. "We're in the right cell. Now to get their attention."

"Even though we're so far away? I can't see any of them near here."

"Well unless you want to walk and run for the next week or more?"

William sighed, "It's not easy for me you know. None of this is, it's all so different to what I'm used to."

Tabitha smiled and patted him gently on the arm, "I know. But you _will_ get used to it. The longer you're here the more used to it you'll become, until, one day, when, if, you go back home you'll feel out of place there. Now if you'll wait here a moment..."

The day was lit by a flash brighter than the light of the planetoids twin suns as Tabitha suddenly vanished leaving William alone with his thoughts for the first extended period of time since he had, seemingly mistakenly, thought he had killed Jacob.

Despite Tabitha's assurances, he still had deep misgivings about what could happen with this grand plan of hers, he would prefer to find a way to rescue Angela without having to be captured - especially since Tabitha herself admitted she was worried about perhaps losing her sanity for a few moments, or more, at a crucial time. No matter how hard he thought, however, he couldn't come up with a better plan, especially one that could almost guarantee he would have saving Angela within his grasp perhaps before the end of the day.

Pushing aside his thoughts about what lay ahead, he turned his thoughts instead to his new companion. He knew she was still keeping things from him, but he gathered that she would tell him when she was ready - she seemed to be focusing all of her energy on saving Angela, and to William that felt right. As he thought about her, he wondered about her connection with Jacob. From what he had so far seen of her, when she wasn't having breaks from sanity, and from what he had seen of Jacob both in the past and here in his world they seemed like an extremely unlikely pairing. But then there was that moment, that fleeting moment, inside Tabitha's prison when the two had been together and they had just seemed to click.

Now of course, Jacob was apparently gone but parts of his mind were living inside Tabitha's mind. Which made no sense at all, it just wasn't possible to stick bits of your mind into someone else's. Not only was it impossible but if you did manage to do it, William thought, you'd undoubtedly wreck the other persons mind - a brain just isn't designed for more than one person to live inside it. Which, now that he thought about it, made Tabitha's argument for the insanity being because bits of Jacob's mind were now in her mind make some sense. Not much sense, but a little, maybe almost enough to put him a little more at ease about the situation than he had been.

An eternity seemed to have crept by while Tabitha was away doing whatever it was she was doing, leaving William hoping she hadn't already been caught. Though with her ability to teleport like she did he wondered how she could even have been caught in the first place - a question he thought he might ask her when they got Angela back and were safely home on Earth.

As the second of the twin stars sunk below the horizon, the rings of the planet that graced the night-sky appeared at the opposite horizon and William wondered how many people would have killed to stand where he stood now, on an alien planet beneath an alien sky. He thought it would probably be just about everybody, but all he himself was worried about was getting back home. Home, where the only thing in the night sky was the moon and the day time had the correct number of suns. This bizarre universe and its equally bizarre inhabitants were beginning to really wear on Williams patience, speaking of which, where exactly _was_ Tabitha and _why_ was she taking _so_ very long to get back?

Waking with a start William woke to a face framed in red with eyes so green they seemed to glow in the dark of the night and that wore a smile that almost went from ear to ear just inches from his face.

"Wakey, wakey, lazy bones," it said. "Things are afoot!"

For a moment William could have sworn the face morphed into Jacob's and that he, William, then asked 'Don't you ever just... you know... speak normally?' Instead he slowly pulled himself up and looked across at the smiling girl sitting beside him. "What are you grinning about?" he asked, cursing himself silently for falling asleep.

"The things that are afoot," Tabitha said in a tone that made it clear she was deliberately trying to wind him up.

William glowered at her.

"Don't be like that! I've been to see Angela; she thinks if we can get into the building where she is held, she should be able to get to us straight away. Then we all just need to get out."

"You've talked to Angela again?!" William excitedly asked. "Did you mention me? Did _she_?"

Tabitha laughed again, "Yes you were mentioned. She looks forward to seeing you."

William grinned from ear to ear at the news and almost forgot to listen as Tabitha continued talking, his mind instead racing after thoughts of Angela.

"She's going to be very little use to us of course, escaping her guards is going to cost her dearly. So once, if, when, she joins us it's still going to be up to you and me. So... we best test Jakes theory, I think."

"What theory is that?"

"Stand up," Tabitha instructed doing so herself.

"What's the theory then?" William pressed, watching as Tabitha held out her right hand and closed her eyes. Within moments her face was screwed up in concentration and a smoke-like substance began to form around her hand. It twisted, turned, faded away and came back stronger and over the next few moments extended upwards from her outstretched hand - up and higher than her head. Slowly it took shape and when she snapped her eyes open the smoky cloud darkened for a moment then exploded outwards, rapidly fading.

"Well," said Tabitha, her eyes shining, "that actually worked!" She flicked her wrist and the sword she now held sung as it sliced through the air. "Absolutely amazing!" she exclaimed.

William took a few moments to register what had just happened, "I thought you said Angela was the only one who could control matter?"

Tabitha smiled, "I did. But this wasn't matter control. Don't you recognize the blade?"

William looked closer at the sword that Tabitha held out for him to examine, and realized he _had_ seen it before and he _did_ recognize it. "So... it didn't disappear with him then? I saw it on his back last."

"Don't ask me how it works," Tabitha said with a small laugh, "just be glad it does. It's Tiberlon steel and has a few surprising properties - not the least of which appears to be surviving its own destruction." Tabitha's light tone and cheerful expression vanished instantly. "Now to test the theory."

William felt suddenly worried for his own safety. "What are you going to do?" he asked, slowly stepping backwards.

"Oh, not kill you, if that's what you were worried about."

William breathed a sigh of relief.

"Just, you know, sever a limb."

Panic returned to William as the crazed girl lifted the blade and swung it through the air towards him. He rushed backwards, but stumbled and with a pain unimaginable the blade struck his right shoulder, tearing through flesh and smashing through bone. He couldn't help but scream in agony, clutching at his shoulder with his left hand as blood ran over his fingers. He caught Tabitha's eye and saw there, strangely, a look of expectant curiosity.

"You..." he began, trying to find the words to express his anger, his disgust, his pain, but failing.

"I hope he wasn't wrong," Tabitha said, a look of concern gracing her face for a moment. "He's not often wrong, but every now and then..."

William stared at her, incredulous through his pain. "What..." he began before stopping as the crazed girl slowly smiled then broke into a soft laugh, the laughter of relief. "What," he began once more, "do you think you're doing!?" he finally demanded.

Tabitha raised an eyebrow at him.

He pointed at her, "You mad, crazy, bitch!"

Tabitha laughed again, this time clearly in amusement of something she seemed to find hysterically funny.

He walked up to her and grabbed her. "You think this is funny?" he roared, his face inches from hers. "Do you?!"

Tabitha's laugher slowly died as William held her, waiting for an answer. "Now William," she said, placing her free hand on his. "I _think_ you may want to think about what you're doing."

"What _I'm_ doing?! How about you think about what _you're_ doing! I am going to kill you where you-" he fell silent as he realized Tabitha was tapping his hand. His _right_ hand. The one she had just chopped off. He spun on his heel, throwing Tabitha around and looked at where he had been when she had struck him. Sure enough, lying there in the grass for all to see was his right arm and hand. And yet... here the crazy girl was with his hand in hers. Laughter again sprang from her. "I don't..." he said. "I don't understand."

"Welcome to the most exclusive of clubs," Tabitha said with a smile. "Immortality!"

"I can't die?"

"Well... something out there can probably kill you, it's a big universe, so I wouldn't go flaunting your new found invincibility all about the place. Well... you don't even need to look far. I could likely kill you where you stand before you'd even realized I had done it, but there's no more of me running around out there as far as I am aware."

"Immortal," William whispered, trying to get his head around what that meant.

William looked up in time to see the sword Tabitha held suddenly vanish, as if it had never been there at all.

"He says... said... says that each time is easier. I'll be able to have it faster, easier, next time. But, right now, I don't want to be armed."

"Why?" William asked, but before Tabitha could answer the question answered itself as a large group of grey-suited men suddenly popped, with a literal popping noise, into existence around the pair.

"Oh dear, William," Tabitha said, with a sly smile, "it would appear we are captured."

"Well, well Leech," said the nearest of the suited men, "not as smart as you thought you were. Fancy running from the containment facility only to appear in the Sector Fifty-Seven Headquarters. Doesn't seem to add up at all does it?" Around William other suited men murmured their agreement and suddenly he was worried about their grand plan to save Angela.

"Take them," the suited man said as William felt strong hands grip his arms and the strangest of sensations, the strangest since stepping between universes, as with a slightly popping noise he vanished with the suited man from the outside world and appeared inside a room, dimly lit and walled all around with a grey concrete.

He spun around, but nobody was in the room with him and he was startled as one of the walls suddenly lit up showing a video, he assumed a live video, that showed Angela strung up like a doll from the ceiling, it was filmed on an angle from high above for some reason. Beside her was someone else, whose fire-engine red hair gave them away instantly.

William swore. It seemed their plan had fallen apart before it even began.

He swore again as a suited man turned and smiled directly towards where the camera must be, a smile undoubtedly intended for him.

A third time he swore as the suited men in the room produced baseball-bat like objects and surrounded the pair of restrained women. He ceased swearing and roared with rage as the men lined them up, then began to pummel the pair again and again. Neither seemed to resist, neither seemed able to resist. At each impact Tabitha's natural, faint, glow seemed to fade while Angela, who had been looking around, seemed to slip further and further from consciousness.

At last the men gave up their sport, seeming to laugh as they tossed the battens aside. William watched in horror as pipes and tubing, identical to those that had been in Tabitha's previous prison descended from the ceiling. Helplessly he watched as they snaked through the air, like living things sniffing out a scent. Finally, they got close enough and rapidly latched onto Tabitha and the instant they did so the lighting in Williams cell grew brighter, so fast and so bright did the lighting increase that several of the bulbs, or whatever they used, exploded in showers of sparks.

Hope soared within William as Angela stirred, she lifted her head and gazed around the room, her expression blank until her eyes fell on Tabitha whereby her expression changed to one of horror. She thrashed in the chains that held her suspended from the ceiling but suddenly stopped as if snap frozen. From behind her walked a suited man, he was twisting his hands in a strange manager as he stared at Angela. William watched as the man seemed to force her to face him, even though he never touched her head that had been turned away from him. He watched as the man forced her to turn so hard that he saw her neck suddenly snap and her head fall again to her chest before she slowly lifted it, said something and spat at the suited man.

William fell to his knees as he helplessly watched the screen, wondering what, if anything, he could do now. He couldn't teleport like Tabitha. He didn't have any weapons. He didn't even know if he was in the same building as the captured women. All he knew was he was in a concreted room with a large screen on one wall and no windows or doors at all.

The lights flickered.

The lights flickered.

Once more they flickered and William noticed something. The screen on the wall didn't flicker. It didn't glow either. It wasn't even a screen. It was a window. A window made of a strange sort of glass, probably to make it non-reflective. William stared at what he could see through the window. Estimated the distance to the ground at over a hundred meters.

He walked backwards from it.

"Immortality," he said.

He ran at the window.

## Chapter 13

"Wake up! Mister! You have to wake up!" a voiced called, as if from far away. Groaning Jacob opened his eyes and glanced around to see who was trying to wake him. "Are you awake yet Mister?" the voice asked, a girl's voice, a voice he didn't recognize but with a cadence and tone that seemed familiar.

"I think so," Jacob replied, "but I'm not sure as I don't seem to be able to see anything _and_ , what's more, I don't know where I am. Where am I?"

"You have to get up Mister, they are coming. If you don't get up, they will kill you."

"Kill me? For lying down? That seems a _bit_ extreme," Jacob said as light suddenly sprung forth in a rectangular shape. He sprung to his feet realizing he was in a room, a room best described as a cell. The silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway, the light streaming in around him. Jacob shaded his eyes from the glare and watched as the silhouette of a man formed in the doorway, in front of the blinding light.

"Ah, you're up," said the silhouette. "How unfortunate, I was so looking forward to killing you."

"Where the hell am I?" Jacob demanded.

"Oh yes, questions, questions, questions. Here's one for you; did you really think they wouldn't notice?"

"Notice what?"

"A ship, the _same_ ship, visiting all the worlds that have been destroyed."

"You _were_ monitoring them," Jacob said, with a heavy sigh.

"Of course, they were monitored, it would have been incredibly dense not to do so, wouldn't it have been?"

Jacob swore under his breath, cursing himself for not taking up his plan to visit space stations and charter different vessels to visit each of the worlds.

"It helped, of course, that they were looking out for you. You see, they got word you were coming. Word that you would be a very valuable asset. So that's why they hired me, to find you and bring you to them."

Jacobs mind was racing, who knew that he was visiting the Dead Worlds? The answer was, of course, nobody. Nobody knew as he had nobody to tell. And who was this 'them' or 'they' that this man continually referred to. High-Command? Somehow, he didn't think so.

"Don't look so surprised, surely you knew this would happen - what else could happen?" The silhouette began to fade and with a sudden clang and an instant darkness the door shut.

Jacob stood in silence, lost in his thoughts. He wondered if he could turn to shadow and escape and was about to test it when a voice piped up from somewhere in the gloom behind him.

"So," it said in a tone that was trying to be upbeat, but was somehow failing to quite manage it, "that's our captor. Nice chap, isn't he?"

Jacob turned towards the voice and approached the girl; despite the dark he could see her as clear as day. She seemed to see him, or more probably sense him, and moved away slowly as he approached. She was wary of him and he didn't blame her, she didn't know him and he didn't know her.

"Why are you here?" he asked. "I think we've established why I am here; I looked into things they didn't want me to look into - whoever they are of course - but why are _you_ here? What did _you_ do? Something to do with what I was doing? Or are you just another prisoner?"

The girl sighed, quietly, seeming reluctant to talk.

Jacob waited, then realized her hesitation maybe his fault. "Sorry. I don't mean to grill you. I just like to... know things; knowledge is power. But I..." He struggled to find words to explain himself.

"It's okay," came the girls voice.

"No, it isn't," Jacob argued.

She girl blew a stray strand of hair from her face, "Don't argue with me when I say it's okay. It's okay. Alright?"

Jacob laughed, "Alright."

"Have you a preference on what question you want answered first?" the girl asked, her tone seemingly to imply that Jacob may have forgotten something important.

For a moment Jacob said nothing, but then it occurred to him. "My names Jacob, what, may I ask, is yours?"

"Taylor Lily, but just call me Taylor," the girl replied, though the look that flashed across her face and the tiniest of delays before her answer indicated to Jacob that the name she had provided might not actually be her name.

'Fair enough,' he thought, 'let her get to know me first. After all, we're both imprisoned here and for all she knows I am some crazed psychopath.' "Nice to meet you," Jacob replied aloud, "perhaps the why of how you came to be here would be what you cared to answer next. I am sure that is a story that will answer my other questions."

He felt the girls gaze on him, knew she was trying to decide whether or not to trust him or not. At last he heard her laugh slightly and she began to speak. "To be honest, Jacob, I am not sure why I am here - as far as I know I did nothing wrong. But I can tell you how I ended up here, it's a pretty short story. Basically, I was working on one of the research stations - it doubled as a transport station - and then there he was," the girl paused, took a deep breath and continued, talking fast as she had before.

"He stormed through the docking bay doors, aiming directly for me. He shoved everyone out of his way, grabbed me and dragged me to his ship. Everything went black, I assume he knocked me out, and then I woke up in here. In here where its cold and its dark, almost the perfect prison for someone of my kind. I've been here for days in solitude, excepting his occasional visits to ensure I was still alive. He told me I'd soon have a visitor and if they weren't on their feet when he arrived, he would kill them. Then you arrived, then I woke you up. And that brings you up to speed."

Jacob's mind raced to keep up with the speed the girl was divulging information and it took him a few moments to process it. "So, I suppose that begs the question... why us?"

"I'll agree with you on that," Taylor replied.

"Fortunately, our captor has made himself a critical mistake. Perhaps he was ill-informed or perhaps he thought he knew better."

"What is that then?"

"You said the cold and the dark was a perfect prison for someone of your kind?"

Taylor tentatively replied, "Yes..."

"Well... for my kind it isn't," Jacob said beginning to draw the darkness towards himself, stirring a gentle breeze within the confined space.

"You're a Shadow!"

Jacob laughed, "I am indeed and from your description of a perfect prison I would hazard a guess that you're a Light. Yes, yes, certainly Fraela Tylo, Fruukgal-Ru."

"Wait!" Taylor yelled. "You speak my language?"

Jacob frowned, "Apparently..."

"What do you mean apparently. You do or you don't. So, do you?"

"I _have_ had a recent knock to the ol' head. Say a sentence to me and I'll translate it and we'll see."

Taylor paused in thought for a moment, "Fraela Tylo tryt po, o'po Horla Tabha," she whispered.

Jacob cocked an eyebrow, "I didn't think your name was Taylor."

"Tell me what I said! I need to know if you understood exactly."

With a laugh Jacob spoke, "You said: Taylor Lily isn't me, I'm Tabitha Rose." As he uttered the last words a shooting pain seared across his mind and the image of a man in a suit surrounded in bodies flashed across his eyes.

"Amazing!" the girl, formally Taylor but now apparently Tabitha, declared. "I've never met a person of Shadow - or anyone that wasn't of my kind, actually - that could speak the language of the light!"

"Well it seems I can. Though I don't know when I learnt it."

"But you said something else, in yet a different language again. What is Fruukgal-Ru?" she stammered over the pronunciation of the last word.

"Fruuk. Gal. Ru. In the old tongue, its 'The Light' though, yet again, I am at a loss as to where that knowledge came from."

"I have never heard that language before."

"Probably why it's called 'the old tongue' then I suspect." Jacob could tell the girl, Tabitha, was warming to him. And quickly. Which took him a little by surprise.

"You can get out of here can't you?" she asked, approaching him.

"Oh yes. What's a little dark to a Shadow."

"I can help. A light in the dark places, to guide your way."

Jacob frowned, something about what Tabitha said sounded very familiar. Then another thought occurred to him, "I thought you said this was a perfect prison?"

"I said _almost_ the perfect prison."

A light suddenly flared beside him and sparks rained down from the ceiling.

"Who would be silly enough to run electrical cables right over a prison cell for an energy being?" Tabitha said.

Jacob laughed, "I think I'm going to like you."

"I know you are."

"One question..."

"Is the question, perhaps, that if I've always known I could escape why did I wait 'til right now?"

"That would be it," Jacob replied.

"I may have shortened the story too much, he's told me since he brought me here that soon I would have a cellmate, a visitor whom he would kill if they weren't on their feet when he came to check."

"So, you waited because you wanted to... save someone you'd never met."

Tabitha smiled at him, "Precisely. It's the proper thing to do."

Jacob shook his head in disbelief.

"What do you say we get out of here Shadowy-Man?"

Jacob nodded, "Yes. It's time for some answers. I want to know who 'they' are."

"Take no prisoners, don't let them take you alive!"

"Didn't plan on either," Jacob said. Then with the power of his people he transformed himself from solid form to shadow and slipped out from under the door, emerging as a shadow visage of himself on the other side just as a glowing form of Tabitha appeared in the corridor alongside him.

Something deep in his mind tried to tell him something, but he shoved it aside as he began to walk, with his new-found friend at his side, along the corridor towards where he hoped he would find the bridge.

It took a few moments but something else registered with Jacob as he walked. "This is _my_ ship," he muttered. "Not enough just to capture me, but they've taken my ship."

"Your ship?" Tabitha asked, looking around. "How did you come to possess a ship this large?"

"I kind of... found it. Then kept it. High Command was just going to store the thing for ten years then scrap it anyway."

Tabitha raised an eyebrow, "Why don't I believe that story?"

"I don't know, it's what happened. Found it on a planet, stole it from High Command and took to the stars. Well, to the Dead Worlds."

"Something still doesn't seem right about it," she uttered as she blew a strand of hair from her face.

Jacob frowned. Now that she mentioned it, he was almost certain it wasn't right, that wasn't what had led to him acquiring this ship. But that was _definitely_ how he remembered it happening.

As they approached a computer panel, he slowed and accessed it.

"What are you looking for?"

"Answers,"

"Well you'll not find any in there," came a voice from behind them.

Jacob and Tabitha spun around to see a strange creature staring at them. On each side of its head was a different face: one male, one female. At first, they spoke in unison, but it soon became apparent each face could speak independently, could apparently even think independently.

"They told us you'd be tricky."

"But you didn't listen did you."

"I didn't see the point."

"I told you to put him in the light room not the dark room. Now look."

"Well it isn't a problem now anyway is it?"

"No, not anymore," the faces said in unison once more. "They are already here so they can deal with this."

"Who are they?" Jacob demanded.

"I like it when they don't remember," came a new voice, an oily smooth, calm, voice.

A man stepped out from behind the nearest corner in the corridor. He wore a grey suit and carried a battered brown briefcase - which contrasted with his highly polished shoes quite dramatically. He stepped behind the two-faced creature and it fell suddenly, silently to the ground. A blade of some sort protruding from its back. "What can I say? Didn't need them anymore."

Jacob breathed in sharply, "From the visions," he whispered.

"What?" Tabitha asked.

Jacob turned to her, "No time to explain!" For reasons he didn't understand, he held his hand to her temple and conveyed, somehow, to her his memories of the visions he'd been having.

"Oh," she said. "Whose voice is that? It sounds like..." she stopped, looking confused.

"No idea," Jacob replied.

"If you've both quite finished," the suited man said before arms suddenly seized Jacob from behind. He struggled against them but found he couldn't escape.

"Remember me?" came yet another new voice. "I found the world destroyers! And now I get to destroy you!"

Jacob turned to Tabitha, "It's the virus! You have to run! Run Tabitha!" Jacob saw the confusion on her face, she didn't know about the virus. But if it managed to infect a Light as well as a Shadow, they could practically kiss good bye to the entire universe - especially since it had now found the planet destroyers.

"Tabitha?" the suited man asked. "Him I expected to escape, but you... how did you get out of the dark?"

Tabitha smiled, "Why don't you find out yourself?"

"Is that a threat?"

Jacob continued to struggle with the virus which had seized him as Tabitha spoke with the suited man, a barely audible tone in her voice indicating her utter contempt and disgust for the man.

The suited man stepped forward, pulling something from behind him as he did so. Jacob saw a blur of something metallic hurtle through the air before it struck Tabitha's arm.

Everything seemed to stop.

Jacob turned to Tabitha.

Tabitha looked at the device on her arm.

"Oh," she said.

Before Jacobs eyes Tabitha seemed to blur. To shake so violently from side to side that the eye couldn't keep up. Then she began to shake up and down as well, confusing the eye even more before suddenly she stopped.

"What have you done!" Jacob yelled as he looked at what was once Tabitha.

"What had to be done," Tabitha replied. But she wasn't Tabitha any more. She was a man in a suit. In her left hand was a battered brown briefcase reflected, somewhat distortedly by the curve, in the highly polished black shoes.

"You're next," the man, formally Tabitha, said, removing the device from his arm and moving to place it on Jacob.

As the device left the man's arm his expression changed. "It's cold and it's dark," he said. "Why is it so cold and dark?"

Jacob struggled and broke finally free of the thing that held him, the thing that was formally Tom but now nothing but a hideous harbinger of death.

He backed along the corridor, looking first at what was once Tom and then at what was once Tabitha. "I'm so, so, sorry," he whispered.

"Why is it dark?" came Tabitha's voice, hardly audible across corridor. "Please Jacob, just tell me."

Jacob frowned. Something didn't add up here.

He glanced at the original suited man who was staring at his new clone.

"Please Jake, tell me. _Please_ ," Tabitha's voice pleaded, shortening his name unexpectedly.

Jacob ran his hands through his hair, "I won't, that would be far too cruel."

The tiniest of sobs echoed across the corridor and struck Jacob like a blow. "I'm..." Tabitha's voice paused, in one of the longest silences Jacob felt he had ever endured. "One of them," she finally concluded, "aren't I?"

Jacob forced himself to speak, "Yes, Tabitha, yes."

Unbidden a vision came to him again. The suited man stood on a dusty plain, surrounded in stacks of bodies. Someone was speaking, a voice that seemed familiar. "Help me! I remember! I remember you and I remember him! Jake, I remember you and you have to remember me! Remember me and focus on me! Focus on me Jake, reach out for my mind and grasp it! Bring yourself here, bring yourself back to me Jake. I remembered you, so you can damn well remember me!"

The vision passed and Jacob was once more staring at the man that was so recently a newly found friend.

"How come I'm still me?" they asked, "I still remember everything, in my head I still sound like me. Why am I still me if I am now him?"

Jacob was again bombarded with a vision, but this one was different. This time he was in the position the man had been in, looking at who was talking. He was surprised to see Tabitha, chained to a building behind her. She was talking to him, asking him to help her. Telling him to remember her, to come for her.

As fast as it had appeared the vision vanished, though Jacob's mind was left reeling and his vision blurred leaving the impression that reality was fading and he worried for a moment that he may pass out at any moment.

"Jake? How come I still think like me? How can I still be me if I am now him?"

"Remember," Jacob muttered, "remember..."

"How am I still me?" the man, once Tabitha, demanded.

"Be quiet!" The original suited man suddenly roared. He leapt towards the man that was once Tabitha, tried to force the device back onto their arm. But Jacob intercepted him, throwing him across the corridor and into the distant wall.

Jacob smiled, then laughed. The laughter of a madman.

"I can't control it!" formally Tabitha yelled, "there is an urge, an underlying desire to destroy!"

"Do it!" Jacob yelled, running towards Tabitha.

"No!" Formally Tabitha yelled back, "I won't be able to control it in this form I will destroy everything; I can feel it. I won't be able to control it, I'll destroy _everything_! The entire universe will be obliterated!"

"Exactly!" Jacob roared as he pushed the original suited man out of the way once more, noting as he did so the being that was once Tom had vanished mysteriously. "The _entire_ _universe_ will be _destroyed_!"

"Jake..." Tabitha spoke tentatively, "I'm scared. Do you want the universe destroyed? I won't be able to stop it."

"I know! That is exactly, _exactly_ what I need you to do! You have to destroy it, destroy all of it!"

He grabbed the suited man's hands.

"No Jake! I don't want to!"

"But you _have_ to, I'll even help you!"

"No! You can't make me destroy the universe, the entire universe and everyone in it!"

"Why are you still you?" Jacob asked in response.

The man that was once Tabitha paused, confused at the sudden change of topic. "What? Why am I still me? That's what I was asking you."

"Exactly Tabs, _why_ are you still you. You shouldn't be. You've been changed into him, one of them, yet you're still you."

"I... I... don't know."

Jacob saw the suited man getting up from the floor and kicked him violently back down. "I know why," he whispered.

"Jake? Why?"

"Because I needed you to be you," Jacob replied. "Because! I! Needed! You! To! Be!" he yelled each word, as if it were its own sentence.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Oh, but it does."

"Jake, you're scaring me."

"Think about it, Tabs. Why, when I needed you to still be you would you actually be you? Why?"

The suited man's expression changed, to one that was uncannily like Tabitha's when she was trying to catch up to Jacobs line of thinking. "Because... this isn't reality is it?"

Jacob laughed, "No, my dear, sweet, Tabitha Rose. This is _not_ reality. Everything here, _everything_ , has been created from my thoughts and my memories and no matter what happens, you would _always_ be you to me. Because we're connected you and I, we're part of each other, I couldn't lose you and so I didn't. They tried to change you, but I _need_ you more than I've ever needed anyone, or anything, and so you stayed you."

"But if everything here is from your mind, Jake, then why am I him?"

"But you're not him, you're you!"

"You're right," came Tabitha's reply, "I'm not."

Jacob felt a head lean against his shoulder and looked down to see Tabitha's bright red hair, bouncing slightly as she moved. He smiled as the realization sunk in that everything here in this reality, this virtual reality created by the suited men, was as he said it was. Which could only mean that in each of the other realities they had created for each of his friends the situation was the same: reality was fluid, it changed to suit the whims of the mind it contained.

Holding the original suited man down with his foot he turned to Tabitha and took her hands once more.

"Tell her about me. Please?"

"I will do better than that. You may be a figment of my mind here, but you're still her, cause my mind is connected to her mind, always. That's why that message from her keeps coming through. So, I'll show her you, from in here," he tapped his temple.

Tabitha stared at him for a long moment. "Together?"

"Definitely together, just like we always have been," Jacob replied, holding Tabitha's hands tighter and smiling.

A glow so bright that it almost blinded Jacob emanated from Tabitha and then through the glow he saw the silvery shimmer of the strange spheres that had appeared on his ship.

"Tabitha Rose!" he called, knowing that whatever reality she was in she would hear him.

"Sir!" called the officer monitoring the four spheres as they gently floated in their containment chambers.

The leader of the suited men leaped from his seat and ran to watch as one of the spheres suddenly shone with a bright light then disappeared, snapping from existence in less than the blink of an eye. "Well... That's one of them down. Let us hope she wasn't in that one. Only three left now."

Neither of the suited men noticed the ripples that momentarily raced across the surface of the sphere furthest from the one that had just vanished from existence, for, like the shining and vanishing of the latter, the ripples of the former vanished in less than the blink of an eye.

Head reeling Jacob attempted to make sense of the noise echoing around him, finally he realized it was an alarm blaring from one of the monitoring stations on the ships bridge and with a quick dance of fingers over the control-pad Jacob soon had the message displayed on his console's monitor.

"Hmmm," he murmured as he read the alert read-out, "that is mightily peculiar." For a few moments he debated his next course of action, before plotting a new course into the ships computer and watching as the view through the main view-screen changed to show a faint point of light that grew ever larger until it filled the entire space, and he looked at the planet below, Dracius, for the first time.

He initiated a scan to try and locate the source of the planetary distress signal and another one to scan the surrounding space. Unexpectedly the latter of the two scans detected another ship, a massive ship easily ten times the size of his own, a ship so large it would dwarf half the vessels in the Shadow fleet. He altered the angle of the view-screen to view the strange new vessel and watched in amazement as it fired repeatedly, and seemingly at random, at the surface of the planet.

The ship suddenly stopped firing, as if it had detected his scan, and moved to reposition itself. It remained inactive as Jacob watched it, but he sensed that it was monitoring something happening far down on the planet below.

Sighing Jacob turned the view-screen away, to again look at the planet. His scan for the source of the distress signal had come back negative, apparently there was no distress signal - yet his ships computers had clearly heard and acknowledged it, the blaring alarm was a big giveaway. He thought carefully for a moment before arriving at a decision, "Play the original distress call recording," he said to the empty room.

"No signal detected," the ships computer replied.

"Don't you give me that, you useless machine. You already alerted me to the distress call so you must have heard it."

"No signal detected."

"Yes, I heard that the _first_ time you said it. Tell me then, if there was no signal why did you alert me that there was a signal and show me the source of said signal? Hell, I even plotted a course straight to the source of it from the information you told me."

"No signal detected."

" _Fine!_ Be like that you useless hunk of metal! If there wasn't a signal, what did you alert me to?"

"A telepathic connection was detected."

"Telepathic? To me? Or to you?"

"The telepathic connection was connected directly to you."

Jacob frowned. "Interesting. Then why didn't I hear it? Sometimes I swear you interfere with things far too much."

"The connection was too distant for normal connection."

"So, you jumped onto the connection and alerted me to it? Good, that's good. Excellent even! Now can you play me back the message?"

"Playback of message will commence momentarily," the ships computer responded.

Jacob waited a few seconds before the playback began.

"Help me! I remember! I remember you and I remember him! Jake, I remember you and you have to remember me! Remember me and focus on me! Focus on me Jake, reach out for my mind and grasp it! Bring yourself here, bring yourself back to me Jake. I remembered you, so you can damn well remember me!"

Jacob fell back in his seat, confused and a little surprised. The distress call _was_ aimed at him, the ships computer had been right. And it seemed it was aimed at him by someone who knew him, and there was something in the way they spoke, it was as if they knew him well, shortening his name wasn't something many people did. At first, he tried to dismiss the message; it could have been aimed at another Jake... but there was something about that voice - it was if it spoke to him from his childhood, though he couldn't place where it belonged \- if indeed that's where it came from. Then, of course, there was the fact that the computer said it was aimed at him, telepathic connections are usually quite specific after all. Frowning he stood up and headed to the ships shuttle bay, muttering as he did so about how stupid an idea this was.

## Chapter 14

Tabitha fought against her bonds, screamed at the top of her lungs but her captors only response was to laugh at her.

"Struggle as much as you want my pet, you have no protection... no _Protector_ here!"

"I _am_ going to get free and then I _will_ kill you," Tabitha promised, more for her own benefit than anything else, ignoring what Kris said.

He laughed again as he vanished into the distance, seeming to cover large distances in a single stride, appearing then disappearing as he went until he was out of sight, beyond the horizon.

Again, Tabitha tried to transform herself to pure energy to escape her bonds and again it proved futile. Tabitha began to panic, not being able to do what came so naturally to her kind was... unnatural. Completely unheard of even. There was no force in the universe able to stop such a transformation in its tracks, as to call it a transformation was a gross simplification. Yet, suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed there was such a power. Never before had Tabitha felt so helpless and so alone.

In the past her intelligence had set her apart from her peers and her views on war had set her apart from most of the remainder of her kind. Yet she had found a home amongst the people who now largely littered the ground of the planet, many killed in the ships destruction and others, like Franks, who had proven unreachable earlier, almost certainly killed or incapacitated on the ground. The short period of having found people like her left her feeling more alone than she had ever felt before and she, bizarrely, found herself thinking of the man Bri had described as being her 'type' and wondering where he was.

She shook her head violently, fantasizing about some man was going to get her literally nowhere, though she did have a short laugh about the ridiculousness of having such a daydream at a time like this, especially as it was one she _never_ allowed herself to entertain. She was young and she was stubbornly independent, finding herself a partner was not high on her agenda, or anywhere on her agenda for that matter.

"Look at us here in the midday sun, no protection from it, no shadows! How it must hurt you, break you to not be able to draw from its energy."

Tabitha ceased struggling and looked at the man that had reappeared before her, her mind suddenly racing, reeling as if out of control, "What?"

Kris glared at her, "You heard me."

"No protection... no shadows... I have to remember..." Tabitha whispered. She looked up and stared Kris directly in the eye, "I have to remember!" she yelled.

This time it was Kris' turn to ask about what was being said, "What did you say?" he said, his smug expression seeming to flicker.

Tabitha's mind continued to race, image after image flooded her mind. The war had been over for generations. Her parents. A slave ship. Freedom. Schooling. A different decision: monitoring instead of the Planetary Division. A Space Station. The space station again, men in suits boarding it. And then, finally, a face. "Tabs," it said, " _remember_ me. _Help_ me. _Find_ me."

"Jake!" Tabitha yelled. "Help me! I remember!"

"What?" demanded Kris, slowly starting to approach her.

Tabitha immediately knew that time was short, she needed to get a message to Jake, where-ever he was, needed to get a message to him so he could focus on her, use that extra sense of his and find his way to her. "I remember you," she yelled, "and I remember him! Jake, I remember you and you have to remember me! Remember me and focus on me!"

Kris continued to approach, cursing at her, calling her names, threatening to kill her if she didn't shut up.

"Focus on me Jake, reach out for my mind and grasp it!"

Kris was within striking distance, he raised his briefcase high into the air behind him and swung it towards her head, she could hear the air whooshing around it as it bore down on her.

Hurriedly she continued. "Bring yourself here, bring yourself back to me Jake. I remembered you, so you can damn well remember me!"

The briefcase struck her head and the world fell dark.

Heavily blurred, the world reappeared before Tabitha's eyes as she slowly dragged herself back to consciousness. She went to rub her eyes but found she was chained to a building or something, her mind was groggy and she seemed unable to remember how or why she was in the situation she found herself in.

As her vision cleared, she became aware of something stacked in front of her, as it cleared further it became apparent what it was and as Kris approached her, she remembered how she had come to be chained to the building.

"Well, well, my little pet," said Kris, "it certainly is nice to see you awake again."

Tabitha dared not answer him lest opening her mouth caused her to throw up.

"Before we continue, I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice you see; you were struggling so hard I feared you may injure yourself - so I had to knock you out. I had no other choice."

Tabitha felt that this explanation wasn't what had happened at all, but the knock to her head seemed to have damaged her memory of the moments before Kris' so-called 'kindness' - she struggled to remember how he had even knocked her out.

"Not going to say anything then? Not even about my lovely handiwork?"

Tabitha glanced away from Kris at what was stacked around her and she quickly flicked her eyes back to him, unable to look at what Kris was calling his lovely handiwork.

"Oh, don't even want to look at it I see. But it's so fantastic! The way they all just fit together," he reached out and ran a hand gently across the top of the nearest stack. "I'm sure with a little time you'll grow to love the view."

Kris walked slowly away and Tabitha's gaze was drawn, slowly, to the stacks around her once again. Once more she had to work hard to throw everything up that she had eaten in the last... however long it had been.

Around her, stacked six or seven high, were bodies. Bodies of her shipmates, her friends. Bodies of the local inhabitants and the various other life forms that had shared the planet with them. Bodies of adults, of children, of babies. It seemed that while she had been unconscious Kris had killed _everyone_ and _everything_ he could find, bringing it here to stack around her.

She couldn't help it. She threw up. Down her chest it ran and onto the ground as she shuddered and cried. "Why?" she whispered. "Why kill them all, why display them all... why choose me to witness it?"

A finger ran along her jaw, "Because, my pet, the others told me you would enjoy it. They told me you were special."

Tabitha turned her head away from Kris' touch, but he grabbed her chin and turned her head to face his.

"And you are, look at you! You're the prime example of what your kind is capable of producing, no wonder they want you so badly." His hand traced her jaw again and she once more tried to recoil from him.

"Tabitha!" a voice called, coming to her as the faintest of noises as if whoever called her name stood far, far away. Yet the sound didn't echo as she would have expected it to and Kris seemed to pay it no heed.

"What?" she asked aloud.

Kris retracted his hand and stared at her, "Why do you insist on resisting me. We could be beautiful together you and I, wonderful, _powerful._ But you just resist and resist me," he muttered grabbing her hair and cracking her head back against the building. "Give yourself to me!" he roared at her.

Her vision blurred yet again and once more came the voice, seeming to call to her from a vast distance, "Tabitha Rose!"

It was a familiar sounding voice, a voice that seemed to fill her with hope, to inspire her to live. She drew strength from it as it tempered her panic. It felt like the voice of a childhood friend she couldn't quite remember, even though it seemed as if the owner of the voice was perhaps the most important person in the world.

Tabitha focused her eyes on Kris, spat in his face. "You will get nothing from me," she declared. "Nothing. Not even if you persisted for eternity, not even if you attempted to force yourself and your ideals upon me. I will _die_ before I give you anything."

Kris wiped the spittle from his face. "I _have_ all of eternity. I _will_ break you. Make you cower to me, then beg for me. Yes, pet, you will be exactly what I want you to be, exactly what they want you to be."

For the briefest of moments reality seemed to cease to exist. Everything went black. The smell of the dead bodies vanished. The wind disappeared. Kris was gone. Tabitha felt like a set of eyeballs floating in an endless black void.

Then, in less time than it took to blink an eye, reality came back. There was the stench, the wind and there, also, was Kris. Still leaning towards her, his face almost pressing against hers.

Pressing backwards from the suited freak Tabitha glanced briefly upwards and saw something there that made her look again. Something glinted in the sun, something that was rapidly growing larger. A shuttle. A shuttle was coming.

Kris seemed to notice her double-take. "Not now," he said, "it's too soon! You told me I'd have time yet, time to enjoy myself." His whole demeanour changed suddenly, "But that's not..."

A sudden intuition grabbed Tabitha; whatever Kris had expected to see it was _not_ that shuttle craft.

He turned on her, seized her by the throat. "You! You did this!"

He began to squeeze.

Tabitha watched the shuttle settle onto the ground.

He squeezed harder and Tabitha began to gag.

The shuttle door slid slowly, seemingly painfully slowly, open.

Tabitha began to choke; the blood sounding like drums in her ears.

A figure emerged from the shuttle, it looked around at the stacks of mangled and dead bodies and then began to gingerly advance towards Tabitha.

Kris applied his other hand to her throat, squeezing, squeezing.

The new arrival got closer, close enough that Tabitha could see his expression. He frowned as he looked around, a look of confusion if Tabitha had ever seen one.

Stars exploded in front of Tabitha's eyes.

The stranger's frown deepened, she could almost feel him thinking, trying to put what he saw together into something that made sense to his mind.

Tabitha's vision wavered, her body fell limp, her head dropped to her chest.

Kris let her go and turned to face the newcomer. "Well," he said, "what do you think of my handiwork?"

Tabitha lifted her head, slowly, carefully, trying not to draw attention to herself.

The strangers frown deepened as he faced the grey-suited man and gestured at the destruction around him, "Why?"

"This lot? I don't really know, I just felt like it. You know that feeling when you just want to _do_ something and yet everything you try and do seems pointless and you know that isn't what you want to be doing?"

Tabitha carefully tested each of her bonds yet again. However, they still held her fast - but she knew this was her moment; her moment to escape. While Kris was distracted, by whoever this was who had arrived in the shuttlecraft, she _knew_ she had to escape. It was now or never.

"Yes," said the stranger and Tabitha suddenly feared she was in yet more trouble. The stranger was facing her, had surely seen her pathetic attempts to escape her bonds and now it seemed he agreed with Kris. Kris with a K.

"Well, it turns out slaughtering and destroying _is_ what scratches that little itch in just the right way."

"So, all of this, all of this destruction, all of this mindless _death_ is... because you were _bored_?"

"I suppose you could say that, but I wasn't bored while I was doing it. I am again now, however." Kris paused as if thinking, "Though I know now how to fix that don't I?" he said throwing his head back in a laugh that chilled Tabitha to the bone. "I wonder where the nearest habitable planet is, since this one is just a wasteland now."

The strangers frown intensified, Tabitha hadn't thought that was even possible a moment ago, as he seemed to think harder and his fingers of his right hand began to tap against his thumb while the grey suited man laughed once more.

Tap, tap, tap, tap-tap went his fingers.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

"Look at you!" Kris managed to splutter out through his laughter. "So very serious about life and everything!"

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

"I'm just trying to think where I have seen this before..."

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

There was something about that rhythm that caught Tabitha's attention. She was sure she knew it from somewhere, she strained her brain trying to recall as she subconsciously tapped her own fingers, gently, quietly, against the wall of the building she was bound to.

"Idiot! There has never been anything like me, just look around you! You know who did it? ME! I did it all! Just me! But soon, my brothers - who have waited so patiently – will join me and we shall be an army! Once all life on this hateful rock is extinguished, we shall begin building our forces, then we shall rule the galaxy, the entire _universe_ _!_ "

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

"You can't do that."

"What are you going to do about it? Stop me?"

" _Somebody_ will stop you. Nobody will stand for a universe, nay, not even a system-wide enslavement, a system-wide slaughter," argued the stranger. Still tapping his fingers.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

Tabitha realized she was now tapping her own fingers perfectly in-sync with the newcomer and she began to wonder if she had been hypnotized, as she seemed to have no control over the action.

"I'd like to see them try that! No mortal stands a chance against me! I have become God! The ruler of life itself! All life, everywhere shall bow down before me for I will kill it if it fails to do so!" The air was filled with Kris' hideous laughter.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

"You won't get away with it, someone will stop you," the man said, quietly almost as if to himself. Tabitha saw him glance around and watched on curiously as his eyes lit up at the sight of a shield of one of the planets swordsmen lying on the top of a stack of bodies, not far from the fallen soldier's sword.

Kris seemed not to notice the newcomer spotting the items, yet as if reading his mind, he spoke. "Don't even try it, you'll not win and I'm going need you to live, now that the girl is dead."

Tabitha saw the newcomer's eyes flick towards her, for a moment their gaze met and she felt an energy course through her like she had never felt before.

"Yes, you will go forth and tell the universe that their ruler has come, to spread the legend that is me. You will tell them that I was kind and merciful in letting you go and that will make them think that I may not crush them like the bugs they are - making it all the more enjoyable for me when I do!"

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap went Tabitha's fingers.

The man stepped forward, reached to grab the sword in his right hand, the shield in his left.

He drew himself to his full height and stood before the suited man. "I will not do your bidding... not now and not ever."

A strange confidence washed over Tabitha, it felt as if it was coming from the stranger as his hand grasped the sword and she noted the slight falter that had been in his voice rapidly departed.

"Instead you will surrender to me, to be punished for your hideous crimes here."

"Me? The first of the new Gods and Rulers of the Universe, surrender to you? A mere insignificant, mortal, man who picked up a toothpick and wanted to fight? You think you can punish me? I think you gravely underestimate the situation you find yourself in."

"And I think _you_ gravely underestimate _me_ _!_ " The stranger yelled as he moved to hold the shield before him, the sword outstretched behind him, as if braced for a sudden attack... or preparing for a sudden charge.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

Something deep within Tabitha's mind seemed to fall into place.

She smiled.

A strange wind stirred amongst the bodies and ruin, amongst the death and decay. Slowly it wound its way around every cracked brick and stone, every shattered timber and every broken body and Kris looked around curiously. "What's this then?"

The stranger didn't reply as the wind steadily became visible, growing slowly darker like a thick black smoke, soon appearing to be so dense that it seemed almost solid as it circled around the pair.

Tabitha grinned and stopped tapping her fingers.

Kris' expression changed very slightly as an inkling of fear crawled into his mind. He seemed to sense something was happening here he didn't understand and it seemed as if it wasn't on his side, it seemed to threaten him in its very existence. Tabitha watched him glance around and find his own sword and shield, picking them up he turned, once more, to face this strange young man who despite the odds being stacked so far against him he couldn't even possibly begin to hope to win a battle, stood calm and confident waiting to seize his moment and attack.

Tabitha heaved at her bonds, one last time, using all of her strength, all of her will, and from her left she heard a creak then a faint popping noise and her left arm fell suddenly free to her side.

Jacob watched the man in the suit begin to advance on him and was surprised to find he was not afraid, but at the same time he was _not_ much surprised to find he could in fact wield a sword - it had been a strange day seemingly driven by something else, he wondered for a moment if it was the universe itself, pushing him into some strange fate.

At last the man moved into striking distance and he swung his sword with a crash onto Jacob's shield, a blow so massive Jacob felt the bones in his arm almost break. Despite the pain shooting through his arm he pushed back against the blow with his shield and swung his own sword, whistling through the air and glinting in the dim light, towards the suited man, who blocked it with his own shield and grinned manically.

"You don't stand a chance; I shall destroy you like I destroyed all the others. Was that your best hit? I barely felt it!"

From the corner of his eye Jacob watched the strange smoke as it raced past, behind the suited man, spinning around the pair on the suddenly extremely active air. "But it isn't smoke, it's like... like... Shadow," he whispered and a slow grin appeared on his face as he finally understood. He caught the eye of the previously unknown woman tied to the building, the one the man in the suit thought dead and he smiled.

"What did you say boy?" the suited man demanded as he swung another blow at Jacob, who again blocked it with his shield, yelling in pain as something in his arm cracked.

The pain roared through his arm, but Jacob continued to smile. "Thaail Fruukgal-Ru!" he called.

"Thaail!" Tabitha yelled back.

The suited man spun to face her, suddenly becoming aware she wasn't dead, nor was she any longer restrained.

"I said," uttered Jacob, his voice calm and even, "that it's my Shadow."

He stepped backwards and vanished into the circling, shadow-filled, wind.

Anyone else, excepting maybe Jacob, would have been blinded by the swirling shadow, that picked up dust and debris like a tornado. But not Tabitha. She walked confidently through the pitch blackness, managing to avoid the stacks of the dead until at last she sensed she had found what she sought.

"Bygash-Ru," she whispered, her voice blown immediately away by the ferocious winds.

She felt a hand grasp hers and, in that moment, she felt an energy begin to course through her, she closed her eyes and breathed in it.

"You remembered," came a voice inside her head.

"I did... but so did you."

There was a pause before the voice came again, a pause that wasn't awkward or strange, a pause that was natural and comforting.

"Do you want to do it?"

"No. We'll do it together," Tabitha replied, projecting her thoughts to the man whose hand she held.

The smoke-like consistency of the air began to fade and the wind began to abate. As it did so Tabitha felt the man beside her crouch to the ground, he let go of her hand and cradled his shield arm, instinctively Tabitha knew he had broken it. Kris smiled as he saw the pair and walked up to them, raising his sword above his head. "It's been great, our time together. But it's time to die and not just you," he nodded towards Jacob, "but for you as well my pet. You've proven to be too much trouble and I don't care what the others think anymore."

Before Tabitha could react, he swung the sword down, it whistled and sang as it sliced through the air before striking the top of Jacobs head, tearing through him and crashing into the ground with such a force it broke in half. Kris threw his head back in laughter, "So easy!" he roared. "They told me to fear him, to be wary of him. Made out he was someone who could challenge me! But he was nothing. So now, pet, I'm going to take from you what I want."

The laughter and smile fled from his face seconds later as Jacob took to his feet, the two halves pulling themselves back together like the zip on a piece of clothing pulling together the two sides.

"Yes," Jacob said slowly, nodding his head as if in agreement, his voice cold. "It _is_ time to die. But not for me, no, not for me. For I know you and I do not fear you, nor have I ever feared you. But alas! I feel it is time for a little more death."

Jacob looked at Tabitha and nodded slightly and she moved around him to his sword-arm side.

"You think you can kill me? Just because you pulled yourself back together in a small bit of trickery? No. You underestimate my power!"

Tabitha found her voice once again, "You could surrender."

"Surrender? Did you not hear me the last time? I am God! I shall never surrender to a lesser being."

Tabitha reached out for Jacob, placing her hand over the one he held his sword with. For a moment she wasn't sure if it would work, wasn't sure if she could remember how to do it, wasn't sure if Kris' powerful 'friends' could somehow stop it.

But then she felt a warmth growing in her hand, saw the sword blade begin to glow.

She saw shadows begin to sweep towards Jacob before he changed form suddenly and appeared to her, and the world, as a three-dimensional shadow.

Closing her eyes and concentrating she felt her own form change as she became a being of pure energy - despite whatever power Kris' friends held over her.

"What are you doing?" Kris demanded, suddenly afraid. He lunged at Jacob with his broken sword but Jacob deftly side-stepped him and he careened into a stack of the dead.

Tabitha leapt onto Jacobs turned back and the strangest feeling came over her. It felt as if she was melting. She could feel her body moving away from her, towards her, around her like she was a brain in control of a rapidly melting ice-cube. With a rush, Jacobs thoughts flooded her mind and she knew hers were flooding his; this was a risky manoeuvre and they had only ever tried it once before, that she could remember anyway, and separating themselves afterwards had proven to be a torturous process that had nearly destroyed both of them.

Soon her thoughts became his thoughts, his thoughts became hers. Their merged minds meshing with their merged bodies.

"We can just end this whole reality here and now," came a thought that bore Jacobs voice.

"Yes, but he should pay for what he did here. I do not care that he was never real and will cease to exist when this reality does. He should pay."

"It's your reality and your call."

They raised their sword arm just as Kris charged at the pair again, a fury indescribable in his eyes. Around him more suited men began to appear, they began to close in.

The sword whistled through the air.

Kris threw his shield up to block the blow, but the blade passed right through it without a sound. His expression changed to one of amazement milliseconds before the sword's blade struck his neck, sending his head flying and his body dropping slowly to the ground.

The other suited men rushed them. Grabbing at them. Tore at them.

"How do we do this?" she thought.

"You need to reach, reach outside of this reality. Reach out for something you know is real."

"Angela," she thought.

"Angela," a thought that sounded like Jake echoed back.

## Chapter 15

Angela dragged her eyes open, her vision blurry and her mind scattered. She found herself lying on her back, partially propped up in a chair that reminded her of that of a dentist.

Above her a dim light shone down, giving the room just enough ambient lighting to make out details. As her vision cleared, she saw the room was only a little bigger than the chair itself. The walls looked as if they had been painted black, as did the ceiling. The floor appeared to be black painted steel, scratches in its surface shining brightly against the hard black all around.

She moved to get up but couldn't, noticing for the first time that her arms, legs and chest were all strapped to the chair. Finding her voice at last, she yelled for help, but a stony silence was all that responded.

Suddenly, for the briefest of moments, the world went dark and she felt as if she was a pair of eyeballs floating in space before the world returned, a sensation she thought she had experienced once before, but couldn't remember when.

She yelled again.

The light in the ceiling became infinitely brighter. Unable to shield her eyes with her hands she screwed her eyes shut against its vicious glow.

She heard a door open, as she did so, she realized she hadn't seen the door. It must be hidden carefully in the wall so as to offer no hope of escape to whoever had the misfortune to find themselves strapped to this chair she thought.

A voice spoke, a calm, oily, deep, voice and fear and despair settled over her as the memories of what had happened at her house flooded back. "It's good that you're awake."

"Who the hell are you!" Angela screamed.

"I think it would be in your best interests to calm down."

"No!" Angela yelled, struggling against the straps that held her to the chair.

The man approached the chair and grabbed one of Angela's fingers. With a sudden, deft, motion he both pulled it backwards and twisted it and with a cracking sound that made Angela scream in pain he broke it.

"Now. There are nine more. I suggest you calm down."

Angela fell silent, trying to nurse her wounded finger with the ones beside it.

"Before we can continue, I really need to know what you know and what you don't. So, first question: who am I?"

Angela was confused. Before today, or whenever it now was in relation to when her family had been so brutally killed right in front of her, she had never seen this man before. "I don't know," she replied, bracing against another broken finger if the man wasn't happy with her answer.

The man nodded slowly, as if digesting the information. "Next: what planet were you born on?"

Angela became even more confused; she had no idea where the man was going with this line of questioning or even why he was questioning her. And what sort of question was this last one anyway? "Earth."

"Are you certain?" the man asked, grasping another of her fingers.

"Yes!" Angela yelped, "Yes! Earth! Earth! Where else could I have been born?!"

Again, the man slowly nodded, withdrawing his grasp on her finger. "Does the name," he paused and expression of what Angela could have sworn was disgust flashed across his face before he continued. "Does the name _Bygash-Ru_ mean anything to you?"

Angela cocked her head slightly, for some reason the name _did_ seem to ring a bell somewhere. She saw the man had noticed her reaction and she quickly began talking. "Yes, yes! It seems familiar! But I don't know why. What language is that even?"

The man glared at her, quickly snatched a finger and snapped it.

"I said that I don't know why I know it!" Angela screamed at him. "I don't know!"

The man smiled, a cold, hard, expression on his face - not at all welcoming or pleasant. "What about _Fruukgal-Ru_?"

He grabbed another of Angela's fingers.

Tabitha opened her eyes to a sky of pale blue, beside her someone was stirring. With little effort she sat up and let her eyes linger over what she could see, grass and leaves of green. Small birds and insects flew through the sky.

"This is... Earth?" she asked.

The person beside her sat up and she leant against their shoulder. "It certainly is," they said.

"I thought so, from how you've all described it. I never thought I'd be here!"

Jacob rubbed his head. "Don't forget, you're still not. None of this is real."

"I know," Tabitha replied.

"However it works, however it's programmed, it's going to attempt to make us forget. We have to remember. It's not real and we're here to get Angela."

"I know," Tabitha repeated, though she didn't feel in the slightest annoyed. She knew Jake was saying what they already knew out loud for his own benefit as much as hers, trying to engrain into his memory that this world wasn't real.

Tabitha suddenly smiled and threw her arms around Jake, forcing him to the ground before lying on top of him, propping herself up on her hands. "I can't believe I forgot you."

"Welcome to the club," he replied. "Most beautiful girl in all the universes, real or otherwise, and I forgot her."

Tabitha's smile grew. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me," Jacob said, "I'm not going to repeat myself."

"You always repeat yourself."

"This time I make an exception," Jake laughed. "But I didn't quite tell the truth... I forgot you... but I didn't." He reached up and placed his hand on Tabitha's temple and, in her mind, she saw a flash of images. A darkly lit room, a corridor, a strange being with a face on either side of its head and then herself. Jake withdrew his hand.

"That was your reality?"

"The only bit that matters," he replied.

"So, you did remember me?"

"She was... your personality, your appearance, your voice. But she wasn't quite you."

Tabitha laughed. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were being all sentimental and soft. But I do know you and you mean what you say. Why wasn't she me?"

For a long time, Jake said nothing as Tabitha continued to lie on top of him, her hair hanging from head framing her face and surrounding Jakes. "I just didn't feel... the same. She was the bit of my mind that's connected to yours but a connection isn't the real thing."

Tabitha laughed again, feeling as she did so that she hadn't felt this happy, this complete in months, even though she had no idea just how long it had really been since she and Jake had been separated. "Truth time?"

Jake looked at her quizzically, "Go ahead."

"I never really forgot you either. There was nobody that looked like you, and nobody exactly like you. But I had a commanding officer, Jacob Franks, who was a lot like you. And then there was a shuttle pilot, I never found out his last name, but he insisted I call him Jake. He was ridiculously old to be piloting shuttles and he had a way about him..."

After a short pause Jake spoke once more. "I think that no matter how good the simulation, as it is based on thoughts and memories the subconscious keeps trying to break through, to send messages through. That's why you kept encountering variants of me, that's why I met you even though I never should have."

"Power of love?"

Jake laughed, "No. Power of memory. Memories are a powerful force not easily kept at bay." Tabitha pouted and Jake laughed. "Okay, okay. Power of love."

Tabitha laughed, leant down and kissed him briefly. "I never want to lose you again," she said. "Not even for a moment."

The calm was suddenly destroyed by a siren wailing in the distance, drawing ever closer. Jacob rolled Tabitha off him and stood up, shielding his eyes against the sun he looked towards where the noise was coming from as it slowly faded away once more.

"It seems something is going on over there," he said, pointing.

Tabitha stood up and looked where he was pointing. In the distance she could see a large number of white, wheeled, vehicles with red and blue flashing lights on their tops. "What are they?" she asked.

"Police cars," Jake replied.

"Police?"

Jake looked at her, smacked his hand to his forehead and said, "Of course!" He paused for a moment before continuing, as Tabitha knew he would. "Police are... Law Enforcers, amongst the numerous other jobs they get lumped with."

"Ah," Tabitha nodded. "So, lots of them in one place is a sign of trouble?"

"Indeed, it is," Jacob replied. "Indeed, it is."

Angela screamed in agony as the suited man broke yet another finger when she answered his question with something he seemed to doubt. She had honestly lost count now as to how many she had left unbroken and wondered what he would move onto next.

The man finally moved away from her, opened the hidden door and brought in a chair. Placing it against the wall directly in front of her he sat down, watching her intently. "Well. Hurry up then."

Angela stared blankly at the man, completely confused as to what it was that he wanted. The pain from her broken fingers was spreading slowly up her arms as she half sat, half lay, in the chair while the man stared at her.

"No? I thought a bit of pain may have reminded you of who you are. Seems not... unless we need more pain? Yes. Maybe more." The man stood up and approached the chair.

Angela struggled against her bonds once more, terrified of what could come next. She watched, helplessly, as the man drew a knife. He trailed it down the length of her right arm before stabbing it into her hand.

Angela screamed in agony.

The man pulled a glass, as if from nowhere, and caught some of the spilling blood. "Precious stuff that, can't afford to waste too much of it." He walked off and knocked on the hidden door, which immediately slid open. "Take this to the lab," he instructed someone standing outside as he passed the glass out. "Get them onto replicating it, she's not responding at all so we may have a very limited supply."

"What..." Angela spat, "What do you want... with me?"

The man shut the door and took his seat once more with a laugh, "The fragility of the mind never fails to amaze me."

"What... is... that supposed... to mean?"

"It means exactly what I said. I'm surprised you continue to ignore what your own mind must be telling you however."

Angela struggled to think through the pain, but nothing the man said made any sense to her.

Slowly, the pain subsided as her body grew accustomed to it.

Every time she moved, even slightly, the suited man would get up and check all her injuries. She didn't know what he was looking for, all she knew was that it made the pain flare up again with each inspection.

"I grow tired of waiting," the man said at last, standing once more from his chair. "I think I might go and check on the replication. If it's going well, I suppose we can just get rid of you. I _had_ been going to keep you around to create a whole bunch of prison realities, but you're old anyway and probably not much longer for this world. So, no. Once we have replicated your blood, we shall just be rid of you." He stepped through the door and left Angela to her confused thoughts.

After a few moments Angela became aware of the faint noise of slamming doors and stamping feet, both noises got louder and louder until suddenly the door to her tiny room burst open and the man stood in the opening, rage written across his features.

"You!" he roared. "Human blood!"

Angela, for the briefest of strange moments felt like laughing, before the man grabbed her shoulders and violently shook her, snapping her head back against the steel of the chair until she lost consciousness.

Jacob approached the nearest Police Officer, Tabitha standing just behind him trying hard not to gaze around like a child in new surroundings.

"Officer," he said.

The Policeman turned and faced Jacob, beginning to utter a dismissal before changing his mind. "Hello there,"

"What happened? A good friend of mine lives here," Jacob indicated the house in front of them.

"We're still piecing things together, from what we have learnt a group of men in suits entered the house and slaughtered everybody inside."

Jacob felt Tabitha suddenly grab his hand, squeezing it. "No survivors?" he pressed.

"No, nobody. If you know the people perhaps you could help with identification?"

Jacob turned and caught Tabitha's eye, she nodded slightly.

"Alright then," he said turning to the officer. "We'll take a look."

"Brace yourself, slaughtered wasn't just a turn of phrase."

The Officer began to walk towards the house, Jacob and Tabitha falling in behind.

"Even here they sense the power in you," Tabitha whispered into his ear as they approached the house. "Nobody else could have gotten inside."

"You think too much of me. This is Angela's reality, of course I'm going to get my way."

Tabitha half smiled, "Keep telling yourself that's why."

They entered the house, Jacob immediately smelling the blood. He looked around, saw people in white overalls walking everywhere, snapping pictures and taking measurements.

The Officer indicated for them to continue inside, saying he wouldn't go any further.

Jacob turned the corner and saw the bodies, for a moment his breath caught in his throat. Tabitha appeared at his shoulder, a small sob escaping her. Tilting his head to the side Jacob looked at the faces, those that could still be distinguished, of the people who lay on the floor. One of them in particular he focused on, crouching down beside them. "This was William," he muttered. "Yes... this was him. But he's old, much older..."

From over his shoulder came Tabitha's voice, "Well, we got younger..."

"Something isn't right here," Jacob said standing up. He inspected each of the bodies, then inspected them again. "She isn't here," he said.

"What was that," came the Officers voice.

"He says she isn't here!" Tabitha called.

"Who isn't?"

"Angela," Jacob replied, as the Officer appeared around the corner. "I see both his face and her face in the faces of the others here, but none of these people are her."

"Are you saying there is someone else?"

"Yes... and they have her."

The Officer looked at him for a moment, before talking into his radio. As the radio chattered back Tabitha slipped an arm around his waist, "I can't sense her here," she whispered. "Is this what it's like to be normal?"

Jacob pulled her in close, placed his chin on her head rocking her back and forth gently. "We'll find her," he whispered.

The Officer ushered them out of the building, where a man in plain clothes greeted them as a Detective Craver. "We've just had someone re-watch the television footage; it was taken from a chopper. You're correct, it seems they took someone from the house. We've got a vague direction: towards town and into the warehouse district."

Jacob raised an eyebrow at the Detective. "I've got some..." he paused for a moment, wondering what to call his experiences, "... military background," he nodded towards where Tabitha stood, slightly apart from the pair, "as does she."

"I thought that may be the case, the way you handled the scene back there. You've seen some things... care to join us?" Craver asked.

"Definitely," Tabitha replied, her upset expression hardening.

A loud, urgent, knock sounded on the door to the room holding Angela before it opened.

"What is it?" The suited man seated in the room, observing and torturing Angela demanded.

"Some sort of law enforcement agency has arrived, en masse."

"Deal to them."

"But there-"

"I don't want to hear it! Just deal to them!" The man slammed the door shut and walked to where Angela was seated, still unconscious, her breathing erratic. "Wake up!" he yelled, slapping her face, "Wake up damn you!"

Police car after Police car streamed into the car-parking area of one of the warehouses in the industrial district.

After struggling momentarily with the door mechanism, Tabitha stepped out of the one she and Jake rode in; the Detective had provided them both with a pistol and instructed them to follow the lead of the other officers. Across the car from her Jake emerged, quickly checking the pistol's ammunition and nodding grimly, he glanced at her and flashed her a brief smile.

"We could die here," he said.

"I know."

"She has to realize this isn't reality and, until she does, we're stuck here - this reality doesn't offer us any escape until she realizes it's not real and alters it to let us out.

"Jake... I know."

He smiled at her again. "I know you do, that was more for my benefit."

A shot echoed out and the Police officers scattered everywhere, diving for cover behind cars, posts or anything else that offered the slightest of protection. Tabitha hit the ground and slid under the car beside her, Jake doing likewise from his side.

He looked at her and she understood as clearly as if he had told her telepathically what his intentions were.

"Good luck," she whispered.

Jake slid out from under the car, shots rang out once more but they didn't slow his vanishing feet as he ran towards the building. She heard men, the Police, shouting and some shots from the car park around her, a target must have presented itself. She counted to twenty and slid out from the car herself.

Glancing around she saw Police yelling and shooting, on top of the warehouse stood no fewer than twenty grey-suited men, firing back at the officers. She ran to where Jake stood, pressed against the building. At least three times she felt bullets rustle her hair as she ran, before they smacked into the ground throwing tarmac flying into the air.

One of the armoured Police trucks suddenly came hurtling towards where they stood, they leapt out of the way as it smacked through the buildings steel door and officers began to leap out of it, running in all directions, rifles raised and shooting at anything that moved. One of them waved the pair over.

"Nice diversion," he said. "Gave us time to get in the van."

Tabitha felt like laughing, a diversion had been the last thing on her mind.

"Follow me," the officer instructed and Tabitha and Jake fell in behind him as he left the entrance area down into the corridors of the building.

The corridor was lined with doorway after doorway, room after room had to be checked and cleared. Another officer joined their party as they pushed forward, deeper and deeper into the complex. From time to time the faint sound of gunfire would fill the air, though the radio silence never let them know who was winning.

"So... it seems our visitors are getting much closer than I thought they would, it seems I will have to deal with them myself," The suited man said, slapping Angela's face some more in a futile effort to get her to wake up. He spat at her and left the room through the hidden doorway, sending another man in to guard their prisoner as he did so.

"Door Opening!" shouted the leading officer. "You! Drop the weapon!"

Jacob peered around the officer standing in front of him. A suited man had appeared in the corridor ahead of them, holding a large firearm. He ignored the shouts of the officer and slowly raised the weapon. Gunshots rang out from around Jacob and the suited man fell to the floor, and the officers pushed forward.

Entering the room that the man had stepped out of Jacob saw at last that which they had sought, Angela, much older looking that Jacob had ever seen her, was restrained in a metal chair. The officers glanced at Jacob who nodded, "Keep going, we'll wait here, see if we can help her," he said.

Jacob stood inside the doorway, grabbing the fallen suited man's firearm from where it lay on the floor as Tabitha approached Angela.

"Wakey, wakey," Tabitha whispered, shaking Angela gently while checking for a pulse.

Jacob glanced around at the pair, "Anything?"

"Well... she is alive." Tabitha pulled Angela's eyelids up, "Some pupil response, but I don't think she is long for this world."

Jacob swore, "She has to wake up, she has to realize this isn't real."

"I know, Jake. You just focus on keeping us safe."

Jacob grinned manically, "You bet."

As he stood just outside the doorway, where he could see in both directions along the corridor, he could hear Tabitha quietly talking to Angela, hear her telling Angela stories of their world, could hear Tabitha moving around trying every trick she had learnt to try and get Angela to wake up. 'If this was our world,' he thought, 'we'd have this mess sorted by now.'

Something like the sound of running footsteps echoed down the corridor and Jacob turned to face where he thought the noise was coming from, at the same instant the door behind him slammed shut and her heard Tabitha scream. He threw himself against the door, trying to force it open and realized the sound down the corridor had stopped, "A damned distraction," he muttered, bashing at the door some more. "Open this door!" he yelled.

"Well, well, what have we here then?" the suited man mused, his tone mocking. "The very thing we're actually after. I don't know how you're here, obviously you figured something out. But not to worry, as you have probably figured out here, _here_ , you're nothing. No powers, no magically turning into energy and fleeing. No, here you're just a weak, little, girl." He grabbed Angela and threw her to the ground; Tabitha having released her restraints earlier. "Get in the chair," he instructed.

"No," Tabitha replied.

"Get in the chair, or I'll force you to get in the chair."

"Jake! Help!"

The man approached her, swinging his briefcase at her head. Trying to hit her, knock her unconscious.

In all the noise and confusion nobody noticed Angela's eyes flutter, nobody heard the small moan she made as her eyes opened and she saw Tabitha fending off the suited man.

Jacob continued to pound on the door, he had tried shooting the lock to no avail. He slammed his fist once more into the door, yelling in rage at the hopelessness of the situation he had suddenly found himself in.

Then, all of a sudden, he noticed something had changed. His fist hadn't hit the door as hard as it should have. He paused for a moment, grinned, and stepped through the still closed door.

The suited man had Tabitha by the throat, holding her off her feet against the wall. Jacob approached him, tapped him on the shoulder. His head snapped around into the barrel of the gun Jacob was holding. "Surprise," Jacob hissed and pulled the trigger. Tabitha fell to the ground, gasping for air and covered in blood, but waved Jacob to Angela when he moved to help her.

Angela lay on the floor, eyes closed and breathing shallowly as Jacob approached, sitting beside her and slowly lifting her into a sitting position. Pulling her to his side, he stuck his arm around her shoulders, as Tabitha moved to sit on Angela's opposite side, grabbing Jacobs hanging hand with hers as she did so.

"She's lost consciousness again," Jacob muttered.

"Can you still?" Tabitha asked, eyebrow raised.

"No, my Shadows gone again. I think it may have been the stories you told her were playing on her mind when she awoke, and seeing you in danger may have sparked some sort of recognition, but not enough to make her realize this isn't real."

Tabitha sighed.

"Where did he come from?" asked Jacob.

"That wall there," Tabitha said indicating the one beside the one with the barely visible door. "It just opens up somehow."

"So, we sit here and we wait then. Me and my girls."

Tabitha laughed briefly, "Yes, you and your girls - you haven't called us that in a very long time."

"I know, I feel different somehow. I think that while I am still me and in control of myself, each reality we enter still changes us in some way."

Tabitha mused for a few moments, "Yes. I noticed myself being slightly more... timid. I noticed you being slightly more..." she trailed off.

"More what?"

"Affectionate."

"Oh. Good thing or bad thing?"

Tabitha smiled, "Neither. Just different. I'm used to you, Jake."

"You say neither, but it seems you meant good thing."

"Maybe. I don't know. I think if you stayed being as you are now, I'd get sick of you. I mean... sometimes I hate how you aren't as affectionate as others can be, take Angela and Will for example. But you're not like the others, you've never been like anybody else I've ever met. You're... you. And it makes when you do remember to be affectionate that much better."

This time it was Jacobs turn to pause for thought. "When we get out of this, I can try to be better, try to do more."

"You always do Jake and, as long as you keep trying, I don't care."

Angela stirred. "Dead!" she wailed. "They're all dead. Will, Jacob, Tabitha and the kids. All of them. Dead!"

Jacob and Tabitha exchanged startled expressions.

"Hey," Tabitha whispered. "It's us, Angela. We found you."

Angela turned to face Tabitha, but then turned suddenly away. "Just let me die so I can be with them, they killed them all."

Jacob let go of Tabitha's hand, and rubbed Angela's shoulder. "Hey now," he whispered. "It's okay."

"It's not! I don't even know who you people are!"

Jacob and Tabitha exchanged glances.

"Yes, you do, my dear," Jacob pressed. "You just need to remember us." He struggled to remember what he had said to her before she had been swallowed by the mysterious sphere, all the differing realities were playing havoc with his memory.

"How can I remember someone who I don't know!" Angela screamed, struggling to get away from Jacob's arm around her shoulders.

Jacob finally found the memory he was after, "The sphere, remember the sphere. You time jumped. We all did, backwards only so far, but we time jumped."

Angela stopped struggling, she turned first to Tabitha and then to Jacob. "Spawns universes," she muttered.

"Yes!" Tabitha said, "Yes! Time jumping spawns universes!"

"So, none of it, none of this, nothing... was real?"

"None of it was real, none of it _is_ real," Jacob replied.

"It felt so real, especially when they all died. All of them, dead. I couldn't stop them..." she trailed away into tears again.

Jacob didn't know whether to press Angela any more or not, but they had to get out of this reality, find William then escape from where-ever they were really being held.

Fortunately, Tabitha spoke. "Listen, Angela. It's going to be hard for you for a while, but we have to go. We have to save Will yet, your Will."

"He's still alive?"

"We can only hope."

Jacob watched the tears stop rolling down Angela's face, her expression slowly changing from sadness to determination.

"How do we get out of here?" she asked.

"Focus on Will for us, all that love, everything you feel towards him," Tabitha instructed, taking her hand and reaching across for Jacobs.

Jacob took both Tabitha's and Angela's hands in his own and nodded towards Tabitha. The room slowly lit up, brighter and brighter until Jacob could no longer see, then he closed his eyes and turned to shadow seeing, as he did so, the walls of the sphere that held them crumble and fall. Before the briefest of flashes of the outside of another sphere.

He opened his eyes to see Jol gracing the sky above him, "At least it's our universe this time," he said as he pulled himself up from where he lay on the ground, Tabitha and Angela doing likewise beside him.

Angela smiled at him, "Now that I am out of there, it all seems so obvious that it wasn't real."

"Tell me about it," Jacob said. "Now. Where is William? And nobody forget, this isn't real either - but we need to find him and make him realize that."

"I know," Angela and Tabitha said together, then broke into laughter hugging each other.

Jacob turned his back on the pair, looked up at Jol in the sky and sighed.

"Calling to you, aren't they?" came Tabitha's voice from behind him.

"And they aren't even real," Jacob replied.

He felt an arm slip around his waist and turned to see Tabitha's head fall onto his shoulder, as she joined him in gazing upwards at the stars and planet above. On his other side Angela stood, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking up past Jol at the star-lit sky high above them. "I think, in a way, they call to all of us," she said, before turning her gaze down towards the distant mountain range. "Let's do this."

## Chapter 16

Crashing through the glass William fell through the air, down towards where Angela and Tabitha were chained from the high ceiling like puppets. There were shouts from below him as he fell, barely audible over the sound of the air rushing past his ears, squinting he could make out the suited men running to encircle his likely landing point. With a crack that seemed to echo forever he collided with the ground, briefly feeling his entire body shatter before losing consciousness.

Opening his eyes, he carefully looked around, trying to remain as still as possible. The crowd of encircling suited men had dispersed, most likely giving him up for dead. He lay a handful of meters from where Angela, who hung with head hanging down, was chained and if he tilted his head just slightly, he could just make out Tabitha, who was alert and watching him carefully. With the tiniest of head movements, she nodded and he thought he saw her flash a momentary smile.

Lying on the floor he continued to survey his surroundings, looking for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Leaning against the edge of the stone-block ring around Angela were a few of the batons they had earlier used to beat the restrained pair. Wriggling his fingers and toes William checked that he was all back in one piece, before leaping to his feet and rushing for the nearest baton, seizing it before any of the suited men knew what was going on. As the suited men realized he wasn't dead and began to approach he noticed that he seemed to have run into some luck; none of the men were armed, though some were moving to grab their own batons.

One of the suited men stopped just outside of William's reach, even at a lunge he could not reach the man, and stared, almost blankly, at him for a few moments before speaking. "You cannot defeat us."

William laughed, "I don't need to defeat you, I just need to save my friends."

This time the suited man laughed, "Yes. Save your friends with a steel stick and what else? The ability to not die when falling from a great height? The element of surprise is gone. You cannot win."

"Do not listen to him!" yelled a voice from somewhere behind William, everyone turned to see its source. "I can help you," Tabitha yelled, "I can do it!"

The suited man laughed again at Tabitha's useless display of determination. "You're restrained and controlled. You cannot do _anything_." He slowly walked to where she was held, grabbed a baton and swung it smashing into her midsection, knocking the wind out of her. "See?"

Tabitha glowed more brightly than she had been before, light from around the room seemed to be drawn too her. "Watch me," she hissed.

The suited man looked momentarily worried, but then broke into a laugh. "All you're doing is providing us with fuel."

William, watching Tabitha's face, suddenly saw something there he had hoped he wouldn't. Something in her eye changed slightly and she began to babble, a moment of insanity at the most inconvenient of moments.

"Gone, gone, gone," she rambled, "never to come back. Yet he is here, here with me, here with you," her gaze flicked at William, "and here with her," she now looked to Angela. "Mainly here with me when he isn't gone, gone forever. Forever. Forever..."

The suited man laughed again and William felt like he should call him Murray for some reason. "So, your grand plan is to babble us to death? Well done. Nobody has ever tried that before." The suited man turned on William. "Now, for you."

For a brief moment William saw nothing, nothing but darkness, heard nothing but silence. The moment passed and the suited man continued his approach, seemingly oblivious of this brief moment where nothing existed. William wondered if maybe he had blacked out for a fraction of a second, long enough to register the void but not long enough to fall down.

His thoughts were interrupted by sudden, manic, laughter.

The suited man turned on Tabitha, "Shut her up, someone! I can't hear myself think over here." He turned back to William and began to speak before he was cut off by Tabitha.

"Gone forever," she yelled, staring right into William's eyes. "But he is here. Oh yes, he is here." She laughed manically again, "Not just in me, but out there where the stars shine bright and the planet hangs low." She ignored the batons striking her again and again, keeping her eyes locked on William. "He has come back," she said, dropping her voice to her normal volume as she tilted her head to its side, her expression one of curiosity. "And so have I, and so has... how peculiar..." she trailed off and then, screamed at the top of her lungs.

William, and the suited men, covered their ears in a useless attempt to block out the hideous sound, it was louder than William imagined anybody could scream. But then, in it, he thought he heard a voice. Covered by the noise of the scream it spoke to him, calmly, quietly. "William! You have to hold on. Jacob is coming and he is bringing... me with him, but I must leave you now. They shall not be long. It was... nice to meet you, to hear of your lands..." The voice grew fainter and vanished before it could finish as the scream faded away and William watched as Tabitha seemed to also fade away until she was gone, nothing left of her but some dangling chains, wires and cables.

In the same instant lights around the room exploded into showers of sparks, computer consoles leapt into flame and the cavern was plunged into darkness.

Out of instinct he moved towards Angela in the darkness, listening to the sound of the men rushing about, feeling the breeze as one of them rushed past him, undoubtedly in a vain effort to catch him before he vanished into the darkness. He ran into Angela, clutching at her and trying to free her wrists from their chains in the dark, before the lights could come back on.

Her voice suddenly whispered in his ear, "Don't worry, they're all distracted. I can do it myself." Then somehow, as if by magic, her hands fell through the chain and into Williams own.

"Jacob's on his way," William muttered, "she said we just have to hold on."

"I'll try... but I am tired and hungry and thirsty and they are powerful. In the dark, maybe, maybe I can out-do them. They have not learnt yet to how to see without their eyes."

William was confused by this statement, but decided now was not the best time to ask for an explanation as he half carried Angela away from where she had been chained up, listening carefully for footfalls of the suited men around him and trying to dodge them.

"There is another me here," Tabitha said suddenly.

Angela and Jake both turned to face her, "What?"

"I can feel her presence. It's weird to sense someone like me... and then to find they are in fact me."

Angela raised her eyebrows at Jake, who looked as confused as she was feeling. "So, this would be the first reality where one of us already exists... or still exists," he murmured.

"Neither of you encountered other versions of yourselves in your realities?" Angela asked.

Tabitha shook her head.

"And when we got to yours, as you know, we had existed but didn't anymore."

Angela rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, "This is going to get confusing isn't it."

"It already is," Tabitha replied.

Jake mumbled something and Angela turned to face him. "What did you say?"

"I said, I wonder if Tabs can talk with herself? Find out something about what is going on here."

Angela raised an eyebrow at Tabitha, who nodded before closing her eyes and beginning to glow slightly more brightly than usual, then incredibly brightly as she stretched from the ground below to the sky above and vanished.

As the moments ticked by Angela turned to Jake, "I know it wasn't real... but... I still miss them. The people that died."

Jake stared at her a moment before jumping slightly and putting his arm around her shoulders. "I know... I can't imagine what it's like," he whispered to her, gently stroking her upper arm.

Angela surprised him by laughing, "Old man! You know exactly what it's like, you're getting forgetful. You lost everything once, else you wouldn't be the last."

Jacob himself laughed, loudly. "No, I didn't lose anyone. I found the two of you."

Angela smiled, briefly. "Will it get easier?"

"Time heals, but you'll carry it with you - always."

Angela smiled faintly, "I thought so."

For a few moments they stood in silence, watching on, waiting for, Tabitha. Suddenly, she re-appeared in a flash of light, instantly and without her usual beam, floating in the air before them.

Then she began to scream.

A piercing cry that made Angela throw her hands to ears and cringe away. Using a trick she had learnt long ago she made the air around her and Jake thicker, muffling the sound yet still it pierced her mind.

The scream stopped and Tabitha fell to the ground, no longer glowing faintly and when Angela placed her hand on her she was cold to the touch.

"Jake?" she asked apprehensively, knowing that Tabitha being cold to the touch was always a bad sign.

He looked up from where he knelt opposite Angela and frowned. He placed his hand on Tabitha's forehead and gently called her name, while Angela rubbed her hand, trying to get a response from her. At last she stirred, opening her eyes and for a moment, as she had before, Angela saw the entirety of Tabitha's long life stretch out before her before the moment passed and Tabitha sat up.

"Well?" Jake asked.

Angela looked at Tabitha expectantly.

"Well," Tabitha managed to say. "Now there is only one of me. I got her to give a message to Will though, he knows we're coming."

"There's more to this story," Jake pressed but Angela made a stop gesture at him, letting Tabitha tell the story in her own time.

Tabitha nodded a brief thanks at Angela but continued. "She was me... but she wasn't. The poor girl was living with you inside her head," she gestured violently at Jake, "she was already mentally unstable and you, _you,_ had to go and put yourself inside her head!" her voice had raised to a yell.

Jake recoiled from Tabitha slightly, "Hey," he said calmly. "None of this is real."

"It'd be just like you to do that to me. Make me live with a living memory of you inside my head. Why couldn't you just _die!_ "

Angela was startled. She had heard Tabitha and Jake fighting before, they were so alike and yet so different, but this wasn't a fight. This was something else, Angela just couldn't put her finger on it.

Jake was trying to splutter a response, but Tabitha continued over him. "Oh yes, can't even string a damned sentence together," she got up, beginning to glow brightly, a while light like a flame flickered around her. "And yet you think you have the right to just live in someone's head? I have news for you. You don't. You don't have that right. Sometimes I wish you had just left me there, left me on that Space Station, left me to them. I wish I had never met you. I wish that you had just let me die!"

Jake stood dumbstruck as Tabitha turned on him, Angela could see what was going to happen moments before it did, knew Jake could see it happening and was amazed when he did nothing. Tabitha formed a ball of sparkling energy in her hand and fired it, racing at near the speed of light, at Jake. It struck him with a force so great that he flew backwards through the air, flicking between shadow and solid matter before crashing into the ground with a sickening cracking noise.

Angela remained frozen where she was, unsure what to do next, never had either Jake or Tabitha turned so violently on the other. As Tabitha approached Jake, blasting him with another ball of energy her paralysis broke and she yelled Tabitha's name. Tabitha, however, didn't respond but instead stood over where Jake lay, unmoving, on the ground, another ball of energy forming in her hand.

Angela made a snap decision and used her abilities to move Jake out of the way moments before the ball of energy from Tabitha smashed into the ground where he had been, blasting a five meter wide crater into it.

Angela crouched beside Jake, using her matter-sight to judge his wounds - the good news was he was still alive. The bad was that every part of him was battered and broken.

Tabitha rounded on where Angela crouched, screaming in incoherent rage. "Let me kill him! Let me kill him!" she finally managed to yell, approaching Angela.

"Tabitha," Angela pleaded, "you have to stop!"

"He did this, he did this to me! And he keeps on doing it! Playing with people's lives like they are pieces in a game! But not anymore! No! Not anymore! I will kill him."

"Please, Tabitha. Think about what you're doing, think about who you're doing it to."

Tabitha waved a hand dismissively, "I have." She continued to approach and Angela, seeing no other options, got to her feet.

"If you keep doing this, I will stop you."

Tabitha laughed, "You can't stop me. The only one who _could_ stop me is lying there on the ground and he won't even fight back."

"Why won't he?" Angela asked, hoping that maybe she could reason with the out-of-control Tabitha.

"Why?" Tabitha laughed again, it was a harsh sound, not at all her usual soft laughter. "Why? That is an easy question. Because he knows I am right. That's why. He knows it and he deserves it."

Angela held her ground as Tabitha continued to approach, electricity sparking around her and a ball of it forming in her hand. "That's not why," she said quietly. "You know why, really. And you know none of what your saying is true."

"Oh but it is and I will have him!" she threw the ball of energy at Angela who dived to the ground, seized Jake by the ankle and concentrated on materializing both of them in an all new location, hopefully out of Tabitha's reach until she could rouse Jake and get him back on his feet.

William led Angela, both stumbling through the darkness, as she hissed directions into his ear. Opening a door, he pushed her through then swung it shut behind himself.

"Now what?" he asked as a dim light began to appear and he saw they had walked into some sort of storage room that stretched out before the pair and was fill of wooden crates.

"I don't think their matter-sight is that great yet, so we run, we hide and then I'll tunnel us out of here."

"Okay then," William replied, unconvinced that hiding behind a wooden box or two would really be able to save them from the sheer number of suited men when they figured out that they had escaped into this room.

A yell sounded behind the door, apparently Angela's absence had been noted, as William heard feet running all around as the suited men searched for her, and for him as well he thought.

Angela leading, the pair darted around the stacks of wooden crates, trying to avoid going in any set pattern or line. William wondered what could be in all the crates, there were giant ones, bigger than houses and much smaller ones filled with even smaller boxes - made of card. "What is all this?" he asked, then realized Angela wouldn't know either.

"Dunno, supplies I suppose." She glanced at one the larger crates, "Tank inside that one."

William suddenly wondered if instead of hiding they should be taking one of the tanks and blasting their way to freedom.

"No use," Angela said as if reading his mind, "they can control matter so would tear it to shreds before we got halfway to the other side of the room."

William shrugged, but Angela didn't notice, as he was still following along behind her as she led them deeper and deeper into the maze of crates. "This will do us," she said and moments later a hole, just large enough to squeeze through into a cavern below appeared in the ground in front of her. "Quickly, get in," she instructed, giving William a gentle push.

William lowered himself into the hole and Angela followed, blocking the opening as she did so, leaving the pair standing in a darkness more complete than even the darkened room above ground had been. Feeling around William grabbed Angela, kissed her gently on the cheek. "You wouldn't believe what I have been through to find you again," he said.

Angela laughed quietly, "Oh I might. We need to rest here for a bit, I need to regain some strength before we push on. I doubt they'll find us; they are too busy using their eyes."

"What does that mean?" William asked, curious as her sat carefully down in the dark, pulling Angela close to him.

"What do you know about me?" she asked.

"That you can control matter or something, Tabitha explained it."

"Well that's the basics, but, if I concentrate, I can see every bit of matter around me. It's like.... like... you know one of them heat camera things? Everything is a different colour depending on what it is."

"Oh," William replied, thinking he might understand a little, "so you think they haven't mastered it yet?"

"No, or else they would easily have stopped us in the dark, killed you and re-imprisoned me. No, they haven't figured it out, or don't even know it works like that." William felt her start as footsteps sounded suddenly directly above them, "I've got a wee bit of strength back now," she whispered. "May was well tunnel down a bit more where they are less likely to hear us, or sense our presence. If they were using matter-sight we'd be dead now, so that's just one more thing to indicate they aren't..." she trailed off.

Holding the back of her shirt, as she instructed, William followed along behind her, marvelling at how she could just carve a tunnel through rock like it was nothing at all.

After hours upon hours of tedious, fiddly, work Angela sighed heavily. She had spent the time rebuilding Jake's battered body as best as she could, sure he would likely have healed himself in time, but time was a luxury they didn't have. She shook him, called his name, slapped his face, even poured water over his head but it was some time before he slowly opened his eyes, slowly sitting up.

"You're awake then," said Angela quietly, sitting cross-legged with her back to him, keeping watch for Tabitha's return, or the grey-suited men.

"I feel like I was hit by a train," he replied.

"Not a bus," she said turning to face him, "Tabitha."

Jake's expression darkened.

"Don't worry... I saw a flash on the horizon about three hours back. I... Jake... I think she left." She pointed up at the once-more starlit sky, "She's out there somewhere now."

"My fault," he whispered.

"It's _not_ your fault, Jake. You went there to save her, save everyone on that space station. Nothing that happened there, has happened since, is your fault."

Several minutes of silence passed by between the pair before Jake spoke again. "My fault."

"Jake-"

He cut her off. "Should never have asked her to talk with the version of herself in this universe."

"What are you saying?"

"I think... this is Will's reality, before he got you back. I can feel it pressing down on me, it's trying to make me hate him, make me see you as something other than my dearest friend. It's his reality _before_ he knew me, knew Tabitha, knew _you_ properly."

"So... you're saying... this reality is forcing his perceptions of us... onto us?"

Jake frowned, "Yes. Something like that. I am fighting to be who I am as opposed to who he thinks I am. I had it in your universe as well, you weren't conscious for most of the time we were there, but it showed me a different side of myself, a softer side, a... more aware of other people side. I didn't fight it, but, just like here, I felt that's the person I should be."

Angela said nothing and neither did Jake about how he could glean a great understanding on how she perceived him from how her reality had changed him.

"In Tabitha's reality I changed as well... and, of course, in yours she changed... as she has here. I think that this realities Tabitha has merged with the real Tabitha, but this being the reality that this version of her is native to it's... taken control."

Angela frowned this time, "So this reality's, Will's reality's, version of Tabitha... hates you?"

"She said herself, this version of her was 'mentally unstable' and living with a version of me inside her head. Add them together and throw in some long-suppressed thoughts and bam! Crazy Tabitha."

Angela was about to say something else when what Jake had said struck her. "Long-suppressed thoughts? You don't honestly believe she hates you for saving her?"

"I wouldn't blame her, look at her life now."

Angela placed a hand on Jakes shoulder, uncertain as to what to say.

"Can you not feel this reality pressing down on you?" he asked, after some time had passed.

"No," Angela replied, she felt exactly like herself. "I suppose Will knows me and-"

"That's not it," Jake said suddenly. "This is before, before he knew about your powers but very close to when he would find out. This is before we rescued you. And that means... you're already here. That's why it isn't trying to change you to fit his perception, because you're already here being who he expects you to be."

"There's another me?"

"Yes... she is likely being held where you were being held. Which is probably where Tabitha from this reality was, so that's where William is."

Angela got to her feet, "We have to go to him."

Jake shook his head. "No... you have to go to him."

"Not you?"

"I have to find Tabitha. Bring her to you, to William, so that when he understands this place is all from his mind, we're all together. If we're not all together we'll be lost when this universe crumbles, gone forever."

"So, I have to go to Will and tell him this isn't real... but make sure he doesn't cause the destruction of the universe without you being back with Tabitha while managing to... control my other self somehow?"

"Sounds easy, doesn't it?" Jake said, with the hint of a smile.

"Tremendously easy," Angela sarcastically replied. "Don't let her kill you and bring her back safe. Just... fight this time. She doesn't hate you for saving her, doesn't wish you'd left her to die. So, if you have to, you fight her."

Jake said nothing.

"Jake. It isn't your fault, so you fight her if you must and bring her back here. Once we're out of this reality she'll understand."

After several long moments Jake nodded.

"See you soon then," Angela replied, hugging him as he stood up. She watched as he turned to a smoke-like shadow then vanished from the world and she herself closed her eyes, concentrated hard on where she had been imprisoned here on Jol once before and felt herself begin to dissolve.

William walked into Angela's back as she suddenly stopped. "That's strange," she hissed.

"What is?" he asked.

"The Murray's, the suited men, they are all... leaving. And they are not messing around, the ones who cannot manipulate matter or teleport are running like their lives depended on it."

"Any idea where they are going?"

William could almost sense Angela straining her matter-sight, to try and see where the suited men were going.

"Yes, yes! There is a chamber, far underground. It's almost circular, there are vast doors sealing it. Inside is an island surrounded by water and someone is standing on that island... odd."

"What's odd?" William asked, but Angela didn't reply. "Angela, Possum," he shook her shoulder, "what's odd?"

"The person on the island, they... shimmer. Like they aren't solid, or like..." she fell silent again.

William began to get frustrated, "Like what? Angela?"

"Like me. They shimmer like I do."

"So? The suited men that are like you must also shim-"

"No," she said cutting him off, "they don't. Well they do but it isn't the same, as they aren't true matter-controlling beings like me. But... whoever that is. They are."

William felt her turn to face him, knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"We have to go to them! The suited men are attacking them. We have to go to them, save them!"

William sighed, knowing he would lose any argument. Besides, he was in Angela's universe now... "Alright," he said. "But can you make me some sort of weapon first?"

"We'll just steal something of theirs from one of those crates..." Angela paused before bumping something hard and metallic into William's hands. "Here you are, Mark Sixteen Energy Blaster."

"Really?"

"No idea, but it _is_ an Energy Blaster," laughed Angela. She grabbed his hand, "This... isn't going to be pleasant for you."

"Okay," William replied, gritting his teeth. "Okay."

He heard a loud cracking noise and then felt incredibly sick, so sick he threw up immediately. He clutched at his stomach, as his mind reeled trying to make sense of what had just happened to him.

"Doesn't get any easier I'm afraid," Angela said. "But I did just blow the old you to pieces and build a new you here. You have to expect the body not to handle that very well..." she trailed off and William looked up to see where she was looking and immediately stood straight upright.

They had appeared on the island, all around them suited men were appearing. Some of them would then begin to move and twist their arms and hands, like he had seen Angela do so he knew they must be the ones who could control matter. But what had grabbed both his, and Angela's attention, was the figure standing with their back to the pair.

The girl was clearly Angela. Neither of them had to see her face to know, they dressed in the same manner and wore their hair identically. They were the exact same height and build, and then she spoke and confirmed it. "I was wondering when you two would show up, I knew you'd be together," the new Angela glanced over her shoulder at the pair. "Surprise!"

William instinctively knew that what-ever happened next would utterly confuse him. To his amazement 'his' Angela, not this new Angela, seemed to take the sudden appearance of a second version of herself in her stride.

"Is that _really_ what I look like from behind?" she asked.

"Oh yes," the new Angela answered, "and the front isn't too bad either."

Exasperated, William had no choice but to cut-in. "Are you two seriously going to stand there and... and... _flirt_ with one another? With _yourselves_?"

Both the Angela's laughed, simultaneously, identically, realized they were doing so, and laughed again. It was then William noticed that both of the Angela's hands never sat idle, both were working hard at keeping the suited men at bay. "So, now what?" he asked.

"I have to tell you something," the new Angela said, William deciding to refer to her as 'green Angela' in his mind, as she wore a green jacket compared to the old Angela's brown. "But... it has to wait, else some people we love will be lost forever."

William was about to ask for a better explanation, but his Angela just nodded and agreed, turning to him she said, "Rule..."

"One hundred and seven," green Angela said.

"One hundred and seven," Angela echoed, "if you ever encounter yourself listen to what they have to say and do it. Chances are they know more than you about the whole situation."

"What do we do?" William asked.

"We fight," both the Angela's replied in unison, "we hold them off until the time is right."

William nodded, moving to the centre of the island, one of the Angela's had moved to each end of it and began to rip and tear at the fabric of reality, countering the suited men's attacks and launching their own in response. He raised his energy blaster and fired a volley of shots at the suited men, who didn't seem to be able to control energy as well as matter, and couldn't quite suppress a grin as they hit their targets and blew them to pieces.

One of the Angela's staggered, the one in brown, 'his' Angela. William rushed to her side, "I'm just... tired still," she said. "I can't keep this up for much longer."

The Angela in green approached, walking backwards across the island, keeping her face to her attackers. "I shouldn't be doing this, but I know how it's going to sound and William, you're going to need time to process it."

"Don't..." hissed the Angela in brown.

"Remember the rule? I know best," green Angela said. "William, I need you to listen to me very, _very_ , carefully. None of this is real. It's all a simulation, a virtual reality."

"What?"

"Think William, remember back. Before you came here what were you doing?"

Brown Angela got to her feet, began twisting her hands to hold back the suited men - they had managed to build a bridge half-way to their little island.

"I was... at home. Waiting for the Police to find you."

"No, you weren't," green Angela argued. "You were on a ship, Jakes ship."

William shook his head, nothing this Angela was saying made any sense. "No, I wasn't, I was at home. And then Jacob came and brought me here. Then I shot him. Then I found the crazy red-headed woman-"

"Tabitha," hissed the Angela in brown.

"Right, Tabitha. Then Jacob came back. Then he died. Again. And then me and Tabitha got caught. Then I escaped. Then Tabitha died or something. Then me and this Angela," he indicated the one in brown, "escaped and then you showed up. That is how it went. That's how it is."

Green Angela shook her head, "Stop being so pig-headed and listen. Before you came here... before you shot Jake you were on a ship. There were giant spheres, 'Time Bubbles of Nothingness' you called them." An image flashed in Williams mind of a strange sphere floating in a strange room.

"E-Deck," he whispered.

"Yes! That's right. E-Deck!"

Slowly William understood, this wasn't real, this was all-

The Angela in brown screamed, fell to the ground. He rushed to her side, "Hey," he said. "Hey!"

The Angela in brown didn't respond, instead she crumbled away in Williams hands and he let out an anguished cry of despair and rage.

He turned on the only Angela left. "You!" he roared. "You did this!"

"William I-"

The entire room darkened and suddenly, there in the space between William and Angela, was Jacob. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, his brow deeply furrowed. He placed something, someone, on the ground. Her red hair gave her away to William immediately, it was the crazy woman. Tabitha.

"Is she...?" Angela asked.

"No, not quite. But she is close to it. I had no options left."

It was then that William noticed Jacob himself didn't look at all healthy. One side of his face, body and clothes seemed badly burned. He seemed to be taking all of his weight on only his left foot and his right, burnt, arm hung limply at his side.

"Grab my hand," Angela said to William.

"No. Not until you explain what is going on."

"We don't have time for this," Jacob snapped, "you're wasting precious seconds and with each one she draws closer to death."

Angela grabbed Williams hand and he struggled to get away, but Jacob grabbed his other hand, dragging him, impossibly on one leg, towards where Tabitha lay, apparently dying, on the ground. Angela reached for Tabitha's hand and took it, while Jacob somehow managed to swing his own dangling arm into the woman's other hand.

"This isn't real," Angela pressed. "You nearly had it before, you remembered for a second there. The spheres, the Time Bubbles of Nothingness. We're all inside one now, inside your one. You need to remember, realize this isn't real and then it will disintegrate, destroy itself and we'll be free."

Jacob nodded along in agreement as Angela spoke, but added nothing of his own, just turned to William with an expression that was almost pleading.

William struggled with what he was being told, minutes ticked silently by and he wondered how they weren't being attacked and then he realized it. They weren't being attacked because part of him had accepted this wasn't real, part of him had accepted it and part of this reality had ceased to be. He smiled, "It's not real," he said and the roof above him exploded into a million silvery pieces.

Looking around he found himself inside a vast hangar like space. A suited man was looking at him, at all of them, wearing an expression of shock.

"Kill them!" he yelled. "Kill them all!"

## Chapter 17

"Get out of here!" Jacob barked to Angela and William; Tabitha still lay unconscious at his feet.

"But-" Angela began to argue.

"No buts! Just get out of here!" he yelled, before throwing a thought to Angela via telepathy, "To our ship Angela, find it and get back here."

Angela nodded and grabbed Will's hand, vanishing instantly before Jacob's eyes. He turned to face the suited man that had yelled an order for their execution, even though only one other - sitting at a complete loss at a computer console - was in the room.

"I said kill them!" the suited man yelled again, turning to the seated man who uncertainly got to his feet. Jacob knew more men would be coming, he could hear an alarm blaring somewhere deep within the ship, base, building, whatever it was they were in.

"Sit back down," Jacob instructed. The suited man looked conflicted for a moment before sitting slowly back in his seat. Jacob turned on the other one, the one who was giving the orders. "It seems you're the one in charge, as I doubt anyone else has the authority to issue an order to have us all killed."

The suited man clenched his jaw and stared at Jacob in reply.

"I don't know what your plan was here, but it has clearly failed. I call for your immediate surrender."

"We will not surrender. We never surrender," the suited man replied, through clenched teeth, his hatred of Jacob seeping from every atom of his being - whatever scheme Jacob and the others had ruined by surviving had obviously been a major plan of attack. "But I wouldn't say our plan has failed," the suited man glanced briefly down at Tabitha's unconscious, barely breathing, barely alive form. "Seems we may have killed one of you anyway."

Jacob glanced briefly down at Tabitha's sprawled, barely breathing form. "No," he muttered, his voice heavy. "I did that."

The suited man looked at him quizzically, "You could join us you know."

"Spare me your ridiculous proposals, I am _really_ not in the mood."

Jacob heard feet running down the corridor outside the room, knew he didn't have long, wondered if Angela had made it to the ship and if she was on her way back to him now. She wouldn't have to fly it, she could just transport it, materialize it right here and launch an attack, create a diversion. Frowning, though, Jacob knew he was going to have to fight, but he dared not leave this room in case the suited men got hold of whatever was left of Tabitha, even almost dead she could be an incredible energy source for them... or an incredible weapon.

He glanced around the room for a weapon as the suited man droned on and on about the advantages that he, Jacob, would have if he just gave up fighting and joined with them. In the pristine, clinical, room, however, there was nothing to be used as a weapon. "Hand to hand then," he muttered under his breath.

"Didn't quite catch that I'm afraid," the suited man said.

"Enough!" roared Jacob throwing himself towards the man and grabbing him by the throat. The sudden charge caught the man completely unaware and he struggled with Jacob's grip on his neck, uttering strangled cries for help from the only other suited man in the room. A black flame seemed to flicker around Jacob as he lifted the suited man from the floor then threw him across the room, smashing through the closed doors into the corridor outside - where a small army of suited men had gathered.

The men charged forward, Jacob held his position, grabbing those he could grab, snapping their necks or throwing them away, smashing into the rooms rather solid walls. Turning completely to shadow he managed to avoid blows from their weapons, be it sword, bullet or energy blast excepting when he turned solid to seize another of them from the ground around him. They kept closing in, however, as, unarmed and exhausted from his earlier engagement with Tabitha, he was having great difficulty holding them back - killing them was a slow process manually and he was soon overpowered, wrestled kicking and fighting to the ground. Through a small gap between bodies he saw one of the men roughly pick Tabitha from the ground, throwing her over his shoulder. Summoning the last of his remaining strength he yelled, hauled himself to his feet, and turned once more to shadow. In the process he blew the pile of suited men that had lay on top of him in every direction around the room, smashing them into the floor, walls and ceiling.

One of the men that hurtled through the air collided with the one carrying Tabitha away, sending both her and her captor flying across the room and smashing toward the distant wall. In an instant Jacob moved across the room, solidifying once more between Tabitha and the wall, with an impact that broke several of his ribs she hit him and fell into his arms as he slumped against the wall and slid down onto the floor.

More suited men poured through the doorway into the room, but Jacob had no fight left in him. He sighed and stroked Tabitha's hair. "So," he said more to himself than to her, "this is how it ends is it? No final blaze of glory, no battle cry, just slumped in the corner? No. Not me, I'm not going out like that." Cradling her head he gently kissed it, before placing her on the floor and then, using the wall to help haul himself to his feet, he staggered a step or two forward to stand between Tabitha and the gaggle of suited men that had now entered the room.

"Give up," one of them called, who was soon echoed by others. "Give up! Give up! Give up! We've already won, you can't defeat us now."

"Just got to hang on, for Angela..." Jacob muttered.

The suited men began to laugh as they approached him, the nearest wielding an almighty war-hammer. "We rule now," he said as he swung the hammer up and up behind his head, "say goodbye." He swung the hammer down, hurtling, whistling through the air towards Jacobs head.

Jacobs eyes followed the hammer, he was determined to look death in the face as it struck him but instead the hammer missed, smashed into the floor right beside his feet. The suited man looked up startled at Jacob followed his gaze, noticing for the first time the sound of heavily laboured breathing from behind him. He turned slightly, just enough to see behind him, while watching the group of assembled suited men and saw Tabitha pulling herself to a sitting position. She glanced briefly at Jacob and time seemed to stand still between the pair as their eyes locked, she gave the tiniest of nods, took a giant, rattling breath and then her eyes closed and her chin fell to her chest as the sound of her last exhale filled the room.

Jacob turned on the hammer wielding suited man, seized the weapon from him and kicked the man backwards into the group. Giving a roar of rage, loss and despair Jacob began to spin on the spot holding the giant hammers steel handle out from his body, letting it pick up the energy of the spin before he suddenly stopped and released the hammer. It spun across the room, smashing and tearing its way through the suited men who hadn't managed to get out of the way in time before embedding itself in the rooms opposite wall. Jacob then stood arms hung at his side, head held high, waiting, once more, for death.

At long last Angela felt the familiar, the make-up of the differing types of matter that was Jakes ship, her ship, their ship. In an instant she and William had materialized on its bridge, William clutching his stomach and looking green. "You're right," he said, "it never gets easier."

"Well brace yourself, as its about to happen again," Angela replied slipping into the chair at the main console of the oval shaped bridge. William took his usual seat, the look on his face saying it all as Angela closed her eyes and pictured the area of space the vast ship full of suited men had been in. A loud cracking noise filled her ears as she piloted all of the matter, every last atom, into assembling the ship, herself, William, everything, again at the location where Jake was, undoubtedly, fending off the suited men.

Through the vast forward-facing windows and view-screen Angela could see the ship of the suited men. "Will," she said, "take the helm. Fire on them, dodge them, everything you can. I am going to get the others."

She waited for Williams short nod before she focused on the room the quartet had appeared inside and, with another loud crack, she appeared inside it, just in time to see a sword blade hurtling towards Jacob neck. With a flick of a wrist the blade vanished, leaving the man who had wielded it staggering at its sudden loss of weight. Through the confusion she pushed her way to Jacob, who despite not being hit by the sword, was bleeding profusely from the head and several other body wounds. She grabbed his hand and dragged him to where Tabitha sat, slumped against the wall, grabbed her hand as well and shut her eyes.

The trio appeared, nearly instantly, on the bridge of Jake's ship, and the exhausted Angela looked at Will. "Get us out of here," she hissed.

Jacob looked around in confusion, there were lights above him in a configuration that seemed familiar, his ears were filled with a familiar low droning noise and he could hear voices, not suited men's voices.

He moved to sit up and found he was already doing so, just his head had lolled to a strange angle. Straightening up he became aware of the sound of explosions, aware that the ground underneath him was rocking and swaying and when Angela's voice filled his ears he suddenly understood.

"Hull breaches, lower three decks," she said, her voice un-panicked and factual, just like he had trained her. "We're losing engine power on the starboard side."

"Bring us about," Jacob instructed. "We will not run, not this time."

"Jake do you really think-"

"Do it!" Jacob barked, and felt the ship angle beneath him before the artificial gravity could compensate for the change in direction.

Through the forward-facing windows he saw them at last, their ship barely damaged at all, firing repeatedly upon them.

"Prepare for ramming speed," Jacob uttered.

"He's not serious," came Williams voice.

From the corner of his eye Jacob saw Angela glance at him. "He is."

"Ramming speed dammit!" Jacob yelled over the top of them. He turned to Angela, "Can you hold this crate together? Long enough for us to cut through them?"

Angela frowned for a moment; Jacob knew she was spent. She had already teleported herself and William to the ship, teleported the whole ship to this region of space, teleported him and Tabitha aboard it and had undoubtedly been doing her best to minimize damage to the ship while the Fruig Drive system powered up. "Yeah, I think so."

"Gonna need more than a 'I think so'," Jacob urged, flashing her the briefest of smiles.

"Yeah... yes. I can do it. But just long enough to sheer through their ship on the shortest possible path, and after that you better hope the Fruig system is online."

Jacob turned to William, "Status on the Fruig Drive?"

"Seventy-five percent," he replied.

Jacob ran his hands through his hair as he felt his ship building speed. "It'll be ready," he said.

"Ready, Angela?"

"Ready."

"William?"

"As I'm ever going to be."

"Hold on then!" The cabin suddenly filled with a noise indescribable as the ships collided with one another. Through the viewing windows at the front of the ship Jacob could see deck after deck of the enemy's vessel being torn to shreds before there was a suddenly flash of blue-white light. "We've hit their drive systems containment field!" he yelled, quickly pushing buttons on the console in front of him.

"One-hundred percent!" William yelled as the view out the window ahead cleared, Jacob flicked a switch and the visors came rolling down. "Let's get out of here, before that thing blows!" He pushed a pair of levers forward and the dull drone built to a distant roar.

"Fruig-Space achieved," William said.

"We did it!" Angela yelped, "That showed them... but I think I will need to sleep for days, weeks even, now..."

Jacob smiled, but the expression fled from his face as he turned his chair and saw Tabitha, slumped, in the one immediately across from him. He stood up and approached the figure, looking so strangely tiny in the chair. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Angela, "Can you save her?" she asked.

"' _Should I?_ ' would perhaps be a better question," Jacob replied his mind casting back to Williams reality.

"Forget what she said, what she did," Angela said, "if there is still time you _have_ to do everything you can for her. She would want you to."

"Would she though?" Jacob asked, lightly stroking Tabitha's hand.

"If it was me, I would."

Jacob sighed. His mind was divided, on the one hand there was 'his' Tabitha, the one he had grown old with, fallen in love with. But on the other there was the crazed, angry Tabitha of Will's universe. The two had merged so who knew which Tabitha this would be - if he was even able to save her now at all. She was as cold as ice to the touch, her skin a pale blue tint. Even her hair had faded, its once vibrant colour now a greyish echo of itself.

Sighing again Jacob put his hands to her temples and gently called her name, over and over. He searched for her in the usual places her mind would hide, but found nothing, nothing and more nothing. After an hour he pulled back his hands and turned to Angela, who's expression said that she knew what he was about to say.

"I can't find her, not this time." He said, his voice a choked whisper. "Not this time..." He hung his head and fell to his knees. "Not this time," he whispered again.

He heard William joining Angela, heard Angela's quiet sobs and felt them sit down beside him on the floor of the bridge of the ship that had saved the four of them from so much, but wasn't able to save all of them this time. They sat in silence for a while before Jacob managed to mumble a few words about Tabitha's last moments. "She saved me, one last time... one of the men had an enormous war-hammer. Just before it struck me it deflected away and when I looked around, she was awake... I knew she had done it... but even then, I think knew she was no more for this life."

The trio fell into silence once more and at long last Angela spoke what they had all been thinking. "We need to send her off, give her a farewell."

"Yes," William said. "Is there a ritual for her kind? Do either of you know?"

"There is something we discussed once..." Jacob replied hoarsely.

Two days later the ship was in orbit around a young star, so young they had waited for it to burst into flame and fire from the cloud of gases it had once been.

Tabitha's body lay stretched out before them, on nothing more than a wooden box, draped with a silken blanket inside the air-lock that when opened would release her into the new sun. Her once vivid red hair had faded now to completely white; the blue tone had left her skin and it too was white, a stark contrast to the deep green blanket she lay upon.

Angela held Williams hand as Jake entered the airlock they had gathered in and waited for him to speak. To her surprise, and Williams by the feel of his slight flicker in attention Jake gave his speech not in the common, or ancient, tongues. But in some other language that neither of them could place.

"Horla Tabha, pah porf flort jor pilm. O jert por horp lo porf werrif. Lal wa fero alwer yerf pah porf ferro lorasa."

Angela cocked her head and looked at Jacob, who smiled briefly. "Something new to you both I think?"

Angela nodded.

"That was the tongue of her own people, I was recently reminded of it in a universe that wasn't this one. It has been a long while since she spoke it, I think she felt a sadness for her people when she did."

William nodded, "Can we hear what you said"

Angela thought that Will was being a bit rude, surely what Jake had said was between him and Tabitha but to her surprise Jake nodded.

"She would want you to know. I said: Tabitha Rose, with your heart goes mine. I send you, now, to your home. May this sun always shine with your bright light."

Angela nodded, "I don't think I could have said it any better."

With that the trio stepped out of the airlock and with a heavy sigh Jacob pressed the release button and the group watched as Tabitha's body was sucked from the ship out into the new star below them.

Long after her body had been swallowed by the sun Angela and William left Jake standing at the airlock. Angela hadn't slept since Tabitha's death, nor had William to the best of her knowledge, and she felt both emotionally and physically exhausted. Too tired to even change from her clothes she fell into her bed and with Will beside her instantly fell asleep.

Some hours after Angela and William left Jacob dragged himself away from the airlock door, walked the quiet corridors and settled into the bed in his room. After several more hours he finally fell into a fitful sleep where he was running after, but never quite catching up to, a dim light that fled down corridor after corridor. There was a familiar, soothing, quality about it and Jacob desperately wanted to catch it, to hold onto it forever. Every now and then the light would vanish and Jacob would awaken, sweating and shivering in his bed before falling back asleep, back into the same dream only to awake once more when the light vanished.

After no fewer than ten sudden awakenings Jacob decided to just give up on sleeping, he knew the light was his unconscious minds representation of Tabitha, knew he would never catch it, knew he was probably doomed to months of this same dream until he had dealt with her death properly. But for, now, he refused to do so, he kept expecting her to return at any moment even though he knew it wasn't possible.

Getting dressed he thought he saw, for the briefest of moments, someone sitting cross-legged in the centre of his floor. Someone with long red hair, tied - unusually - in a long braid down their back. Someone with bright green eyes who was quick with a smile.

"Great," he muttered. "Even when I am awake, she's going to haunt me."

He continued to get dressed, slipping his boots on when the image appeared again, right in front of him this time. He looked into her eyes and felt her looking into his. She was saying something, repeating it over and over again, but he couldn't hear her and tried to make out what she was saying by reading her lips. What he _thought_ she was saying was 'Times gone funny.'

## Chapter 18

William woke with a start, to find Angela already awake.

"You awake," she whispered.

"Am now... had the weirdest dream."

"Me too... I was trying to catch a light in what seemed to be a maze."

William started, "Exactly what I was dreaming. Then... it all turned to clocks with the sound of laughter."

Angela looked at him curiously. "Exactly," she said.

"So, we're having the same dreams now?"

"Seems like it. What do you make of it?"

William paused for thought before slowly speaking. "The following the light through a maze kind of makes sense, perhaps the light is Tabitha?"

Angela frowned, "Yes that would make a kind of sense. But what about the clocks and that _hideous_ laughter?"

"Those? I have no idea."

"Me either... well I suppose since we're awake we should get up."

William mumbled an agreement and slipped his legs out of the bed, rubbing at his eyes.

William stepped through the doors onto the ships bridge, Angela close behind. The pair had decided not to tell Jake about them sharing the same dream unless it happened again; deciding that until they knew otherwise it could just have been a weird co-incidence.

Jacob was already sitting on the bridge, one of the screens at his console was scrolling through data rapidly as he sat with his chin resting on his steepled fingers.

"Anything of interest?" Angela asked, causing Jacob to start as if he hadn't noticed their less than quiet arrival.

"No, no," he said selecting an option on the screen which caused it to stop scrolling and fall blank. "Just the last of the diagnostics since the old girl was adrift for seemingly 3 months."

William shook his head, "It certainly didn't seem like that long..."

"Yeah, time in those... what did you call them? Micro-universes?" Jacob nodded, "was all strange."

"Yours was the strangest from what I have heard," William said to Angela. "You didn't notice all those missing years?"

"I told you before, I had no idea that I had skipped forward years at a time seemingly overnight. I do wonder how the suited men avoided it though."

Jacob spoke up, "I think, probably, because they came from outside of that universe, like I did when I arrived." William noted Jacob hadn't said 'us' or 'we' even though Jacob had arrived with Tabitha into Angela's reality. He wondered if perhaps Jacob was beginning to process what had happened, but removing her entirely from the story made him think that was likely.

"So, you think they were sent in to capture me?" Angela queried.

"Capture you, kill you, something like that. But because they weren't generated with your mind, because they weren't meant to be part of that reality, they weren't meant to exist so when time leapt forward it didn't affect them."

"Makes sense," William said, slipping, at last, into his chair and checking the overnight reports from the ships systems.

Once he was done reading, he reported that everything was as expected, Angela announced that the Fruig Drive was ready and Jacob nodded, taking one last look at the star they orbited, watching as a massive solar flare erupted from its surface, before plotting a new course.

"So where are we going?" William asked.

"Anywhere that isn't here," Jacob replied, pushing a pair of levers forward and engaging the Fruig Drive system, that rapidly propelled them to Fruig-Space. William turned his eyes away from the forward windows, Fruig-Space always made him feel sick. After a moment or two he heard the visors sliding down into place and he once again turned to face the wider bridge. "Nothing much to do here now then," he said, catching Angela's eye. She nodded slightly and he stood up, "Me and Angela will be down on E-deck, she wants to check the anti-matter containment pods visually after all that time-bubble was bouncing around down there."

"Good idea," Jacob muttered, nodding. "Don't want one of those to rupture."

William made for the doorway and Angela followed him out of the bridge. "He's... better than I had expected to be honest," she said.

"You're right, I keep expecting him to... I don't know exactly. Something anyway."

"Yeah, something," Angela agreed as they walked towards E-deck.

Jacob waited for the door to slide shut behind Angela and William before flicking the switch that raised the visors over the bridges forward facing windows. Staring into the complexities of Fruig-Space had always helped him think and today was a day where he needed help thinking. The ships diagnostics had reported all was fine, everything was expected. The clocks had counted continuously since they had been stolen away from the ship, the back-up systems had done their job, the primary systems had shut-down as expected. In fact, other than yesterday's anomalous report on one of the anti-matter containment pods - which had turned out to be nothing other than a slightly lose wiring connection - everything was perfect. Still, he didn't fault Angela and William for wanting to visually check each pod - anti-matter containment wasn't something to not take seriously.

With everything fine and all the clocks as they were expected to be, Jacob wondered why the apparition - he was loath to name it as anything other than such - seem to be mouthing, repeatedly, 'Times gone funny'?

It just didn't make any sense.

As he stared into Fruig-Space he slowly dozed off to sleep, only to dream of following a light through a maze and then of clocks, clocks and more clocks overlaid with the sound of hideous laughter.

He woke with a start. "Laughing clocks," he muttered. "Times gone funny."

William woke with a start, apparently waking Angela by doing so.

"What's up?" she murmured.

"That dream again... I haven't had it in weeks, but those clocks and that laughter... hard to forget."

Angela sat up, sounding more alert as she spoke. "I had it again a few days ago I think it was, yeah, it was earlier this week."

"I think I've had it... three or four times now. They are getting further and further apart."

Angela sighed, "Do we tell Jake?"

William understood her reluctance. In the past weeks Jacob had withdrawn into himself, barely acknowledging either of them when he ventured to the bridge. Which in itself was now a rarity, he seemed to spend all of this time sitting in the middle of the engineering deck, where the spheres had first appeared. "Would he even listen?"

"I don't know... he must hear us when we speak to him. But whether he pays attention..."

"Exactly."

Angela leant her head on Williams shoulder, "I dunno. I really don't. It feels like the sort of thing he should be told... but..."

"But what? Is there something more than his current state of... tuned out from the world, do you think?"

Angela paused before speaking, "Well... actually... yeah. The other day when I went to check on him down on E-deck - bring him some food, you know that sort of thing, he was talking. At first, I thought he was talking to himself as he does, but then I realized the conversation wasn't flowing. He was pausing, waiting for replies then speaking again. But he didn't seem to like the replies, he got progressively angrier until he started shouting."

"What was he shouting?" William prompted.

"'Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, a ship full of ghosts, go away!' Things of that sort of nature."

William sat silently.

"I'm... I'm afraid Will. When we lost Tabitha last time, he slowly seemed to lose himself... but this has been far faster... and different somehow. Last time he was still determined to continue, to live his life as best he could, to fight on. But this time... well... you've seen him."

William had seen him; all the spark was gone. When you looked into his eyes there was nothing there, he said as much to Angela.

"I know what you mean... but it's not quite nothing. _Something_ is there still; you can feel it. But it's like it's looking down on you from very, very, high up."

William thought for a moment then nodded, now that Angela had said it that was exactly what he had felt when he had caught Jacobs eye last, like he was being watched from very far away.

"Will?" Angela asked after a few minutes had passed, "Let's not tell him. Not unless we each have the dream again. Then... then we'll tell him."

William murmured an agreement and listened as Angela slowly drifted back to sleep on his shoulder. Gently he lay her down on the bed and got quietly up, leaving her to her rest. Every time he had the dream, returning to sleep was impossible: as soon as he shut his eyes, his head was filled with the bizarre laughter and images of clocks.

He decided he'd do a lap of the decks corridors before heading up to the bridge - though there would be nothing to do there; with Jacob not himself Angela was content to just 'cruise' as she called it. Cruising was the equivalent of pointing the ship at a random star and just letting it auto-pilot itself there before picking another and repeating the process. William knew that eventually some sort of choice of action would have to be made - though what that choice was he didn't know. He did know he was quite enjoying not having to worry about having to kill suited men, or be killed by them, or everyone else being killed by them leaving just him standing alone. This random cruising was the longest break from fighting he had had since arriving here and it was quite pleasant.

Paying little attention to where he was walking, he bumped into Jacob, who was crouched in the corridor staring intently at the wall.

"Jacob -"

He was cut off by Jacob frantically gesturing and going, "Shh," at him. Jacob crept closer to the wall and put his ear against it, where he sat for easily five minutes while William watched.

At last he stood up and turned to William. "That was a funny noise," he said. "I wonder if it will be back?" He immediately sat down in the middle of the corridor with an expression of deep concentration on his face.

William raised his eyebrows, the things Jacob both did and said were getting stranger and stranger - just yesterday he and Angela had found Jacob staring at one of the heating vents counting the holes in it and muttering that there wasn't enough, recounting, then muttering that there was too many. This 'funny noise' business seemed to be just another twisted turn in the maze of Jacobs rapid descent into insanity.

Stepping around Jacob, knowing there was little that could be done, William walked on round the corridor until he arrived back and his and Angela's quarters. He stepped through the doorway just as she stepped out of bed. "Now he says he has heard a funny noise. He's sitting in the corridor down there waiting for it to happen again," he reported.

Angela sighed, her expression glum. "Maybe we need to... I dunno. Take him to someone."

"Who though? I mean if you believe his story he's nearly as old as the universe itself, who would he _listen_ to?"

Angela frowned as she got dressed, "If only Tabitha was here..."

William laughed, "If she was here, he wouldn't need to talk because we wouldn't be in this situation at all."

Angela flashed a quick smile, "True. Did he look like he had eaten?"

"I don't think so."

"I'll take him something," she said. Before quietly adding, "Come with me please?"

William nodded, he knew Angela was barely coping with seeing her oldest friend entirely disappear before her very eyes - especially since nothing she tried had been of any use in reaching where he was, way up above them all.

Angela created a tray of food and William walked alongside her down the corridor, it wasn't long until they came across Jacob, now lying on the floor with his right arm stretched above him and his left out to one side.

"Hello Jake, I brought you some breakfast," Angela said - slightly louder than was strictly needed.

"Hello Angela. It's three o'clock," Jacob replied. Moving his left arm up slightly he said, "And now it is two." He stood up and, surprising both William and Angela, took the tray of food. "I'm absolutely famished," he said.

William turned to Angela and raised his eyebrows, as far as either of them were aware Jacob hadn't eaten in weeks - and his sentence about being famished actually made sense. William read Angela's expression, knew she was thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, there was hope for Jacob yet.

Jacob suddenly stopped eating and ran to the wall, sticking his ear against it. "There you go again," he said and William saw Angela's expression drop. "What are you that's making such a peculiar noise?"

Angela glanced at William and he shook his head, he couldn't hear whatever Jacob was hearing either. He began to suspect there was nothing there to actually hear when Jacob took off down the corridor yelling, "It's going this way!"

Angela sighed. "I suppose we should follow him, make sure he doesn't hurt himself or something silly."

William agreed and they ran after Jacob.

Soon they caught up to him, he had stopped again and was looking confused, "Now it is gone again," he said sitting down in the corridor. "I should wait and see if it comes back."

Angela crouched beside Jacob, "What do you hear?"

Jacob looked her in the eye, "A rattle."

"What is so important about a rattle?" Angela asked.

"Nothing! Everything!"

Angela ran her hands through her hair, William smiled slightly at the image - Jacob had always run his hands through his hair when stressed.

"What does that mean Jacob?"

"It means... it didn't used to rattle. Not here. Not this deck. And not there. There is nothing behind there to rattle. It's the outside of the ship!"

Angela cocked her head slightly as she looked at Jacob, "I know it's the outside Jake. I checked with my matter-sight, there is nothing out there."

"But it rattled! I heard it!"

"No Ja-"

"IT DID!" He spun around to face away from her and Angela stood slowly up, linking her arm in Williams.

"More than I expected to get out of him," she whispered. "But there is nothing out there, I _did_ check when he said he heard something. Not even the tiniest of movements of the air inside the ship that would indicate a sound travelling through them."

William didn't know what to think, Jacob had almost convinced him there was something outside yet Angela knew there wasn't. He turned, pulling Angela with him. Jacob had settled himself against the wall and was apparently asleep so there was little more to do here. "Bridge?" he asked, she nodded and he led her back along the corridor towards the lift to the upper decks.

Jacob listened for Angela and William to walk away then stood up, ear pressed against the wall. "Ah, there you are," he said as the sound of the rattle filled his ears once more. He had turned to shadow earlier and checked outside, there was nothing out there to rattle, and yet something inside the wall was rattling none the less. He frowned remembering the vent with the too few holes then the too many, it should have had forty. But first it had thirty-eight and then it had forty-one which he knew were wrong as forty was a happy number, and neither of the other two were.

He felt the ship change direction, they must have arrived at another star, he thought maybe Angela was 'cruising' as she called it. He wished he could talk to her, but every time he stopped thinking and tried to talk, he heard it, the laughter. The mad insane laughter and the ticking of clocks. And then, every once in a while, looking more and more emaciated and sickly he would see her. Her with the green eyes and bright red hair. She would look at him and mouth the words 'Times gone funny' as if it was the most important message in the universe, but that she was running out of time to send it.

"The stars," he muttered. Despite it all, he still loved to see the stars. He turned to shadow and stuck his head through the outer wall of the ship, watching the giant ball of burning gas. A flare kicked up from the surface as he watched, just like the last star and the star before that.

Deep within his mind, something fell into place.

"I suppose we should just pick another one," Angela said. "Any one will do... but we're going to have to stop wandering sooner or later."

"I know," William said, with a sigh.

He moved to stand beside Angela as they watched the star slip by on the vast forward windows, unshielded while in normal flight.

They each jumped as the bridge doors slid open, Jacob hadn't been on the bridge in a very long time and yet here he was, wearing a grin that went from ear to ear.

"She's still alive!" he yelled.

"Who?" William asked, hoping Jacobs next answer wouldn't be Tabitha - if it was, he knew that all hope for Jacob was lost.

"You know who!" Jacob yelled again, barely containing his excitement, "Tabitha Rose of course!"

"Jake-" Angela began to reply before being cut off.

"Laughing clocks," Jacob said. " _Times gone funny!_ "

"What?" Angela asked, shocked.

"Laughing clocks, ha ha very funny you wily old timekeeping device!"

William caught Angela's eye, "How do you know about them?" he asked.

Jacob stopped and turned to face him, slowly. "How do _you_ know about them?"

"We've been... having dreams." Angela replied, her tone a little guilty. "Both of us. First there is a maze with a light that we follow then there are clocks and this hideous laugh."

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?!" Jacob yelped, "Could have figured it all out sooner."

"Figured what out?"

"I already told you."

"Times gone funny?"

"Times! Gone! Funny!"

"But what does that mean?" William asked.

"I said it once before, remember?"

William looked at Angela, who looked at him. Now that Jacob mentioned it, he thought he _did_ remember him saying it once before. But when was it and why? Angela slowly smiled, and William knew she had figured it out.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"The bridge, remember? The bridge kept resetting itself."

William thought for a moment, then remembered that yes, right before the suited men and their spheres had appeared and swallowed them all and right after they came back from the sphere in Engineering, the bridge had reset itself each time they had all left it.

"I thought that was just the spheres though," Angela said, her tone uncertain.

Jacob flashed her a smile and William caught his eye, noticing immediately that the feeling that Jacob was watching from somewhere high above was had gone - when he looked at Jacob, Jacob looked right back at him. "So, did I," he conceded, "but I think that's because we were supposed to."

"Laughing clocks," muttered William, "times gone funny." He laughed slightly, "I suppose that makes sense. But what about the first bit? The bit with the maze and the light?"

"That's where it gets complicated," Jacob replied his expression turning grave.

## Chapter 19

"What do you mean by complicated?" Angela asked.

"You know, not easy," Jake replied with a, somewhat forced sounding, laugh.

" _Jake_."

"I know, I know... just if I am wrong..."

Angela raised an eyebrow, Jake wondering if he could be wrong was something new and possibly something to be wary of. After all, for the past month and a half Jake _had_ closed himself off from the world and seemed to go largely insane - his sudden snap back to reality had Angela on her guard.

"So, what is the first bit of the dream about then?" William pressed.

"I'd have thought that was obvious; follow the Light," Jake replied.

"Follow the light?"

"Yes! Follow the Light."

Angela frowned, "Follow the light, times gone funny."

Jake smiled, "That's right! I suspect there is meant to be a 'because' in the middle, but you try and summon up a picture in your mind for the word 'because'..."

"So, it's actually, 'follow the light _because_ times gone funny'?"

"Exactly."

"So how do we do that then?" Will asked, "What light do we follow?"

Angela spoke up again before Jake could answer, "More importantly... how do you know times gone funny? You're not basing all of this on a dream, are you?"

Jake looked at her, his expression turning serious. "A good point, perhaps it would help if you two could weigh up the odds as well."

Inwardly Angela sighed with relief, letting her and Will look over whatever had brought him to his announcement that time had gone funny would calm her doubts substantially. Not just about the theory, but about Jake himself - if his argument made sense it would be a clear indication that maybe, just maybe, he was back to being his old self.

"Come over here," he said, beckoning Angela and Will over to the main control-console at the centre of the bridge. "I have a few pictures for you to have a look at."

As Angela approached the low-set monitors lit up, with pictures of various suns appearing.

"This is every star we've visited since we returned from those... unrealities."

Angela nodded, so far so good.

"Now, have a _closer_ look at each one."

Angela lent forward. From a distance she could tell each was a different size and slightly different colour so she wondered what she was looking for. She stared at image after image but nothing stood out.

"Jake, I don't see anything," she said.

"Exactly," he replied. "Now watch what happens if I sync them up."

"Sync them up?"

"Yes, so that each video we have of each of the stars lines up with the others..."

"Obviously," Angela replied.

Jake pressed a few buttons and the images flickered back and forth until they all settled. And then Angela saw it immediately. "They're all the same," she whispered as a solar flare erupted from each star, from the exact same location, stretching out at the exact same proportions relative to the star. Now that she noticed it, it was blatantly obvious. Sun-spots graced each star at the exact same locations.

"What the..." Will muttered. "How can that be?"

"Laughing clocks," Jake said by way of explanation.

Angela frowned, "It doesn't quite explain how each of the stars being the same leads to you saying 'Times gone funny' though does it?"

Jake raised an eyebrow at her, "No. not really. But if you remember, the bridge kept resetting. Each time we visit a star it's been reset. The exact same sequence happens each time we visit, right down to the tiniest fluctuations of magnetic fields -" he pressed a few buttons and each of the stars magnetic field lines appeared.

"Why didn't _we_ see that? Will asked.

"Because you weren't supposed to, I wasn't supposed to. Nobody was. That and each star we approached from a slightly different angle, so you get a slightly different view each time..."

Angela nodded, what Jake was saying made sense. If each star they had visited they had seen from a different angle they would all look like different stars. But when you saw them all from the same angle, then, yes, they were definitely all the same - just tinted different colours and blown up or shrunk down to different sizes.

"What does it mean then?" Will asked.

"It means, I think," Angela began, slowly, "that this universe isn't... complete." She looked at Jake, who nodded in agreement encouraging her on. "Someone has made it, but they have run out of time or something and so they've populated it with the same things over and over again."

"That is what I am thinking," Jake said, staring at the screens. "I would say the first day we were in here was the day we found that sphere in Engineering. The bridge kept resetting... I think it was a problem, a bug, in the programming. They've been ironing them out as we persist here, but there are still problems. Like that rattle I kept hearing, it is the exact same rattle the cooling fans of the computer core make when they are starting up or shutting down. But I was nowhere near those so-"

"Yes, yes, a bug in the program would explain that," Angela agreed. She was about to ask Jake a question, but Will beat her to it.

"But if this is a... virtual reality like you think it is, what was the point of those other realities we were in?"

Jake frowned, drumming his fingers on the console. He glanced at Angela, "Any ideas?"

So far this train of thought had been making perfect sense, the resetting bridge, the repeating stars it all seemed like a program, a virtual reality. But this issue of why you'd have a virtual reality nested inside another virtual reality seemed like it might blow holes in the entire thing. Angela was about to say maybe they needed to give up the idea of this reality not being reality when an idea occurred to her. "I think I have it," she said.

Jake gestured for her to continue and Will looked at her expectantly.

"We weren't meant to escape those realities," she began, "they were the primary realities set up for us. But in case we did, there was this reality put in place as well. A contingency plan."

Jake nodded, seeing where her thoughts were going. "Yes, yes. So, if we _did_ somehow escape the worlds made for us, we would end up here."

"And then we'd think that _here_ was reality," Angela concluded.

"I hate to say it," Will said, "but that makes sense. Why bother finishing the 'contingency' universe? Chances are it'll never be needed."

"But it has been and it's not actually ready to go yet."

"And so... here we are. Aware that we're not in reality anymore," Jake concluded. "Do we all agree?"

Angela nodded and Will grunted his agreement.

"So, the question of the hour is... how do we get out?" Angela asked, suspecting at least one possible answer based on what Jake had recently announced about Tabitha.

"Well... the way I see it we have two possibilities. We follow Tabitha - follow the light - or we see if we can punch through this universe and out of it."

"When you say follow the light..." Angela said.

"Yes." Jake nodded, "we all have to die."

Will shook his head, moving to stand with his arm around Angela. "But if we're wrong then what?"

"We're still dead," Angela replied, understanding where Jakes earlier concern about being wrong was coming from.

"Well, we do the other one then," Will said. "We... punch through this universe and out of it."

"Still be dead," Jake said. "If this isn't a virtual reality - which it may not be despite all the signs that it is - we'd end up in the Nothing Space."

"The Nothing Space?"

Angela frowned, "The space between realities, the nothingness between parallel worlds and different dimensions. Its full of... well nothing."

"Like the Time Bubbles of Nothingness? But they had whole worlds inside them."

Jake shook his head, "No. The Nothing Space is an entirely different thing, we don't want to end up there. Remember what I said about the time bubbles? No light, no dark, no heat, no cold, no gas, no vacuum. No left, right, up or down. Just nothingness in all of its glory, but with one more thing... no _time_. If you ended up in there you could live forever and live for the next microsecond and never live at all. Just all at the exact same moment. Forever. No. We do not want to end up in the Nothing Space."

Will mused for a moment, glancing at Angela. "When people say there are fates worse than death... I think I understand one of those fates now."

"Exactly," Angela agreed. "So, what do we do? Do we attempt the punch? Or do we all just die... how do we do that anyway? The only one of us here that _isn't_ immortal is you Jake, without Tabitha you can't regenerate. Will's tied to his home universe and I regenerate myself automatically."

"In _theory_ you could turn that off though Ange," Jake said.

" _In_ _theory_ , Jake, everything is possible - I just don't know how to do it. Anyway, that doesn't explain what to do with Will."

Will squeezed Angela gently as she spoke. "There is a third option," he muttered.

"Oh?" Angela and Jake asked in unison.

"Yeah... you're not going to like it."

"I don't like the existing options," Jake said.

"Nor me," Angela agreed, "so any other option can't be any worse."

William stood silently, Angela knew he was debating inside his head how best to explain his idea, he nodded slightly. "We just kill Jacob."

Angela started, "But we can't-"

"We _could_ ," Jake interrupted. "Then I could disable whatever this reality is and you two would be free."

"Jacob, you're being ridiculous," Angela snapped.

"The idea has merit," he replied. "As you said; I'm the only one here who can die. And if we're wrong it's not all of us dead."

"And what if you're _right_?"

"Then he turns off this reality and we're free," William said.

"Oh yes, very clever. But there is something else, Jake, and you know it. I know it. Will, even you know it if you stop and _think_ for a moment." She turned angrily to William, pointing a finger into his chest. "Need me to tell you?" she demanded.

From the corner of her eye she saw Jake shaking his head, "It won't happen Angela."

"Oh, won't it? Tell me, how is Tabitha looking?" Some of Jake's earlier behaviour seemed to suddenly make sense to Angela, specifically all those times she thought he had been talking to himself before yelling or muttering about ghosts. He had been seeing Tabitha.

Jake started and she knew he hadn't been expecting that question - she laughed inside her head, it was rare to catch Jake completely unprepared.

"I don't know what you-"

"Don't even try it. I saw you, more than once, standing there talking as if to yourself. But I have heard you talking to yourself, you always, _always_ , speak both sides of the conversation. But you weren't, you were stopping as if waiting for a reply."

"Ange-" Will began.

"Quiet you, I'll get to you later. Right now, it's time for Jake to front up. You've been seeing her, haven't you?"

Jake ran a hand through his hair, a tell-tale sign he was starting to feel stressed. Or that he was thinking hard. One of the two. "Yes, I have been," he finally muttered.

"Seeing Tabitha?" Will asked. "How?"

"It's 'cause they have that connection," Angela said. "A long, _long_ , time ago now he explained something to me. He said whenever Tabitha drew one of her energy diagrams, he could see her, like a ghost, sitting in whatever position she was seated in while she drew the diagram. As soon as she was done, she would waver and vanish. Right?"

"Right," Jake replied, his tone reluctant.

"I thought that seemed odd, so I talked to Tabitha about it and she backed Jake up saying that if she focused her energy drawings onto him, instead of searching for all sources, _she_ could see _him_. So, I ask again, Jake, how is Tabitha looking?"

Jake shook his head. "Not good," he whispered, "not good at all. She was fine the first time I saw her, but she has gotten worse. She is emaciated, bloody and bruised." He slumped a little, "I thought she was a ghost, a memory come back to haunt me forever for... for... for killing her. I should have known it wasn't. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!" He punched the nearest console and his hand went through the top of it into the circuitry below.

Angela was slightly taken aback by Jake's outburst, but at the same time she realized this is what had driven his break from sanity. Not that fact that Tabitha had died, but that _he_ had been the reason for it. Whatever he had done in Will's universe in order to subdue Tabitha enough to bring her back to this reality had killed her and the guilt had been eating at him. "She isn't dead though Jake. Remember that."

"I know... and I know your point." Jakes tone was almost one of finality, as if he didn't want to discuss anything further. Angela, however, pushed on.

"What about you then," she said, turning back to Will. "Do you get it yet?"

After a slight pause, William nodded. "Yeah, yeah."

"Going to tell me? I want to make sure you're crystal clear on it."

"You're concerned that if there is someone powerful enough to create a universe and then universes within universes, powerful enough to subdue Tabitha, to stop her returning to Jake, or stopping her from disabling this universe we are in, that they will overpower Jake. And then we'd never know, we'd be trapped here thinking he died for real while trying to get out of this reality but forever wondering if he made it out and just wasn't able to shut this world down."

"Brilliant," Angela said, "that's it exactly."

"Well, what do you want to do about it then?"

"All of us or none of us," Angela said.

Jake stood up, looked her square in the eye. "You're certain?"

She nodded, glancing at Will who nodded as well.

"It would seem, then, that our only option is that we have to punch a hole in the universe to die instantly and live forever in the Nothing Space if we're wrong."

Angela smiled slightly, "Or to live forever and save Tabitha if we get it right."

"Yes," Jake agreed. "Or that."

Frowning, William asked a question that was also bugging at Angela. "How does someone blow a hole in the universe?"

"In theory we could do it with lasers, focus a whole bunch of them on a single point and with enough power... boom! Hole in the universe. Of course, it'd only be a tiny hole, perhaps the size of an atom... and only exist for about a trillionth of a second."

William sighed, "What use is that then?"

"I wasn't finished," Jake said with a, somewhat crazed, smile. "It'd only exist for a trillionth of a second in the _real_ universe. This is just a virtual universe, a projection, a computer-generated world, or something like that anyway. Maybe it's like a sheet of glass, what would happen if you punched a hole into a sheet of glass?"

"It'd fracture," Angela replied, beginning to see how Jakes plan might work.

"Yes! So, then what do we do? We follow one of those cracks through space-time and we punch it again."

"And the whole thing would shatter and fall to pieces..." Will mused. "But what if it doesn't?"

"Then we keep on hitting it," Angela replied. "Until it collapses and we're set free of this place."

"Hopefully it'll only take one shot," Jake muttered. "We'd need something like two hundred petawatts of power."

"That sounds like a lot," Will said. "How much is it?"

"I said, two hundred petawatts."

"Some sort of context Jake, please," Angela said.

"Fine, fine... it's like... one hundred thousand times the total power production of that fine planet Will hails from, Earth, in a year."

Like Will, Angela's face fell into an expression of shock. "And where are we going to get this power? That's an extraordinary amount of power."

"Yeah," Will agreed, "It's not like we have Tabitha here to generate that sort of power, if she even could."

To Angela's surprise, Jake smiled. She had thought mention of Tabitha would have sent him back into some sort of foul mood, she had even angrily elbowed Will as he spoke to try and make him hold his tongue.

"I'm surprised you hadn't figured it out yet Angela, I thought you knew. I mean, it's been a very, very long time since I picked you up from the ashes of your planet and brought you here, and you must have heard me, or Tabitha, mention it at some point."

Angela frowned.

"What is he talking about?" Will asked her.

"I have no idea."

"You've never wondered about me? Being able to turn into shadow? Or even later, being able to supposedly 'kill' Tabitha? She is pure energy; how do you defeat a force like that?"

Angela's frown deepened; she wasn't at all sure where Jake was going with this, but something in her mind was trying to give her the answer, she couldn't quite grasp it thought. Then something that the crazed Tabitha, she of Will's universe, had said came back to her. Something about 'the only one who _could_ stop me is him'. It almost seemed, perhaps, that in her crazed state killing her was something she had wanted Jake to do, why else would she have suddenly attacked him, but not with enough force to kill him. She rubbed her temples; this was giving her a headache.

"I don't know," Will said. "You can reflect energy, like a mirror does..."

"But the mirror is made of matter and matter is held together by what is essentially just energy. So that doesn't work," Angela argued.

Will, almost comically, scratched his head in thought. "So, what is more powerful than energy?"

Jake raised his eyebrows at Angela. "Come on now Angela, I know you know the answer to this. In fact, I even taught you it once upon a time."

"You did?"

Jake half-laughed, "Okay, okay. A hint, the four basics of the universe. What are they?"

Angela thought for a moment. "Matter... dark matter... energy... dark energy."

"Now you're getting somewhere," Jake smiled, "Now universes expand because of?"

"Dark energy..." Angela replied, realising that she may have just figured it all out. "Tabitha. Tabitha's people were visible energy.... and yours? Yours were dark energy, weren't they?"

"Precisely!"

"But what does that mean?" Will asked.

Angela turned to him, to explain. "The universe, every universe, has by far more dark energy than visible energy."

"So, he is more powerful than she is?"

"Only if he wants to be," Jake said. "If I was to harness just the tiniest fraction of that power for long it would rip me to shreds - hence I don't just wipe out the entire race of suited men in one fell swoop - I'd obliterate myself and everyone else around me and probably a fair chunk of the universe all in that same instant. A very similar thing would happen if Tabitha harnessed all of the visible energy actually available to her."

"What you're saying is that you are like her... worst enemy in a way. She's always known you could destroy her on a whim."

"But I wouldn't," Jake replied.

"But you did."

" _Except_ ," Jake said, raising his voice slightly, "that I didn't. We thought I did, but I didn't. I just... sent her home."

"So you say," Will began. "So you-"

"Enough!" Angela barked. "Both of you." She turned to Jake, "the ultimate in 'opposites attract' in a way I suppose."

Jake tilted his head sidewise, "I suppose. Though I would say it's more like attracts like. But... opposites attract." He mused as if in thought, his gaze falling on William. "I wonder..." he muttered, barely loud enough for Angela to hear.

Deciding that what Jake was wondering about wasn't as pressing as the need to punch a hole through the universe, Angela chose to ignore Jakes last remark and to instead bring up their escape plan. "Where do we get the lasers?"

"You can make them for us," Jake replied.

"Can't make something out of nothing, you know that."

"I do indeed, so we'll just use this star we're orbiting. Plenty enough matter there to make some lasers. We'll need six. Think of what we're hitting as a cube, one for each side."

"I hope you have some sort of reference for me to work from."

"Of course," Jacob replied, bringing up a diagram on one of the ships larger monitors.

"We're also going to need a lot of mirrors."

"Mirrors?"

"To divide the light, to split it up so that it strikes every side of that tiny, atom sized, bit of space at the same time, at the same intensity."

"So lasers positioned as if to strike a cube and mirrors to split the beams to hit it like a sphere?" Will asked.

"Exactly!"

"Of course," Angela said with a sigh. "Nothing is ever simple with you is it?"

"No, why start making things simple now? Get Will to help you position the lasers, I reckon we will have room in the lower cargo bay for the whole arrangement."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Me? I have to figure out a way to make dark energy into usable energy to power this thing..."

Angela laughed, "Sounds like I got the easy bit."

"It sure does..."

## Chapter 20

Angela and Will left the bridge and Jake followed them along the corridor to the lifts, taking a separate one to his quarters.

As the door slid open the image of the beaten, emaciated, red-haired girl appeared before him. 'Times gone funny' she mouthed; her expression desperate, her eyes pleading, begging him to understand.

"I know," Jacob replied, "and I am coming for you."

The girl looked relieved. Nodding subtly, she mouthed a new word.

'Hurry.'

She faded from sight and Jacob knew that his first attempt to blast through the universe would have to work, it would take weeks for him to be able to draw the energy to try again, if he would have the strength of mind and body to do so, and Tabitha looked worse every time he saw her - he had strong suspicions he wouldn't see her ghostly visage again now that she knew he was coming for her.

He also suspected time really had gone funny, it wasn't just a reminder of something he had earlier said, and was proceeding at a slower rate inside this universe than it was in reality. Who knew how long Tabitha had been waiting for him already? No, he would have to pull together enough energy to blast a hole in the universe on the first try - it would likely kill him but death was what was needed to escape this reality.

The problem was with Angela and Will.

He knew if he died, they would be left in limbo, uncertain as to whether death was the answer or not and either way, they could be waiting years, if not until this universes eventual collapse to find a way to break themselves out.

The first attempt would just have to work.

He closed his eyes and for the first time in an extremely long time let the universes dark energy seep into him in a, hopefully, entirely uncontrolled manner. He could feel it pulling at his body, trying to tear it apart, trying to expand it just as it did the universe itself. Opening his eyes, he forced the energy to drain from him once more. "This is going to be tricky," he muttered.

Angela led Will into the Cargo Bay, preparing to begin construction of the giant lasers. Before she began, she turned to Will, "I don't like this," she said.

"What?"

"Jake. Jake and his sudden snap back to sanity. I mean, yes, it's great and all but how can we be _sure_? How can we be _sure_ this isn't some insane fantasy in his head and he's still just as crazy as he was? I mean the theory makes sense, but it _could_ all be co-incidence. Universes are big places."

Will frowned, "Honestly?"

"Yep."

"I don't think we can. The only way we'll know is if this laser thing pays off and we blast a hole in the universe."

"That's sort of what I am afraid of," Angela replied with a sigh. "What if it works and it _is_ just nothing on the other side? What if we all end up trapped there forever?"

"I can think of a few more what-ifs for you. What if it works? What if he is right but whatever has created this universe for us is so powerful, we cannot stop it? What if it just kills us anyway?"

Angela half laughed, "So we're probably just as dead either way - just if he's right, and it works, we get to live a few minutes longer."

"If that!" Will replied, laughing himself.

"Thanks," said, briefly hugging Will, "that actually made me feel a bit better about this."

Will smiled at her, "What can I do to help?"

Jacob paced his quarters, wondering why he hadn't bothered to do so earlier as here was yet another difference. The quarters were supposed to be exactly eight paces by exactly twelve, but were now apparently seven and a half by thirteen. "Any more different and I would have noticed by eye," he muttered as he circuited the room.

After several more circuits he once more began to talk to himself. "I really hope I am right about this, could send us all into the horrors of the nothing space if I am not... or I could be right, but who or what sent us all here? _A_ _nd_ who or what has the power to have put Tabitha in such a state? Even after those millennia imprisoned by the suited men, she was looking better that she does now. Older, yes, but less... sickly and beaten. Now she looks the same age, but she is not well. Not well at all."

He stopped pacing and spun on his heel. "Not the suited men then," he muttered. "So, who, who has the power?" Frowning he sat in the chair alongside his bed, once more closing his eyes and letting the universes dark energy seep into him. Instantly he felt it trying to rip him apart, tear every atom of his being into a different direction. He opened his eyes and shook his head. "Not getting any easier," he mumbled.

The comm crackled, "We're ready Jake."

"That was fast!"

"It's been like... almost a day and a half," Angela responded.

"Oh... lost track of time. I'll be there in a second."

Jacob glanced briefly around his room, or what was this reality's representation of his room, nodded and turned to shadow.

In less time than the blink of an eye he appeared on the cargo deck, and immediately began inspecting Angela and William's handiwork.

"Tested the alignment?"

"Yeah," replied William. "With a high-powered torch, so as to not, you know, blow anything up before we're ready."

"Smart thinking." Jacob replied.

Angela held a copper-like metallic box out to him. "You put the charge into here," she indicated the cables heading to each of the lasers. "They'll take care of the rest."

Jacob nodded, "I feel like I should say a few words, but we all know the situation here."

William and Angela nodded.

"So live or die..." Jacob closed his eyes, let down his defences and let the universe's dark energy pour into him unchecked. He gripped the metal box as he began to shake, more and more violently. Through his closed eyes he could see the green glow of the lasers shining brighter and brighter, he hoped Angela and Will had had the sense to look away.

"Oh wow," he heard Angela say as William uttered, "My God."

At the exact same instant Jacob became aware he couldn't hold himself together anymore, regardless of if they had broken through this would be his only attempt. He was going to die now and there was nothing to stop it.

"Jake!" Angela yelled as he suddenly seemed to explode into all directions at once, grabbing her attention away from the rippling ball of blue and white light that had appeared at the intersection of the laser beams. The laser instantly fell dark as Jake vanished, but the ball of blue and white remained intact seemed to grow slightly before holding its shape.

"What the hell happened?" Will asked.

"I think it... killed him." Angela replied, surprising herself with how steady her voice was despite the series of emotions flowing through her.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know!" Angela yelled, completely at a loss. This was something they hadn't prepared for.

"Angela," William called in a whisper.

Angela ignored him, she had to figure out what to do next.

"Angela!" Will yelled.

"What?" she demanded, turning to face him. "Oh."

The ball of rippling white and blue energy was growing, in fits and starts but it was growing. Every now and then it would flash a blinding white and shrink a little, seeming to shake as it did so.

"What is it doing?" Will asked.

Angela looked at the ball with her matter-sight, saw tiny arms stretching out from it in all directions. No not arms. Cracks. Cracks in the fabric of the universe. "It's... working!" she yelled.

"What?"

"The universe! It's breaking apart. I think-"

She was cut off as the ball of blue and white light suddenly exploded outwards, engulfing her and William before either could react. There was a moment of blinding white and then everything went dark.

Jacob sat up, rubbing his hands through his hair and noticing a sensation like he was sitting in front of a bright, yet flickering, light - yet it was a light that emitted no light that he could see at all. "Hands!" he suddenly yelled. "Still got hands. And legs and arms and a head! Still alive! Still alive..."

He climbed slowly to his feet, carefully testing his strength as he did so. "All still working," he said, turning to face where he could feel the light he couldn't see coming from. "Tabitha," he muttered.

As he stepped forward there was a blinding flash of light, a pair of thumping sounds and Angela careened straight into him. He grabbed her by the shoulders, spinning her to face him. "I was right and we're still alive!" he quipped.

Reaching for Will's hand Angela laughed, "Yes, you were, and, yes, we are! But where are we?"

"Where's Tabitha?" Will asked.

Jacob pointed ahead, "Tabitha is that way. And where we are? We're in a... oh. Don't you recognize it?"

Angela and William looked around, peering through the gloom of the space they found themselves in. "I think I -" Angela began.

"The cargo bay?" Will asked.

"Yes!" Jacob yelped, "We're exactly where we were, just one universe over. It seems someone has got the lights on emergency only, admittedly our sudden appearance may have triggered that..."

Angela turned to Jacob, "So the whole time... all those universes... we were on the ship the whole time?"

Jacob frowned, "Apparently."

"But who could have done that? Who could have created a universe, then universes within universes?"

"The grey-suited guys?" Will asked.

Jacob shook his head, "No... no. They don't have that sort of power, that sort of skill."

"Who does then?" queried Angela.

"Exactly," Jacob replied. "Who does?" He flashed her a smile, "Come on then, an old friend is waiting for us. She is weak and beaten, but she is not yet defeated."

Angela linked arms with Jacob and from the corner of his eye he saw her also do the same with William. "Me and my boys," she said. "Let's see what this creator of universes makes of that."

Tabitha pulled herself up into a sitting position, every part of her screaming in agony as she did so. She was battered and bruised, her energy reserves almost completely empty, and so weak she was unable to draw on anything around her as an energy source. But something had just changed, she had sensed it as one might sense walking into the sun from under the shade of a tree with one's eyes closed.

Lifting her head up she looked her guard in the eye from where they sat, straddling a reversed chair with their head resting on the top of its back. Half-smiling, with the side of her face still capable of such a feat, she slurred a word at him before he got up and struck her unconscious.

"Die," she hissed.

The invisible light Jacob followed flickered again, this time it stayed darkened for longer than any of the other times so far. "Hurry," he urged, breaking into a run and dragging the others along. "She hasn't got much time!"

Jacob raced down corridor after corridor, before finally, crashing through the door that was opening far too slowly for his liking, he emerged into one of the less used areas of his ship. Here was deck S.B. One: The Shuttle Bay on the starboard side of the vessel - since his entire crew could either teleport, or be teleported, the Shuttle Bay was never used.

The Shuttle Bay was entirely dark, except where a light shone down on a slumped figure in the middle of the vast floor-space. Jacob heard Angela and Will enter through the damaged door behind him as he began to slowly approach the slumped figure.

"I don't see anyone else here," Angela hissed from behind him, tapping his shoulder. "Unless they're like one of you two and are currently pure energy I think we're alone."

"Good, good," Jacob replied. "Don't let your guard down for a second though."

"No way," Will and Angela replied in unison, and Jacob heard them fanning out from him, each taking a different side as he approached the figure on the floor. From his right came a click and then a short high-pitched whine and he knew Will had grabbed one of the energy-rifles from the Armoury as they had raced past, a similar sound from his left let him know that Angela wasn't taking any chances either - matter-sight or not.

Jacob crouched beside the figure, lifting them slowly up into his arms as he moved to a sitting position. From beneath her eyelids a pair of green eyes appeared, one bloodshot and dull the other as bright as the day he had first seen them. "Hello my dear," he said.

Half of Tabitha's faced tried to smile, "Shadows..." she sighed.

Jacob immediately knew that Tabitha was in trouble, severe trouble. He knew that she was too weak to change form to absorb energy from him, but he also knew all hope wasn't quite lost. "You two," he called. "Come over here, we all have to stick together, stay where we can see each other."

Angela and Will approached, began to slowly circle around where Jacob sat holding Tabitha. "This is going to take a while," Jacob said, "she hasn't the strength to recharge from me in the usual way."

Angela and Will nodded, continuing to scan the darkness looking for some sign of whoever, or whatever, had left Tabitha in such a state.

"Hunted..." Tabitha hissed.

"The time for talking is later," Jacob instructed, but, unsurprisingly, Tabitha shook her head.

"Hunted..." she repeated, "you."

"Hunted me?"

"Ever since... escaped them."

Jacob frowned, trying to understand what Tabitha was trying to tell him. "Escaped who Tabitha?"

"After Fral, Sector... Sector... Fifty-"

"Seven," Jacob finished. "Sector Fifty-Seven."

Tabitha nodded, Jacob noting that her bloodshot right eye had turned back to white, the green of her iris had begun to brighten.

"After Fral you... escaped the... suits... wanted to know... how."

Jacob's frown deepened, "That's enough now. Save your strength," he entwined his fingers through hers and sat in silence for a moment.

"Jake," Angela murmured after several minutes. "What was Sector Fifty-Seven?"

"After..." Tabitha hissed.

"Okay Tabitha, Okay. What was after Sector Fifty-Seven?"

Jacob sighed. "I went home." He looked around the shuttle bay, "I took this ship there. In another reality I didn't, I had to find Tom Seldrick. But here, here in what is real I took this ship home. We thought Seldrick was destroyed..."

"And?" William asked.

"The suited men were there already, destroying the planet. Our fleet was stretched too thin, hunting those very suited men, there was no defence."

"I know all this already," Angela said.

"I haven't heard it," Will interjected.

"They blasted the planet with light, like when they imprisoned Tabitha in that energy absorbing machine."

William stopped pacing for a moment, "The light wasn't to keep her in was it? Else it'd be here too."

"No," Jacob said, "the light was to keep _me_ out."

William shook his head, resuming his slow pacing around the pair, following Angela's footfalls almost exactly.

"Planet burned," Tabitha whispered, prompting Jacob to continue.

"Yes, the planet burned. Then I learnt they had already hunted down the fleet, nobody was coming to launch a rescue. There was only me left." He felt Tabitha squeeze his hand and glanced down at her, her face was losing its bruised colouring now - the energy flowing from him to her was slowly bringing her back from the brink.

"I thought I could escape, but they knew I was there. I was captured but... but..." he faltered, remembering how he had escaped.

Tabitha squeezed his hand again. "It was before they..." she took a deep breath, "could make adults. They grew clones from children."

Jacob nodded, he had told this part of the story to Tabitha but never to anyone else, what came next was something he was not been proud of.

Taking another deep breath Tabitha continued, "It took him some time. The children were forced to try and get his particular skills from him. But he turned the children against them."

"Sent them to their deaths you mean," Jacob muttered.

"Saved them... from a fate far worse than death," Tabitha said, staring into Jacobs eyes, "then he escaped." She took several more large, shaky, breaths but indicated to Jacob that she was managing when he threw her a concerned look.

"Yes, I escaped," Jacob said, his tone flat. "All that death, but I escaped."

There was silence for a few moments before Angela spoke up, "But what has any of that got to do with Sector Fifty-Seven."

"Tom Seldrick," Jacob hissed.

"Who's that?" Will asked.

"A friend," Jacob said, "or he was... there was a virus. It was hunting the suited men, wanted to join with them, join the most powerful force in the universe. It took Tom. It took him here when I was young and also in my generated universe, so it took him not just once but _twice_."

"What does this Seldrick guy have to do with any of this?" Angela asked.

"He's here, apparently. It seems he wasn't as destroyed as we all believed all those years ago, there was perhaps the most intense battle the Shadow-Army ever fought, outside of the war with The Lights, and we thought we had destroyed him, him and all the others he managed to infect." Jacob replied.

"You're saying he is here? Now? But that's impossible. That happened so long ago!" Angela argued. "And what would the virus want with us anyway? It wants the suited men, you said so."

"You escaped," Tabitha whispered.

"I escaped," Jacob mused for a moment or two. "I escaped and proved I was smarter than the suited men, better than them..." he thought of the children, clones of the suited men who had lived abusive tortured lives at the hands of their cruel elders, yet that were still children. Children he had turned against the elders of their kind. Children that had died so that he could escape. "Maybe not better than them," he muttered.

Tabitha squeezed his hand, "The virus was after power," Tabitha murmured. "The most powerful thing it could find."

"But... Jake isn't the only person to have escaped them. We all have, in one way or another."

"That's exactly it," Jacob said. "It doesn't just want one of us... it wants all of us."

"Tried to merge with, tried to infect, me... but I managed to fight it off.... just..." Tabitha said.

Jacob began to respond but was unexpectedly taken aback by a strange feeling, something he hadn't felt since he was young - or since he was in the alternate, virtual reality - something he should have noticed straight away.

Another of his kind was present.

## Chapter 21

"Get into the light," Jake muttered. "Angela, Will. Quickly. Out of the shadows and into the light. Hurry!"

Angela and Will stepped into the pool of light, "What is it?" Angela asked.

"Can't talk now," Jake replied. "Just get ready."

"Ready for what?" Will asked.

Little by little Tabitha felt her strength returning to her and not for the first time was amazed at how just Jake's mere presence could replenish her energy reserves. She felt that maybe within a few minutes she would be ready to transform and recharge from him properly, but his sudden uneasiness had her on edge.

Jake stood up from where he knelt beside her and pointed at the ceiling. Tabitha and the others craned their necks to see what he was indicating and it took Tabitha a moment before it clicked. They were sitting in a pool of light, yet there was no light above them. The light seemed, when she used her energy senses, to be coming from a few meters out into the darkness that surrounded them.

She looked closer at the darkness and realized with a start that it wasn't consistent, it seemed to swirl and twist every now and then as if it was something heavier than air - she suddenly knew where her captor, the Shadow formally known as Tom Seldrick had disappeared to.

Jake caught her eye and nodded slightly, a heavy-set frown on his face and now she understood his concern. The virus that inhabited Tom Seldrick could easily infect any one of the group, there was nothing that could be done to stop it, partially due to its possession of a shadow, and she knew wasn't ready another fight, she didn't think she could fight off the infection of the virus again, not so soon after its last attempt.

Tabitha grasped Angela's hand and pulled herself shakily to her feet, if she was going to meet her death, her real one this time, she was going to meet it standing up. "Jake..." she said with an effort, "if you have to, I want you to do it. Just like in that other reality."

"Tabitha I-"

"Promise me Jake."

"Promise you what?" William asked.

Tabitha saw Angela glance between the pair before she spoke, "To kill her. To kill her before Tom Seldrick or whatever it is that possesses him can take her."

Tabitha nodded.

Jake whispered; his voice barely audible, "I promise."

After a slight pause Angela spoke up once more. "And me," she whispered.

William began to object but was cut-off by Angela.

"Forget it Will, if that thing takes me over, I don't want to live anymore. I wouldn't be alive anymore anyway, not in the sense that I would be me."

From the corner of her eye Tabitha noticed the murky darkness around them alter slightly, it seemed to be accumulating at one point.

"Fine," William angrily uttered. "Fine. Just count me in as well then."

Jake nodded, agreeing to their terms, knowing that as a last resort he would have to kill his friends. "And you, Tabitha, you know what to do."

Tabitha bobbed her head slightly to show she understood that if the virus was to take over Jake, she was to grab the others and get out of here by any means possible, to abandon this universe if need be to ensure everyone's safety.

Or to kill him. If she could.

The accumulating darkness vanished and turned instantly into a humanoid shaped figure as light flooded the room. It was wearing a very battered space suit and looked remarkably like Jacob, excepting its pitch-black eyes where Jacob had grey, a grey that would often reflect the colours around him. Other than Jake, Tabitha had never seen another of the Shadow People and she wondered, as she had done while he held her prisoner, if they had all looked so alike or if this was a co-incidence. Perhaps it was deliberate, a shape assumed by the virus inhabiting Tom Seldrick's body to instil fear into the group.

"Oh Jake, save us! Save us all from the monster!" Tom said, his tone high and mocking, before he broke into a laugh. "He couldn't save you now if he tried."

Jake moved to position himself between the group and Tom and Tabitha knew that even if, _if_ , he couldn't save them he was going to die trying. "Sector Fifty-Seven is a long time ago Tom. I'm not who I was back then."

"Don't I know it," the thing that was Tom replied. "How _did_ you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Merge with her. Become part of _her_ ," he indicated Tabitha. "The power you must have! That will be how you have lived so long I'll bet."

"You want to know how Tom?" Jake asked.

"Yes! Tell me!"

Tabitha wondered what Jake would say next, they had both wasted years trying to figure out exactly what had happened to them, but every time they tested their theory it failed. They had given up eventually, accepting that they would never know - such a huge array of variables must have lined up for them to become part of each other it was impossible to recreate.

Jake turned to Tabitha, flashed her a smile and an expression that she knew well, he was going to make something up. Right there on the spot. And, what's more, she was to go along with whatever came out of his mouth next.

Jake turned back to Tom, "It's simple really."

"If it is so simple then tell me! Tell me so I can kill you and take her. She is the key. If I had her I would be the new you!"

Jake laughed, "The problem with that plan is she would know you weren't me. The secret? The big secret you need to know? It works because," he turned to Tabitha, smiled again, "it works because she is my opposite, my equal, my twin. It works because she knows everything about me yet I can still surprise her. It works because she is me and I am her. But most importantly-" Jake stepped back towards Tabitha, grasped her hand and she immediately felt his energy coursing through her, "most importantly, Tom, it works because she loves me and the feeling is mutual."

'Still surprise me indeed,' Tabitha thought, grinning, announcing such a thing to the world was _really_ not Jacob's style.

"What a load of rubbish!" Once-was-Tom replied, a black flame flickering around his shoulders. "You've been altered at the molecular level, don't think I can't see it and that, that cannot be done by your ridiculous emotions."

"You're right of course," Angela said quietly, from beside Tabitha where she stood with her arm linked through Williams. "At first it would have been a purely physical change, but now, after so long, the 'ridiculous emotions' are a vital part of it. They are one in the same. You kill one, you kill the other. You cannot have her without him. Once, maybe, but definitely not anymore."

Tabitha looked at Angela, wondering what on earth her plan was, as, surely, she must have one. Why else tell Tom that killing her would kill Jake? Not that, she supposed, Tom hadn't already worked that out for himself.

"And what of you matter-manipulator," Tom said, spinning on his heel to face Angela. "If the other two are so entwined that by killing one I kill the other could I not just take you instead?" He approached Angela and Tabitha saw her squeeze William's arm tighter. "Oh, I see. You expect me to believe that the two of you are also so connected to one another that if I took you that he would die leading to your own death. I'm afraid," he said, leaning close, "I am not going to fall for that." Angela shoved Tom away, leading him to laugh manically as he turned to Will. "And what of you, the immortal one from another universe? What if I was to take you and become truly indestructible?"

William stared at Tom, not offering any reply.

"Nothing to say? I thought as much. But the thing is, we don't need what-ifs and maybes. Because there is something your boy Jacob here has forgotten."

Tabitha turned to Jake, to see if he would react, which he did not. His non-reaction calmed her, she assumed Jake _had_ actually remembered or figured out whatever it was Tom was on about.

"He's forgotten that I'm not actually his former friend at all," Tom continued. "I am a virus and a virus can spread; a virus can multiply! I can be everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. So, which of you shall be first? Or will it be all of you at once instead?" He looked around at the group that stood back from him.

"We have to lure it out," Jake's voice said suddenly, filling her head. "While it is inside Tom, we cannot hope to attack it, if it's in one of us we cannot hope to attack it. We have to lure it out."

"And then?" Tabitha replied, throwing the thought to Jake telepathically.

"When it is in the air all of us, together, have to attack it."

"Well?" asked Tom. "Who is it going to be," he walked over to Tabitha, cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. "You?"

"All of us?" she asked Jake, silently.

"All of us."

"But Will is..." An image of the universe flashed into her mind, sent undoubtedly by Jake. It quickly broke into four components and Tabitha understood. "Oh," she said aloud. "But that's just a myth."

"So are we," Jacob said, ignoring Tom as he prowled around, sizing up each of the quartet. He telepathically added, "we will contain it Tabitha, then they will destroy it."

Glancing at him Tabitha saw that a black flame had begun to flicker around Jacob, she nodded and turned to Tom. "I'll go," she announced.

"Ah, a volunteer!" Tom said at the same instant as Angela and William both cried "No!"

Tom appeared almost instantly before her, grabbed her face roughly and breathed out heavily upon her, his body crumbling to the ground. Tabitha held her breath, turning to pure energy the instant the hot, sticky breath that fell on her began to fade. A darkness surrounded her suddenly, but she was unafraid - she knew Jake's presence when she felt it. In her state of pure energy, she could see the virus, it glowed faintly red against the backdrop of swirling black and it lunged and charged at her own swirling white. Every time it clutched at her swirling energy, she could feel its pull, could feel its power, could feel it telling her to relax, to let it take over. It held to the swirling white until it was, without fail, blasted away - clearing Tabitha's mind - by the shadow that surrounded them.

Jake's voice filled Tabitha's mind, "Angela, William now is the moment! You have to destroy it, rip it apart with your minds, destroy it, kill it!"

Tabitha could feel their uncertainty in the air, could feel that William didn't understand what he had to do, could sense that Angela was just as confused.

"Take her hand!" Tabitha instructed, her voice existing in thought only. "Close your eyes and relax, let Angela find it..."

A searing pain crossed Tabitha's mind as for an instant the virus managed to hold on, despite Jake's defence. She could feel it seeping into her, trying to control her. Tabitha suddenly felt another sensation, one she had felt only once before.

The fabric of space-time was rippling, twisting, distorting.

Then she felt fear, almost beyond comprehension.

Will's fear.

Angela's fear.

Without them the plan would fail.

"Jake!" she yelled with her mind, "I have to help!"

Solidifying herself once more she pushed through the swirling darkness, that flickered like lightening with the odd flash of red, until she found Angela and Will. "Tabitha!" Angela shouted, "we did what you said! But... it felt as if the whole universe was being sucked in, felt as if we didn't stop all would be destroyed. I don't understand what is happening!"

Tabitha, in perfect imitation of Jake, drummed her fingers on her leg. So much needed to be explained, yet there was so little time. She could sense the darkness fading, Jake was tiring. Soon he would not be able to hold the virus inside the field of dark energy he was creating and it would escape, escape into one of them... or all of them.

She settled for explaining things as quickly as possible, and hoping Angela and Will would be able to follow along with her thoughts. "He's your opposite Angela, like Jake is mine. The universe is four parts; energy, dark energy, matter and-"

"Dark matter," Angela interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "Could he be?"

"Could I be what?" Will asked.

"The missing race, the masters of dark matter."

"What?"

Tabitha explained, "In all our years of travel we've never found anyone from the race that would represent dark matter within the universe. We knew though they had to exist, as each of the rest of us represent one of the other three parts..."

"And you reckon I'm that missing bit?" Will laughed. "You've all gone crazy."

For a brief moment the room lit back up, all shadow vanishing before it returned, plunging them all back into near darkness.

Jake was losing.

"Could it be?" Angela was asking, looking strangely at Will.

"What? Are you serious? No!" Will replied.

"But... didn't you feel it? For just a moment there, things seemed to be... collapsing. The fabric of reality itself was collapsing!"

William just shook his head. "You're being ridiculous, I am from Earth and we all know it."

The darkness vanished again and a solid Jake appeared at Tabitha's side, he lent over, hands on his knees and panting as, to Tabitha's left, the lifeless form of Tom Seldrick pulled itself to its feet, once more playing host.

"Have... to... kill... it," Jake managed to splutter between heaving breaths.

"We don't have anything here powerful enough," Tabitha replied. "How can you stop a Shadow anyway?"

"Tiberlon... steel, or... a sun..."

"Your sword? It was melted and ruined, there is nothing now that can reforge it, not even Angela. Well she could remake the blade, but that isn't what made Tiberlon steel so special-"

"Wait!" William yelled.

Tom Seldrick's re-animated corpse staggered slowly towards them, Tabitha knew they didn't have long but that Jake had also weakened the virus, hopefully more than it had weakened him.

"In my reality! Tabitha, you remade the blade. You held out your hand and shut your eyes and then there it was, appearing from thin air."

Tabitha raised an eyebrow at Jake, "Is that even possible? Here in the real world?"

"Tiberlon steel... all of the components together..." Jake managed to say, pulling himself to his feet to square off with Tom's approaching form.

Tabitha raked her brain, unlike Jake she had never met the Tiberlons, the vast space-dragons of the past and it was a long time since he explained them to her. Her eyes fell on William. "All of the components together," she muttered. "There's a test," she suddenly said loudly. "It will tell us if you are the one, if you are the fourth."

"There isn't time!" Angela snapped, as Tabitha felt the air around her shift, become thicker somehow then rush away from her - trying to slow the thing that was in Tom. But he was a Shadow, and walked along unabated despite what Angela may try.

"We don't need time! All I need you both to do is think about that old sword of Jake's, think about the sharpness of its edge, the coldness of the steel..." Tabitha herself turned back to Jake, thinking to herself that this had to work. Just had to work.

She pictured the swords hilt in her head, with its carved dragons and runes from the language before the old tongue - Tabitha could see them in her mind but didn't know what they said. She threw a thought to Jake, "Wait until he is close, then draw your blade."

"Then let us hope it's actually there..." Jake replied as Tom inched closer. Both he and Jake seemed to be playing it slowly, neither was strong enough to win a rushed battle - and Jake had back-up. Something the virus in Tom was undoubtedly aware of.

Suddenly, a noise like static filled Tabitha's head, nothing she had ever heard before had been as loud. She clutched at her ears but soon realized the sound wasn't coming from an external source, it was coming from within her head - but she had no control over it. Through the deafening roar she saw William and Angela also clutching at their heads, falling - like her - slowly to their knees. Ahead of her Jake stood with his head twisted down towards his chest but still, somehow, keeping his feet though she knew he heard it too.

"Thought you would get old Tom did you," Tom's voice boomed around the empty shuttle bay, loud enough to be heard over the static. "Thought you could magic a Tiberlon Blade out of thin air and poke me with it?" He laughed, the sound a horrible noise blended with the static. "Well old Tom has learnt some tricks since Sector Fifty-Seven as well!"

Tabitha continued to clutch at her head, pulling at her hair as if trying to rip the sound from her mind.

"It would never have worked anyway, you're all too weak! Look at you all clutching your heads and writhing on the ground like bugs! Bugs waiting to be trodden on!"

Tom turned to shadow, but the static didn't abate, instead it seemed to intensify. For a moment Tabitha thought she could hear somebody screaming before she realized it was her, she was screaming though she could barely hear herself. She could feel something running down her face, she didn't know what it was, but it was hot and warm and metallic tasting. Something grabbed her hand and she snapped it back towards her, but it grabbed her hand again and the roaring noise grew slightly fainter. She turned her head and saw Jacob had managed to get back to her and had grabbed her hand, strangely though, she couldn't feel his energy.

She saw tears of blood streaming down his face, it ran from his eyes and his nose and his ears and she knew suddenly what was running down her own face. Jake was saying something to her, she could see his mouth moving but she couldn't hear him, couldn't hear him at all. She tried to throw the information to him telepathically but she couldn't drown out the static.

A booted foot suddenly trod heavily down on Jakes outstretched arm and he looked up in surprise.

No, Tabitha realized, not Jake. His eyes were black, black as the void and soulless. Not Jake at all.

## Chapter 22

The Jake with the pitch-black eyes vanished into a column of twisting shadow like smoke and the owner of the booted foot reached down, grabbing Tabitha's hand. Her head immediately fell silent as that energy, that revitalizing energy coursed through her again. She looked up at Jake as he pulled her to her feet and saw that, like Once-was-Tom, his face was bloody. With his free hand he reached across and gently wiped her face with a corner of his shirt that came away covered in blood, and Tabitha smiled at him.

"Quickly now," he instructed, "we have to get to the others. I'm not sure how long I can keep this blissful, blissful, silence going."

Half walking and half being dragged Tabitha was led by Jake, reaching William first she pulled him to his feet and he looked at her, his face bloodied and his expression one of disbelief.

"I didn't think I would ever hear silence aga-" he was cut short as Jacob lunged forward, dragging both him and Tabitha behind him, and grabbed Angela's hand, pulling her to her feet.

"Sweet, sweet silence!" she groggily declared, as she grabbed Williams spare hand and moved to stand beside him.

"I don't know for how long though," Jake said, "and, worse, I don't know where he's gone."

William used his shoulder to wipe his face, keeping hold of both Tabitha and Angela with his hands. He still felt confused over what Tabitha had seemingly wanted him to do earlier, he knew he was nothing special, he was just a boy from Earth - a long way away from home. Deciding now was as good of a time as any to bring it up, he coughed quietly then spoke. "So... what was all that about before?"

"What was what about?" Angela asked, wiping her face with her free hand then wiping her hand down her pants leg.

"You know, that nonsense about me being of a race that isn't... human. What's the deal with that?"

Beside him Tabitha made a thoughtful noise in her throat while Angela screwed her lips to the side then frowned. To Williams surprise, Jacob answered him.

"I thought that _maybe_ just _maybe_ you might be more than you appear. Ever since I figured out you were immortal, I have had this nagging thought in my head that a connection to another universe, to your own universe, doesn't really explain that."

"But you said -"

"I know what I said. This may be one of those occasions where what I said isn't exactly what is."

William processed this statement for a moment. "So... you were wrong?"

"That still remains to be seen."

"I'm human! That is all!"

Jacob frowned and fell silent as Angela spoke up. "You could be, Will, or you could be something more. I mean look at us, each of us, we could all pass as humans, couldn't we? Yet, none of us are."

"For all I know you all only started looking like you do now when I turned up! You can control matter, so you can control your appearance. Those two are apparently the energy that makes up the universe, with that sort of power you could be anything you damn well wanted!"

Tabitha laughed softly, "A valid point, Will. And one that is quite true to some degree."

"There!" said William, feeling vindicated, "I'm right. You're all just choosing to look human while I actually _am_."

"Not exactly what I said," Tabitha muttered. "Where's old Tom got to anyway?"

William sensed that the topic was dropped, but he was determined to bring it up again later. He wanted answers, he wanted to know _why_ they all suddenly thought he was more than he was.

"A good question," Jacob muttered. "Let me try something." he let go of Tabitha's hand and turned to face the group, one eyebrow raised. "Anything?" he asked.

Tabitha shook her head, "No. No static. You guys?"

William and Angela shook their heads in unison, and William let go of Tabitha's hand. "So, it's gone then, whatever that sound was?" he asked.

"It seems like it, what was it Jake?"

"I do not know; all I know is it was telepathic."

The virus that resided inside Tom, now thought of itself as Tom, was confused - it was just impossible that Jacob was able to withstand the sound of the telepathic white noise, and yet he had. The moment he had seen Jacob he had slightly altered his appearance to make himself seem even more like Jacob than he had already, to match Jacobs current appearance exactly, and yet when he had reached for the girl, grabbed her hand at first she had shied away from him, as if she knew he wasn't Jacob. Then, in the instant Jacobs foot had come down on his arm he had seen in her face that she knew, knew beyond a doubt that he wasn't Jacob. He wanted to know how, how had she known, how had Jacob managed to withstand the telepathic static, how he hadn't managed to defeat them all!

His unanswered questions did more than frustrate his mind, however, they fed his hunger for power. He now knew that everyone in that group was more powerful than even he had dared to imagine and he knew that he must _have_ that power. An idea slowly formed in his head, he would need to separate them, get each of them on their own somehow, for together, especially under Jacob's protection, they were far too powerful for him to continue to attack as a group.

"What's he waiting for?" William asked from where he sat beside Angela and Tabitha as Jacob prowled around the Shuttle Bay.

"Who? Jake or Tom?" Tabitha replied.

"Either I suppose."

"Well... I would think Jake is waiting for Tom," Angela said, wiping more of the blood from Williams face.

"And Tom?"

"Tom," Jacob called from across the empty space, "is coming up with a new plan of attack. Some sort of way he thinks he will be able to defeat us."

"Like what?"

"Like... splitting us up." Tabitha mused.

"Yes," Jacob agreed as he approached, "just like splitting us up. He tried it once before, by sending us each to our own reality. That didn't work. Then he had Tabitha, here by herself and that, that..."

"Very nearly _did_ work," Tabitha replied, blowing a strand of her hair from her face.

"So, he knows damned well that together we're stronger, apart we're not."

"Obviously," William said, rolling his eyes. "So, what is our plan, how do we stick together?" He saw Jacob glance at Tabitha who quickly and subtly shook her head. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Tabitha asked, giving an expression of confusion to William.

"I'm not buying that, Tabitha, you and Jake just shared a little something between yourselves."

"Let it go Will," Angela muttered.

"No. Clearly there is some idea that needs to be discussed here about how to keep us all together and these two shouldn't just be able to dismiss it before even talking about it."

Tabitha raised an eyebrow, "We wouldn't be able to keep you with us. Or Angela. It'd only be me and Jake. There, happy now?"

"Not really, as now I know he," William gestured at Jacob, getting to his feet, "was considering ditching us and saving himself."

Angela got to her feet, placed a hand on William's arm, "No. That isn't what that was about."

"Then maybe, _maybe_ , someone should explain things a bit," glaring at Jacob, William waited. "Well?"

Tabitha, who had remained seated got to her feet. "Me and Jake can merge, become one single being. We did it in my virtual universe. And we snapped back apart easy enough, when we appeared in Angela's reality. But this isn't a virtual world now, this is real. All of it. Last time we did that in reality it nearly killed us both. So, we dismissed the idea straight away, killing ourselves to save ourselves is not going to get us anywhere."

"But it would make you stronger, you could fight him! You could kill him!"

"We could kill ourselves!"

"Who cares!"

"STOP IT!" Jacob suddenly roared, and Tabitha and William fell silent. "This is how he does it! This is how he wins!"

William glared at Jacob, not understanding what he was talking about.

"In a few moments you'll get so angry that you'll leave and when you go Angela will go with you. Then there'll be just me and Tabitha. We'll get into an argument about something and she'll leave. You and Angela will argue and Angela will leave. And then, then we'll all be alone. By ourselves. Just how he wants it!" Jacob fell silent.

Tabitha caught Williams eye, "Sorry," she muttered. "I'm not sure what came over me..."

William nodded, "Me too... but it's gone. There's no anger now."

"What came over you was Tom," Angela whispered. "Somehow, he's in your head, in her head, in my head and in Jakes and he's pressing buttons. Remember that static? It was telepathic. He'll be making suggestions, suggestions the conscious mind doesn't hear-"

"Like hypnosis?" William asked.

"Exactly like hypnosis," Angela said. "For all I know he's controlling me right now."

William looked at Angela startled, then wondered if he himself was being controlled like some sort of living puppet. In the faces around him he saw the same confusion he felt, except, of course, in Jacobs where a frown had settled instead. "Tabitha," he said. "a diagram perhaps?"

"But it'll only show you, Jake."

"No, not only. A shadow is always a useable energy source, just with very poor compatibility. So -"

"It should show him."

"Yes, we need to find him. Chalk?"

"Yes please."

William watched as Jacob pulled a stick of chalk from the bag he always carried around, the bag with seemingly no opening that people, such as himself, could find. Tabitha took the chalk and crossed her legs where she sat, then closing her eyes she began to draw. William had only seen her draw an energy diagram once before, with Jacob around all the time she didn't seem to need to do them at all, and so he watched her intently. Slowly on the ground before her, inside a large circle she had scribed, she added squares and a vast number of triangles, circles and stars, lines and things that seemed like they may be letters until at last she stopped and opened her eyes. Angela and Jacob moved to stand beside him where he looked down at Tabitha's depiction, though it made no sense at all to him and he doubted it did to anyone else either.

"Where are you," muttered Jacob and William wondered if he had an understanding of it after all. But he saw Jacob glance at Tabitha in confusion as she herself stared at each line and symbol, each letter, hunting for the mysterious Tom. Williams eye kept being drawn to the triangle, with a star in its centre, enclosed within a circle and a square that dominated the diagram - the upper points of the triangle and the star both pointed directly at where Jacob had been standing. "So," he said at length, "the big thing in the middle is Jacob?"

Tabitha smiled, William thought somewhat sheepishly, "Yeah, that's most certainly Jake." William pondered her reaction for a moment, wondering if he shouldn't have asked about the diagram - perhaps it was something intensely personal and he began to wonder if he should even be looking at it. Seeming to sense his discomfort Tabitha spoke again. "No, no. It's perfectly fine Will. It's just that very few people outside my own race have ever seen such a diagram, and if any of them were to see this one, some _very_ strange questions would need to be asked."

"Why's that?"

"Mainly because that main one points to Jacob, but it has a few other meanings as well. Only the triangle and star bit relate to him being my primary energy source, the circle and square they are contained within are a completely different item."

"Which is?"

At this Tabitha laughed, "The square outside of them all means protection, or safety, the circle is family or home."

"I'm just that amazing," Jacob said with a grin, as he paced around the diagram, looking at it from all angles.

"Yes," Tabitha whispered, barely loud enough for William, who was crouching right beside her, to hear, "you are." She caught Williams eye and grinned, "Don't tell him I said that," she muttered.

"Wouldn't dream of it," William replied, getting up to walk, like Jacob, around the figure Tabitha had drawn - trying in vain to make sense of it.

"I think I have him," Tabitha said at last. "Yes, there he is," she pointed to a mark that looked like a distorted letter K with a pair of inverted triangles alongside it.

"So now what?" William asked.

"Now we know where he is!" Jacob replied with a grin. "Nothing like an ambush!"

"But how does this show us where he is?"

Tabitha smiled, "Now that is a question that would take years to answer."

"So how do you know where he is?"

"Tabs," Jacob interrupted, "what is that?" He pointed at a part of the diagram where two pairs of wavy lines intersected, surrounded with diamond-like shapes.

Tabitha leaned across the diagram to better see what Jacob was pointing to, "I don't know," she said. "I've never seen anything like it."

Jacob frowned, "Always useful when you can't read your own diagrams Tabs," he said.

Tabitha laughed, "Tell me about it! But whatever it is it's on the ship. The main cargo bay."

William caught Angela's eye, he thought he knew what it was. She nodded slightly and he spoke up, "Tabitha. When you... died, where did you re-appear here?"

"In the main cargo bay," Tabitha's expression changed. Understanding coming to her.

"So did we, that thing on the diagram... that must be the reality generator."

"The reality generator," Jacob mused and William knew his mind was kicking into gear, a scenario was being devised. "There must be some way to keep the operator safe from its effects, or he would have ended up inside the unrealities as well. I say that because we all got caught in that contingency one without us all having to go to the cargo bay, it got us in our sleep, in our quarters."

A quiet static like noise began to fill Williams head. "He's coming back!" he yelled.

Jacob seemed to come to a snap decision, "You three! To the reality generator, you need to figure out how to work it. How to shield yourselves from it."

"What are you going to do?" Angela asked.

"Me? I am going to hold him off, try to lure him to the reality generator. We will trap him at his own game."

"But then what?"

Jacob smiled, a hard, cold, smile. "Then we turn it off."

"Turn it off?" William asked at the same instant the static became louder.

"No time to explain!" Jacob yelled, "Go!"

William saw Jacob and Tabitha share a glance before Angela tugged at him and he felt the strangest of sensations, a sensation a little bit like melting and he reappeared in the cargo bay - the static in his head gone. "That feels different nearly every time," he muttered, trying not to throw up. A moment later a light flared beside him and Tabitha appeared.

"We're going to have to learn fast," she said. "Jake is not going to be able to hold him back for long. He puts on a brave face but that last encounter already nearly destroyed him and I am not yet strong enough to heal us both."

"So where is this thing then?" William asked, looking around looking for something, anything, in the seemingly empty room that could be the generator.

"It could be tiny," Angela replied, "remember that coin that lets you travel between dimensions."

"Damn," William said, the cargo bays enormity suddenly dawning on him. "It could take us weeks to search this."

"We don't have weeks," Angela replied.

"Found it," Tabitha said, suddenly, and William turned to face her with a start. She was sitting, cross-legged, on the floor once more, a new diagram drawn in front of her but this one only showed Jacob and the strange symbol for the reality generator. "William, turn left until I say stop."

William slowly turned to his left as instructed.

"Stop! Now, walk forward until you hit it."

"Hit it?"

"Hit it."

William slowly walked forward; arms stretched in front of him until his hands hit something. "Got it!" he yelled, though he couldn't see exactly what he had.

Tabitha and Angela raced to his side, "I can't see it," Angela said.

"Well, neither can I," William replied a little sarcastically.

"No, I mean, with my matter-sight. There is nothing there but more cargo bay. Yet you've got your hands on it." She reached out to where Williams hands rested on whatever it was he had his hands on and they passed right through the air.

"What?" William said, pulling his hands back suddenly, afraid of what he might be touching.

"There's nothing there, even though I can see it with my eyes, my normal vision can see if but not my matter-sight." Angela declared.

William reached, tentatively, back out and his hands came into contact with something very solid feeling, he knocked against it with his right hand and a dull metallic thud sounded, echoing its way around the cargo bay. "Well it certainly feels like something is there!"

He turned to Tabitha, who had remained silent. Her brow was furrowed in deep concentration and her fingers drummed across her legs. She reached out her own hand but struck nothing as well, withdrawing her hand she blew a strand of hair from her face. "A right conundrum," she said. "I can see its energy signature; William can touch it and Angela can see it - but not its physical make-up. Which raises quite a few questions, I wonder..."

She fell silent for what seemed like eternity, but was likely only a few seconds. William impatiently prompted her, "What do you wonder?"

"Oh!" Tabitha said with a quick grin, "it's a reality generator, right?"

"Right," William and Angela replied together.

"What if... what if it is generating itself. What if it doesn't actually exist in this reality and that's why none of us can get the full picture."

"So how do we actually get to it?" William asked.

"A very good question," Tabitha replied then grimaced as a deafening barrage of static filled her head for the shortest of moments. "A very good question with very little time to figure out an answer!"

## Chapter 23

"Think, everybody, think!" Tabitha insisted.

"Maybe, I could recreate it?" Angela suggested. "Here in our reality?"

"Only problem is, you can only see the outside... who is to say how it actually works," countered William. "I can touch it, but I cannot see it. Maybe that is of use?"

"I could be your eyes!" Angela exclaimed.

"That could just work," Tabitha replied. "Can you see any controls?"

"I can... but I don't know what they do. Will, move around to your left a bit. Yes, like that. Now reach forward. You should be able to reach forward and grab a handled lever."

"Got it." William replied.

"Pull it and find out what it does," Tabitha instructed, "I can see its energy signature, I'll be able to tell if it's doing anything."

Angela watched as William pulled the lever back towards him, wondering at how strange it must be for the others not to be able to see what was happening.

"Okay, now what?" William asked.

"Anything Tabitha?"

"No, nothing at all. What about -" Tabitha was cut off by another blast of the cursed static that had almost destroyed their minds earlier. Angela suspected it wasn't just a telepathic noise, but something else as well. Maybe part of the virus itself.

"As I was saying," Tabitha said, flashing a crazed grin, "what about you? If it starts working, I think there should be a fluctuation in the consistency of the universe around us. All we're doing is essentially opening a dimensional portal - just the dimension we're opening to doesn't exist in reality."

"I can't see anything either. Okay, William, a little bit to your left there is a dial and beside it a series of buttons. Um... six of them. They go from black to red, from left to right each is slightly more red and slightly less black. That any use to either of you?"

Tabitha frowned back at Angela, "What's on the dial?"

"Nothing as far as I can tell." Angela moved closer, "Oh wait. There is a series of small white dots beside each of its six positions."

The ship was suddenly plunged into darkness, and sent into a heavy list to one side, sending Tabitha and Angela sliding across the floor and leaving William hanging from the machine.

"Jake!" Angela heard Tabitha cry as the pair of them struck the wall. "We have to hurry!"

"What do I do?!" William yelled from where he hung above them.

"A platform Angela, quickly." Tabitha instructed just as Angela herself began to make a platform to support them around the machine, she would encase it in a crude cage, to stop everyone falling around the ship if it suddenly heaved-to again. She knew something was wrong with the gravity, as she couldn't remove herself from the wall, it felt like it was the floor. Cage completed she gave Tabitha a quick nod and focused on teleporting herself inside the cage. In the blink of an eye she appeared beside where William now stood on the cage bars.

"The gravity is not the ship," Tabitha said from where she had appeared beside her. "It's this thing, put that lever back where it was."

Angela grabbed Williams hand and guided it to the control lever that he put back in place. Immediately they all fell to the floor as gravity righted itself.

"It stops instantly," Angela observed, "but seems to take a while to build its power."

"We have to do it in the correct sequence," Tabitha muttered. "Red is the universal colour of danger, so we'll assume we have to work our way up from the black button. Stick the dial in the first position, then press the black button. Pull the lever back and then wait."

"Are you sure?" William asked.

"I've absolutely no idea, but it sounds like a plan... so we'll run with it."

Angela laughed, "Better than no plan at all!"

She grabbed William hand and guided him to each of the controls in the order Tabitha had suggested. After pulling the lever back they all waited expectantly, bracing themselves against the sides of the cage just in case gravity tipped everything on its side once more. After a few minutes Angela noticed that the console had changed, there was a light behind the first button now, and she explained what she saw to the others.

"Good, good. Now leave that lever where it is for the moment, put the dial to the next position and press the next button along from the one you just pressed. Then move the lever to the opposite position," Tabitha instructed.

"So, don't reset the lever first?"

"No, I think I have seen something vaguely similar once before and if you reset the lever you have to start over - or it does weird things with gravity, apparently."

Nodding, Angela once again guided William to each of the controls and once again they waited before a light came on behind the second button. Angela moved to guide William once more but he stopped her.

"I think... yes! I think I am beginning to see it!"

Cocking her head to the side Tabitha agreed. "Can you see it with your matter-sight?" she asked.

Angela let her matter-sight dominate over her normal vision, she glanced around for a moment but then there it was. The faintest of objects, a few particles of solid matter, almost smoke like, floating in fixed points in the air. "Yes! But only just!"

"Well then, keep going!" Tabitha urged. "I think Jake may be winning, we haven't had any static for a while now, but he cannot hold such a powerful creature back forever - not when he is already so weakened."

Angela laughed, "A bit of rest would do us all a world of good."

"Yeah, when this is over let's take a holiday!" William added.

Angela laughed once more, Tabitha joining in. "Yes, let's do that!" Angela cried. "I think we deserve one."

Finally, William pressed the last button and pulled the lever once more, as on every other occasion nothing happened for a short while then a light came on behind the last button and, as it did so, the lights came back on inside the shuttle bay.

"It's... still not doing anything," Angela commented.

"No, all we seem to have done is brought it into our own reality. Unless, maybe we have just activated a really complicated light switch," William joked.

Angela screwed up her face. "It's weird, I still can't see inside it."

As Angela spoke, she watched as Tabitha slowly walked around the box-like device, trailing her hand along it. "Its energy remains constant. I can't see any way to make it work.

"Well we better come up with something fast," Angela pressed.

"I know, I know," Tabitha replied.

Tom Seldrick slowly approached Jacob and though he tired he still felt confident he could defeat him: Jacob was the key. Of that he was certain. If he defeated Jacob the rest would fall like dominoes, one after the other until he was the most powerful being in all of the universe. Jacob stood before him, his head cocked slightly to the right as if listening to some faint sound, his right hand was raised and he was drumming his fingers against this thumb while his left arm was folded across his stomach.

"Just you and me now Tom," he said, his voice calm and level. "Just how it should be."

"Sent your little friends away have you? Don't worry, I'll soon catch them up once I have you. Especially that pretty little thing that you drag around after you."

"Oh, she isn't dragged, Tom. She comes along willingly, as she always has. I doubt there is anyone, anywhere, that has ever existed that could force her into doing something she didn't want to do."

"I will."

"You will fail."

"Why don't you just submit to me, I can see you're tired Jacob. So very, very tired. You can just surrender."

"And just give you what you want? Not my style."

Tom growled low in his throat, Jacob continued to stand as he had when he first approached, his voice remained calm, almost disinterested, still tapping his fingers across his thumb. He wanted to make Jacob angry, get some sort of reaction from him. He turned to shadow and reformed immediately behind where Jacob stood, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him into the air. "Just give up. I am clearly superior to you."

"Or are you?" came a voice from behind Tom. A fist crashed into the side of his head and he staggered sidewise, releasing his grip on what he thought was Jacob. He turned and saw one Jacob fall in a heap on the ground while this new, second, Jacob pushed forward towards him. Quickly shaking his head, he bent forward to charge at this new Jacob, intending to tackle him but was instead tackled himself from behind by yet another Jacob. Crashing to the ground he quickly turned to shadow and reformed against the wall, hoping it wouldn't suddenly grow Jacob's arms and grab at him.

The three Jacobs appeared to suddenly float into one another leaving only one Jacob standing in the centre of the room. "Tom, Tom, Tom," he said, slowly shaking his head, "so many years and you haven't even mastered the very basics! Yet, you want me to think that you are superior?" Tom watched as a black flame grew around Jacob, watched as he broke into a run and charged forward.

Tom crouched forward and charged, quickly getting up to speed. With a crash that seemed to make the ship suddenly heel hard to one side, the two hit one another, plunging the room into darkness as their shadows spread throughout it.

Jacob's head filled with a deafening static once more, it had been coming in fits and starts since Tom had reappeared though he had done his best to hide his discomfort as he both spoke with and fought Tom. He sensed that if Tom knew the static-like noise was still breaking through he would use it immediately to his advantage, so best to leave Tom thinking he was entirely immune. Re-forming himself he reached into the swirling shadow around him and pulled Tom Seldrick out of it, immediately putting an end to the shadow but not to the darkness - something else was the cause of that, he hoped it was something to do with the reality generator. Lifting Tom from his feet he threw him across the room, where he hit the wall with a pleasing thud. "You didn't think this would be easy, did you?" he asked. "By your own admission _I_ am the most powerful force in the entire universe!"

Tom got slowly to his feet and glared at Jacob.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking Tom. You're thinking that you've planned this little attack of yours since the dawn of time and that I cannot possibly hope to outwit you. But, alas, I have."

In his head he threw a thought to Tabitha, "Now!' he instructed and turned to shadow, knowing Tom would follow him.

"He's coming!" Tabitha yelled, making Angela jump.

"How the hell does it work?" William asked, his voice sounding slightly panicked.

Angela glanced at Tabitha who quickly looked away, with a small shake of her head, and she knew she had no ideas. Looking at the strange device with her matter sight once more she noticed something she hadn't before, on one side it had a couple of recesses, just large enough to slip a hand into.

"William!" she called, pointing at the recesses. See if you can lift it using those, roll it onto its side!"

William looked at her sceptically but followed her instruction, bending over and sticking his hands into the two recesses. With a deep breath he heaved the device upwards, where it moved a small fraction then fell back down. "Hell, that's heavy!" he said.

Angela pushed one of his hands aside and stuck her own into one of the recesses, "Come on!" she urged as the room darkened suddenly and she knew Jake was about to appear, probably with Tom Seldrick hot on his heels. With a grunt the pair managed to flip the device on its side and there, at last, was what they were looking for, another control panel!

Tabitha pushed Angela and William aside, someone roughly in her haste, and Angela watched as she tried to comprehend how it worked, before giving a slight shrug of her shoulders and beginning to press buttons. A moment later Jake appeared beside her, "He's right behind me," he said and no sooner had the words escaped his lips than Tom Seldrick appeared.

"Trying to send me away, are you?" he growled. "You'll never figure it out," despite his words he held back, refusing to move any closer.

"Come on now Tom," Jake said, his tone conversational. "If we'll never figure it out -" he reached behind him and pressed a couple of buttons, not once taking his eyes off Tom - "then what have you to be afraid of? Why don't you come here? Why don't you come and take what you want?"

Tom Seldrick's eyes seemed to flash at the taunt and Angela could feel the tension in the air.

"Well Tom," Jake said, "what's it going to be? Aren't you supposed to be the most powerful being ever?" He patted the reality generating machine, "yet here you are, seemingly afraid of your own technology!"

"I'm not afraid," Tom replied at the same instant as either Jake or Tabitha pressed the last button on the machines control panel. A bright green light burst forth from it, straight at Tom and Angela saw with her matter-sight that it was pulling him in.

"I bypassed the nested realities Tom," Jake said his voice cold and hard. "It's going to take you straight to somewhere, sometime from your own head. But you'll not remember any of this."

Tom yelled and screamed and fought, trying to drag himself away from the device, but it had a firm grasp on him and sucked him inwards, ever closer until at last he vanished inside.

"Well, that's that." William said as the devices doors slowly began to close.

Jacob suddenly swore loudly and Angela saw him glance down at his leg. Around it she saw Tom's fingers wrapped and in an instant Jake had vanished into the machine, the doors that had opened to emit the green glow firmly shutting behind it him. For a moment everyone stood silently, in shock before each reacted in their own way. William tried to prise the machine open, Tabitha sat, abruptly, on the floor, crossed-legged, with her eyes closed and muttering something under her breath and Angela herself leapt to the machines control panel, trying desperately to make it reopen. Minutes passed slowly by and William gave up his prising and Angela at last admitted defeat and stopped trying to work the complex control panel. Both turned to Tabitha who had continued to sit, muttering under her breath, cross-legged on the floor. "Kimesa gor jek Bygash-Ru..."

Angela moved closer to better catch the words Tabitha was saying, she turned to Will and whispered an explanation. "She's speaking in the Old Tongue; she seems to be asking where he is, but she is also repeating her name..."

Tabitha's eyes snapped open. "It's not like when we were all in there," she declared. "Since we're out here and we know it's not real, and that reality has now been established, if any of us go in we will know the truth."

"Like the Murrays from the... contingency universe who went into ours?" William asked. "They seemed to know what was going on..."

"Yeah, I think so."

"So, we're going to go in there save him?" Angela asked.

"Obviously," Will replied. Angela glanced quickly at him but he just rolled his eyes.

"Yes, obviously." Tabitha replied, flashing a quick smile. "I think we all owe him that. They will be in a reality that they have in common, somewhere where they both were at the same time. And we need to be careful, we may encounter alternate versions of ourselves... and after that last fiasco," she frowned, "it would be best we avoid them _at all costs_. Now, let's crank up this machine."

"One question," Will said.

"Yes?"

"What were you just doing? Why didn't you help us with this reality generator thing straight away?"

Tabitha half smiled, "I was trying to see through his eyes, hear through his ears, feel through his skin. In short, I was trying to find out where he was, when he was..."

"And?"

"All I got was the smell of smoke and of distant rain, and something that smelt like ozone, something electrical, light lightning. There were flashes of a planet I didn't recognise, maybe multiple planets. I saw this ship we find ourselves on. But he was trying to fight my presence in his mind, so he may be back at a time before... me."

"Only one way to find out," Angela said, moving to position herself in front of where the machine would open. "You're sure we'll remember we aren't in reality anymore?"

"Almost positive."

"Well, we'll just have to settle for almost," Will said moving to stand, arm linked with Angela.

Tabitha approached the machine and pressed a series of buttons. Almost immediately the door in its side opened and the green light sprung forth.

"I'll go first," Tabitha said, stepping into the light and almost instantly vanishing.

"Us together then," Angela said, squeezing Will's arm.

"Together!"

Angela and Will ran at the machine, vanishing into the green light and through the open door.

## Chapter 24

Tabitha immediately began coughing, choking on the smoke that filled the air where she had emerged. Diving to the ground, to get below the smoke, she found it all to be burnt to a fine ash, though the air down near it was a lot more breathable, if still incredibly hot. Suppressing the odd cough, she quietly attempted to survey the area she had found herself in, though regular vision proved futile due to the dense smoke. Closing her eyes, she let the energy of the surrounding area soak into her mind and she became aware that she was on a vast open plain, in the far distance to her right stood a mountain range and behind her was an ocean. Ahead and to her left the plain ran almost endlessly on until it changed at last to the charred and broken remains of a forest, before it stretched on to reach another ocean. After a few minutes had ticked by she became aware that neither Angela or William had appeared, though she was certain she had seen them enter the light from the machine after her.

A gentle breeze blew away some of the smoke and brought to her the smell of a distant storm and the faintest smell of rain. Standing up she turned to face the breeze and wondered what could have happened to her friends. The only logical answer was that they had entered the device, yet had been deposited at a different location, which, Tabitha rationalized, was very easily possible considering they knew the device was capable of creating entire universes yet knew little, less than little, of its proper operation. The thought, however, did not fill her with joy, an entire universe was a large area to search for just two people and she hoped that they had been deposited in a reasonably tight radius around where-ever Jacob was; that was after all how the other universes they had visited had worked. Deciding there was little she could do for Angela or William - she had to hope they would find her or Jacob themselves - she instead decided to focus on the one thing she knew she could find: Jacob.

She moved to sit cross-legged on the ash-strewn ground and drew out her energy diagram, tracing her fingers through the black dust until at last it was finished. Frowning at what she had drawn she at last found what she thought must be Jacobs energy signature, though it appeared to her as if it was shielded in some fashion, which could have just been an effect of the alternate reality they were now inside, though she reminded herself she would need to approach the situation with caution - suddenly appearing at his side could lead to disaster for both of them. Reading her energy diagram again she looked for the markers, those little bits of information relating to the background radiation of the universe that gave away its age whenever she drew a diagram. After a few seconds of looking she spotted one, and then another and then yet another. The markings she had drawn around them indicated that the background radiation was still very hot, this was a young universe, perhaps even before she was born, but she suspected it may be a little after - she was starting to suspect that this world she was now sitting upon was in fact Jakes home planet, but she couldn't yet be certain of the fact. After staring at the diagram for a few moments more she became aware that she was near what seemed to be an encampment of people, most gravely wounded by what the markings around their symbols told her. Frowning she made a snap decision to find those people and to ask them where exactly she was, she reminded herself that helping them would just lead to an unnecessary delay - these weren't actual people but were instead just creations of the machine she was inside.

Getting to her feet and coughing a little more in the smoke she smudged out the diagram she had so painstakingly drawn and turned to face where it had indicated the group of people were. "Ready or not," she said and started walking.

"Get off me," William said, half-heartedly pushing Angela off his legs where the pair had landed in the soft blue-green grass.

"Really?" Angela replied, a little sarcastically, "I hadn't thought of that." She got to her feet and extended a hand to William, who used it to pull himself to his feet.

"I can't see Tabitha," William muttered, shading his eyes from the red glare of the sun and looking around.

"Nor can I and not with my matter-sight either."

William was a little annoyed, even though he knew separation from Tabitha wasn't anybody's choice but the random workings of some machine. "So... we're on our own then? Wonderful."

"Well, if you think about it, we've got the better situation... we have each other. Tabitha is the one that's really alone here."

"True, true," William conceded. "So what? Do we just try and find her or do we try and find Jacob?"

Angela mused for a moment, "Jacob," she declared at last. "She will assume we are trying to get to him as she also does. But how do we find him? Where _are_ we even? Have to get a few answers to a few little questions like that before we can do anything. _When_ are we might also be useful, as then we could probably work out where Jacob would be at that time of his life..."

"So, we need to find some people, that shouldn't be too hard..." William's gaze had fallen on something shining like sun glinting off metal in the distance as Angela had spoken. "There is something that way, is it a city do you think?"

Taking a moment Angela replied, "Yes, it is a massive city and incredibly old. The ancient remains are carefully preserved yet underneath lies a massive network of steel and cables and tunnels. Computers and people are abundant there, and in the centre lies a massive concrete lined shaft covered with giant steel doors - a launch, or maybe receiving, tunnel if ever I saw one."

"That matter-sight thing of yours has its uses doesn't it?" William replied with a laugh. "All I got is a bit of sun shining off of a bit of metal or glass."

Angela smiled, slipped her arm around his waist and led him towards the city.

"Halt!" a voice cried from behind Tabitha, making her stop immediately in her tracks - it was very rare that someone was able to sneak up behind her, their energy always gave them away. Slowly she turned to where the voice had come from and half smiled at what she saw, a shadow hung in the air before her, though nothing was near her to cast it. The shadow rapidly formed itself into a person who somewhat resembled Jacob only slightly taller and with longer hair of a dark blonde and eyes of a bright blue. He wore a lightweight armour of black with a silver trim and on his chest was a silver star, being eclipsed by a moon - or other planetary body – made of polished, black, stone.

"The Livery of the Shadow," Tabitha half-whispered. "Now there is a sight I have not seen in an age." Her mind had been thrown back to the days after she had met Jacob, when she had been exploring the ship from bow to stern, and had found his own suit of lightweight armour carefully boxed away in the storage deck that later became his workshop, 'I've no need for that anymore,' he had said when she had asked about it.

"What do you mean by that?" the man asked.

Tabitha laughed gently, "Nothing, nothing. An old friend of mine wore it once."

The mas faced twitched, obviously unprepared for what Tabitha had said, "You know someone who wears the livery of the shadow?"

Tabitha smiled, "Perhaps you do as well. His name is Jacob." She thought for a moment, trying to best guess when in Jakes history she had landed before settling on probably around the exact time he had first encountered the virus.

"Jacob who?" The man asked.

Suddenly, Tabitha was the one to be unprepared, realising, that in all of their time together, he had never once mentioned if his race had second names, family names, or anything like it. He had always just been Jacob. She searched her mind for any other information that she could remember from when there was still, apparently, a Shadow-Army. "He's a Captain in the hundred and first," she finally announced.

The man frowned, "That is not information that you should have..." he seemed to debate with himself his next course of action. "I'm going to place you under arrest, you will come with me to the rest of my division and explain yourself a little better than you have been."

Tabitha counted the man's frown with a smile, "Understandable," she replied. The man gently pulled her hands behind her back placing them into some sort of cuff or shackle.

"You'll excuse me for this," he said, "but we have had some strange sorts in these parts of late."

"Nothing like me though," Tabitha said, as the man gently grabbed her arm and led her towards where she could still sense a larger group of people were gathered.

After a short jump, using her matter manipulating abilities, Angela stood beside William a few hundred meters outside the strangely old yet, somehow new, city. She had decided suddenly appearing within its confines would probably cause some sort of panic and had so chosen to appear outside of it. Now that they were closer, they could both see the people within the city, but what they saw did not inspire them with hope. Panicked people ran in the streets, dragging or carrying children or pets, men in a black armour ran here and there barking orders or offering assistance. The air reverberated with the sound of a siren, raising and falling and raising again, echoing off the old stone buildings and bouncing its way along the streets.

"What the hell is going on?" William asked.

"I don't-" Angela began just as a blindingly bright flash appeared in the sky above the city.

The people began screaming, the armoured men abandoned their posts and ran, out and away from the city, forcing and dragging as many people with them as they could. The siren changed from a gentle raising and falling to a harsh on and off arrangement. Angela and William stood awestruck at the sudden change of scene before them and were nearly trampled as the fleeing wall of people hit them. Holding firmly to Williams hand Angela instructed him to grab one of the armoured men, to try and get some information. After several attempts he caught one, but could get nothing from him other than a desperate plea to run, run like the wind. There was another flash in the sky above them and the armoured man fell to his knees. "There is no use now," he said. "We're all dead anyway."

Many of the fleeing people stopped in their tracks and looked to the sky, Angela and William included.

"I don't see anything," William said, stating the obvious.

Angela however turned her matter-sight upwards and saw what the locals obviously already knew was coming for them. "It's... some sort of missiles." Her mind suddenly flashed backwards, to a memory she never knew she had. She was lying in a bed, it had high sides, seemingly made of bars, perhaps a baby's crib? Through a small window to her left she saw those flashes of light in the sky. Then came the smoke and the fire. And then... then there was Jake, stepping through a doorway through the smoke and the fire, sword swinging as he killed the suited men that had come for her.

With a gasp she broke suddenly from the vision. "It's the Murrays, the suited men," she said, her voice surprisingly calm despite the flashback.

One of the armoured men had begun shouting, "To me!" he cried, "To me!" The people were moving towards him, slowly, tentatively.

"There is a ship above us," he yelled. "You have to transfer there _now!_ Come on! There isn't much time! Adults! Grab any children you can, transport them with you!"

One by one Angela and William watched in wonder as the people around them turned to shadow and vanished upwards.

"I think I know where we are," William said.

Angela turned to face the incoming missiles once more. "And I know when."

The missiles were moments from impact, Angela grabbed Williams hand once more. "I can shield us from the blast," she said.

William nodded and the air around them shook with the impact. A blinding wall of light hit them and they watched as the remaining shadow-people, those still on the ground, including the armoured man who had been shouting for people to transfer to the waiting ship above, were obliterated before their very eyes. Next came a rushing wall of air and dust, heat and fire. Everything that survived the first onslaught caught ablaze and began to burn, even the very soil itself seemed alight, it lost its solidity and would have swallowed both William and Angela if it had not been for her matter-control turning the ground back solid beneath them. As one they turned slowly to face the city that once stood there, but saw nothing but fire and smoke surrounding a crater-sized hole in the ground.

William turned to her, "You survived all this? On your world?"

Angela slowly nodded, "And many others since. Far too many others since."

Tabitha was led into a group of soldiers, all wearing the same lightweight livery of the Shadow.

"What have you got there then," one of them called, "a spy?"

"I am not sure; she claims to know Jacob of the Hundred and First."

"Does she just," another voice spoke up, a female's voice. "And how would she go about knowing that?"

Tabitha suddenly realized she may actually have found herself in more of a problematic situation than she had first thought. "He is a friend of mine," she replied, electing to go with the simplest version of the truth.

"Look at that hair," another voice said. "You're not from this world."

"No, I am not."

"So," asked the female again, "how do you know him?" She stepped forward from behind the others in the group and Tabitha noted her livery was identical to that which Jacob had worn, two extra stripes of silver trim decorated every piece of metal work, here was the group's leader, probably their own Captain - if the extra lining denoted ranks.

Tabitha sized the woman up, she knew that this woman would likely have trained with Jacob, was probably someone Jacob knew well and who knew him well.

"Answer the question," she stated, her voice calm yet authoritative.

Tabitha felt flustered under the grey-eyed stare of the woman, and she wondered if this is how Jacobs enemies felt when he stared them down. Sighing Tabitha decided to tell this woman the truth, if she was anything at all like Jacob she would understand. "I met him on a space station, a few years from now."

Many of the group openly scoffed at her remark, some implying that Tabitha was insane. The woman who led them however continued to stare; her expression unchanged. "Who wins this war?" she asked. "Us... or the cowards that rain down fire upon us from the sky?"

Tabitha suddenly remembered another of Jacobs rules, this one pertaining to time travel – particularly accidental time travel; the most important being to never-ever give away future events. "The first rule of time-travel," Tabitha began.

"Is to never give away future events." The woman ended, her expression remaining un-changed.

Tabitha was taken slightly by surprise at the woman completing her sentence, but an idea occurred to her, the time-travel rule may be one that all soldiers of a certain rank were taught here on the Shadow home world, but Jake had his own rules too. And she was certain this woman, if she knew Jake, would know those rules as well, or at least some of them. "Rule one," Tabitha said, "always keep..." she trailed off waiting for the woman to speak.

The woman cocked her head to the side, and half smiled. "a promise. Why bother making them if you aren't going to..."

Tabitha smiled back, "keep them." She said, completing the rule.

"Let her go," the woman instructed.

"But-" several of the others in the group interjected.

"I said let her go."

Tabitha felt whatever held her wrists slacken and her hands fell freely to her sides. The woman approached her holding out her hand, Tabitha held out hers and was surprised at the strength of the woman's grip. "I am Captain Grace of the Hundred and Second infantry division."

"Tabitha Rose," Tabitha replied, "or Tabitha if you prefer."

The woman examined Tabitha more carefully now that she had moved closer, and whispered so that the others could not hear. "Them or us, I know the rules, but I saw a sadness in your face when I asked."

Tabitha frowned, uncertain what to do before realizing that this was all a virtual reality, it had all already unfolded and none of this was even real. "Them," she muttered.

"Captain!" one of the troops called out, his voice loud and panicked. "Elatromtay has fallen!"

Tabitha watched as the woman seemed to crumple internally, then rally herself again. "How many? How many got out of there?"

"Thousands," the man replied, slowly shaking his head as others of the troop fell to their knees on the ground, the very picture of defeat.

"How many?"

"Around fifty, at the highest estimate."

"Fifty thousand," Grace whispered, "of a city of sixty-seven million."

Tabitha thought the Captain was about to fall to her knees also, but she inhaled sharply and stood tall. Grace gazed at her troops for a moment before coughing slightly deep in her throat. "On your feet soldiers! This is not a time of defeat; this is a time for revenge! We will fight these cowards, these men who come clad in grey, until our last man. We shall stand up, we shall fight, until we all fall silently to our last, eternal sleep. We will avenge those that were taken from us and make them pay for what they did here today, for today they learn what a Shadow really is!"

"Monsters in the dark!" one of the men cried.

"Fear in the night!" another called.

"The endless quiet dark of death!" they cried together.

Tabitha was amazed at the shift in mood of the troop and she realized quickly that this is why Grace was a Captain, she had the power to rally a defeated troop, to rally them back into battle, rally them to their inevitable deaths. But she also saw here something of that once mighty Shadow-Army that had attacked her own home, in what was even at this point in this virtual world, a distant memory. It sent a slight chill down her spine.

The troop started forward, barely making a sound upon the ground as they walked. Tabitha fell in behind them, Grace at her side.

"So, if you met him, in the future, some of us survive this?"

"No," Tabitha reluctantly whispered, "only Jake."

Grace nodded as if knowing that this would be Tabitha's answer, which Tabitha thought in a way she probably had - this universe was created in part from Jacobs memories after all.

Angela and William continued to stare at the void that had once been a proud city. "Well," William said at last. "This isn't getting us any closer to finding Jacob."

"No, it's not. At least we know where are though, we're on his world at the time of its destruction. Which should put him on his ship, heading here..."

"What we need, then, is our own ship, to meet him. Where do we get one? I suppose there _were_ ships here..."

"I can make us one, as long as we don't need anything too fancy like hyper-light or Fruig Drives... I'd need a bit of information to make those. But a basic one, yeah, I can make us one."

"I really love you, you know," William replied. "Being able to make something out of nothing is quite a nice skill for a girlfriend to have!"

## Chapter 25

Jacob shook his head, feeling momentarily confused and disorientated but the feeling soon passed. A few moments later everything went black leaving him feeling like a pair of floating eyeballs before reality returned. He decided he may just go and see one of the staff doctors, when he got this ship safely back to the space port at Elatromtay, as something didn't seem to be right in his head. He checked the instrument panels in front of him to check that the effects hadn't been acting on him from something outside the ship and they reported that nothing unusual had been detected outside. As he did so, he again noticed, the red and white 'Servicing Checks Passed' sticker that someone had scrawled the words ' _Pril soporg plon, Bygash-Ru. Pin hooth, Fruukgal-Ru_ ' and, although he could read, somehow, what it said, he didn't seem to be able to understand it at all.

He flicked a switch and watched as the massive screens that protected the bridge's forward-facing windows slid back to reveal the streaks of light of, of what should have been Hyper-Space. But instead he saw something new, this ship was clearly not equipped with a standard hyper-light drive, but something he had only heard about – a Fruig-Drive system. Unlike Hyper-Space, that a ship travelling at hyper-light speeds flew through, Fruig-Space was a messy chaos - a messy chaos he found, to his great surprise, to be somewhat calming. A smile slowly crossed Jacobs face as he watched the streaks and patterns of different coloured light stream around the leading edge of the ship, it was like nothing he had seen or experienced before. The longer he watched it however, the more his smile faded, slowly being replaced by a frown. Some part of his mind was telling him he had _always_ found that watching the effects of Fruig-Space to be calming, told him that it had made it seem like the universe all made sense – which was a weird thought in the first place. What was weirder was his current thought.

He thought Fruig-Space wasn't its usual calming self.

This time something was different.

Something was wrong with the fabric of reality; he could sense it but couldn't quite place what exactly it was. He got up from where he sat in the slightly recessed chair at the centre of the bridge and walked to stand right in front of the window-like view-screen. Locking his fingers together and resting his chin on his thumbs he stood in silence with his head cocked to the side as he stared, vast distances of space passing him by in the blink of an eye.

"Who are you to him?" Grace asked suddenly, catching Tabitha completely unaware.

"I'm..." she paused, for a moment. "I do not know what he would call me."

Grace frowned, "What would you call him then?"

This time it was Tabitha's turn to frown. "I do not know that either."

Grace raised her eyebrows, before laughing slightly. "I think I know."

"You do?" Tabitha queried, immediately realising that it was a foolish question, of course this woman knew. She was a living memory of Jacobs; she knew his mind better than he probably knew it. "Will you tell me?"

Grace laughed again, "No, no. That is for you and him to work out."

Tabitha sighed, knowing she shouldn't have expected an answer. "So where are we going?"

"There's an outpost over the next hill and then the next, Trey O Gholen we call it which means-"

"The Last Outpost," Tabitha injected.

Grace stopped her once more. "First you come here with a tale of a future meeting with someone who isn't even planet side and now you speak our language, who are you Tabitha Rose?"

"A Light in the Dark Places," Tabitha replied, knowing that this is what Jake often referred to her as when he was alone with his thoughts or in his sleep, she had heard herself referred to as such on many occasion from his mutterings while he slept, when she had reached out and touched his mind to ensure all was well with him.

"Fruukgal-Ru," Grace murmured before regaining her composure.

"Wait, what did you say?"

"I was asking you who you were. I'm waiting on an answer."

Tabitha realized that Grace's recognition of her had been a glitch in the programming, she suspected that a universe based on two peoples thoughts was not likely what it had been designed to handle - after all when she and the others had entered the other universes each had becoming unstable in its own way and was able to be destroyed. She wondered if a universe already based on two separate minds could tolerate the stress of a further three people entering it.

"That is _beautiful,_ " William declared, standing back and admiring the ship Angela had crafted for them.

"It should even be invisible to everything but actual, physical, sight. I don't know how advanced the Murrays technology is in this time period, but hopefully it hasn't advanced enough to allow long range video yet..."

"So, if we stay somewhere they cannot physically see us, they shouldn't detect us?"

"Well, hopefully."

"All we have to do is hide somewhere and wait for Jacob to show up then?"

"Pretty much. Could be a long wait, this thing is pretty much sensor-less but should be able to detect a ship emerging from faster than light travel anywhere within the sector. Then we just have to get to him before the Murrays and make him believe us..."

"It all sounds so easy."

"Does, doesn't it?"

"But it will be anything but easy, of course. How do you propose we convince him that this isn't real? What do we do about Tom? Where do we hide our ship to wait for Jake?"

"Whoa! Steady on!" Angela replied with a small laugh, "One question at a time. We'll start with the last one as its easiest." She pointed upwards and William looked up to see the curved sickles of three moons. "We hide on the surface of one of those."

As William watched something massive struck the atmosphere, the air shook as it crashed into the planet, burning as it fell. "What the hell is it?" he whispered, fearing he already knew the answer. He watched as Angela turned her eyes skywards closing them for a moment before turning to face him, her expression bleak. "It's the ship, the one they were transferring to. Isn't it?"

Angela quietly nodded, she sniffed back tears and grabbed Williams hand. "There's nothing else for it, into the ship with us. We have to wait for Jake..."

William sighed, "It's hard to believe that none of this is real," he said. "It all _feels_ real, _too_ real maybe."

"But it is real," Angela murmured. "This is how it happened, all those many, many years ago. This is how the People of Shadow died."

William realized as she spoke that he had been believing that all of this was a construct, a story being told, and not a memory of a reality long since passed. He found the thought incredibly depressing, more so with the knowledge that, as a memory, there was nothing to be done to save the planet, to save the people. It would all play out as it had before, and despite knowing that these people weren't real, were just memories, the helplessness of not being able to save them almost caused him to curl up on the ground and admit defeat. "Can we change it?" he asked.

Angela stopped leading him towards the ship she had created. "What did you say?"

"I asked if we could change it, it doesn't _have_ to be like this does it?"

Angela smiled, "No... it doesn't. Our realities changed; they weren't exactly as memory would have them."

"So, we can change this too?"

"We can try!" Angela laughed, "Oh yes. We can try."

Grabbing Williams hand once more she dragged him, at a run, to the ship she had created and inside.

"So," Grace insisted, "who are you? Or perhaps... what are you? Your red hair gives you away as being not from this world, so from which world do you hail?"

"Not from any world, but from a Star," she replied, with a small, hopefully reassuring smile. She was unsure how Grace would take the news - the peoples of Shadow and Light had fought their fair share of war.

Grace frowned slightly and nodded. "I had thought so. It would seem that in the end then, Jacob was right and there can in fact be lasting peace between our races."

"With no Light there can be no Shadow, with no Shadow there can be no Light," Tabitha said in response.

"That's what he always said. But your people are bound to your Star, how come you to be so far from it? The only other times we saw Lights on the Shadow world were when they were some sort of.... suicide squad."

"How can I be so far from my Star? That, that is a long story," Tabitha replied.

"Tell it to me, while we walk. We have a long way to go yet to Trey O Gholen. I would hear of this future without Shadows, this future where the last of the Shadows has paired with a Light."

"From when I come from, I am the last one of those as well," Tabitha replied.

"A future without Light or Shadow? What a wretched, grim, future this must be!" Grace replied, falling silent as Tabitha began her story. Her story about how a girl a few years into the future from where she found herself now and half a galaxy away, stood behind the counter on a space station as a grey-eyed, dark-haired boy dodged sideways through the docking bay door.

After some hours Jacob dropped his hands to his side and straightened his neck, stepping back from the view of the universe streaking past. He slid back into the slightly recessed seat in the centre of the bridge and flicked a switch, causing heavy steel shields to slowly cover the view of the universe flashing by.

A computer chirped somewhere on the bridge, before announcing, "Distress Call Detected."

Jacob frowned, looking around the bridge for the console that would allow him to hear whatever message was playing. A flashing light to his left caught his attention and extracting himself from his seat he strode to it and pressed the button below it.

A roaring static filled his ears, before he thought he caught the word Elatromtay. He paused the message and moved the sliders below the button used to activate the player before pressing it again. More static greeted his ears, but this time he managed to hear the majority of the message. "We are under attack... Elatromtay destroyed... ships within message range we require assistance." Jacob leant heavily on the seat beside him, disbelief of what he had heard written across his face. After a few moments he stumbled back to the centre console, took his seat and brought up the engine power tables. Disabling all non-essential services, he found he could increase the ships speed, through Fruig-Space, by almost twenty-five percent more. The bridge's lights dimmed and faded to black at the press of a switch and leaning back in his seat he felt the ship pick up speed.

As the ships control-panel lights dimmed and turned off a red light began flashing on the console to Jacobs right, below which he would have read the words 'Teleport Detection', if he had seen it. However, the ships lights were dark and soon the flashing light itself faded to black.

The ship shook as it took to the air, William and Angela each at a control station, working in tandem to produce the results they wanted.

"Scanning for life signs on the crashing vessel," Angela said as the ships nose began to point skyward. "Thirty Thousand Detected. They're still alive! Some of them anyway!"

"Not for much longer though," William said, indicating a mountain range he could see through the front view-screen as the nose came up - the ship, according to his instruments, was on a direct collision path. "Why don't they just abandon ship? They transported themselves up there..."

"They appear to be in some sort of stasis field, going by the life signs." Angela replied, pushing the lever in her right hand hard forward. "I'm going to jump us both, ship and all, to their position. Stand-by on thrusters, with any luck I can bring us out right on top of them and we can latch on."

William closed his eyes, preparing for the sickening sensation that was about to wash over him. He counted to three in his head before he felt extremely nauseous and knew they had just covered an impossible distance in the blink of an eye.

"We've latched on, I'm weaving the two ships together, you have the controls." Angela stated, her tone calm and forceful.

Pushing his nausea aside William turned to see Angela's hands twisting and turning as she merged their ship with the crashing one.

"Now!" she yelled.

William pushed the two levers on his left hard forward and he heard their ships engine roar into life, yet, still, they fell backwards towards the ground. "We've not got enough power!" he yelped.

Beside him he saw Angela began to work her hands once more and slowly their descent slowed to a crawl and soon the strangely conjoined ships ceased to fall and instead held their position. "You have to land us," Angela stammered. "I'm doing all I can to maintain a denser atmosphere around us..."

William saw the sweat running down Angela's brow as she fought to keep the ships from plummeting to the ground and he scanned the area below for a large enough area to set-down in. "I'm easing off," he said, throttling the ships engines back into a slow controlled descent. After a few more minutes there was a thud as the ships settled onto the ground. With a sigh Angela's head fell to her chest and William breathed a sigh of relief. "Well..." he said. "We did it. We saved them."

Angela slowly looked up. "Yes... the computer says they are waking up. But we shouldn't stay." She pointed upwards, "We _have_ to meet Jake, prevent him from being captured, either by the Murrays or by Tom Seldrick." Twisting her fingers, much slower this time, she at last told William the ships were separated. "Skyward," she said quietly before falling into a deep, sudden, sleep. William once again pushed the two levers forward and with a roar their little ship took to the sky.

Grace laughed, "I never could have imagined the day where a Shadow and a Light were one and the same."

"It's one of the universe's oddities all right," Tabitha agreed with a smile.

"Yet, the universe ensures that a Shadow and a Light live forever more. There is an old legend told here that should ever they both cease to exist the end of the universe would befall us all."

"Similar tales are told where I am from, though that hasn't stopped the countless wars over the years."

"That it is has not... I guess though its because the legends always say _both,_ that doesn't mean one race cant be obliterated." Grace frowned, before mouthing the word 'war' with an incredulous look on her face. "You're from the future!" she suddenly exclaimed.

Tabitha raised her eyebrows, "Yeah."

"How much did he tell you? Did he tell you how many ships? Their positions? Their tactics after Elatromtay fell?"

Tabitha cocked her head to the side, imitating Jake at that exact moment had she known, and smiled. "Yes. Yes, he did."

"Then we can defeat them this time!"

"But... the rules of time travel-" Tabitha began, realizing as she spoke that she was forgetting this was a virtual reality.

"To hell with the rules of time travel! We're on Trey O Gholen's doorstep now and with your help, with your help we can turn the tide. We can win! They won't expect us to directly attack their cleverly hidden ships, but we can all turn to Shadow and transport ourselves to them - they would surely detect an incoming ship... but an incoming shadow? That I doubt they will detect!"

Grace's sudden manic enthusiasm was contagious and Tabitha found herself caught in it. "Yes, yes!" She said. "Jake is coming as well, perhaps this time we can avoid disaster. Perhaps we can save this world..."

"Wouldn't Jacob seeing you before he is supposed to cause timeline issues?"

"How do we know I am not the reason he went to that space station?" Tabitha lied.

Grace smiled, "I like you. I can see why he does too."

The pair followed the remainder of the troop through the vast steel doors at the entrance to Trey O Gholen, The Last Outpost, and headed deep underground to the emergency bunker, quarter the size of the whole of Elatromtay, hidden deep within the planet's mountains. Here Tabitha worked with Grace and planned the attack on the orbiting ships of the suited-men, lending her advice from years of battle and her knowledge of the events here on this world in Jacobs long lost past to endear herself with the other Captains, Colonels, Majors and Generals that were safely tucked away under the tonnes of rock.

Jacob continued to sit impatiently in the seat at the centre of the ships bridge, his mind had turned once more to the perceived problem with the universe and he had opened the vast visors that covered the front view-screens to stare at the colours and patterns of Fruig-Space travel once more.

"Computer?" he asked at last.

The computer chirped a response.

"Good," he muttered, "voice recognition is installed on this thing." He waited a few seconds before speaking again. "Computer. Capture the next twenty seconds of visual from the view-screen." Again, the computer chirped a response. He counted off the seconds then looked at the monitor on his right when the computer chirped it had completed the set task. On the monitor a loop of the faster-than-light colours and patterns played. Moving forward frame by frame he at last paused and magnified a section.

"Oh, I've got you now," he whispered. He fiddled with some controls and enhanced what he had seen. At last he sighed and looked again to be sure of what he had seen. It remained. A distinct square was visible on the screen. "Since when has space been pixelated?" he said aloud.

"A very good question," came a voice from behind him, causing him to leap to his feet and spin to face where he thought the voice had come from. But he saw nothing but darkness. From behind him once more came the voice again, "Finding it a little hard to see?" it said.

Jacob spun around but once more saw nothing. Then his mind clicked. "I know you're here. But I will not allow you to possess a Shadow."

"I don't think you have a choice," the voice said and Jacob felt something hard, cold and round press against his neck. "One move and I pull the trigger," the voice of his former friend, Tom Seldrick said.

## Chapter 26

"What's the plan here? Surely you know a gun is useless on me?"

"Ah, but this isn't just any gun, this one is loaded with Traelorg sheathed bullets."

"Traelorg?" Jacob asked, suddenly concerned. "But... where the hell did you get that?"

"I had been travelling a long time before finding this handy body to slip inside. I have seen a lot of things in my travels and I always thought a bit of Traelorg would come in use."

Jacob frowned. Traelorg was a dangerous substance, it was remarkable in the fact that it was neither matter nor anti-matter, energy or dark-energy it was a strange mix of everything at once. In fact, due to its nature it was one of the few things guaranteed to be able to kill a Shadow regardless of whether the Shadow-Person was shadow or solid, many other things _could_ kill one or the other, but Traelorg was always a certainty, no matter how solid or otherwise the Shadow-Person was. "So," he began after a few minutes thought, "what do you want?"

"You will take me to your world, to its capital, and I will spread to every Shadow and from there out into the universe."

Jacob weighed his options, but could not come up with a suitable plan. "Well, you're in luck," he said, "my world is exactly where I am heading." He glanced down at one of the consoles beside him. "In fact, we should be there in all of ten minutes."

"Excellent," the face of what was once Tom Seldrick smirked, "I have waited a long time for this!"

"There!" Angela yelled, "Something is emerging from hyper-light!"

"Where?" William asked.

Angela pointed frantically at where a slight ripple in space appeared to be distorting the stars behind.

"Is it him?"

Angela's hands raced across the control's in front of her, moving the ship slowly closer to where the ripple in space had appeared. "I don't know... he would be using the Fruig-Drive wouldn't he? Not hyper-light? Unless he hasn't fitted it to the ship yet, I don't know if he -"

"Holy sh-!" William began, cutting across Angela, before she herself cut him off yelling at him to steer their ship away - something truly massive was emerging from hyper-light, a ship hundreds of times bigger than anything Angela had ever seen before - which after her years of travelling in space with Tabitha and Jacob she hadn't thought possible.

"That is most certainly not Jacob's ship," William said, in the understatement of the decade, perhaps of all time.

"No, no it is not," Angela replied. "I have never, ever, seen anything like it!"

"So... not Murrays then?" William asked.

"Well... I would have remembered if I had seen a ship like that I think, so no... not Murrays."

"Then who the hell could it be? Is it a ship from the Shadow Fleet do you think?"

"I suppose it _could_ be, Jake never told me about the ships of his own race, it was a bit moot by that point."

"But what is it doing here? Surely if they had ships like this, they would have won..."

Angela thought for a few moments before putting voice to her ideas, "I wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, Tabitha has had the same idea that we had. That it doesn't have to stay as it was. She could have convinced them to recall the fleet..."

Suddenly a large group of perhaps twenty ships emerged as if from nowhere around the much larger vessel, "They already have some sort of cloaking capability..." Angela muttered as the smaller ships opened fire on the larger ship. To Angela's surprise the larger ship didn't fire back. Something was very wrong with this turn of events.

"Open the radio frequencies," Angela instructed William. "See if you can find the channel that big ship is on."

From the corner of her eye Angela watched as William picked up the radio headphones and began slowly turning the radio dials, searching for a frequency that was broadcasting. The giant ship continued to be blasted by the small ships and suddenly began to drift towards the planet, listing slightly then beginning to spiral as it did so. "They've hit something vital," Angela commented. "Port side thruster control I would say. Any luck?"

William shook his head then, "Got it!" he yelled, pulling the headphones from the socket and filling their small ships cockpit with radio chatter.

"... is the medical vessel Ga-Holn and we are unarmed. Enemy vessels, break off your attack! Repeat, this is the medical vessel Ga-Holn and we are unarmed. Enemy vessels, break off your attack! Repeat, this is the medi-"

"That's enough," Angela said. "At least we know why they aren't fighting back, it's amazing to think a ship that large is completely unarmed..."

"I suppose its sheer size puts most people off."

"You might be onto something there... damn it!" Angela yelled, hitting the console in front of her. "I hate watching this, but there is nothing we can do here! We do not have the firepower and I do not have the strength to launch an assault on those smaller, Murray controlled ships, nor do I have the strength to save that medical ship, the Ga-Holn."

She felt Williams hand on her own and smiled slightly. She had enough time to glance briefly at him before the sky before them suddenly brightened, the massive ship was exploding. "We have to clear the blast area!" Angela barked "This thing isn't strong enough to withstand a blast like that!"

She reached for the controls and their little ship slowly arced away ahead of the oncoming blast-wave and hurtling debris.

"We've just lost the Ga-Holn!" an officer cried from across the massive table-like panel.

Tabitha raised an eyebrow, "A medical ship? What was it doing in the field of engagement?"

"How did you know it was a medical ship?" Grace asked.

"You lot use the 'Ga' prefix for your medical ships, I did ask a lot of questions of Jake early on you know... but, my question stands."

"It appears they were responding to the planetary distress call; they would have been looking for people to save."

"So, the first ship to arrive is a medical ship that is then blown to smithereens," Grace declared. "That isn't at all useful."

"Cancel the distress call," Tabitha said. Everyone in the room turned to face her.

"What an incredibly stupid suggestion," someone muttered, not at all quietly. "Typical that a Light would want us destroyed."

Tabitha ignored the interjection, "You must have some sort of system for when you know your messages are being monitored. Cancel the distress call and issue a coded message informing the fleet of the situation, we can't have another Ga-Holn, we need warships, something with some fire-power."

Grace nodded, "She's right. You all know she is."

"Cancel the distress call," one of the Generals said at last, "Now Grace, what do you propose we transmit instead?"

"I think I know," Grace replied looking at Tabitha. "We broadcast her."

"Her? But the fleet won't understand that."

"Exactly," Grace replied. "but someone out there will."

The console to Jacobs right blipped suddenly, he turned his head towards it keeping Tom Seldrick in the corner of his eye.

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"Apparently the distress call I was responding to has been cancelled."

The console blipped again, a slightly different tone.

"What about that then?"

"If you want me to find out and tell you, I am going to have to move to the console," Jacob replied.

"Fine. But slowly. Or I'll just kill you."

"Why don't you? The ships already on course for my world."

"Because I want you to tell them to give up, to surrender to me. I want to keep you for last, I want you to see your race destroyed."

"Why me?"

"Why not? Someone has to see it and since I have you here it may as well be you."

Jacob frowned, but moved to the console that had chirped at him. He hit a button and a message began to broadcast on a loop throughout the bridge, on speakers that slightly crackled. "There is a light in the dark, planetary distress cancelled. Repeating message: there is a light in the dark, planetary distress cancelled." On and on the message went before Jacob turned it off, frowning slightly but quickly hiding it as he turned to Tom Seldrick with a calm smile.

"What does that mean?" Tom asked.

"It means... they are no longer expecting the fleet. They've cancelled the planetary distress call."

"Tell me, what does it mean 'There is a light in the dark'?" pressed Tom.

"That's obviously the current code, they change them all the time, for the all clear." As he spoke Jacob almost jumped out of his skin as a ghostly vision appeared behind Tom. A girl, who hair vivid red, sat cross-legged on the floor, her green eyes locked with his and she smiled, glowing faintly before suddenly vanishing.

Tom seemed to notice the slight change in lighting behind him, or he noticed Jacobs gaze shift he spun on his heel suddenly looking behind him.

"What was that?" he demanded, thrusting the gun towards Jacobs head.

"Behind you was a of some sort light," Jacob lied. "There must be something back there that lights up every now and then."

Tom paused for a moment, staring hard into Jacobs face as if he would read his very thoughts. "How far away are we?" he suddenly demanded.

"Only a couple of minutes now."

"Excellent. You will emerge from hyper-light right at the boundary of the planet's atmosphere and descend to the capital where you will announce my presence and I shall take over your world."

"As you wish," Jacob said, not bothering to correct Tom on the method of propulsion and moving to sit at the ship's controls, feeling Tom once more press the gun against his head. No matter how hard Jacob tried to concentrate on the controls, however, the image of the red-headed girl and the strange message cancelling the distress call. A light in the dark? What did that mean? And the girl, the girl... he felt he knew her from somewhere and then somewhere far back in his mind something fell into place. His own words echoed back to him 'Just a light' he had said, but it wasn't. It wasn't a light at all, it was a Light, a Light with a capital letter. The message wasn't a code like he thought it was, it was very literal. There was a 'Light' in the 'Dark', one of the star-children, one of the Lights, was on his home world and for some reason had appeared in front of his eyes as if the message being broadcast was for him personally. His mind raced and then he realized... the distress call wasn't cancelled! The planet was still under attack! He didn't know if the Light was there to help, or part of the attack, but either way a Light on the Shadow world meant trouble. He broke into a fit of coughing and landed with one hand on the console.

"Hey! Hey! None of that!" Tom yelled.

"Sorry, sorry" Jacob replied, hoping his hand had hit the right button.

"Something just emerged from Fruig-Space right on the edge of the atmosphere," Angela said. "Can you bring us around so we can see what it is?"

Their little ship was responding sluggishly, it was battered and broken and had barely survived the blast of the larger ship blowing apart, at one point Angela had been certain a large hunk of metal was about to slice their little ship in half but at the last moment it had been struck by another piece and knocked off its certain collision course.

"There!" William shouted, excitedly. "That's it! That's him!"

Angela looked where William was pointing, and yes! There is was, that distinctly triangular shape that was Jacobs ship - it was arcing towards the planet through the atmosphere on a course undoubtedly to bring it in for a landing on the surface.

The group of ships that had attacked the massive ship earlier suddenly re-appeared and began firing on Jacobs ship as it slowly began to glow with heat, burning its way to the ground.

"We'll never catch it," William said, "not with all of those things attacking him. They'll blast us out of the sky."

"The shuttle bay..." Angela said, grabbing Williams hand.

With all the concentration and strength that she could muster, Angela closed her eyes and focused on the shuttle bay of Jacobs ship, the one she supposed they were actually still inside, the one that held the reality-generator. But she wanted the shuttle-bay of the ship inside this reality, not the actual realities shuttle-bay and with a sensation strangely like melting she opened her eyes as William started retching.

"Some warning next time would be nice!" he said, and she could see he was trying hard not to retch again.

The floor beneath her feet vibrated steadily and every now and then lurched heavily. But she smiled, she was in the shuttle bay of Jacobs ship as it entered the atmosphere of his world, as it was blasted at by the Murrays ships \- which she thought looked incapable of atmospheric flight - now she just had to find Jacob. Grabbing Williams hand again, she dragged him out of the shuttle bay and into one of the ships many corridors, racing towards the ships bridge.

"He's almost here," Tabitha said. "Though another is with him."

"Who?" Grace asked.

"Do you know of the events of Fral Galaxy? Specifically, Sector Fifty-Seven?"

"That is classified!" barked one of the Generals suddenly. "Those events are strictly need to know."

"Well General," Tabitha replied, glaring at the General, "those classified events are about to make landfall any moment now. So, you better un-classify them... or I will."

The General stared back at Tabitha, as if daring her to speak. Nonchalantly she blew a strand of hair from her face, the General may think she was just a girl, a lonely, lost, girl a long way from her birth star and home, but she had seen horrors he couldn't imagine, fought armies that would have crushed his own and she held his gaze until at last he looked away.

"Sector Fifty-Seven then, General," Tabitha half snarled, pushing the General to disclose the information.

"The virus..." he began, seemingly reluctant to continue talking.

Tabitha sighed, "Fine. Fine, be like that. Here is what the General won't tell you. You are all aware of the virus that has been plaguing the local galaxies for some time now, the one that can control minds?" Tabitha glanced around the room, quite a few heads were nodding.

"Once it infects you, you die," Grace whispered, "leaving only a shell in which it resides and controls."

"Exactly, well thanks to a series of unfortunate events, it has infected a Shadow, someone formally known as Tom Seldrick. Jake said that the Shadow world sent an entire army to fight it, and thought it had defeated it, but they did not. It fled and hid, but it did not lose."

There was shocked silence around the room. "A Shadow?" someone whispered, "one of us..."

"It could be anywhere! Anyone!" a voice cried out, and for a moment Tabitha thought the room was about to break into a mad panic.

Grace however drew herself to her full height, "This is not the time for panic. I gather it is on the ship with Jacob?" she asked, turning to Tabitha.

"It seems that way."

"We must secure that ship when it makes planet-fall, we cannot let that virus escape into the population, if it does, we're all dead. We're almost dead now, but not quite, and now we must fight on two fronts - against the virus and against these cowards who rain fire down from the sky upon us."

Tabitha smiled, she liked Grace... then she realized that she _would_ _have_ liked Grace, this was all just a memory, just a dream and the smile fled from her face. What was important wasn't the ships attacking from above, it was getting to Jake, getting him safely back to the real world before he could be infected by the virus that was inside Tom Seldrick - bringing Jacob back with the virus inside would just lead to an infected Jacob in the real world - as unlike everything else here, the virus was real. It was a legitimate threat to Tabitha and the others as well, though, it was probably unaware of it.

"We're getting a distress call," someone shouted at the same time as someone else shouted "A ship has emerged from, well I don't know where. Unknown configuration. It is entering the atmosphere; the hostiles are attacking. It can't be one of theirs!"

"Play the distress call," Grace instructed.

"-et is under attack, all warships recalled. Planet is under attack, all warships recalled. Planet -"

"Turn it off," Grace instructed again. Tabitha realized that despite Grace's lower rank, she was taking charge of the situation, her faith in her Worlds leadership seemed to have fled her. "It worked then," she said turning to Tabitha with a smile, "he's a clever boy that one."

Tabitha smiled back, "That he is."

"What is all this about?" one of the Generals suddenly demanded.

"Jacob, as we predicted, has activated a distress call. Though _he_ was smart enough to realize that sending in hospital ships was a bad move. Hence hailing warships..." Tabitha replied, fixing her eyes on the General who spoke until he shrugged and turned away slightly.

"We have to meet that ship that's entering the atmosphere," Grace said. "The virus is on that ship and we cannot let it escape into the wider population."

"I don't think so," a voice said, one that had remained silent through the whole affair as a large man, not dressed in military uniform got up from his chair. "You are not in charge here _Captain_ , and neither is this red-headed bitch," he snarled at Tabitha. "I am ordering an evacuation, if the virus can't find us it can't take us. Everyone who can't evacuate is to come here, here to Trey O Gholen. The virus can't spread over the whole world in a day, in a week, in a month. It will take time. We have time. Trey O Gholen has never fallen and never shall!"

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Tabitha demanded, her anger causing her to glow ever so slightly, which in the dimly lit room made her stand out like a beacon, some of the Shadows stepped back slightly.

"Me? I am the President of this World."

"Well, _President_ I suppose you're missing the obvious deliberately?"

"Enlighten me, if you know so much."

"The virus isn't your only threat, there is also those in orbit, those who destroyed Elatromtay."

The President didn't react even slightly, then very slowly and with a surprising calmness he spoke. "I will call them off."

Tabitha's head reeled, as if she had been struck. "You will what?!" she at last managed to spit out.

"I will call them off. They are here on my request."

From the corner of her eye Tabitha saw Graces expression suddenly set, as if carved from stone. She had seen that very expression in Jakes' face enough times to know what was coming next... and then as if on cue, it happened.

"Your request!" Grace yelled, her body shaking with fury. "You destroyed Elatromtay, killed all those innocent people, wiped out entire once proud families! For what?! For what possible reason?!"

Tabitha noticed the stillness of the rest of the room, and suddenly she knew. All these Generals, all these officers, all of these support staff, they all knew. Why else would they have all been here in Trey O Gohlen, the shadow world's greatest fortress and not at the parliament in Elatromtay.

"All the wars with them," he spat at Tabitha, "all the wars with the Lights. That is why. Blame her, blame them!"

"You haven't answered the question," Grace said, her voice cool and calm.

The President paused, choosing his words carefully. "Our... population was unsustainable. We were consuming more than we could ever hope to produce. Our military was too large, we have almost an entire planets population out there in space. This world was incapable of sustaining us any longer, we needed to reduce the population in order to survive! If we had continued on our path in less than a century our world would be dead."

"You are saying your answer to these problems was to just wipe out the population? Not to present it to them, not to ask for volunteers to colonize other worlds - of which there would have been plenty, but instead just to kill them all?" Grace was again shaking with rage.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," the President said, "we owed our allies much more than we could afford, reducing our population means more land for resource harvesting, a smaller military fleet means less payments. Wiping out entire families means no military-insurance reimbursements."

Grace stood dumbstruck, so Tabitha took up the conversation. "It's all about wealth, wealth and greed. You are killing your own people for wealth?"

"I suppose," the President said nonchalantly, not knowing they would be the last words he would speak.

Before anyone in the room could react, a Shadow appeared beside him, a sword blade rung and the President fell to the ground, his head rolling away. The shadow solidified and Grace stood there, looking slightly shocked at what she had done.

"Well that's one answer, I suppose." Tabitha said aloud, to nobody in particular as people piled onto Grace, forcing to her knees.

One of the Generals approached, "For committing the hideous crime of murdering, in cold blood, our President and Leader you are stripped of your rank and sentenced to death. To be carried out immediately." From his side he drew a sword and raised it above him, as Grace stared at the ground before her, clearly in shock. The sword began its downwards blow, rapidly accelerating, but struck the concrete floor with a crash so devastating the blade shattered. The General looked around and his eyes locked with Tabitha, who held Grace at her side.

"We will kill you for this, bitch. You will die like every other Light should!" he roared.

"Perhaps," Tabitha replied, turning to Grace. "Stand tall soldier," she whispered. "You are not defeated yet. Your world needs you -" Tabitha glanced toward the General approaching and immediately changed form to pure energy, lighting the room as if it were the surface of her Birth Star and sending the General, and the others, staggering backwards. "As I was saying, Grace, your world needs you. It demands your leadership. Now is not the time to go quietly to that last great sleep, now is the time to rise up! To rise up and fight, to remind the universe what it is to be a Shadow." Against her shoulder Tabitha felt Grace slowly lift her head. "You must lead them now Grace, their leaders have failed them and it is time for a new leader."

Grace nodded, as she drew herself up. "I will lead them, even if it's to their eternal sleep, I shall lead them." She turned to shadow and vanished from Tabitha's side.

## Chapter 27

The ship shuddered and groaned beneath Williams feet as he ran, trying to keep pace with Angela's rapidly disappearing back, he didn't know where she drew the energy, the strength to keep going like she did. Of course, he wasn't being helped by the sudden transportation across the nothingness of space into the ship, no, that wasn't helping at all. No matter how many times it happened he just couldn't seem to adjust to it, couldn't seem to get used to it. Surprisingly, the worst bit wasn't the feeling of melting, of being ripped apart atom by atom, to be reconstructed elsewhere - no that wasn't all that bad at all, it was a strange sensation for certain but it wasn't really a problem. The problem lay in those seconds between being in one place and being somewhere else, in that time he was in agony, unbearable agony until he reformed at wherever it was Angela was bringing him. He had mentioned in passing the agony to Angela who had said she didn't feel it and perhaps it was because he was a human, not really built for being torn apart and transported around the universe.

He looked up again, Angela had vanished now, so he slowed his pace. There was no point in rushing in all out of breath and unable to speak sense, he knew that whatever version of Jacob he was about to encounter it wouldn't suffer fools lightly, nor would it be very tolerant of people struggling for breath while trying to explain why this reality wasn't actually real. The ship lurched downwards slightly then stopped moving altogether and as William rounded the last corner before the bridge of the ship, he surmised that they had landed, that he was back on the surface of the planet they had not all that long ago fled. Picking up his pace a little he made it to the bridge door and stepped through.

"Well, well, well," said Tom Seldrick. "Another one! This ship is just teeming with life all of a sudden."

William absorbed the scene, to Tom's left, at gun-point, stood Jacob, a deep-set frown settled across his face. On Tom's right was Angela, also being held at gun-point.

"You've got no more hands Tom," William said. "What are you going to do?"

Tom screwed his face to the side for a moment, perhaps wondering how William knew his name, "It's simple really," he said, "you move any closer and I blow one of these suckers apart."

"You expect me to believe you can kill either of them?"

"It's Traelorg," Angela suddenly yelped.

"It's what?" William asked.

"Oh, you don't know?" Tom said with a smile, "Well, let me simplify it for you. Traelorg can kill a Shadow, when it's a Shadow. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it."

In that moment William realized that Tom hadn't recognized either Angela or himself, instead he thought that they were both like Jacob, both shadows. But then why was Angela not doing anything, could Traelorg kill matter-manipulators as well? He really wished he had someone to ask, he stepped tentatively forward and Tom Seldrick fired the gun pointed at Angela. The blast of energy raced past her head, singeing her hair.

"That was a warning," Tom said, "another step and someone _definitely_ dies."

William froze where he was, desperately wanting to do something, anything, but knowing if he tried someone was going to die. He didn't know if death by Traelorg, whatever that was, in this reality would result in death in the real world, or just an escape from this place, but he wasn't keen to find out.

The atmosphere in the war-room - as Tabitha thought of it and as she supposed it was - was tense. The hostility aimed towards her was almost tangible, but she knew what she had to do, why Grace had left her standing here in this room full of Shadows. She was to guard the room, make sure nobody left until Grace could round up some people who weren't in on the scheme to obliterate the planets population. One of the Generals rose from his seat, began talking, began to rouse the others. "We don't have to stand here prisoner to this Light! There is only one of her and there is an entire roomful of us here!"

"Yes!" another cried out, "Let's kill her, free the universe of another Light!"

"It's just a Light!"

"Kill her! Kill her!" The crowded room began to chant.

Tabitha watched in silence as the group slowly advanced down the room towards her, as if waiting for her to make the first move. 'We acted in self-defence,' they would undoubtedly say when Grace returned, if they didn't all flee before then. As approached, reaching the last few meters before they were within striking range she spoke, her voice cool and calm, almost monotonous. "I warn you now, it has been a very long time since I was 'just a Light' as you phrased it. I have seen things, done things and had things done to me you couldn't begin to imagine. In all of the universe there is only one who is able to kill me and he isn't here right now. So, I warn you now. You attack me at your own peril."

"You do not scare us Light! You're just a single little Light, barely old enough to be out on her own and we are many, we are strong!"

The first of the men suddenly reached her, grabbing her arm and hauling her forwards into the mass of others, who immediately began punching and kicking at her. She could feel them began to change to shadow, blocking off the energy from the world around her, trying to weaken her. The distinct sound of an energy weapon being discharged filled her ears at the instant a dull thud struck her side. 'Idiots,' she thought, 'energy weapons are useless on me.' Then, as if switched off, all the heat drained from the room. The lights vanished and Tabitha found herself sitting in the dark and the cold. There was a scraping noise and, barely audible over the sound of all the others in the room, the slight slosh of water. Tabitha realized what it was, she had heard of the energy deprivation tanks of the Shadow People, from Jake who had been disgusted by the thought of them. Knowing the time was on her to act, she sighed and muttered, "Well here goes..."

Jacob hadn't changed his expression from the moment the strange girl had burst onto the bridge. "Jacob!" she had cried causing him to spin around, just in time to see Tom Seldrick draw a second Traelorg weapon and aim it at her. Something about the girl was familiar, just as something about the man who had come in after her was, but he couldn't place it. He knew they weren't Shadows, but if they weren't Shadows how did they come to be here? And how did they know who he was, who Tom was? How did he know they weren't Shadows? His mind was filled with answer-less questions. He did, however, know that Tom was now a little off-balance he couldn't watch all three of them at once and Jacob knew he had to somehow get the girls attention, without gaining Toms, and get her to do something, anything to create a moments distraction so that he could act.

Jacob tried to signal the girl with his eyes flicking them towards her then away... at last she acknowledged with a barely noticeable nod of the head as Tom turned away to check on his other prisoners. Tom's gaze moved from Jacob for a split second, long enough for him to quickly mouth diversion. Again, the girl nodded slightly.

"Tom," she said loudly, suddenly, causing everyone's head to snap in her direction. "as William asked, what _is_ the plan here? You can't keep us all here forever, held at gunpoint. Eventually, you're going to have to do _something_."

Jacob inched forward, reaching for the gun Tom held, but just as he was about to grab it Tom spun back towards him. "Move again and you're dead. You think a little diversion is going to work on me. You," he waved the gun pointed at the girl, "and you," he waved the gun pointed at Jacob, "get over there with the other one. And no funny business or someone dies."

Slowly Jacob did as he was instructed, moving towards the man, the one apparently called William, that had appeared suddenly on the bridge of this ship he had found himself in charge of. When he stood beside him the man hissed, under his breath, barely audibly, "This isn't real Jacob. This isn't reality."

Jacobs frown returned as he wondered where he had heard that before, he was sure he had but he couldn't place when or where. Instead he tried to fathom what the cryptic message might mean, but came up short. Tom urged the trio slowly out of the bride doors and along the corridor, towards one of the access hatches. "Soon it won't matter about you anyway," he said, "soon I'll have a whole planet of Shadows!"

Tabitha felt the changes rippling through her body, felt her hair melt together into clumps that suddenly gained feeling, felt her body growing, though never in proportion. Suddenly one bit would grow, suddenly another bit would. She felt herself rise from the ground slightly as her back became incredibly sensitive to touch and began to ripple then grow. The process took seconds, but it felt to her like a lifetime every time she let this mutation out, it wasn't entirely natural, it wasn't entirely a part of her, it had come from the suited-men, when they had stuck her in their machine. Part of it was from her own people, the ability to grab people, objects, whatever and suck the energy from them, but the bulk of it, the transformation, that was from _them_. Over the many, many, years since that fateful day she had merged with Jacob, blowing up their machine, she had discovered many strange new talents. But this was the one that repulsed her most, this was the one that she had kept hidden from Jacob, this was the one she hated letting control her. For it controlled her, she didn't control it. After she changed, she wasn't in control anymore, it did whatever it wanted no matter what she did. Occasionally, with a great strength of will she could control it, like she did back on Jol in the fight against the suited men to save that world, but she wasn't able to maintain control over it for long and if she held the form for an extended period it invariably took over. That's how she had come to be captured by the suited men in the first place, she wasn't in control of herself and had blundered into a perfectly set trap. Changing form like this terrified her, she was always afraid she wouldn't be able to change back, wouldn't be able to return to just being herself... but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She hauled herself to all fours as the changes stopped, she was now far too tall to stand in the room as she felt the tentacles from her back and head waving around, sensing the energy around them, lunging for that energy. Grabbing the Shadow People and crushing them like insects, sucking the energy from their bodies until they were less than dust in the air. She saw the startled expressions around her, saw some of them begin to retreat, but she didn't care. It was kill or be killed. She reached for Shadow after Shadow, grabbing some as they changed from solid to shadow, and killed them one after the other until they all hung back, standing at the far end of the room, as far from her as they could get.

"We surrender, we surrender!" they screamed at her.

But she didn't care, the thing inside her had taken over. She inched towards them, scraping the ceiling and walls and, with a well-placed hand, crushing the steel table flat to the floor. Tabitha fought with herself, trying to get the creature, the creature she felt like a passenger within, to stop, stop now! But it wouldn't listen. She felt the body, her body, lunge for more of the people, trying to grab them and kill them when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.

"That will do," came a voice, calm and unconcerned, as if it saw this sort of thing every day.

Tabitha felt the energy of the owner of that voice flow quickly through her, she knew that energy, there was only one person with an energy like that. "Jake!" she yelled and suddenly regained control of herself. Immediately she began to shrink, to change back to herself, back to normal old Tabitha.

She turned to her right, eager to see Jakes smile, probably a little lopsided, but instead she looked into Grace's eyes. "Grace?"

"Did you think I was Jake?"

"Yes... your energy is _exactly_ the same. How is that even possible?" Tabitha wondered if it was because this reality wasn't really real, it was unlikely it was able to create distinct energy signatures to distinguish one person from another, especially since neither Jake or Tom were energy beings like her with the knowledge that every single thing had a unique signature.

Grace shrugged, "Who knows?" she said. "I certainly don't, but then I am not a Light."

As the pair had talked armed soldiers had entered the room, guarding the surviving Shadows in the room. Tabitha shuddered. "Let's get out of here."

"Yes, Jacobs ship has landed."

William walked slightly ahead of the others; the corridor was not wide enough for them all to walk abreast. As he walked, he continued to try to formulate some sort of plan to get out of the mess he now found himself in. Like Angela he had not expected Tom Seldrick to be on the ship at all, it was a very unfortunate oversight on both their parts - but nowhere in Jacobs history, that they knew of anyway, had he mentioned Tom being on the ship with him. But then he had never mentioned Tom, and they had changed the events of this history themselves, they should have expected something like this.

He approached the access hatch and reached for it.

"Open it slowly," Tom hissed. "No sudden movements, no turning to shadow and rallying all your mates. Get out slowly, and stay where I can see you."

William followed the instructions, still not sure if dying here would be permanent or not if he was shot with the Traelorg gun, he had never heard of Traelorg before and for all he knew all it did was tickle slightly when it impacted. But the tone of Angela's voice, the way even Jacob seemed afraid hinted at something more, something slightly more lethal. He pushed the hatch release down and it swung open and he stepped slowly out into the night, the air smelt of smoke and he wondered if they had landed exactly at the location of the city that he had witnessed being destroyed. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something move, but when he turned to look closer, he saw nothing. Climbing slowly down onto one of the ships vast wings he heard someone following him out of the hatch, Angela if the breathing was anything to go by. Then came Jacob and at last Tom, who suddenly appeared from nowhere right in front of them. Tom looked around, waving his guns erratically in front of him, as if daring any one of the trio to make a grab for them.

"What is this?" he suddenly demanded, swinging his head to stare at Jacob, and training a weapon right on him. "What the hell is this place!?"

"The Capital," Jacob replied. "Right smack-bang in the centre."

"There is nothing here but ruins! This is not your Capital."

"Oh, it is, just you're a little bit late... it's already destroyed."

"What!" Tom demanded, "What is this!?"

"I imagine your dear friends, the planet destroyers had something to do with it. You know, the ones you so idolize."

William watched this exchange, waiting for a moment to strike, a moment to attack. But despite Toms confusion he didn't forget Angela or William, he kept a weapon trained on her while he snatched glances at him. Waiting for him to move so he could pull the trigger and kill her. Again, William thought he saw movement from the corner of his eye, this time towards the end of the ships giant wing, but, again, when he looked closer, he saw nothing. Except, what was that down on the ground beside them? That very faint glow. The top of it wavered a bit and he felt, rather than saw, eyes lock with his. He smiled.

A voice, a woman's voice that was calm and yet oddly powerful suddenly spoke up from behind where Tom stood, cutting into the response he had been about to give to Jacob.

"Surrender now to the Army of Shadow, or forfeit your existence." A dark-haired young woman suddenly appeared behind Tom, her eyes grey and her expression stern.

Tom didn't move.

"Steady there, Grace. It's armed itself with Traelorg pistols. He lets one of those off and we're all dead. Well, all of us in the direction he's waving it at the time."

The girl rolled her eyes, "Thanks Jacob, I really needed a lesson in the dangers of Traelorg weaponry. Now, Virus, stand down."

Instead of surrendering there was a sudden swirl of a smoke-like substance and Tom vanished from where he had stood.

"Damn," William muttered, quickly grabbing Angela to his side. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Still alive," she replied. "Nerves are a bit shot but I'll get over that. How are you?"

"Much the same."

"I hate to interrupt the reunion," the woman, apparently named Grace, said, "But who the hell are you two?"

"Well, we're..." Angela trailed off, unsure how to explain.

William, remembering the glow he had seen earlier decided to place all his faith in the only thing he could think of. "Friends of Tabitha Rose," he said, completed Angela's unfinished sentence.

Grace continued to stare at them for a few moments, as if making quiet judgements of their character, before turning to Jacob. "Things have changed while you've been gone, the President is dead. I killed him."

William felt his eyebrows lift in wonder, killing a President wasn't something you went around admitting to surely.

"You're running the show now then I take it," Jacob replied.

William felt even more incredulous, he had taken Jacobs society to have risen well above such things as killing off whoever was in charge so that you could rule.

"Not willingly, no. But I got a push from someone who knows you. You know them as well, but not yet."

"Not yet?"

A faint glow appeared beside Grace, seeming to stretch down from the sky above, slowly brightening and transforming to something more solid. Hair fell from a noticeable head down around the being's shoulders and then, as the glow faded into just an ambient sort of light a pair of bright green eyes fixed themselves on Jacob. "I've come a long way to find you again," Tabitha said. "Well... a long time, it would seem, anyway."

## Chapter 28

"It was you!" Jacob exclaimed. "On the ship, just briefly, sitting with your legs crossed on the floor."

"It was."

"Do you recognize her?" Grace asked, keeping her eyes fixed on Jacob.

Jacob frowned, thinking hard. There was something about this Light, for it was obvious that was what she was, that seemed incredibly familiar and yet he couldn't place her anywhere. He knew, however, that he would not have forgotten a face such as hers. "From somewhere," he said at last, "though I have no idea where. And these two as well," he said turning towards the young man and woman on his left, "they are familiar to me also."

The Light spoke, "I am Tabitha, Tabitha Rose. You and only you get to call me 'Tabs'. Beside you are William and Angela, your friends. Does any of this seem familiar to you?"

"It feels like I should know... but I don't. Anyway, we have by far more pressing matters to attend to. Like where the hell that thing that is inside Tom Seldrick has gotten to."

"Walk with me," Grace said, her tone grave, and Jacob fell into step beside her.

"You don't remember any of them?"

"Nope, no ideas at all."

"Well as they are from the future that makes sense, perhaps the familiarity is an echo...."

"The future?" Jacob was amazed, though his people had proven the theory of backwards time-travel they had never successfully engineered a solution. "Anyway, we have no time to worry about that right now. Why's the President dead?"

"Turns out he is the reason this fire was rained from the sky on us, he had got the planet into a little strife and decided we were over-populated."

"Ah politics, there is always some justification for the unspeakable."

"I've missed you."

"Believe me, there were times where I missed you as well. Not often, but occasionally. Usually when doing some horrible task, I would say to myself," he laughed, 'Now if only Grace was here to do this for me.'"

"Would you have killed him?"

Jacob stopped and turned Grace to face him, he looked her in the eye and smiled. "Without a moment of hesitation," he said.

Grace laughed this time, the gentle laughter of relief. "Thanks."

"Yeah, just needed your oldest friend to come along make everything right again."

"Sure, _that_ is it."

"Now what are we going to do about Tom. I gather you got a tracer on him before you even spoke."

"Yeah, we're tracking him as we speak. Those Traelorg weapons are a worry, he could inflict some serious damage and we're already stretched. With those siding with the former President and those killed here in the attacks we're down to only around two percent of our ground forces. Plus, there was something about a battle with this virus on some other world? A whole army was rumoured to have been sent, is that correct?"

"Sure is, but I've issued a new distress call, calling for warships."

"We lost a medical transporter; it was the first to arrive when we sounded the planetary distress call. Now I can't help but wonder if that was all part of the President's plan."

"Probably. It doesn't matter now though. The nearest warship will still be days away. So, it's down to us and whatever forces you have left."

"And your friends. That Light sure knows her stuff."

"Yes," Jacob mused, "and them, whoever they may be."

"Tabitha!" Angela half yelled, rushing forward and hugging her. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you!"

"Likewise," Tabitha replied. "And you Will. I suppose you two have a story to tell, I have my own, but right now we _have_ to talk about Jake. He still doesn't know who we are."

"Can we just tell him this universe isn't reality?"

"Why would be believe us?" William asked. "He doesn't know us from a bar of soap. And anyway, I already tried... kind of."

"In his last reality there was a version of me there already perhaps we just need to find this realities version," Tabitha said.

"Only problem I see with that," Angela said, "is we have the real you right here having another of you won't help us. Remember what happened when the two versions of you met in Williams reality...."

Angela watched as Tabitha screwed up her face, "I certainly do."

"We can't risk that again," Angela pressed. "We got very lucky there that you were still able to reach Jacob, and somehow us – him through that connection of yours, but who would know how you reached us as well – so we were able to get out of that second alternate reality we found ourselves in. Who knows if it would work again? In my reality you guys repeated what I had last heard, could that work? Spark a memory?"

"Can anyone remember?" Tabitha asked, "What were we saying?"

"I think I said 'Well that's that'," William half mumbled. "Then Jacob swore, looked at his leg and was gone."

"Not really going to help us then," Angela mused. "Just telling him might still be the best approach."

"But if Tom overheard us..."

Angela looked at Tabitha, "Is there anything you can think of? Anything at all that might help. Did you notice anything? After you died, according to our point of view anyway, that universe slowly showed up its flaws. Have either of you spotted anything, heard anything, that could be a bug in this universes programming?"

"No," William and Tabitha said together. Then Tabitha jumped, "Yes!" she half yelled.

"Oh?"

"Yes, yes! Grace asked me who I was and I said, 'A Light in the Dark Places' and she said, 'Fruukgal-Ru' then immediately forgot she had said it."

"So... we need someone to ask you who you are and have Jacob hear it. Or, better, get him to ask you." Angela mused.

William spoke up, "Why would she have said your name? Why did you say you were, what was it? A Light in the Dark?"

"The Dark Places, yes." Tabitha said with a smile. "It's a memory of Jacobs, that's why she said it, and it was a bug in the programming."

"So, he is the one who calls you 'A Light in the Dark Places'?"

"Something like that," Tabitha said, with a slight smile.

Jacob and Grace walked back to where the trio of new-comers were standing, he could sense them all staring at him, almost expectantly. He nodded in their direction but kept silent as Grace explained the situation to them.

"We have a tracker on Tom, he's still Shadow at the moment, but as soon as we have a definite fix on him, we will move to destroy him. Tabitha, are you still prepared to do it?"

Jacob glanced at the girl as she nodded. Jacob knew that the only real hope they had was to try and destroy Tom Seldrick's body, to force the virus out into the open - since it seemed apparent that getting the whole lot into a sun to be incinerated was next to impossible now. Maybe he should have directed the ship into a sun when he knew the virus was on board, but never mind that now. Once the virus was in the open, Grace had organized a large group of Shadows to attack it, to kill it. Jacob had immediately volunteered and Grace had frowned at him. "I had hoped you would help deal with our other problem," she had said, pointing upwards.

"He's in Trey O Gholen," someone suddenly shouted.

Grace swore. Jacob raised an eyebrow at her. "Our former President was evacuating people to Trey O Gholen, the place is almost completely full."

It was Jacobs turn to swear.

"You three will have to follow us as best you can," Grace said. "We don't have time to organize a shuttle."

Tabitha nodded and turned to talk to the others, probably to explain where Trey O Gholen was. Jacob and Grace, almost as one, turned to Shadow and reappeared at the heart of Trey O Gholen, the war-room.

"That's odd," Grace said. "I left this room heavily guarded, the last of the Presidents men were here."

"More damned mysteries," Jacob muttered. "Sometimes I wish I had a simpler life."

Grace laughed quietly, "No you don't, otherwise you would never have opted to track this virus and the planet destroyers in the first place. Mystery is what you thrive on."

"True, true. Ready?" he stood beside the war-room door ready to throw it open. Grace unholstered the energy weapon at her side.

"Ready," she replied. Jacob threw open the door and Grace charged through, using the door as cover first and then checking the corridor that was obscured by the open door. "Nothing here," she called back.

Jacob stepped through the door into the corridor behind Grace and the pair slowly began to advance along it, no real destination in mind, only listening for trouble.

From behind them came a sudden yell and then the sound of energy guns being fired. As one they turned and ran down the corridor to the next junction. "Which way?" Grace asked.

"No idea, maybe there will be mo-" Jacob fell silent as gun-fire was again heard, it was coming from the corridor on the left, the one that led, if he recalled correctly, to the large troop dining area, not the even larger, public one. He pointed left and Grace nodded, leading the way along, stopping at each junction of corridors and checking for movement.

At last the pair came to the doors of the dining hall, Jacob pushed one open slightly and Grace peered through the opening. "No sign of Seldrick," she said, "it all seems pretty quiet. Wait..." The sound of gunfire again filled the air. "Seems there is a group pinned down on the right of us, I cannot see what they are firing at."

"Damn," Jacob muttered. "Right, let's do this." He dropped to a crouch and fell in behind Grace as the pair pushed into the room. Immediately he spotted bodies scattering the floor, bodies of his own people, which he thought was rather curious. At last they came across the body of someone else though, a man in grey coloured cloth clothing, his once slicked back hair slightly messed up as he lay on the floor. "Murray," Jacob hissed.

"What?"

"I have no idea why I said that," Jacob murmured in reply. Suddenly shots rang out again, bits of floor exploded around the pair and Jacob knew they had been spotted, he just didn't know if it was by his people or these suited people or by Tom Seldrick.

He jumped to his feet, to get a better understanding of the situation. Across the hall he saw a large group of suited men, they were firing their weapons at him though for some reason they couldn't seem to land a shot. At the last moment he would see the ball of sparking pink and blue energy veer away, safely striking the ground or a table or the floor behind him. "Why does everybody have Traelorg weaponry all of a sudden?" he wondered aloud.

"No idea," Grace replied. "But they seem to be terrible shots."

She dropped to a knee and fired a couple of shots of her own, immediately felling two of the men in grey clothes, in grey suits. From their right a group of Shadow soldiers jumped up and began firing, seizing the advantage and within moments the suited men lay in a pile of bodies.

"Who the hell is this lot then?" Grace demanded of the soldiers.

"They just appeared, could they be who is attacking the planet? They have taken several hostages and vanished as rapidly as they appeared. This is just a small fraction of their force, the place is over-run with them, they seemed to wipe out half the armed force here in seconds with those Traelorg weapons of theirs."

"I don't get it," Jacob said. "Traelorg is ridiculously rare and yet suddenly everyone has some."

"What I don't get," said Grace quietly. "Is how come you weren't hit?"

"Someone watching over me perhaps? How am I supposed to know?" Jacob replied, a little snappishly. He saw Grace's frown, however, and smiled. "Just another mystery. Is the main dining hall, the public one, secure?"

"Yeah, last we checked it was anyway."

"Ok, I want you guys to rally everyone, I don't care if they are soldiers or not, I want everyone in that dining hall."

"Is that wise?" Grace asked. "We'd be sitting ducks."

"Precisely, it will bring all of our many problems to us," Jacob replied with a grin. "Fighting on multiple fronts is getting us nowhere, let's bring Tom _and_ these suited guys to a place where we have the numbers, where we hold the power."

Grace frowned again, but nodded. "Do it," she instructed the soldiers and at once they ran for the exits, hunting out other survivors. "We really should do the same," she said.

Jacob nodded and they headed for the door they had entered the hall from.

"You guys can manage it?" Tabitha asked.

"Yeah," Angela replied, "I am bordering on completely exhausted though. This will have to be the last jump and there better not be too much fighting..."

"We can only hope," William said. "Have you got a plan Tabitha, to get him to remember?"

"I think I know what to do, I've got a plan that will have maximum impact. We just need to get a group of Shadows all together, as many as possible. That seems like it shouldn't be too hard considering where we are going."

"Good, good. Well... good luck, I suppose."

"Don't get hit by a Traelorg weapon whatever you do, I suspect that would do more than kill you here, if you catch my drift."

"Really?"

"I am not a hundred percent certain, I would normally defer to Jake, but... so we'll assume the worse and if it hits you your dead. Really, truly, dead."

"Fair enough," Angela whispered.

"Right, enough fluffing around. Off you two go." Tabitha said, then stood and watched the strange effect of her friends vanishing before her eyes. She had noticed whenever Angela transported herself, or herself and Will, it was never quite the same twice. This time it was like watching an upside-down hourglass, the sand draining away from the top and blowing into the wind. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling ever warmer as she did so and focusing on Jake, not Trey O Gholen, but Jake as she wanted to be where-ever it was he was.

She opened her eyes to find herself in a corridor, just around the corner she could hear voices. "Which way," a female's voice asked. It was followed by a barely audible male voice, but one that she recognized instantly. Hurrying along the corridor, she soon found herself catching up with the owners of the voices as they, themselves, hurried along a corridor towards a set of double doors. She ducked into a side corridor and watched; she could hear their voices, then, after a few minutes pause, they slipped quietly into the room. Tabitha rushed to the door, careful not to run into it and give herself away, the time wasn't right just yet, she needed a group of the Shadow People together, of course her plan was untested but she hoped since it had happened to Grace it would happen to the others as well.

Pushing the door open slightly she was just in time to see a group of suited men pop up on the far side of what appeared to be a large dining hall. They were firing weapons randomly at the floor towards the centre of the room and something told Tabitha that location was exactly where Jake was. Then, suddenly, taking everyone by surprise, there he was. 'Only Jake would think now would be a good time to stand up,' Tabitha thought, knowing as she did so his reasoning behind it - it was clear he couldn't see who was firing at him or where from while he was lying on the floor. Tabitha watched as the suited men reacted, swinging their weapons to aim at him, pulling their triggers.

Suddenly she knew these weren't ordinary weapons, she could sense the sudden release of Traelorg energy into the air. 'Thought that stuff was rare,' she quickly thought, as she reached her hand forward as if to grasp the hurtling balls of energy, closing her left eye a fraction, as if to aim a gun, she focused on the little balls of energy, pulling them towards her before letting them resume their path and crash safely into something that wasn't living. She was curious, however, as to how the suited men had managed to fashion the Traelorg into a bullet-like form as usually it would appear in a type of cloud-burst form, laying waste to everything living in the direction in which it was aimed. One by one she picked them off, so that they would miss Jake, and now Grace standing beside him. At last, Grace reacted to what was happening and fired a couple of shots towards the suited men. Tabitha watched as they suddenly panicked before a burst of rapid fire from across the hall brought them all to the ground. She watched as Grace, Jake and the other Shadow soldiers that had appeared from across the hall conversed, then quickly hid herself as Jake and Grace walked towards her. She fell in behind them when they were a good length down the corridor, watched as they checked every room, every side passage and called out for anybody that may be there to follow them to the main dining hall. Tabitha smiled, closed her eyes and once more transported herself - this time to the main dining hall where people were starting to gather, a very, very large group of people even. "This will be perfect," she whispered.

## Chapter 29

Angela and William materialized outside of an opening that had been carved into the side of a mountain. Outside of it, instead of the expected Shadow guards, lay scattered bodies, all wearing the black armour of, what Angela rapidly assumed, was the Shadow-Army.

"This doesn't look good," William murmured, clutching his stomach. "Man, I wish I could get used to that transporting across space though!"

Angela's body was aching, her mind spinning slightly, as exhaustion began to take its toll, she knew she didn't have any jumps left in her, nor would she likely be able to fight.

She had to hope that it wouldn't come to fighting.

Ignoring Williams complaints, as she often did, and those from her own body, as she _more_ often did, she inspected the area more carefully. There was no sign of any real struggle, most of the soldiers had been shot in the back as if they had been running in a hasty retreat from something, or someone. Peering at the ground she couldn't make out if a large group or just a single person had forced their way through. She walked over to where one of the dead soldiers lay on the ground, putting her hand against their face. "Still warm," she muttered.

Glancing down the right-hand side of the body she saw the hilt of a sword, the one this soldier carried was far too long for her, so she stood up and began checking the others. Although the Shadow soldiers used energy-weapons, they still carried swords - largely because one of their main foes was, of course, a race made of energy so firing an energy weapon at one of them was useless. At last she found a soldier comparable of height to herself and quickly detached a sword and sheath from their body, slinging them around her own waist. Glancing across she saw William was following suit. "Find a gun as well," she instructed.

Rummaging around a bit more, she found an energy-rifle that she felt comfortable with and strode carefully back to William, who was still scavenging amongst the remains. "Damn I'm tired," Angela said.

"I can tell," William replied. "You're doing that thing where you just suddenly stop what you're doing and stare then suddenly start up again."

"I'm doing what?"

"You do it all the time, I thought you knew?"

"Well, we better hope we don't run into any trouble then."

"Any ideas?"

"None. A host of people could have come through here, or just one."

"So Seldrick or... what?"

"Murrays I suppose. As if things weren't already complicated enough."

William faced the door, "In we go then?"

Angela paused for a moment. "In we go then," she said with a nod.

William lead the way with Angela following behind, swinging the gun from side to side and spinning occasionally on the spot, relying on her regular senses more than her matter-sight due to her exhaustion. William suddenly stopped and she walked into him. "Look," he hissed. Angela looked where William was pointing, ahead, lying across the corridor, was the body of a Murray, one of the grey-suited men. "At least we know things can't get much worse now I suppose," William added.

Angela frowned at him, "Those sound an awful lot like famous last words. We're definitely dealing with Seldrick and Murray here then. Which will we find first I wonder?"

"Or which will find us first..."

Sighing, Angela prompted William to keep walking, before a noise suddenly brought them to a halt, there were voices coming from one of the side rooms off the corridor. Angela crept towards the door and listened, "They're bringing everyone to the main dining hall, sounds like we're going to do some sort of last stand there." Pushing the door open slightly Angela saw a pair of people, wearing the armour of the Shadow-Army. Throwing caution to the wind she pushed the door loudly open.

"You can take us with you then," she said. "After all, we are here to help."

The soldiers looked her up and down and repeated the action when William entered the room. "Well..." one began, glancing at the other.

"We're here because Grace sent us," Angela said.

"Yeah, and Jacob," added William.

The soldier's expressions remained sceptical, but at last one sighed. "You had better come with us then."

Angela and William fell in behind the soldiers as they led the way towards the main dining hall, every now and then they would stop and check a room, instructing any others that they found what the plan was, then waiting for them to get organized. Soon Angela and William found themselves at the centre of a group that was easily a couple of hundred strong. At last they stepped through a wide doorway and into what must have been the main dining hall. The room was massive, Angela could barely believe the size of it. Scattered around the room were the few soldiers that remained, but mostly it was civilians that filled the room, many nursing injuries and many others too young or too old to fight. But that didn't stop the few soldiers that were left from walking the room, handing out whatever weaponry was available, knives, short-swords and small fire-arms seemed to be common amongst the now-armed civilians.

"This doesn't look too hopeful," William muttered in her ear.

"No, it doesn't. But look!" She pointed towards the centre of the room where a light had suddenly flared and the vast number of Shadow-people had retreated a step or two.

"Well that's a relief, we're certainly in the right place then." William said, falling into step beside Angela as she walked towards what she had seen.

Pushing her way through the crowd Angela finally reached the person she had spotted from across the room, "Tabitha!" she called.

"What's the plan, Jacob? Do we even have one?" Grace asked.

"Not really," Jacob half laughed. "Make it up as we go along. But I'd much rather go out with a roar than whimper away in a corner somewhere. If this is it, our kinds last stand, it needs to be one for history to remember. 'The Last War of Shadows' they will call it - if we fight and lose. What we call it if we win is for someone else to decide."

Grace frowned, "There is something not quite right about you. Are you sure you didn't get infected?"

"Positive."

"All right then. So, we fight to the death?"

"Sounds good."

Jacob pushed open the main dining hall's doors and was greeted by an impressive sight. At a rough estimate he thought there may have been as many as twenty-five thousand people in the hall - a fraction of what it was designed to hold, but still a decent number, though he feared not enough to stop the death that was to come. At the centre of the room he could see some sort of commotion breaking out, something wasn't right.

He nodded in the direction of the disturbance and Grace caught his eye nodding back. Together the pair ran over to attempt to resolve what was happening, the last thing they needed was fighting breaking out within their already limited ranks.

"I will not fight you; I am not here to fight you!" a young woman's voice said and, although she said it forcefully, she did not raise her voice.

"What in the hells is all this?" Grace demanded. "Fall back. Now!" The ring of Shadow People started to disperse and Jacob was unsettled to see so many soldiers in amongst it but was not surprised when he saw who was at the centre of it all. It was the girl, she with the bright green eyes and vivid red hair. The Light.

"You'll have to forgive them, Tabitha," Grace said. "It is not what they are used to, a Light fighting for us not against us."

Tabitha nodded, though she didn't once take her eyes off Jacob. He watched as she moved closer to Grace then whispered something to her. Grace turned to him, "You'd better stay here, keep an eye on these three-" she waved her hand and for the first time Jacob noticed the others, the ones that had been on the ship. Angela and William or something. "- Just in case they try it again. We'll need all the help we can get."

Jacob nodded, for some reason he felt staying here with these three would be a smart decision. Plus, they were a mystery and he loved a mystery.

"I'll be back shortly," Grace said. "I just need to round up a few people, sort a few issues. You know. Leader things," she laughed, sarcastically, as she walked away.

Jacob watched her go for a few seconds then turned back to the three strangers, all who were watching him expectantly, waiting for something to happen. "I know all of you from somewhere don't I," he said at last, to break the tension filled silence.

The Light nodded, "Yes, you do."

"But you're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No, you have to figure that out on your own."

"I thought so. I do love a mystery though. So, if you're a Light, what are you two?" he asked, nodding towards Angela and William.

They both glanced at Tabitha who nodded, ever so subtly but still enough for Jacob to know that she was approving them telling him whatever it was they were about to say. "I'm from a planet called Earth," the one called William began, "you won't find it here in this universe."

Jacob frowned slightly, travel between universes was meant to be impossible, though science had proven them to exist - it was after all the break through discovery that allowed for faster-than-light travel. "What about you then? Angela?"

The girl smiled at him, "Yes, Angela, and I'm... I dunno if you know of them, but I am a Zonian."

Jacobs eyebrows shot up, "A matter-controller! Amazing!"

"Yeah, well. Don't ask for a display, I've been flat out today making this, moving that, and I'm about exhausted."

"Two mysteries solved then," he said. "Well, kind of. They do raise a few more questions but the most pressing question is for you Tabitha. The girl that only I call Tabs, apparently."

"Is it?"

"Yes. _Who_ are you?"

"You have to remember that yourself, that's how it works. If I tell you Seldrick, or someone Seldrick has infected, might hear us. Nobody has seen him yet the tracer tells you he is here."

"That he is," Grace said suddenly appearing at Jacobs side again, this time with a handful of others, one of whom was a Colonel the others Majors. "This is all the brain power we have left military-wise. Seldrick, or them suited bastards I guess, have done a wonderful job of wiping nearly everyone who has advanced military training out."

"Always the way," Jacob said, "standard tactic really. Cut off the head. Now you, Tabitha, I am not done with you yet." He smiled briefly at her and she flashed one back at him. "But perhaps you, and your friends there, could lend a hand. We need some sort of vague plan. By now they know where we are and they are coming. The suited men and Seldrick. They are all coming here."

"Look out!" Tabitha suddenly yelled in the instant that a blinding light burned at Jacobs eyes, right through his eyelids as he screwed his eyes shut against its blinding brightness. He felt something hit his side and knock him to the ground. Opening his eyes, when the light faded, he found that he, Grace and the officers were all lying on the ground alongside Angela and William. A slightly glowing shape revealed Tabitha striding back towards them all.

"A Traelorg blast, uncontrolled. Unlike those ones the suited men were firing around earlier," Tabitha said, her tone matter of fact. "Came from the doorway over there. My guess is Seldrick is here."

The pile of people that Jacob had found himself in had dragged themselves to their feet as Tabitha spoke and Jacob now looked at the doorway she had indicated. Immediately in front of it lay bodies of the people of his race, though they suddenly stopped except for the odd one here and there.

"What did you do?" Grace asked Tabitha as she halted in front of them.

"Deflected the shot. Well, absorbed that one. Otherwise it could have killed half the room."

"You can absorb Traelorg Energy?" Grace asked.

"Apparently."

Jacob looked at her, a deep frown settling on his face. "When we encountered the Grey-Suits down in the military dining hall, it was you who deflected those Traelorg blasts wasn't it?"

"Yes, that was me."

"Why? Why would you do so much to save us, to save Shadows? Who are you Tabitha Rose?"

"I can't tell you, you have to remember," she insisted.

Jacob frowned, clearly it was important to the girl that he remember himself who the she was, but he was growing impatient with the game she was playing.

Grace grabbed his attention, "She will tell you when the time is right. Until then you have to wait."

Now it was time for Jacob to frown at Grace, he didn't like it when it seemed people were ganging up on him. Sighing with frustration he ordered a handful of soldiers to each of the entrances, to try and head Seldrick, or the suited men, off if another attempt was made at killing them all from afar. It wasn't surprising that any of those that fought against them would use such a tactic, it was cowardice at its finest.

The group formed a small huddle in the centre of the room.

"You two know we're all dead, don't you?" one of the Majors asked.

"Yes," Grace said. "We know it. But we shouldn't go quietly."

"No, that we shouldn't."

"What's the plan?" the Colonel asked. "Or is it one of those make it up as you got along sorts of deals that the two of you -" he indicated Jacob and Grace "- are so infamous for. You'd both be Generals by now if it wasn't for that."

"I like the rough and tumble," Grace said with a smile.

"Soldiers at the front, civilians at the back?" Tabitha suggested, more as a question than a serious suggestion.

"Sounds good to me," Jacob replied immediately. "Though I doubt many civilians here will last long if the soldiers fall."

"Remember, we have two enemies. One we can identify and one that could be anywhere, could be here right now amongst us," Grace said. "If you see anyone acting out of place, out of character, outside what you would expect in this situation you are to order the people to detain them, immediately. Then send for..." she paused. Jacob knew what she was thinking, who would be able to detect the virus if it was infecting someone? He had no ideas.

"Me," Tabitha volunteered.

"You?" Angela asked. "Are you sure?"

"I can sense the energy difference, it makes sense."

"It does make sense," William and Grace said as one.

"So be it then," Jacob said. "Anyone acts strangely send word for this Light to go and check them out."

The officers frowned but reluctantly agreed, they were not sold on using a Light to inspect troops, although Jacob discovered he felt he wouldn't rather have anyone else do the job. He wondered if it was because it may lead to the Lights death, but realized that no, it was because he trusted her judgment completely - a fact which came as a surprise to him.

Gunfire suddenly broke out at one end of the massive dining hall and the huddled party broke up, each going to relay orders and instruct the battle as best they could from various points around the room. As Jacob turned toward where the shots were ringing out they suddenly started at the other end of the hall, then on each side of it. Knowing it was now all or nothing Jacob turned to shadow and appeared in one of the external corridors, sword at the ready and energy weapon hanging at his side. He'd always preferred sword play.

Sneaking along the corridor Jacob soon came up behind a group of suited men, some of whom were providing cover for others who were slipping into the room. Quietly he approached the closest and grabbed him around the mouth, sliding the sword quickly across the man's throat and letting him fall to the ground, seizing the next closest as he did so. To the next man he moved, and the next and as their covering fire was snuffed out shots rang out from his own people, his soldiers, as they, at last, managed to fire into the suited men who had broken into the room.

He turned to shadow and, again, he reappeared in a corridor, repeating the action of before. But he noticed now that no matter how many of the suited men he killed, there was always more. Across the hall, where he had been just moments before, he saw a large number gathering once again, again firing across the heads of their own men, allowing them access to the hall - the distinctly coloured balls of Traelorg energy screaming across the room. Many of them seemed to mysteriously veer off course, however, and go hurtling into the floor or ceiling and it was then that he noticed Tabitha once more. She was standing in the centre of the room, glowing brightly with her head snapping from one direction to another, her hands moving so fast they were but a blur. Jacob knew immediately what she was doing, she was saving them, as many of them as she could anyway, by redirecting the Traelorg blasts to hit something that wouldn't lead to another death. There was, however, a problem. Many of his own people seemed hypnotized by the sight of her, a Light fighting for them instead of against them was almost beyond their wildest dreams. He ran into the room, chancing his life to fate amongst the hail of Traelorg weaponry, yelling at his people to focus, "Don't worry about the glowing girl!" he yelled as he ran past them. "Fight back! FIGHT BACK!"

At the end of the room furthest from him a yell came up, "Tom Seldrick! Tom Seldrick is here!"

Jacob spun on his heel as he ran, towards where the shout had gone up. He knew it was Seldrick with the Traelorg weapon that fired in a wide dispersal, knew they had to disarm him before he could get a shot off. As he ran, he became aware of Grace running at his side. She smiled madly at him as she ran, and he flashed her a smile back. A blinding blast of energy appeared in front of them, knocking Shadow-people to the ground, dead before they reached the floor, before suddenly fizzling out. A glance over his shoulder revealed Tabitha was now focusing on Seldrick, stopping his weapon from killing them all as best she could while still holding off the weapon-fire of the suited men.

The strange new girl, Angela, and William appeared suddenly at his other side, running towards Seldrick as well. He felt a wave of affection for these people as he had never felt before as they ran and then, there he was. Tom Seldrick. Jacob was still running, but Grace had somehow reached him already. He could hear their conversation; it was as if all other noise had suddenly ceased.

"Come to meet your death I see," Tom said. "There is no stopping me now, I have infected more people than you could ever hope to kill."

"But if we kill you, Tom, they will die too. We will know how to kill them, how to stop them," Grace replied.

"Well, I had better kill you before you figure that out."

Angela and William had gotten ahead of Jacob now as well, he had stumbled into a group of quickly retreating soldiers, which had put him off the pace by quite some distance. Tom suddenly seemed to waver, and Jacob could see that Angela, the first Zonian he had ever encountered had her fingers to her temples and was clearly trying to rip Seldrick apart, atom by atom. She was shaking with the effort though and, Jacob watched as if in slow motion, Seldrick was raising his gun at her. He saw his finger begin to curl on the trigger and pushed himself to run faster, to knock the gun aside, to stop it from firing into the room, straight into this strange girl he felt such affection for.

All at once he knew he was too far away; he would never make it in time. But then he saw somebody else was reacting. Time continued to move as if slowed to the absolute minimum required for existence as Grace's head turned towards him, a smile graced her face but there was something else in that expression. A determination. A fierce anger. Sorrow was there, but so was love. Love of her world, love of her kind, love of her friends, her family. She turned away.

"No!" Jacob heard himself yelling.

But it was too late, Grace hurled herself at Seldrick's gun-arm making contact with it the instant he pulled the trigger. She drove the gun upwards with her chest, and in another blinding flash of light she was gone, not even a body was left after being blasted with Traelorg at that close of a range. Jacob felt time returning to normal speed as he at last reached Tom Seldrick, dropping his shoulder into him and sending him sprawling back into the corridor he had entered from.

## Chapter 30

William watched as Tom Seldrick's sprawling body suddenly turned to shadow and vanished. Jacob snarled and smacked a fist against the wall. Angela stood beside William, her expression matching how he felt, shocked, neither of them were sure who exactly Grace was, but she had seemed important to Jacob. William couldn't help wondering if Jacob had seen a scene like this once before, in his actual reality instead of this mockery of it. Jacob suddenly spun on the pair of them, a deep-set frown on his features and then, as quickly as Seldrick moments before him, he turned to shadow and vanished.

"Well..." Angela said, her tone one of disbelief.

"Well indeed. I don't think Jacob is too happy."

"No, he isn't. And when he gets like this, he gets..."

"Unbalanced?"

"Yeah, unbalanced. He'll be off now throwing all caution to the wind and determined to get himself killed."

"That's the one. I suppose we should go see if we can find him?"

"Yes," Angela agreed. "We had best do that, we don't want him being hit by a Traelorg blast after all."

William grabbed Angela's hand and together they ducked, dodged and leapt their way through the room looking for Jacob. The body count was high, everywhere William looked he could see dead or dying people, some suited men, most shadows. In the centre of the room still stood Tabitha, turning this way and that, trying to fight the suited men, the Murrays, on all fronts at once. "How long can she keep that up?" he asked.

"I have no idea, but I think she is growing tired. See how she doesn't glow as brightly as before and her actions are slower as well. She needs Jacob, our Jacob, the proper Jacob."

Hand in hand the pair continued to push through the melee occasionally lending a helping hand when the opportunity presented itself, but mainly looking for Jacob.

Tabitha felt her go. Knew that Tom Seldrick had killed Grace, even before anybody else had time to react. She had tried to suppress the burst of Traelorg energy but she had been too far away, too distracted by the other fighting in the room and too tired. Moments later she felt a wave of energy wash over her and she knew Jacob was angry. Very angry. Carelessly angry.

She turned to watch him, saw him vanish in a cloud of shadow and let part of her mind track him as she continued to try to protect everyone else in the room from the onslaught of the suited men - the truth was, however, that she was losing, slowly but surely they were pressing further and further into the room. More and more of their weapon blasts were finding targets.

She felt Jacob rematerialize somewhere in the building and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. From the corner of her eye she saw Angela and William walking through the crowd, hand in hand, undoubtedly looking for Jake - they knew as well as she did what his mindset would now be like. She called out to them, telepathically, and directed them that Jacob was in the corridors to their left, she wasn't going to be able to help them get there, but if they knew the direction to go hopefully, they could get themselves there before it was too late. 'Too late for what though?' she wondered, if Jacob did die, he would surely wake up back in reality, which was what this whole thing had been about from the moment she had opened her eyes and set them upon this reality's version of Jake's home-world. She was a little uncertain though, she didn't know what would happen if a Traelorg blast got him and he wasn't just killed in a more normal fashion.

William and Angela followed Tabitha's vague directions, William wished she could have been more specific, but knew Tabitha didn't have time to spare on details as she attempted to keep the whole room alive. Heading left they soon came to one of the doorways, this one was lined with suited men and Shadow People locked in battle however and they rushed past it looking for the next one. Twice more they passed doorways filled with battling soldiers and piles of bodies until at last they came to one that seemed completely ignored.

Angela raised an eyebrow at him, "Dare we?"

"It's probably a trap."

Angela laughed, coldly. "Yeah, probably."

William screwed his face up. "Go on then," he said flashing Angela a quick smile and pulling her in to his side, giving her a quick squeeze before letting her go. "You first."

"Oh, how very chivalrous of you," Angela said with a sly smile, before she rushed through the doorway, gun raised, swinging it from side to side. "Surprisingly, it's clear." she called, starting to move left right down the corridor - away from the other doorways that had been filled with suited men. William ducked through the doorway behind her and the pair walked slowly, back to back, along the corridor. William covering the rear while Angela scanned ahead. At every intersection of corridors, they quickly checked them to be clear, then swapped positions, to give each other a break from having to be on the high-alert of taking the lead.

"I don't like this," William whispered.

"Neither do I, for a warzone this place is deathly quiet."

On the pair pressed, crossing corridor after corridor, every so often taking one of the side corridors in a fruitless attempt to find Jacob.

Suddenly the room Tabitha was attempting to protect fell still. The gun fire ceased and the suited men rapidly retreated. The soldiers began to cheer, but Tabitha became increasingly worried. Something was coming. Something big. No way would the suited men give up an obvious advantage such as the one they had unless they thought it was to their tactical advantage. Tabitha yelled out, attracting the attention of the trio of surviving officers, in the blink of an eye they appeared at her side.

"Grace is dead," she said by way of opening statement. "Jacob is indisposed, hunting down Seldrick I imagine. So, it's up to us. What do you think? I think something is coming - this is a tactical retreat."

The Colonel nodded, "I can't argue with that. They were doing far too well to suddenly just give up."

One of the Majors spoke up, "I got reports from a group of soldiers that were outside the base at the time of the attack that several seemed to be climbing up the mountain we're currently under, do you think that has anything to do with it?"

Tabitha frowned, turning to the Colonel. "From above, the peak this base is under looks the same as any other doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does."

"I trust you have some sort of defences to stop electronic signals being sent from here to give away the location?"

The other of the Majors spoke now, "The whole mountain range is electrical suppressant, blocks just about everything you can think of that isn't some form of natural energy."

Running a hand through her hair Tabitha spoke up, "I think they are about to bomb us, remember Elatromtay? The whole city was a smoking crater. If they were to fire that weaponry on us here, enough repeated blasts and eventually the mountain would give way and they'd be free to kill us all."

"Makes a cruel kind of sense," the Colonel said. "The ones going up the mountain will be for manual targeting purposes; they will be sacrificing themselves to give away our location - they must be able to deploy something that can be seen from outside the atmosphere for their ships to target."

"They could just raise some sort of balloon with a beacon on it high enough above the mountain range that the signal isn't distorted," suggested the Major who had spoken on the matter previously - clearly, Tabitha thought, he was in one of the Shadow-Armies scientific branches.

"Well, what the hell do we do," asked the Colonel. "We cannot evacuate, we've taken far too many casualties, there are far too many wounded to be safely carried out of here."

"First," Tabitha said after a moment, "we need to find some volunteers, _volunteers_ mind you, to go up the mountain after the suited men up there."

"They'll surely be killed; if they don't reach them in time the bombs will get them," argued one of the Majors, the one not from the science-branch.

"She's right," the Colonel said. "We need to see if there is still time to stop the attack, with them retreating I doubt that is the case, but you never know. Go find me some volunteers, no fewer than five."

Tabitha nodded. "Secondly, I need you to round up everyone who isn't already here in this room and get them here. Then I need everyone to be as central in the room as possible. Even if that means people having to sit on people, they need to be central in the room."

The Colonel raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

"I'm a Light and they are using some sort of energy weapon, so I will protect as many of you as I can for as long as I can."

"While we do what? Sit around? uselessly?"

Tabitha could tell that the Colonel wasn't happy with the idea of placing all his faith in a Light to save them, but she had thought of that already and devised a plan, perhaps the most important part of the plan. "No, you need to get as many proper troops that you have left. You will go to their ships, plant detonators in them, blow them from the sky. You'd be best in teams of two or three. And you'll need to be fast, I am already drained from this battle, I doubt I will be able to hold back more than half a dozen of the bombs."

The Colonel smiled, "I like this plan. They will be so distracted trying to blow us up down here that they won't notice us sneaking onto their ships and planting explosive devices."

"That is my hope anyway," Tabitha said.

"Well, we best get too it then!"

Angela suddenly stopped and William bumped gently against her. "Do you hear that?" she asked?

William cocked his head, straining his ears. "Yes, running feet. Lots of running feet!"

"Coming this way as well, rapidly coming this way."

William spun around to face the same direction as Angela, both peeling off towards the wall closest to them, leaving them crouched on either side of the corridor. "What could it be?" William hissed.

"One guess."

William sighed, hoping against hope that all those running feet weren't coming along the corridor they were in, hoping that if they were that they would pass them right on by. All of Williams hopes were in vain however, as he soon saw the runners as they came towards him, a large group of suited men, all armed and all in a hurry. Though, suddenly they stopped, pointing, gesturing wildly, in their direction. Then the ones at the front dropped to their knees, raising their guns and taking aim.

Angela swore, loudly. "This is it, isn't it?" she called across to William.

"It certainly seems that way," he began to say, but was cut off as he opened his mouth, by the sudden gunfire. He noticed straight away that these weren't energy-guns however, these were ordinary guns, firing some sort of metallic bullet. This was obviously a group that hadn't been involved in the fighting in the main hall, he began to hope that this meant they weren't as trained as the others, surely with all the noise they had been making he could have this one thing, this one little thing.

To his left Angela opened fire suddenly, letting lose a scream of rage as she did so. William began firing himself and the suited men began tumbling to the ground, but there was always more to replace them, more and more, although none of them seemed to be terribly good shots.

It was then that he realized why; Angela gave a little sob and fell back against the wall. She had been diverting the bullets, using the last of her strength in an attempt to save them so they could find Jacob, but she had exhausted herself, she had nothing left to give.

William knew he had to do something, anything, he scrambled in a half crawl, half drag, across the corridor to Angela, grabbing her hand and dragging her as he duck-walked backwards, firing randomly at the suited men.

But they had sensed their chance.

They came storming forwards, yelling and screaming and firing the occasional shot. As the leader of the pack reached out to grab Angela, William felt something strange ripple along his spine. It wasn't a shudder nor was it a chill. It was warm and filled him with a calming strength he never knew he possessed.

Time slowed.

He saw the tiniest particles of dust moving through the air as if suddenly his eyesight had massively improved. And he saw other stuff, moving as well, in the air. But it wasn't moving through it at all, he realized slowly, it _was_ it. He could see the very air itself. It dawned on him suddenly, this was how Angela saw the world at all times. He had enough time to wonder what was happening to him before he felt himself dropping his gun and throwing his hand, palm forward towards the mass of slowly moving suited men. He saw the air ripple as his hand stopped, saw it seem to solidify and expand to fill the corridor, saw it strike the first of the suited men, the one that had hold of Angela's foot. Saw it squash against him momentarily before he suddenly began to move backwards, saw it strike the other suited men and send them all hurtling along the corridor, saw as they suddenly seemed to glow brightly and then vanish entirely from existence, not even any atoms remained, just a fading light and a tremendous heat.

Time sped back to normal.

"What the hell did you just do?" came a weak voice from the ground in front of him.

Looking at his hand in awe William replied, "I have no idea."

They sat in silence for a few moments until suddenly, from somewhere behind them came a shout. "Come here!" it ordered. Somebody rushed past them and then another person came racing along the corridor, they ran past then slowed and stopped. Turning back to William and Angela.

"It's Seldrick," Jacob said. "He's making for the main hall again. Come when you're able. Or don't. The whole place is about to be blown sky-high by those suited bastards and their missiles anyway." With that Jacob turned and took off after Tom Seldrick once more.

William turned to Angela and was pleasantly surprised to find her on her feet. "We have to get to Tabitha," she said, her voice full of urgency. "You saw those bombs, missiles, whatever they were when they blew up the city. They are some sort of energy-weapon, Tabitha is our only hope now. Unless you can do whatever it was you just did again."

"I have no idea how I did it," William replied, still amazed.

"Then, quickly, we must get to Tabitha."

As the last word fell from Angela's mouth the building shook violently.

"They've started," William said, grabbing Angela's hand and half dragging her back along the corridor, following where Tom Seldrick and Jacob had run to.

The Shadow People had just finished gathering around Tabitha when the first of the bombs struck, shaking the building to its very core and, as if she was connected to it, she felt it shift and shudder. Tabitha glanced up, using her energy-abilities to gauge the thickness of the structure above her. They had dented the mountain, that much was certain, though they had not yet pierced the building. The next blast should, however, give them open access to lay waste to them all.

A shout rang out across the hall, "STOP!" it said. Tabitha spun around; she would know that voice anywhere.

What she saw, though, filled her with dread. Running towards her, as fast as he could go was Tom Seldrick - though Jacob was in pursuit, flicking between being solid and being nothing more than a shadow, he was still some distance behind.

The building shook again, some of the ceiling above fell down, a few people screamed, and Tabitha knew the building had been breached. Behind Jacob suddenly appeared Angela and William, both struggling along but with faces set with determination, they glanced at Tabitha and quickened their pace.

Tabitha couldn't pay any more attention to what was happening around her, she sensed the next missile approaching and gritted her teeth. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and transformed to pure energy. Stretching out across the room as far as she could, lighting it with a strange, harsh, glow.

The missile got closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Then with a sensation like being punched repeatedly in the stomach by a steel fist it struck her as she shielded those below from certain death. She felt its force pushing downwards but she fought back, using its energy release to fuel her own reserves, soaking up its heat, its light. Then suddenly, it was over and she let her breath out as she retook her usual form. Resting with her hands on her knees she glanced around and saw nearly every eye on the building was on her, including those of Tom Seldrick and Jacob, who seemed to have momentarily forgotten their feud.

Tabitha knew this was the moment, while everyone was focused on her, this was the moment to put her plan into action. She locked eyes with Jacob, "Ask me now!" she yelled at him.

He cocked his head on its side, no doubt wondering what on earth he was supposed to be asking her. But then she saw his expression change slightly, he knew what she was telling him to ask, even if he didn't know why she was picking now to make him ask it.

"Tell me who you are!" Jacob called across the hall, though, somewhere deep inside, he thought he knew the answer.

Tabitha glanced around her, as if to check if anyone could overhear. Jacob wondered why now was a good time to ask the question, he wondered if she was about to declare herself the saviour of Shadow-kind or something - and when he looked at the prejudices falling from the faces of the Shadows that surrounded her, he thought that his people would accept that without argument at all. She smiled slightly as she turned to face him once more. "A Light in the Dark Places," she yelled.

"Fruukgal-Ru!" The room echoed with the noise, every Shadow in the room seemed to chant it as one. Though nobody seemed to have noticed they had said anything at all, the people near him even continued to look at Tabitha as if waiting for her to answer Jacobs question. His mind was racing, surely everyone in the room had not just said the same thing at once, as if of one mind. "How did you do that?" he called to Tabitha, suddenly suspicious, though at the same time curious. He was reminded of the language he didn't recognise on the sticker on the spaceship, hadn't it ended with the words 'Fruukgal-Ru'?

"I didn't," she replied. "It's just something that happens whenever I say what I said within earshot of one of your people."

To Jacob the rest of the room seemed to suddenly not exist, to slow right down in speed as if it wasn't moving at all, all he could see was Tabitha with her green eyes locked with his. "Say it again," he said, quietly, so quietly he himself barely heard his words.

"A Light in the Dark Places," he heard her say, quietly, as if she had been standing right beside him not half way across the massive hall he stood in.

Once again, the room roared as one. "Fruukgal-Ru!"

Somewhere, something deep in the back of Jacobs mind opened up. "These people shouldn't know the old tongue," he said, surprising even himself, "Though at this point of time its barely the old tongue, it's still fairly new really: only a handful of worlds are speaking it. But it's certainly not the language of the Shadows."

Tabitha smiled at him. "You've nearly got it now Jake, just put the pieces together."

Still it was as if nothing else existed except Tabitha, he could hear other people talking, he was sure some of them were even calling out to him but they were like ghosts in the wind, barely noticeable. He sensed Tom Seldrick approaching but it was as if he was no longer worthy of his attention at all, Seldrick was suddenly less than nothing to Jacobs mind. He ran his hand through his hair and as he did so he noticed Tabitha's smile grow larger, though he hadn't thought it possible. She held up her right hand, tapping her fingers across her thumb. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap. As if in a trance, Jacob lifted his own right hand, copied her exact motion, synced himself with her finger tapping. And then it was as if his mind exploded.

"My Light in the Dark Places!" he yelled at her.

"Fruukgal-Ru!" the room shouted.

## Chapter 31

At last Jacob recognized the fact that Tom Seldrick was carefully approaching him, and turned to face him, all the while wondering if perhaps Tabitha's little trick had worked on him as well, wondering if Seldrick remembered, knew, like he himself now did, that none of this was real.

"You think you can scare me?" Seldrick asked. "Getting everyone to speak as one is just a cheap trick."

'Well, that answers that question,' Jacob thought. "Not trying to scare you Tom," he said aloud, "just trying to remind myself of a couple of things. The problem I have now, though, is I need a chat with the red-head over there and you're being awfully distracting running around threatening to kill us all. So, the question is, what do I do about you?"

Tom paused, his expression changing to one of confusion. Jacob hoped he hadn't given the game away, hadn't accidently let Tom know that this wasn't reality. For a long time Tom did nothing, the room glowed slightly for a brief moment then shook violently as Jacob and Tom eyed each other up.

"Jake," Tabitha called, and though he heard her he didn't hear her at all. The voice was in his head. "I can't do that again; I just don't have the strength to do that again." Jacob could hear Tabitha's thoughts as she projected them telepathically to him and knew that she was past the point of exhaustion.

"Then don't," he thought-spoke back at her. Stay here with the others, the blast will kill you and kill them, but, it will set you free, send you back into the real world."

"What about you?" she asked.

"I have to get Seldrick out of here, or we just end up with the same problem all over again." He looked back over his shoulder and saw Tabitha's head tilt slightly downwards in a nod of agreement. Waiting a few more moments, again staring down Tom, Jacob at last heard the sound he had been waiting for, in the air above them something wailed, a missile was coming. At the last second, right before the missile of death entered the remains of the building above them, he stepped forward, towards Tom. "So, Tom," he said. "How about you and I take ourselves a little trip?" Jacob rushed forward and tackled Tom before he had time to react, at the moment of impact he focused all his mind on a location on the far side of the planet and when he pushed Tom backwards and opened his eyes he found the massive hall was gone, replaced with a field of blue-green grass.

Tom snarled at him, "You cannot defeat me! You're too late! Even if you do kill me now, I have already infected half the people in that room, they were waiting for their moment to strike, waiting for me to finish you off. But no matter, now that you're here with me they will finish off everyone else anyway."

Jacob shook his head slowly. "Tom, Tom, Tom... they're already dead. It's just you and me now Tom, I got us out of that room moments before it exploded and was wiped from existence."

"Lies!"

"Why would I lie Tom? To scare you? No, you don't get afraid. To rattle your cage a little, to put you off your game? Maybe. But I know you can check, you're inside a Shadow's body, you can tell that they are gone already."

Tom looked at Jacob, his expression hard. "So, you speak the truth... but why save me, why save me but not all of them?"

"I never mentioned saving you, I just couldn't have you die."

The noise was terrible, almost beyond anything Angela had heard before. At the last second the people in the room seemed to realize Tabitha wasn't going to save them this time. Many of them began to change form, to attempt to flee their fate. Many of them began screaming uncontrollably. Some stood up, looking upwards at their impending death, their faces hard and expressions stern and then, it hit them. A blinding wall of light, so bright it snuffed out the strongest of shadows, it burnt Angela's eyes and she grabbed for William. Somebody ran into them, or was thrown into them.

"Don't fight it, either of you," Tabitha's voice said softly. "This is our ticket out, Jake's going to follow as soon as he can."

Angela felt herself nodding as she was suddenly pummelled by a rush of air and dust before a searing heat raced across her and everything went black.

Moments later she opened her eyes.

The room was dark, the floor was steel and cold, it vibrated ever so slightly.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she squeezed Williams hand, she was home. Back on the ship that had taken her to so many different points of the universe, back where life made as much sense as it had ever done. She slowly stood up, dragging William up with her and spotted Tabitha standing beside the machine, the machine that could create worlds based on memories, could create worlds based on unexplored realities, could create worlds of dreams. It was a truly remarkable piece of machinery.

"How long do we wait," William grunted. "I don't really want to go back in there, but I will if we have to."

"How long have we been gone?" Angela asked.

"That's a good question," Tabitha said.

"Why?" William asked.

"Because, Will, think about it. We already know time isn't constant in there, moments in one universe were months in another and then there was mine that jumped all over the show, time wise. We may wait a day out here and its only been an hour in there, or an hour here might be a day there. We need to work it out, give him maybe two hours of time in there, however long that works out to out here, before we go back in after him."

"Makes sense," William replied. "So how long has it-"

"An hour in there is about thirteen-point-six-five hours here," Tabitha cut in. "I suggest we all get some rest," she added, though made no move to move away from the box that now housed only Tom Seldrick and Jake.

Angela looked at Tabitha for a moment, then took her hand. "That means you as well, waiting here won't do you any good. If he comes back when we're all away sleeping, well, he'll just have to surprise us." She stepped away and pulled at Tabitha for a moment, before Tabitha sighed.

"You're right of course. He'll never let it go if we're not here to meet him though."

"And he'll never let it go if we don't go and get some rest in case we do need to go back, you can't win with him."

Tabitha laughed, "When you're right, you're right."

Angela grabbed William with her other hand and lead the trio out of the shuttle bay and back towards the living quarters that were tucked into the deck below the bridge. Just before they reached them Tabitha stopped, "What if Seldrick comes back?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"What if Jake loses and Seldrick comes back?"

"There must be a way to defeat him," Angela replied. "Did Jake ever say anything to you about it?"

"Honestly? No. But if he is in a Shadow he can be killed, the same way you destroy any other Shadow."

"How is that then?" William asked, curious.

"Get it into a sun."

"We'd better set this crate on a course for the nearest one then," Angela said.

"Yes, we had."

Jacob frowned, realizing he had a predicament now on his hands, he had to convincingly fight Tom and be killed to escape this reality and yet he had to ensure that he didn't accidently kill him, as if he did Tom would escape this reality. The other problem was that he had to be killed, not infected, but killed and he wasn't sure how best to do that without Tom also being killed. There was another option of course, to tell Tom that this wasn't real, to convince him this was all a virtual world and then dispose of him once they were back in reality – right now that was also a very viable choice. He wished he had told Tabitha to just launch the machine into a sun, but he knew she would never do that while he was still inside lest it kill him in all versions of reality, and in all honesty he wasn't sure what would happen if the machine was destroyed with him still inside. Most likely it would let whatever was inside of it out. Tom would be destroyed, as the virus resided inside a Shadow, but Jacob would live, having just enough Light inside him.

Tom caught his eye again, the pair continuing their stand-off. At last Tom spoke in reply to Jacobs earlier statement, "Why could you not have me die, if you weren't saving me from death what were you doing?"

Jacob floundered with indecision, and while most of his mind tried to come up with a plan, he let his mouth do the talking. "Well, if you died here you would have been free to die somewhere else and I wasn't sure if that was the best of the options available. Not with my friends so weakened already."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, the true nature of the universe - that sort of thing. So, if you could have anything you wanted, Tom, what would you have in your own little world?" Jacob could see Tom was caught off guard, he could see him wondering if perhaps Jacob had just flipped to the side of insanity and then, suddenly, a plan began to form in Jacob's head. "Tell me about this Traelorg stuff, where did you find it?"

Tom Seldrick laughed, it pained Jacob to hear his old friends laugh coming from a body that was no longer his, a mind that was lost forever to this virus, this virus his own people had created in a horrible misadventure of science. It seemed that he had been running from this abomination his whole life, running and running from it, but it seemed no matter how far you ran, how fast you ran, you could never outrun your past.

One day you had to stand up and face it.

Today was that day.

"In a little pocket of the galaxy, locked in orbit around the super-massive black hole that keeps it all together is a star like no other. Instead of being sucked across the event-horizon whenever the black hole swallows some new food source, momentarily expanding, it wavers and falls back. Right on the very edge it sits, if you were to stand on its surface and hold out your hand the gravity of the black-hole would take you."

Jacob nodded, as if in understanding, though in his head he was running through everything he had ever known about the universe, everything he knew about black holes, trying to see if this was even possible.

"The star is called Traelorg by those who reside near there, hence the name of the energy. But I am not telling you anything you don't already know. Your people have known of Traelorg since well before your time, they have known of it since before even I was created in their labs."

"I know, I was just curious as to how you even came across it, how you were able to control it, to weaponize it."

Tom frowned at Jacob, and Jacob hoped like he had never hoped before that Tom hadn't seen through his plan. Tom began to slowly approach.

"Since you are about to die anyway, you may as well see this," Tom said holding out the weapon.

"You expect me to take that?" Jacob said. "Do you take me for a complete fool? You have surely covered that thing with little tiny copies of yourself. You're not Tom remember; you just look like him. You're a virus and you're damn well going to be all over that gun, you'll infect me the moment I draw it close to inspect it."

"True," said Tom, "very true." He began to retract the weapon but Jacob quickly spoke up.

"Hey, hey. I didn't say I didn't want a look. And..." he paused, counting to five in his head.

"And?"

"And perhaps it's pointless my resisting you anyway, look at me. The last of my kind, all that I ever loved destroyed by those in the suits. Maybe... maybe you should infect me. Together we could destroy those suited men."

Tom cocked his head sideways, his eyes fixed on Jacobs in a hard stare. Jacob held the gaze, refusing to blink and hoping like hell Tom wouldn't see through him.

"Yes... together." Tom said, though Jacob knew once he was infected there would be no together, he would cease to be. Though his body would live on.

Jacob reached for the gun, grasped it in his hand. "What's the best way to do this, hold it near my head?"

"Yesssss..." Tom hissed. "Near your head, yes!"

Jacob moved the gun to point at his head, still holding it some distance away.

"Closer!" Tom urged. "Closer!" he stepped forward and shoved the gun towards Jacobs head.

A fraction of a second after Jacob felt Tom's hand hit his own and he pulled the trigger.

Tabitha breathed in sharply, turned to energy and vanished from the bridge. "Where the hell did she go?" William asked Angela.

"Jake's back!" Angela yelped, racing for the doors and hoping William was following along behind her, she tore down corridor after corridor before careening into the damaged doors of the shuttle bay, squeezing through them and emerging into the vast empty space.

And there she saw Jake, just being pulled to his feet by Tabitha. Angela had no idea how she had managed to get to the shuttle bay so fast, perhaps she had accidentally teleported which happened from time to time when she was in a desperate hurry. Jake was laughing as she approached, and she was immediately relieved. Behind her she heard William enter the room, heard him run up, spluttering.

"Bloody hell," he said. "Don't bother waiting for me."

Angela laughed at him, relieved to have Jake back once more. As the pair approached Jake saw them, beckoned them over. Grinning.

"Cheated death again I see," Angela said by way of greeting.

"You know me, invincible." He laughed again. "Traelorg energy, I should have known right away."

"Known what?" William asked.

"There's no such thing," Jake said with a laugh. "It doesn't exist."

"But... we all knew about it, all except for Will," Angela said.

"Yeah, but all those other realities altered everyone's mind as well, didn't they? Everyone was slightly different to their usual selves, so what's adding Traelorg energy information? Nothing, that's what it is. Nothing at all." Behind Jake, Angela saw Tabitha frown slightly - which in turn unsettled her a little. "A star in orbit around a black-hole. What a load of nonsense," Jacob continued with a laugh. "Anyway, we should probably fire this thing into a sun as soon as we can. Tabitha," he turned to face her, the frown quickly vanishing from her face. "I trust you set a course to the nearest star when you appeared back here, just in case our friend Tom escaped before me."

"That's the one."

"Excellent... so, any questions?"

"I have one," said William. "What was that virus inside Tom?"

Jacob frowned, glancing at Tabitha. "Years, many years, before I was born there were many wars between the Shadow People and the People of Light. The virus, well, it was created to destroy the Lights, but it went a little - well a lot, really - wrong. All the samples were destroyed, but one was smuggled out by a scientist that time has forgotten and released into the wild to destroy the Shadow Peoples enemies. And the rest is history of course, eventually it infected my friend Tom - the universe only knows where it was before then, though the Shadow Army had been seeking it for some time - and I have no idea where it has been until now, when it decided to strike... though, apparently, making itself a reality generator was one of the things it was up to, amazing technology when you think about it."

While Jacob had spoken Tabitha had gently, quietly, placed his hand on his shoulder, Jacob had reacted, but only slightly. He had dropped his shoulder downwards a fraction, it was a tiny movement but Angela had seen it. She flicked her eyes at Tabitha, who subtly shook her head. "I have another question for you," Tabitha said her tone light, conversational.

"Yes?" Jacob replied, turning to face her.

"If Traelorg didn't exist where did the idea of it come from?"

"Oh, that's an easy one!" While Jacob was distracted Angela quickly squeezed Williams hand, pulled him in close as if hugging him them quietly whispered in his ear. "Make up an excuse, get to the bridge. Do everything you can, over-ride the fail-safes, fly this crate into the sun." William nodded then started coughing.

Jacob stopped his explanation of Traelorg being something that must have come from the virus's imagination to look at William. "You right there?"

"Just need a drink I think," William replied, moving towards the door.

"Fine, fine. We'll catch up later."

Jacob resumed his chatter and Angela again caught Tabitha's eye, this time she nodded slightly and Angela spoke up.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I just thought of another question."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It's a simple one really. Is Jake still alive?"

"What a stupid question, of course I am, I'm sitting right here."

"No," Tabitha said. "You're not."

Jacob leapt to his feet, "Yes I am!"

"What's my name?" Tabitha asked.

"Tabitha, Tabitha Rose, Fruukgal-Ru, Tabs - but only to me."

"What's mine?" Angela asked, realizing where Tabitha was going with this. In the whole time Jacob had been back, he hadn't once asked after them, hadn't once said their names.

"You're Ange, Angela. The other chap is William."

If this thing was the virus it had done its research, that much was certain, but Angela trusted Tabitha's judgment, if she said this wasn't Jake it wasn't Jake.

"What's your name, in the old tongue?" Tabitha pressed.

"Bygash-Ru," Jacob replied.

There was a paused, silence fell over the trio.

"Satisfied?" Jacob asked.

"When you think of me," Tabitha said, "what do you think of?"

Angela thought that this would prove whether this was Jake or not, it didn't seem like it was Jake, but it might be and he might just be a bit shaken. She wouldn't know though, but Tabitha would.

Jacob turned to face Tabitha, looked her right in the eye. "The smell of ozone, of electricity, of lightening in the air, rain on the wind! My light in the dark, my friend, my partner, the other part of me. Come on, Tabitha. It's me!"

"Who am I really?"

Jacob faltered.

"I thought so," Tabitha said lunging for the machine. Jacob reached up to grab her but Angela materialized a crudely formed sheet of steel between Jacob and Tabitha. Jacob shoved the steel aside, but it was too late, Tabitha had pressed a handful of buttons. Jacob balled his fist and hurled it towards the instrument panel on the side of the machine.

Angela leapt forward, tackling Jacob, at the last instant, moments before his hand grazed the machine. Jacob tried to strangle her, but she held his mouth shut, she did not want to be infected with the virus. A bright green light filled the room suddenly, bursting forth from the box.

And then there he was.

The real Jacob.

"Took you long enough!" he said. "Tabitha, a bit of light if you please. Angela something like... like soup."

## Chapter 32

The room suddenly blazed with the light of ten thousand suns, the air got thicker and thicker until it was like breathing water, like breathing a thick soup. Then it began to get hot. Super hot. Boiling hot.

Jacob could feel his body flickering, the Shadow part of him was struggling to remain intact, but so was the body that the virus inhabited. It let go of its grip on Angela and she fell back from it, panting for breath but her fingers and hands twirling, twisting as she changed the nature of reality. Jacob bent down and picked up his doppelganger

It snarled and fought with him, its eyes flaring red as it went from solid to shadow to nothing at all in no particular order. Every time it vanished entirely a little angry red cloud remained, this virus itself, so plentiful in number that it was visible to the eye, like a toxic, coloured, gas.

Williams voice filled the soup-like air. "Fifteen Seconds" it said.

"I'm done running," Jacob snarled at the thing he held in his hands, "I win."

"Never," the thing spat at him.

"Ten seconds."

"Angela, the ship!" Jacob ordered.

Around him Angela, the ship, the soup like air, and the light that was Tabitha suddenly vanished, plunging him and the thing he held into the depths of space.

Although, space wasn't really that deep.

The thing he held in his hands struggled, it fought, it pleaded and it begged. But Jacob didn't let go. It was simple physics now - a bit of momentum and a whole lot of gravity. The movement spun the pair around slightly and Jacob saw the massive sun that loomed before him, so close he could touch it.

And then he did.

The light and the heat burned, but still he held onto that thing, that hideous creature that had been Tom, but had long stopped being his friend, hadn't been his friend since the moment it had seen Tom on that ship so long ago.

Jacob felt nothing in his hands.

It was gone.

And he was going too, the heat, the heat and the light. It was too much, too much...

He breathed in sharply, cold, fresh air filling his lungs. Beside him, sitting on the floor a tangle of red hair veiled a face he longed to see. Reaching up he brushed the hair from it, "Pretty girl," he mumbled before speaking louder, clearer now. "Hello again my dear."

The face broke into a smile, "Hello to you too! The first Shadow to walk upon a sun and survive!"

"With a little help from that part of me that is you of course."

"Of course."

"I thought you weren't coming."

"We had to make sure it was dead, gone, none of it was left on you anywhere."

"Sounds like something I would have done."

"Exactly."

"Where are the others?" he asked, as the door to what he had slowly begun to realize was his sleeping quarters slid open and a pair of faces appeared.

"Come in, come in!" he said.

"Did we kill it?" William asked.

"Yes," Tabitha replied, stroking Jacobs shoulder slightly with her thumb.

"My flying was good then?"

"Your flying," Jacob said, pulling himself into a sitting position, "was excellent. We may get you to do that more often! How you managed to place us that close to the star without getting caught in its gravity I don't know."

"I may... have burnt out the Fruig Drive system..." William replied, looking sheepish.

Jacob laughed, "To save us all, to save the universe, that is a small price to pay. Nothing we can't fix up. And Angela! The heat in that soup like air was a nice touch!"

"I had to hide the fact that the ship was burning up somehow, all a matter of density anyway, the denser the air got the more particles collided, the hotter it got. Though I am not sure why you wanted the air so thick?"

"A distraction of course, needed to keep that things mind busy so it couldn't realize its death was upon it and make some sort of escape. We make a good team," Jacob said. "Now what gave that thing away."

"The energy was all wrong," Tabitha said at once.

"It didn't care about anyone but itself," Angela added.

"Yes," William said. "It was on and on about itself way more than you usually are," he grinned at Jacob.

Jacob laughed, "Well thanks for that wonderful insight."

"And it said something else, it said Traelorg didn't exist. Some story about a star in orbit around a black hole," Tabitha added, quietly.

Jacob stopped laughing, "Well that would be a bit of a giveaway now wouldn't it."

"Why?" William asked.

"Because Traelorg does exist of course. Though it's not a star," Tabitha began, before Jacob cut in.

"No, not a star. It's a weapon. A weapon from very long ago, a weapon the People of Light made in response to the virus made by my people. Those were dark times indeed."

"You're saying that the Shadow People did make the virus?" Angela asked, Jacob knowing from her tone she was shocked.

"Yes, and the People of Light made Traelorg. I am not sure which is the greater crime," Tabitha whispered and a silence fell on the room.

"How did you get back here?" William asked, suddenly. Jacob was not surprised though, he knew William didn't like long silences. "Why did the virus seem to be you?"

"Now that is a story!" Jacob told his story to them, from the moment he had instructed Tabitha to let them all die, to return them all back to reality.

"You shot yourself?" Angela asked. "Then how did the virus get here?"

"It was my mistake really," Jacob said. "Tom had figured it out. I don't know when he figured it out, or how, but he knew alright. He knew, when I took the gun what my plan was, he was one step ahead. When I thought he was pushing the gun at my head he actually tilted it backwards, blasting himself and destroying the gun in the process. Traelorg was always remarkably unstable stuff."

"But why did he look like you?" William pressed.

"A Shadow is just a shadow and can take many forms. Tom looked a lot like me to start with so a few minor adjustments and lo and behold, another me!"

William frowned at him. "So, turning the machine off set you free. Why couldn't we just do that when we got back?"

"We needed rest," Tabitha said.

"You mean, you never thought of it?" Jacob said with a smile.

"Well that too," Tabitha laughed.

"Speaking of rest..."

"Yes, yes, we should go," Angela said.

"Tomorrow we'll have a proper debrief I think, get everybody's side of the story. Celebrate being alive."

Angela nodded, "Yeah, that sounds good."

Jacob smiled at her, at William. "Thank you both."

Angela smiled back, "You would have done it for us."

"I always do."

"This is properly reality though now isn't it?" William asked as the pair were about to step from the door.

Jacob looked at him, he had wondered the same thing himself the first time they all came back from their various realities. "I don't think there is any way to tell," he said. "But this feels right."

William nodded, "Yeah," he took Angela's hand, "It does."

The doors hissed slowly closed behind them and Tabitha leant her head against Jacobs shoulder, he stuck his arm around hers and gently stroked her hair. "What is it?" he asked.

Tabitha didn't respond for a long time, then at last she asked a question. "Who was Grace?"

It was Jacobs turn to fall silent this time for a while, while he put together his thoughts. "Grace... you know how my mother died at childbirth and my father was killed by a Traelorg explosion?"

"Yeah," Tabitha said and Jacob could feel the tension in the air, feel it coursing through her body.

"Well I was raised by my mother's family, Grace was my cousin, though she was always more of a sister. She was a few days younger than me." As he spoke, he felt the tension fall from Tabitha. "You thought she was something else, didn't you?"

Tabitha laughed sheepishly, "Yes... I did. But she seemed like something else she seemed -"

"In that reality I think a fair bit of you was imprinted on her. When I first met you, you reminded me of her a little, and, well, memory is a powerful thing," Jacob interjected.

Tabitha nodded, "That makes sense. All the other realities were stuffed with strange new versions of ourselves."

"Exactly."

"Like that version of me in Will's reality..."

Jacob raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"I am so sorry for what I said to you while in that world Jake, I don't know what came over me. I don't actually think those thi-"

Jacob quieted her with a laugh, "Tabs, my dear, I didn't believe you for a second in that universe. That crazed version of yourself had imprinted itself on you and sent you off the rails. Though sometimes I wonder... you didn't ask for any of this."

"No, I didn't," Tabitha replied. "But you know what? I wouldn't change a second of it. The moment you stepped through those doors for the very first time I somehow knew that my life was going to be where-ever you were. So, no I didn't ask for it, but if I could go back to that time, moments before you stepped onto that space station, this is the life I would ask for."

Jacob squeezed Tabitha to his side and the pair sat in silence for a while. "There was something else that gave the virus away," Tabitha said at length.

"Oh?"

"He didn't know who I was."

"Really?"

"Oh, he had all the names, but he forgot the Places."

"The Places?"

"Yeah, where the Light is. He said, 'My Light in the Dark', he entirely forgot the Places."

Jacob laughed, "Foiled by a single word."

"Grace said you knew what I was to you, so I suppose it was a hint that I know what I am to you, she wouldn't tell me what you thought. Do you remember our conversation? I think it may have been the day before things all turned upside down."

"I think so, the one where I didn't know what to call you."

"Yeah and I said I didn't know what to call you either. But I think we both know."

Jacob smiled, "Horla Tabha, zio Weava."

Tabitha sprang back from him shocked, flaring, for a second, with a brighter glow than was normal. "I didn't know you still remember the language of the Light!"

"Full of surprises, that's me!" he replied, as Tabitha snuggled back under his arm at his side.

"Fruukgal-Ru, Laaturk. Bygash-Ru, Krutaal." she whispered, then laughed slightly.

"So, the other bit would be... Kohal, zio Weala in your tongue," Jacob mused.

"Definitely! I am amazed you remember so much of it!"

"Well, I have been back in my own past a few times just recently. And on two of those occasions, although I didn't realize it at the time, we were both speaking your tongue."

Tabitha laughed, "So do I get to move in here now then?" she paused. "Or do you want to keep up separate rooms."

Jacob thought for a few moments, what he said next would be a big step for them, to his mind it seemed bigger than the defining of who exactly Tabitha was to him that had just occurred. "Move in, you're here most nights anyway, aren't you? What's a few more? Just as long as I get my space still when I need it."

Tabitha laughed again, "And you will give me mine?"

Jacob smiled, "Of course, what sort of husband would I be if I did not?"

"And what sort of wife would I be?" Tabitha said with a smile, her faint glow brightening the room.

