Rig was already awake when the alarm rang out. He grimaced at the grating noise, then caught himself grinning stupidly into his empty bedroom. A part of him had been expecting this. Maybe even hoping for it.

He got up quickly and threw on his coat. If his hunch was right, he wanted to be the first one there. But where was it? Last time, he had just followed Tyke’s lead. He walked over to his desk and sifted through a layer of debris. A bunch of half-emptied paint tubes. Three mismatched socks of questionable cleanliness. Finally, he spotted a crumpled bit of parchment under a furry orange peel.

“Here we go”, he muttered as he smoothed out the map he had been given when he joined the First Responders. The churning hills and roiling seas of Chromanorel spread out before him. Every inch of the map was pulsing and throbbing with colour as though it was alive. In the chaos, it took him a minute to find the tiny red dot. A last, he spotted it, tucked into the edge of –

Damn. He sucked a gulp of air through his teeth. The last place he wanted Lauren to find. If it even was Lauren. Well, only one way to find out.

He pressed his finger against the golden symbol at the bottom left corner of the map. The alarm stopped. With luck, Tyke and the others would go back to bed and leave this to him. Still, he broke into a run as he made his way from the house to the stable.

His monster, Minx, was not amused to be woken up in the middle of the night and glared at him with all three pairs of eyes.

“Sorry, Minxie”, he murmured. “It’s an emergency.”

He thought she was jumping higher and thudding down harder than was strictly necessary, but at least he got to the boundary without any interference from the other First Responders. After creating a quick but effective see-through bubble to hold Minxie – there was no need to spook Lauren any further by introducing her to his three-legged beast just now – he turned to the hall. The colours crashed against its wall like angry waves.

“Lauren?” He poked his head in and squinted into the gloom. Yes, there was something – a figure shuffling towards him, slow but steady. “Lauren? Is that you?” He stared at his palm, trying to conjure a small sphere of light, but in this strange between-world, all he managed was a tiny bright blot, like the flame on a lighter.

“You told me you weren’t real.”

Relief flooded through him, along with that strange warmth that had taken hold of his chest when the alarm sounded. “There you are”, he muttered, and hurried towards her.

She dropped the cable she had been holding and sat down in front of him. He frowned. Maybe it was the dim, flickering light from his small bulb, but her face looked… odd. Her wide eyes shone bright even in the gloom, and her cheeks were flushed as if from a fever. He sat down opposite her. “Are you – are you alright?”

She scowled. “I’ve just discovered that my office is not just an office but also a giant hall with lots of golden cables and free-floating windows that are also monitors. How do you think I feel?”

He reached out to touch her, then dropped his hand. “I know it’s confusing”, he muttered. He had no idea what else to say. Now that he had found her, he wondered what he was even doing here. What was he hoping to achieve? She would have to go back anyway. Like Tyke had said, no exceptions.

“No.”

“What?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not letting you do that again. Not this time. No more vague platitudes and non-explanations or telling me that you’re not real.” Her jaw tensed. “All the senior partners are in bed in their giant country mansions, probably fucking their secretaries because they’re all just walking, breathing clichés. So you have nothing to threaten me with. I’m going to sit here in this weird hall until you explain to me what’s going on.”

He considered her. The tightness around her mouth, the determined spark in her eyes. She wasn’t kidding. She wanted to know what was going on, and he couldn’t blame her. Not after everything that had happened.

Would it really be so bad? It was against the rules, but then no one in Chromanorel cared much about rules anyway. After all, most of them had started out as switchers. True, the last three had gone on a murderous rampage when they found out the truth, but… accidents happened. That was no reason to punish Lauren.

He sighed. “I can only tell you if you’ll promise not to tell anyone in – back there.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the screens.

She scoffed. “Please. Who would believe me?” She shook her head. “They’ve managed to collectively ignore a dragon attack. One raving madwoman is far easier to overlook.”

He bit his lip. He opened his mouth, closed it again. He searched for the right words. He gave up on the right words, opened his mouth again and told her.

When he was finished, he watched her cautiously. What were the early warning signs of a bloodthirsty rampage? Foaming at the mouth? Twitching of the eye? But Lauren sat perfectly still, the little flame of light dancing in her eyes.

“So these cables…”, she said finally, “they connect to people’s computers and suck away their imagination. And then you use that to bring your world alive.”

He shifted his position on the floor. When she put it like that, it sounded… bad. Wrong. “It’s not like those people are using it”, he pointed out.

She looked like she was about to argue, then thought better of it. “Is it just us?”, she said at last. “Just this office, I mean?”

Rig shook his head. “That wouldn’t provide nearly enough power. We have most of the big companies in the city wired up.”

She nodded slowly. “And in your world, you can change anything by the power of thought.”

“Technically, yes”, he said, relieved that she had changed her line of questioning. “But only in the way that people in your world can run a hundred miles or lift cars. You need talent, and then it takes practice, willpower and endurance. Only a handful of us can completely change their environment at will.”

She got up. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” This was not the reaction he had expected. But then, what had he expected?

She rolled her eyes. “To this place I’ve helped sustain this whole time. The place where people can change the world by the power of thought. What did you call it? Chrome-nil, or –”

“Chromanorel.” He scrambled to his feet. “But I’m not supposed to take you there. You need to –”

She looked at him, her eyebrows so high that they disappeared into her fringe. “You think I’m going back to the office? After what you just told me?”

Ten minutes later, they were riding together on Minxie’s back. Lauren was behind him, thighs hugging the beast’s back, one arm slung lightly around his chest, as though she had done this every day of her life. Her lack of reaction concerned him. Shouldn’t she be terrified? Shouldn’t she be clinging on to him for dear life, helpless and vulnerable and –

A well-timed buck by Minxie shook him out of that particular fantasy. He pressed his heels into the monster’s haunches until she was back under his control. Then he turned around. “Are you ok?”

But Lauren didn’t even seem to have noticed the jump. She was looking at the dark horizon, the pink and green and blue specks heralding dawn. Her expression was calm, almost serene. Rig tightened his grip on the reins. Lauren might not be helpless or terrified, but she was still a novice. She needed a teacher. And she needed to stay his secret, at least for now.

“Stay out of sight”, he reminded her when he jumped off Minxie on the outskirts of the town. “You’re not supposed to be here. I was meant to send you straight back.”

She nodded absently and let him help her off the monster. The path they had been following was bounded by tall hedges on both sides. He conjured a hole through the one on the left and led Lauren and Minxie through. When he got to the other side, Lauren was sitting in the grass, staring fixedly ahead. He followed her gaze and sighed. Yes, it was quite a sight to behold.

Mauve was the biggest town this side of the mountains. Lying as it did in a valley, their vantage point on the foot of the hill gave them a commanding view. It looked just like any other medieval market town, with the labyrinthine alleys and timbered houses surrounding a central square. The only difference was that every last cobblestone, plank and doorknob was tinged with pale violet. Mauve.

“Is that –”, Lauren turned to him, jabbing her finger back at the town, “was that an accident, or –?”

“No”, he sighed. “It’s what you get when you let a fanatical religious sect design a town.”

They should have realised it was too good to be true, Rig thought ruefully. He himself had been on the committee that commissioned the project, and the Monks of Mauve had been far too keen from the outset. But they lived in the mountains, far enough away that no one really knew much about them. They seemed friendly enough, once you got over the vacant stares and unicoloured habits. And most importantly, the idea of designing an entire town, an actual one that people could live in and walk through and that didn’t collapse in a heap after ten seconds like their last twelve last attempts – that idea didn’t bore them to sleep. No one had contested the decision. No one else had wanted to do it.

“It’s kind of stylish in a quirky way”, Lauren reflected, tilting her head this way and that, “once you get over the… the vibrancy of it.”

She was being charitable, Rig thought. They should have really smelled the purple-coloured rat when the monks insisted that no-one could see what they were doing until it was done. By then, it was too late. So here they were, with a flagship town that looked like it had been created by a colourblind pom-pom.

“What’s going on down there? What are all those people doing?” Lauren pointed at the market square. Outlines were becoming visible in the gathering light. People were putting up a podium, their hammers clinking through the clear morning air. Others were streaming into the square from the surrounding streets.

“It’s the job market”, he explained. “I thought it would be useful for you to see a bunch of us together. To give you an idea of what it’s like here.”

“The – the what? What market?”

“The job market”, he repeated. It surprised him that this had her furrow her brows when she had taken so much in her stride. “Whenever you need a job done and can’t do it yourself, this is the place to go.”

As if on cue, a woman stepped on the freshly erected podium. She looked like the sort who went to knitting clubs and bingo but with a few jarring notes. The pink and purple streaks in her long, unkempt white hair. The knee-high lace-up boots.

She cleared her throat. “Hi everyone. My name is Cheryl.” She looked around hopefully. “Will someone please make my teacups stand still. It’s all well and good wanting to learn to tango, but they’re driving me bonkers!”

“See?” Rig turned back to Lauren. “Now she’ll wait for someone to offer to help her, and–”

But Lauren was not listening. She was watching a snail in the grass, apparently unfazed by its neon blue house with pink sprinkles. “So I just have to think something to make it happen?”

“Yes”, he said slowly, “but –”

Too late. Under Lauren’s intense gaze, the snail’s stalks extended and its eyes bulged until they had grown to the size of tadpoles. The stalks keeled over, weighed down by the penny-sized eyes which dropped onto the grass. “Whoa. Did you see that?” Lauren beamed at him. Now that it was light, he could see her dazed, faraway look. She got up, apparently brimming with energy despite the shadows under her eyes. “I could do anything!” She started walking towards the town. “I should offer to help that woman, I bet I could –”

“No!” Rig grabbed her arm.

“What?” She tried to disentangle herself. “Did you see what I did to that snail? They’re just teacups, surely it’s –”

“Lauren.” He stepped in front of her so he could look her straight in the eye. “You’re not the only one who can do this.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “I know, I saw that guy put a dragon to sleep, didn’t I?”

She still didn’t get it. Words were no longer enough. He turned back to the snail and made it shoot upwards in a fountain of purple-and-blue jelly. Lauren gasped, but he didn’t let that stop him. The fountain collapsed in on itself before morphing into a blob the size of a small bush. It hovered a few inches above the ground and then sprouted, first one, then, two, three, four limbs until a small purple terrier with light blue sprinkles was standing in front of them.

“See?” He turned back to the terrier and raised a hand, looking to make it vanish.

“No!” Lauren held up her hands protectively.

For a moment, the scene seemed frozen in time. The air between them crackled. Then Rig backed away.

“It’s got tadpole eyes, look!” She stretched her hand out to its snout. It gave a low growl, then smelled her fingers carefully. After a few seconds of deliberation, it rubbed its face against her hand and wagged its tail. “Awww, he’s so cute! I’m going to call him Tadpole.”

Rig shook his head, exasperated. “Lauren, it’s a snail! And not even a real snail!”

“Not anymore.” She turned back to the dog. “Don’t listen to the nasty man, Tadpole.”

Tadpole barked excitedly and came to stand by Lauren’s side.

Rig sighed. This was turning out a lot more complicated than he had imagined. “The point of that”, he said through gritted teeth, “was not to give you an existentially confused pet”, he glanced at Tadpole again, who growled threateningly, “but to make you understand! Making a snail’s eyes jump out is one thing, but I… everyone here…” he gestured towards the people in the market square, “…has been doing this for years. Any of those people down there could turn you into a jellyfish in a second. Or worse – blow you into a million pieces!”

Lauren crossed her arms. She looked back at the square, where the old lady with the misbehaving teacups was just shaking hands with a burly man with a neck tattoo. She shrugged and sat down, putting Tadpole on her lap.

Rig exhaled in relief. “Look, I’m not saying that it will always be like this. You’re clearly…” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “I mean, you – you could be a lot worse, considering you’ve never done this before.”

From down in the square, the snatches of a new job offer drifted up to them in a deep, rumbling voice. “I know we are all ignoring it, but we really need to act now… getting stronger every day… without the Jewels, our world is in danger…”

Fluffy dropped down into the grass beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You still need a lot of training before you’re ready to talk to those people.”

He realised a second too late that he had said the wrong thing.