“What do you mean he’s missing?” As she voiced those words, Vanessa heard the anxiety and rising paranoia in her own voice, but she didn’t care. She was in Principal Fellows’ office, having been pulled out of one of her study sessions by an aide to come talk about something that happened to her brother. At first, she thought he had pulled some sort of prank on the station and upset someone. He had a tendency to do that sometimes when he got bored, or (more often) when he was trying to work his way through a big problem that had stumped him. Getting in trouble helped him think, or so he said. He thought it spiked his adrenaline and helped his brain work better. And lately he had been focusing a lot on how to help Dylan get answers out of Baron Jermiah Dallant about why she had seen him apparently murder her mother years ago. Except the spaceship they had found insisted Vanessa Holt, this Vanessa’s namesake, was still alive.
Yes, that was a whole thing, and Tristan had been pretty intent on it. So she could see him playing games here on the station to clear his mind. But no, this wasn’t a prank. Or if it was, he had gone way overboard. She’d already stood up from her chair before the older woman finished telling her what happened, the seat itself falling over behind her. Not that she noticed. Her attention was centered solely on the head of the school, her eyes wide. “Where is he? Where’s my brother?”
Principal Fellows let out a soft sigh, rising from her seat as well. “We don’t know exactly, Vanessa. It’s like I said, he and the Carnival–ahh, Bucket was active– went into Aureus’s room. The conversation seemed to be proceeding well enough, judging by the security footage. Then Bucket complained about something being wrong, and they… vanished. All three of them simply disappeared from the room entirely. According to the people who went over the room, there’s traces of the energy given off when Walker transports someone, but none of the energy from Aureus’s teleportation-explosions. From what they’ve been able to put together–”
“So they’re inside the Carnival?” Vanessa blurted. “That’s where they have to be, right?” The fact that she had willingly and openly interrupted an authority figure, let alone one in charge of the school she attended, said a lot about how much Vanessa was freaking out right then. And the fact that she didn’t immediately backtrack and apologize said even more. After all, Vanessa had been through losing family members before, and it hadn’t gone well. This was a complete nightmare for her. One that she had woken up in cold sweats from more than once. And now it seemed to be happening. In that moment, she didn’t care about decorum or politeness.
Fortunately, Principal Fellows seemed to understand. She didn’t even blink before replying, “It seems to be a little more complicated than that. First, we have no body. No one from the Carnival is out in the physical world right now. So we can’t talk to them. We have no way to communicate inside without having a present physical body with one of the Aspects to talk to.
That seemed very strange, to say the least. But then again, this whole situation was strange, not to mention terrifying. Vanessa absorbed that before realizing, “That’s not all of it, is it? There’s something else too.”
The woman grimaced a little. “Yes, there is. There’s something else mixed in with the same energy Walker uses to teleport people. From what they tell me, it’s…” She hesitated before sighing. “It’s the energy given off when the Heretical Edge is used at Crossroads. The skull in the lighthouse, when they turn people into Boschers.”
That was confusing and shocking enough that Vanessa almost slumped back down. Only the memory that her chair had fallen over kept the girl upright. She stared that way in confusion. “What? Wait, does that mean Crossroads used the lighthouse to transport Tristan there with the others? No, that doesn’t make any sense. If they could do that, he wouldn’t exactly be at the top of their priority list. Did Kushiel commandeer it to take Aureus back and the others were just collateral damage?” She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense either. Same problem, if she had the power to just reach out and transport anyone she wanted like that, even from this place, she would’ve used it already, especially on my mom. Plus a lot of others. Kushiel, umm, has a lot of people she doesn’t like.”
Principal Fellows gave a soft snort. “That’s putting it diplomatically. But you’re right, that doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes sense. That’s why I wanted to let you know what’s going on. But I promise, everyone who knows anything about transportation magic that we can get a hold of is here. They’re going over that room with everything they’ve got. They’ll figure it out.”
Vanessa swallowed hard. “Have you been able to contact our parents?” Their mother and father had gone off on a mission just a day earlier. It was taking them to one of the colony worlds to help some people there who had been attacked by an unknown invasion force. The problem was that the planet they had gone to was beyond an anomaly that made direct communication difficult. It had been all one of the colony’s survivors could do to escape in a supply ship and get word to them.
Principal Fellows shook her head. “No, they’ve already moved past the problem area. Unfortunately, it seems like you’re our best choice to get word to them. Partial recall to your father should get past the anomaly, from what I’ve been told.”
That bit made Vanessa realize something. “When I was coming in here before, I heard you talking to that guy who was in here before me. I thought he said something about a problem with anonymous transportation, but it was anomalous, wasn’t it? He was talking about a problem with going through the anomaly.”
“Yes,” the woman confirmed. “It seems that what they’re calling the space hurricane is getting bigger. The Seosten experts I’ve talked to say it even interferes with full recall. You’ll be able to let your parents know what’s happening, but they won’t be able to make it back here until it moves on or dissipates.”
Vanessa swallowed hard, trying to keep her panic under control. Her brother had vanished, they had no idea where he was or what it had to do with the energy from the Crossroads lighthouse, and now Principal Fellows was telling her that her parents couldn’t even come back when she told them about Tristan. “Mom will want to try anyway. They both will.”
“We have to convince them not to,” came the simple reply. “Listen, Vanessa. The way it was explained to me was that the anomaly could force someone doing a full recall to spread themselves out amongst a dozen or more potential receivers. That is, twelve different blood relatives. Instead of transporting the person back to their most recently possessed body, they could end up ripping themselves apart and jumping all over the planet. Or even the universe. You have to convince your parents that we will find Tristan. It’s too dangerous for them to come back, either by ship or any other transportation.”
The idea of trying to convince her parents not to drop everything and immediately come back, no matter how risky it was, made Vanessa flinch. If she was so close to losing it over her brother’s disappearance, they would be even worse. Because they were all the way over there. At least she had the benefit of being right here and able to be involved in what was going on. When she thought about how she would react if she was on the other side of the galaxy…
“Wait, what about the Jitterbug?” She found herself quickly asking. “Can that make it through the anomaly? It should be able to jump anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Principal Fellows confirmed, “but it’s not here. Athena and a few others took the ship on a priority top secret mission into Seosten space. We’re going to try to get word to them to come back long enough to make the jump, but until we can do that, your parents need to wait.” From the sound of her voice, Vanessa could tell how hard it was for the woman to say that. Of course, she had her own daughter. She was probably thinking about how she would feel being in that situation. And how many planets she would push out of the way to get back and look for her own child.
Finally, the girl exhaled a bit shakily. “Do we know anything else? Anything I can tell my parents so they won’t freak out so much?” And so she could stop freaking out so much. She didn’t say that part out loud, but knew that Principal Fellows understood anyway.
“Let’s go find out.” Moving out from behind her desk, the woman offered Vanessa her hand. “They’ve been investigating the scene the whole time we’ve been talking. With any luck, they’ll have something useful.”
So, the pair walked down to the room in question. Unfortunately, the investigators didn’t know much more than they already had. The energy was similar though not identical to what was given off when the lighthouse was used. They couldn’t trace it to any location the way they could with many forms of teleportation. Even the bits of Walker’s energy that had been mixed in with it didn’t seem to go anywhere. Or maybe it was just masked by the other energy. Either way, they couldn’t trace it properly.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Which meant Vanessa didn’t have great news to share with her parents. But on the other hand, the investigators were able to tell her that what happened had definitely been some form of transportation, not disintegration. Considering Vanessa hadn’t even allowed herself to consider that as a possibility, the investigator might’ve been a bit disappointed by her subdued reaction. He’d thought he was giving her good news, when he was actually just making her even more paranoid that something worse had happened.
But no, it was definitely transportation. Tristan, the Carnival, and Aureus had been taken somewhere. They just weren’t sure how, or where. The investigators were still working on that part. Maybe they had ‘transported’ straight back into the Carnival grounds itself, that other-world place that seemed to be part-physical location and part-mindscape. As far as Vanessa knew, no one was quite sure what it was exactly.
What mattered now though, was breaking the news to her parents. So, Vanessa started to head for the college housing neighborhood so she could lock herself in her room to have privacy for what was bound to be a long and painful conversation. But while she was heading for the elevator, a very familiar figure approached. The dark-skinned young Seosten man named Desenei was, she supposed, sort of her boyfriend. They were still feeling their way through that whole situation considering she was still sorting out her own asexuality. But they watched movies together, studied various things, enjoyed one another’s company, and ate a lot of meals with– Okay he was definitely her boyfriend. She just felt funny thinking of anyone that way. Not the awkward, uncomfortable sort of funny that came whenever people brought up sexual things, but a good kind. She didn’t know exactly how it was all going to work, but she enjoyed the time she spent with him.
Or at least, she did normally. Seeing him now, Vanessa shook her head quickly and apologetically. “Sorry, I need to be alone. I have to partial-recall to my dad and… and tell them what’s happening.”
Without missing a beat, Desenei stepped backwards onto the same elevator he had just emerged from and gestured for her to join him in descending down to the neighborhood. His voice was serious, yet still casual enough to make her reflexively relax just a hair. Not much, considering the situation, but a little bit. “What happened? Is– it’s your brother.” He seemed to realize that in mid-sentence, grimacing a bit. From the way his mouth opened and then shut, he obviously wanted to start guessing about what was going on, but stopped himself and just watched her.
Quickly stepping onto the elevator, Vanessa gave him a quick rundown of what was happening, including how little they knew about the situation. She knew she was talking too quickly and stumbling over her words a bit, but it was hard to slow down. She felt panicked, possibly more so now than when she had been sitting in the office or listening to the investigators in the other room. With every minute that passed, she grew more and more afraid of what sort of situation her brother and the Carnival could be in. Heck, she was even worried about Aureus. Sure, the girl wasn’t the most personable, but she had been raised by Kushiel and that crazy witch’s hand-picked babysitters. No wonder she hadn’t exactly turned out to be well-adjusted so far. She still deserved a chance. And if they were right that this wasn’t something Kushiel herself had put together, then Aureus was in danger too.
Despite her jumbled words and obvious emotional turmoil, Vanessa did finally manage to get the story out before they stepped off the elevator. She expected Desenei to be just as baffled by the situation as everyone else. But as she quickly walked forward on her way to the house, she belatedly realized he wasn’t with her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the boy (technically he was over thirty thanks to the way Seosten aged, but still) standing there with a thoughtful look. She hesitated, a voice in the back of her head screaming at her to hurry up and talk to her parents. But instead, she found herself asking, “What? Do… do you know something?”
“Um, maybe.” Desenei glanced back toward the elevator. “We need to talk to Hansurei.” That was one of his Seosten friends, the blonde girl, whom Vanessa had been introduced to when she first met him. She didn’t know a lot about her, and had no idea how she would be relevant to this.
“What?” she asked in confusion. “Is she an expert at mysterious teleportation powers?” It was only partly a joke, and a strained one at that. Vanessa had heard of much stranger things. And at that moment, she was willing to give anything a shot.
Desenei, however, shook his head. “Not exactly. But she’s the closest thing I know to an expert on something else.
“Reapers.”
*******
Vanessa knew she had to talk to her parents and let them know what was going on. But if Desenei was right about this having something to do with Reapers based on the energy that had been left behind, she had to know. Maybe that would give them the lead they needed to actually track Tristan and the others. If she could tell her mom and dad that there was actual progress being made, wasn’t that better than the alternative?
She had no idea why she hadn’t thought about the energy being from a Reaper to begin with. It was obvious, wasn’t it? If the signature they were picking up was similar to what came off the Crossroads lighthouse, it had to be connected to a Reaper. It was right there. Had she really just been feeling so much emotional turmoil that she’d completely missed that?
Apparently Hansurei had spent several years in a secret Seosten lab where they were investigating everything they could find out about the Reapers. Honestly, Vanessa shouldn’t have been surprised at all that her mother’s people were doing deep levels of research like that. After all, if they were known for anything, besides taking over most of the universe with their possession powers, it was their incredibly, almost (or completely depending on who you talk to) suicidally-dangerous research. So of course they were poking around in Reaper business.
When they found the girl and took her aside to a quiet room to fill her in and get answers, the blonde grimaced visibly. “Oh, yeah, that’s… that’s definitely Reaper teleportation. Especially if no one else around here can track it. You said it’s like the energy just disappears, not like the destination is being actually blocked any way they can detect, right? That probably means they went to the Archives.”
Vanessa already knew that every Reaper was connected to a central archive of power, of course. But there was more to it. Apparently the Archives were an actual physical location somewhere outside of regular space. The Seosten weren’t completely positive about how it all worked, but they did know that the Reaper Archives were where they lived and also where they stored the physical manifestations of the powers they absorbed. The scientists Hansurei had worked with had theorized that there might be a way to travel through the Reaper Archives to come out anywhere they wanted to, including behind the Fomorian defense lines.
They wanted to break into the private home space of the Reaper species and barge across it to go attack the Fomorians from behind. Which was something like using a brick to smash your way through one indescribably dangerous person’s window so you could sprint through their home, knocking over everything on your way to their backyard just to chuck that same brick at a different indescribably dangerous person’s head.
The idea made Vanessa want to scream. Seosten scientists were often toddlers playing with nuclear weapons, but this was quite possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever heard of.
At the very least, Hansurei spending several years interning with that collection of idiots was giving them some valuable information right now. Even if it was terrifying. Her brother and the others had been taken by a Reaper? Why? She had a brief panicky idea about it being a Hangman, but the Seosten girl had assured her that it didn’t fit Hangmen MOs. They didn’t go around stealthily teleporting people. They just showed up and killed everyone they could find. Plus, they gave off distinctly different types of energy. It was like their own energy was tainted in some way. And, after examining the room for herself to make sure, Hansurei informed them that it was definitely regular Reaper energy, not that of a Hangman.
So, they knew that the group had been transported into the Reaper Archives somehow. Vanessa was pretty sure it had something to do with the Carnival. Or rather, the physical space they resided in. If Ammon had been connected to the Reapers with his own powers, which were inherited by Denise, then maybe that was what the Carnival space was. It might be linked to the Reaper Archives themselves. Maybe something had made the Carnival space start opening up into the Reaper Archives. That would explain why Bucket had said something was wrong. And now they might be trapped in there.
Yes, that was all terrifying as well. But at least they had an idea of what was happening. And now, Vanessa knew who she had to talk to next. Her parents would have to wait just a bit longer. She had to find out more about this Reaper space.
And yet, just as she was running through her own memories to remind herself where Aylen was right then, a voice spoke up from the doorway of the room that Aureus, Tristan, and the Carnival had been standing in when they disappeared. “Hansurei, I’m surprised to see you here.”
Vanessa turned, only to see an Asian woman wearing a dark blue Seosten bodysuit under a long, white leather coat. But this was no ordinary Seosten.
“M-Miss Gabriel,” Hansurei managed, clearly as shocked as Vanessa in that moment. “I didn’t know one of the archangels–sorry, Dyeusai was going to be here today.”
“I was not,” Gabriel the Archangel Seosten confirmed. “I changed my plans when an urgent message about Reaper teleportation was passed through my contacts. As you might imagine, I pay attention to such things after our peoples’ previous fiasco stemming from poking at the Archives nearly destroyed the entire Saraptua System. And now I am here to ensure that does not happen to this planet.
“So tell me, precisely how much of a mess needs to be cleaned up right now?”