I woke up at the hospital two days later. Invent One was already there, sitting next to my bed, staring at the wall again.
It had placed a phone next to my pillow, playing quiet music. There were other patients there, all asleep; it was deep at night. When it saw awake, it nodded, handed my phone to so I could check in on my friends, then gave a curt account, like a report. Traversing the storm had been difficult; it needed to read the currents and wait in specific spots, to not be blown away. It had noticed the fire already burning ablaze as it left, but had no ans to end it.
Listening to IO kind of broke my heart. There was this gigantic entity, used to the idea of being able to do anything, failing at this task due to the weak body this reality afforded it. These thoughts were hidden under the surface, apparently only in uncharacteristic gazes and little trembles of its fingers.
If I hadn’t kicked it out eventually, it would have probably stayed forever. Sohow, the hospital staff did not release it; I wouldn’t be surprised if it had done so fuckery, like when it covered up the investigation into the death of its body. ‘Read-only access’, my ass. Sure, that was mostly true, but I at least figured it could manipulate so electrical circuits and digital data.
I told Invent One it needed to eat and rest, and hesitantly, it agreed to take a break. Thank fuck. I liked having it there with and was looking forward to its return, but sotis it needs to be told obvious things.
When I texted Theora about waking up, she was torn to co over imdiately too. Wise as I am, I asked her what she was doing, and it turns out she would have to abandon rescue efforts to visit , so I told her I’m fine until she’s got ti.
anwhile, my roommates said our house was gone.
Gone, as in, gone. There were no ruins to speak of.
I was asleep when Theora ca over, and woke up to her sitting beside my bed, squeezing my hand. She didn’t wake , she was far too gentle for that. It was just what she always did when she took care of while sick.
“Good morning,” she whispered, low enough not to disturb anyone.
I swallowed, and gently squeezed back. “Morning.” I teared up. “Dema…”
Theora nodded. “I have her retained.”
I needed a mont to process those words. She had her retained? “As in, with your Skill?”
Theora nodded again, and pulled her chair closer to the bed to whisper to under her breath. The other patients were awake, but I gather she doesn’t want everyone under the sun to hear about this stuff. “Invent One notified , and I hurried to your place. When I arrived, the house was almost completely burnt down. The basent was about to flash over. Dema had already—” Her voice broke. It took her a while to get the words out — but apparently, Dema had been lying higher up than , and…
I stared at Theora, biting at my lips.
She ended with, “Essentially, I pulled you out, then retained the entire building to make sure I got all of her remains.”
So that’s why the house was gone. “You can just do that?”
Theora shook her head. “I cramd it all in. If I do it again, the Skill might break. But I couldn’t—”
“You needed to get all of her,” I summarised, and she nodded. “So now, you have an entire building inside of you?”
She gave a weak shrug.
“I’m sorry I kept it secret from you,” I whispered hoarsely.
Her eyebrows knitted together in that cute little confused stare she gives sotis. “Kept what secret?”
“Dema was sick. Sothing about her blood. No cure. She was going to die soon, even if that hadn’t happened.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
I looked at her carefully, gauging her expression. “What, uhm. What else do you know?”
She tilted her head with a curious expression, like a wounded animal. Eyes puffed up from crying, but she kept herself controlled.
I said, “It’s just — she was still working on stuff. Concerning you. Dunno if you already know?”
“She was working on sothing?”
I smiled. “Rember when you were off to sleep or off to work, and she was alone? Well, she used that ti to work on — a present of sorts, I think? For you. I haven’t seen it and I’m not sure if she finished it. It’s probably in her apartnt sowhere.”
She was quiet at my words, her eyebrows still knit together. Her mind was trying to work things out behind those grey eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t reply; she rarely did, to such questions. But she squeezed my hand, and that was response enough.
“She tricked , by the way,” I croaked out. “Made think she had a warm flask of your brew too.”
Theora looked like she was about to fall into my lap. She caught herself, but still seed upset. “I’ll never make cold brew again. Wish I’d made two bottles with hot tea.”
I gave her a wry smile. “I’m pretty sure if you’d made two, I would have ended up with both of them.”
Theora sighed. “Of course you would have. She always does this. She once fed herself to hungry wolves.”
I stared at her, horrified. “She did what?”
Theora waved off. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t here.”
I have to say, I was still worried. The fact that I was rembering the stuff Dema said about their ‘return’ wasn’t helping. “What are you going to do now? With…”
Theora looked away; at another bed, at the door, at the window, while breathing out unsteadily. “I’m not sure. I’m wrapped up in the aftermath of the storm.” Her lips thinned. “I have so obligations.”
My stomach clenched, and I squeezed her hand again. Four people had died that night in total. Grasped by the winds when outside, or suffering complications from the lack of energy and dical attention. “None of this was your fault. Dema didn’t even want you to return that day.”
“It’s almost like we forced the hands of this world,” she murmured. “Well, the storms have been getting stronger either way. But Dema needed to be…”
“Needed to go, yeah.” I sighed. “She said she had all her mories back.”
Theora nodded. “I have too.”
“Does that give you any insight on what you should do?” That gave a thought. “You know how I’ve been watching physics docuntaries since we t IO? Well, turns out there’s theories of parallel universes and stuff. That there is a quantum multiverse. And with all the talk about other worlds… I don’t know, got thinking. Maybe there are other worlds where Dema is still alive? Where that storm didn’t get her.” And maybe there were other worlds where the previous attempts at her life didn’t fail.
Theora looked at in mild surprise, maybe bedazzlent, until her expression turned a little sad again. “Don’t think that’s quite how it works. I’d know.”
“You’d know? You an you’d know if Dema was still alive sowhere?”
Theora raised her hand, showing off her bracelet. “I’d know that if I tried to break this. I know better than to attempt it now, though. But that’s not what I an. I was talking about myself.”
“About yourself?”
She nodded. “I’m reasonably certain that I knew if there were other versions of , sowhere out there, even in other worlds.” Her lips thin into a weary smile. “But I’m the only one. If such a multiverse exists, Dema would probably be in those other worlds without . In that case, we must be sitting in the one world I happened to enter. But I think it’s unlikely. I think this is just the only version of this world there is.”
I swear, this girl said the most ridiculous things sotis. People had put lots of work into that theory, and here she was, saying, ‘nah’, and here I was, just believing her, because she’s fucking Theora. “How would you know that?” I still ask, because well, I’m curious. And it was puzzling; Theora very rarely spoke in such certain terms — about anything, really. She’s the kind of person who would go, ‘I imagine there might be so soy milk in the fridge,’ after just putting it there.
She looked like she was fighting with herself, on whether she should answer. Fair. I was overstaying my welco a little. I knew she didn’t like to talk much, and I’d been making her explain so many things. I was willing to be selfish every now and then, though, and technically, she could refuse.
Eventually, she decided to respond. “Just that when I was young, the scholars raising were worried.”
I narrowed my eyes. Okay, so this had to do with her being grown into a weapon, like IO said?
“Worried I wouldn’t do what they wanted to do,” she added after a pause to collect her thoughts. “Once it beca clear how powerful I was, or might beco, they tried to use elaborate techniques and Skills to make other versions of .”
What the hell.
“So,” she went on, “they were hoping to make soone like who was perhaps more obedient, maybe more to their tastes. Or a back-up, of sorts, if things didn’t work out with original . Or perhaps a Theora who’s a little stronger, who could put in my place if I got any strange ideas.”
“Did they succeed?” I asked, mouth dry.
“They didn’t tell why they were doing it — or rather, were offering nice-sounding justifications — so I didn’t mind the experints themselves, but it felt weird. So, I was against it.”
“You were against it? And they… listened to you?”
She shook her head. “No, but I just didn’t let them. Whenever they tried to split or copy , I refused.”
I grimace at the imagery her wording conjured up in my mind. “That’s horrifying, because I know you well enough to be worried you could an that literally.”
Theora nodded. “Made quite the ss, not just once. But either way, over ti, I must have built up resistance against that type of interference. Now, at the very least, if there was another , I think I’d be aware. I was subconsciously aware of there being a kind of ‘larger ’ while I was here — though it turns out it was more of just trying not to rember so things — and I am sowhat aware of my Head in the Clouds. If there were other worlds full of iterations of , I’d likely have noticed.”
She frowned a little, leaning back and combing her fingers through her curls. “Or, I suppose, one of them might have noticed, and called back to her.” Then, she chuckled, let her hand fall back into her lap, and said, “No, actually, I’m fairly sure the one who would have noticed first would have been . Other Theoras would probably be cute, but I imagine they can be slow sotis.”
I let my head sink into the pillow. “Well, there goes my hope of stealing a Dema from another dinsion.” Not that I was seriously considering it.
“Sorry,” Theora let out as she saw . “I know I should probably make arrangents for her burial but I— I just can’t. I need to figure so things out first. It’s selfish of to hold on to her remains like that, when others care about her too.”
“No, I think—” My voice broke a little. “I think it’s alright to wait. Take a look at whatever she has left for you first, okay?”
Theora nodded, and that ti, she really let herself down onto my belly, hugging close to as I grazed through her hair.
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