The first sensation Smoke felt on regaining consciousness was that of a burning pain running down his spine, causing his body to curl up involuntary on the cold black floor. The second sensation was a mixture of anger and fear, as memories came rushing back. The cops and what had to be soldiers had appeared from every direction, hitting him with some kind of exploding tranquillisers before he'd even had time to think of transforming. He could hear the groans of Lunar and Shade to his right. His eyes still closed, he vaporised and poured out in every direction. His clouded senses told him he was in a large square room, surrounded by walls of the same material as the rest of the tower. The walls and ceiling were smooth, and the floor absent of any obstruction save the bodies of the other two and a large projection in the direct centre, a rotunda about the height of a man tapering to a rounded point, cables pouring out of this point to run down the sides and into the ground.

"There's no point in that here. There are no exits for you to find your way out of, and I assure you you will come to no harm whilst in this room."

The voice seemed to come from every direction, devoid of emotion save an immense tiredness that seemed to drag at every syllable. Smoke ignored the voice and continued to flow around the room and over every surface, searching for any kind of opening. He was forced to admit defeat after a few minutes, and flowed back into his usual form sitting upright next to the others, who were stirring and slowly returning to the real world.

"Ok guys, we're in a locked room with a disembodied voice speaking to us from the walls. This is not what I was hoping for."

Shade and Lunar pulled themselves up into a seated position, eyes roving around the room to take in their situation.

"I would like to tell you a story," the voice continued. "I'm afraid it is rather long, and did start a very long time ago, but it is a story I must tell. And a story you must hear..."

"Once, there were a people. To us, bug-eyed, misshapen, monstrous creatures, but a people nonetheless. Indeed, to them humanity would have been a horrible, fleshy, thin-skinned race, but that is not important to this story. These people were a glorious people. Their silver towers pierced the skies, and their art surpassed that of anything we have yet dreamt. They had cultivated their planet to such a degree that to tell where the cities finished and nature began was impossible, and they had eliminated waste, suffering, and want. They had no more war - oh, they had machines that could destroy a mountain in the blink of an eye, but the idea of using these against another living being was practically inconceivable to them."

"Sounds like a hippy love-in," Lunar said under her breath, as the voice continued on.

"This people, whose lives were so far removed from our own as to be almost unimaginable, had only one rule for living, though rule is likely the wrong word. It was more like a conception, a belief. This belief was that no-one should ever bow to another. In this society where all you could want was available at barely a moment's thought, the idea of one sentient being having power over another was alien, anathema." The voice paused for a moment, allowing his comments to sink in.

"It was on some nameless day of some uncounted year that the visitor came. A being of immense power, he had crossed the interstellar wastelands for countless years and from an unfathomable distance. He appeared in the skies of the world like a blazing sun, his power apparent in that first instance. And the people rejoiced! Here was a being who had crossed the gulfs between the stars, a being who could survive the trip through deep space unscathed and unchanged, a being with powers they could hardly begin to comprehend."

"I think I may know where this is going..." whispered Smoke to the others. They nodded.

"He came down to them and they greeted him as a brother, as a friend, and he greeted them in the same manner. For the longest time, he travelled the globe, welcomed everywhere he went and accepted as part of the greater world. It did not, could not, occur to them to pressure him for his secrets; they were his, and when he was willing he would reveal them."

"But it didn't go that way, did it?" spoke Shade into the darkness.

"No, it did not. Humans would never have been this trusting, this naive, but these were not humans. It took some time, but the being grew weary of what the world could show him. His first demands were met with bewilderment, confusion, as he asked for concepts they had no remembrance of. Obedience. Submission. When they met his demands with incomprehension, he burned them. He levelled cities, drained oceans, and burned their civilisation. His will could turn matter to energy, break the unbreakable, alter the very fabric of reality to suit his whims. Do you understand? This race, who made us look like mere cavemen, no, like mere monkeys, this race was smashed in minutes. Imagine how powerful he must be."

The voice slowly rose in volume and tone as it spoke, passion breaking the previously emotionless monotone.

"They knew little of this god-like being, but they knew one thing. He would not stop there. This being had crossed the stars, and would do so again. Though they could not save themselves, they could try to save the galaxy, to save the future. And so they built a fleet, a huge fleet, a fleet they had never dreamed of making. Though they themselves could not escape, they could send ships, automated and pre-programmed. Their manufacturing abilities are as unlike ours as ours are to the earliest humans, and this fleet was built in seconds, and fled the solar system in seconds more."

"Wait, is he talking about the ships that came here?" Lunar whispered.

"The fleet had one instruction, and one only. To find any planets with sentient life that might attract his attention, and prepare."

"Prepare? Prepare? They're killing us, not saving us!" Shade shouted.

"Their mission is not to save humanity, nor to save any species. Their mission is to stop him, in order to save the galaxy. And so the fleet found us."

"Us? We? Who are you? Where are you speaking from?" Lunar asked, spinning around and searching.

"I will show myself to you now, and then I hope you will understand the sacrifices that need to be made, the sacrifices that are already being made, to stop this monster."

There was a hissing and a metallic grinding, and the mound in the centre of the floor suddenly opened, sections like petal opening and folding downward. In the centre, a curled body, spine visibly protruding, wreathed in mist, straightened and rose, turning towards them. They looked into the face of a monster.

Cables ran out of the hairless skull, skin stretched over them as they pulled. The unblinking eyes, devoid of brows or lashes, were a piercing blue and they flicked from person to person. He had a complexion the pale white of a corpse, veins visible through translucent skin, and below his naked shoulders the chest was flat and featureless, no sign of muscles or definition, a white cloth that ran ragged at the end. The figure had no groin or legs, but instead metallic tubes and wires hung loosely from somewhere within his body, swinging as he moved.

"This," he said, and the voice was now coming solely from his mouth, "is what I have been forced to sacrifice. To fight a monster, I have become a monster."

Again, the voice was tired and strained, and the eyes fell to the ground. An inhuman sigh came from his mouth as he finished speaking, like hydraulics releasing pressure.

"What.. the... fuck," Lunar said, and stepped back from the apparition. "What happened to you? How..?"

"I didn't ask for this. I didn't do anything to become this. My name was Alden. It found me when I was leaving the mill, so long ago." The voice was slow and weary.

"I had a family... I just wanted to get back to them. I was an illiterate worker, that's all, when it found me. Now those memories are almost gone, and I have forgotten what it is to feel."

"Illiterate? Mill? How long ago was this?" Shade asked, fear replaced by curiosity as he listened.

"The world was so different then, so different. I was even thinking of taking my family to the New World, you know." There was a mechanical, wet chuckle. "Only I made it."

"New World? How long have you been like this?" insisted Shade.

"1688. I have been part of this thing since 1688" was the reply.

"That makes no sense! What are you talking about? The invasion only began a year ago!" Smoke exclaimed.

"The fleet made it here centuries ago, waiting on the edge of the solar system. The ships were only to enter Earth's atmosphere when humanity had reached a sufficient level of development, or when the sensor net detected him."

"This is nuts! I mean, it's completely crazy! That can't be... he can't be..." Lunar looked from one to the other and turned to Alden "So... let me guess. It wasn't that we've developed enough, was it?"

"No," intoned Alden "we detected him a year ago and were forced to move things forward. There were to have been many more advances before the towers were to be erected."

"You keep talking like you knew humanity was going to develop. How can you be so sure?" This was Shade. Alden turned to him and fixed him by the eyes.

"500 years ago the human population of the world was 800 million, the typical age of death was 35, the people of one hemisphere had practically no contact with that of the the other, and the most dangerous weapon was the musket. Only a few centuries later the population was over 7 billion, disease practically eradicated as a daily threat, and cities were being destroyed through the power of the atom by planes that straddled the planet. A creature that had roamed the planet for 80,000 years, little changing, suddenly harnesses the power of the sun in a laboratory. It was known because it was planned."

Alden turned, and moved away from the group, supported equally by cables above and below so that he seemed to float away rather than walk. His back to them, he returned to the centre of the petal-like circle he had emerged from.

"Now," his voice emerged again from all sides, "it was to communicate better with you that so much of my old personality was allowed to re-emerge, but I can no longer maintain it. The pain is too much, and the reality of what I have done, what I continue to do, to innocent people is the worst. The organic part of me cannot bear the guilt for much longer, and I am forced to merge deeper into the artificial construct that uses me to guide and understand our species."

He slowly sunk down into the depression in the floor he had emerged from, as the metal petals rose around him.

"I allowed you here to tell you one thing. You are the latest step in humanities advance, you were a hope I had... before. The towers, now, are the only hope the programming recognises. They are powerful, more powerful than you can probably understand, and they are being constructed to fight him. In three weeks they will fire, and it has been calculated that they have a 17% chance of destroying him, or at least incapacitating him for some time. The programming demands they be finished within that time frame, so more people are going to suffer and die. I need you to know this, because in three weeks, when they fire, the resultant energy charge is going to kill upwards of 97% of all life on this planet. All life, not just humanity, but all of it."

The enormity of this information, on top of everything else they had just heard, could barely sink in, numb as they had become with the sheer lunacy of it all.

"So you helped us evolve into this?" shouted Shade towards the closing mound surrounding Alden.

"Evolve?" There was another chuckle, the sound of wet, tearing paper. "You think you evolved? No, you didn't evolve. In a million years, no human would ever evolve the abilities you have. You, ladies and gentlemen, are technology. Technology so far advanced it is barely distinguishable from biology, and yet technology. More than that, you are weapons."

The mound closed with more hissing and the final clunk of metal interlocking.

"You are weapons, but you are not the weapon we were trying to make. There is one very special ability that carries a greater chance of success than the towers, but nothing I tried succeeded in creating it. So now the programming refuses you. You have a chance. Destroy the tower, destroy me, and the program will be forced to recognise you as the greater. I've done my best to put pressure on you, to temper you into the swords you must be, but that is done. You have three weeks, and this is the only time I can let you leave. The next time I see you, do not hesitate, for I will destroy you."

The final sentence was spoken in the cold, dead tones of a machine.

Staring at the mound into which Alden had disappeared, they were startled by the sudden sound of the wall behind them spiralling open, a hallway extending into blackness. Grabbing Shade by the hand and dragging him backwards - even now, Shade seemed half-minded to stay and try to investigate more - Smoke followed Lunar as she sped into the dark. It was difficult to say how far they had run in the blackness when suddenly the floor fell away and they slid downwards on the slick surface, skidding on their backs until suddenly they were flung, helplessly, out into the clouds, to fall down the side of the tower.

Nick emerged from the blackness of unconsciousness to find himself strapped to an old wooden chair, bound down at the arms and legs by brown duct tape. His left upper lip felt like it had been split open, and his ribs throbbed. Somewhere past the haze of pain and shock he could hear FX's voice, alternately shouting and speaking, though he could not make out what it was he was saying. Struggling, he swung his head up and opened his eyes. At least, he tried to open his eyes - the right one was stuck shut, and blood trickled down his left preventing him seeing what was going on. The next punch smashed into the left side of his temple, sending the world spinning.

"You fucking asshole. Tell me why you are working with them, right now. Tell me or a few punches will be the least of your worries."

Cracking open his left eye again, he saw FX standing over him, duct tape bound around the fingers of both hands, fists raised. The look of fury in FX's eyes was a thing to behold, the fires of barely contained rage flaring in his pupils.

"I will kill you, you understand? I'm going easy on you now, but if I don't start getting some answers soon the pain's really going to start. How'd you like your eardrums leaking out of your ears?"

"Nononono, you don't understand. I don't work with them, I can explain!" Nick's words fell out of his mouth so fast they almost crashed into each other, a staccato of syllables FX could barely take in.

"Oh, this should be good."

The next blow landed right in the centre of Nick's chest, knocking the breath out of him.

"Sto...stop," he wheezed, saliva and blood leaking down his chin. "I was trying to save you. I couldn't do anything for them! They had to be captured, but if you were captured things were going to go wrong! You need to get to the bank on Welles and Ford now! They need you!"

FX's palm froze, just centimetres from Nick's face. Nick looked up, forcing open his split right eyelid, and fixed his eyes on FX's, breathing out a haze of blood.

"They need you. Now. You are the only one who can save them."

"What are you talking about?" FX's rage continued to boil in him, but something in Nick's look, a strength he had never shown before, caused his hands to slowly return to his sides.

"Why the hell would I trust you? This could be a trap..."

"Look, I don't know how to make you trust me, you don't need to trust me, but you need to get to that bank now. If you don't like the look of it, just turn back. I won't be going anywhere," he said, head nodding at his bindings. "Knock me out, lock me in the cellar, do whatever the hell you need to do but do it fast."

FX looked around, then grabbed the back of Nick's chair and dragged him into the basement, half carrying and half throwing him down the stairs. Taking one last look at the prostrate Nick, crashed sideways on the floor but unresisting, he slammed the door shut and manhandled a sofa in front of the door, preventing it from opening. He threw as many random objects as he could on top of it to weigh it down, then dashed out the door, hands already pointed down and body rising before he was fully outside.

FX blazed across the city on concentrated waves of sound, flashing over buildings at a rate that left them a blur[1] Scanning the horizon for the bank, all he saw was the tower rearing up ahead of him. It had been years since the robbery that had taken him there[2], but he remembered the area clearly. It was an area of the city he'd hung out at a lot, stopping a lot of crime and, admittedly, causing some of it, especially in the early days. Now, it was a deteriorated, run-down area owned by the feral dogs of the city. Business districts had been among the first to go after the spheres arrived and created a command economy. Now, the only industries left to humanity in any great measure were the services and agricultural ones, and with the rapidly depleting population there was little call even for these. Most people simply stayed at home, waiting in their freely powered and watered houses for the time when the spheres would come to take them as well.

He landed some way down the street from the bank, a long straight boulevard from which he could see the building clearly. There was no movement on either side, nothing stirred in the slight breeze. The world was dark and gloomy under the heavy rain clouds, and several of the buildings had caved-in roofs from lack of maintenance and the constant downpours. Advancing cautiously down the street, he regularly crossed from side to side to gain a new vantage point but there seemed to be nothing to see. Not a soul moved, and there was no sign of spheres, police, or the men in military fatigues. After a few minutes of this slow progression, FX came to the front of the bank. The windows and the oversized wooden doors stood shut, and the accumulated trash of a year had collected up the stairs, blown there by the wind. Sighing deeply to himself, he stepped out of cover and began to climb the wide, open stairs towards the entrance. It was only because he was looking upwards towards this entrance that his eyes caught the glimpse of movement far up the tower, three dots flying out of the side and dropping like stones. FX froze for a few seconds, trying to figure out what he was seeing, until realisation dawned.

Smoke fell, the wind whipping his hair and making his eyes water. Stretching his hands out to arrest his spin, he took measure of his surroundings. There was the tower wall, flying by at an incredible rate upwards. To his left and slightly ahead, Lunar was falling in a controlled manner, face and chest downwards and hands and legs extended. To his right, spinning wildly, was Shade, gradually pulling away and downwards from him. And below, the ground, rapidly rising to greet them. Fantastic.

He watched as Lunar pulled in her arms and legs, pulling into a dive and moving over the Shade, who she grabbed. This stopped his spin, but left the much more pressing problem of the ground, coming towards them at a terminal velocity. Lunar looked up towards Smoke, mouthing more than saying the words "What do we do now?"

Smoke found himself at a loss. The only advantage he could see to this situation was that the adrenalin flowing through his veins made time move a lot slower than usual, giving him ample time to contemplate his impending doom.

But of course, it wasn't his impending doom, was it? No, he could transform and simply join the air flows. He wasn't sure what would happen to Lunar if she hit the ground in liquid form, but he thought she had a better-than-outside chance of surviving. Shade, however, was screwed. There was nothing they could do to save him, and he could see that Shade knew this too, as he turned himself in the air and shouted, barely audible over the rushing wind, "Save yourselves." He pushed himself away from Lunar, whose face showed her frustration and despair as he drifted from her grasp. The ground was close now, just a few moments left, but neither Lunar nor Smoke used their abilities. They simply stared, at a loss, towards Shade, who closed his eyes and revolved so that his back was to the ground, crossing his arms across his chest. A darkness poured over his head, a black featureless mask that showed nothing. He's blocking his own senses, Smoke realised. There's nothing I can do...

The sound that assaulted his ears the second before he changed threw his mind into chaos, and the combination of this and the effect of rapidly changing into a cloud of smoke at terminal velocity sent Smoke's consciousness swirling. For seconds he lost all sensation of being, lost all sense of being a single entity and instead was a mass of thoughts and feelings, mixed and confused. The feeling passed quickly, and as he regained sensibility he felt Shade flying past and through him upwards, his fall reversed by a powerful wave of vibrations that juddered his gaseous molecules[3]. Dragging himself together, he recomposed into his solid form on his back, directly underneath where Shade had passed upwards. He was just in time, as Shade smacked into him and crushed him to the rooftop.

"Jeheeesuus..." he gasped out, "That... really hurt."

Pushing Shade off him, he tried to stand but collapsed heavily back, diaphragm and lungs refusing to work yet.

"Hey, um, I'm soaked and I don't think it rains mercury around here, so is this..?" FX's question trailed off as the silver liquid covering him shimmered and flowed down, pooling a few feet away and rising to form Lunar once more.

"Never mention that again," she said, raising one finger towards FX as he prepared to make a comment that, quite probably fortunately, never made it out.

"Uh, so what's up with Shade then? That is Shade, right?" said FX, stepping over to where Shade lay, head still encased in a pool of pure darkness.

"Yeah, I've seen him do this before. He does it when he wants to think - tunes out everybody and everything. I think it's like his own personal isolation chamber," replied Smoke.

"So do we poke him, kick him, or what?" FX asked, and then kicked him in the side anyway.

"No, he's shut off all his senses. He isn't aware of anything. Until he decides to come out, he's just going to lie there."

"Seriously? For real? So, like, we can do whatever we want to him?" So saying, he jumped onto Shade's chest, holding out his arms and shouting "Surf's up, guys!"

Lunar tutted and sat against the low wall surrounding the flat roof of the bank, which is where Smoke now realised they were. "Well, thanks FX. That got pretty nasty for a second there. I guess Shade owes you his life, now. He won't like that at all."

"So, where are the others?" Lunar asked.

"Oh shit," said FX, stepping down from Shade and face turning serious. "I've got Nick tied up back at the place. I kind of vented on him a bit, and then he told me I needed to get here ASAP. He's locked up in the basement right now."

"Locked up? Basement? What the hell have you been up to?" said Lunar, standing and stepping towards FX in a way that made him take a few steps back. "Vented?"

"He set us up, alright? You saw it - he legged it right before you were attacked. If I hadn't chased after him, they'd have got me too. Though it's funny, he said something like that earlier..."

"And Ollie? What have you done with him?"

"Ollie? He's not with you? He wasn't around when we got out of there."

Smoke stepped in. "Alright everyone, let's grab Shade and get out of here. I think we all need to catch up and work out what exactly is going on here. FX, you think you can 'borrow' us another car?"

They returned to the house a short while later, Triss pushing FX out of the way and marching in first.

"Alright, where is he?" she spied the couch blockading the door, and pushed hard against it to slide it out. "I swear, if you've really hurt him... He's just a kid."

The sofa out of the way, she pulled the door open. FX gritted his teeth in nervousness as she disappeared into the basement, and so was surprised when her voice came winding back up.

"He's fine. Stuck on his side, but otherwise he looks alright."

FX started in surprise, and he rushed through the door and downstairs himself. Exactly as Triss had said, Nick was still bound to the chair, lying on his side, eyes shut, but the cuts and bruises that the fall and FX had inflicted only a short while ago were nowhere to be seen.

"Holy shit, he's an Advanced."

Smoke came up beside him, and looked at the scene as Triss gently shook Nick by the shoulder to wake him.

"Hrng, huh?" Nick snorted, "What's going on?"

His eyes opened slowly, then more rapidly as he caught sight of the others standing around him.

"You got them! Thank god. I wasn't sure I'd got it right this time."

FX's face went red as he yelled.

"What the hell? You're an Advanced? That's why you've healed so fast, right? You better explain what the hell is going on right now, you son of a bitch, or I'll give you a beating you won't recover from."

Lunar looked up from where she was untying Nick's restraints, walked over to FX and slapped him so hard he saw red flashes in front of his eyes.

"Don't you dare threaten something like that. Don't... you... dare." Her eyes flared. "We are not monsters, you understand?"

Nick stood up from the chair, massaging his wrists where the tape had restricted the blood flow, clasping and unclasping his fingers.

"It's alright, it's fine. You've got a lot of unanswered questions, I know, and I know you're scared, FX."

FX looked up sharply at Nick at that statement. Nick seemed somehow more mature than before, his childish mannerisms receding for a while. This made FX even angrier, but he kept his feelings in check after a stern look from Triss.

"We all go upstairs now. Smoke has got a couple of beers he's saving for... something, but he'll share one with you, FX. Triss says she doesn't want anything but then will have a tea anyway when I go to make one - she's really just keeping an eye on me while I'm in the kitchen, but gets thirsty."

It took a while for this strange passage to work itself out in their minds.

"Are you trying to order us around?" snarled FX, when suddenly Triss put her hand to her mouth and gasped.

"You've got to be kidding me! You can... you mean you know..?" her voice trailed off as Nick smiled at her.

"Not that clearly, usually just a few days, a week at most, except for major events."

Realisation also dawned on Smoke's face.

"That's crazy!" he said. "That's how you found us in the first place, isn't it? Why didn't you tell us?"

"I couldn't," answered Nick, turning to Smoke, "Every time I tell you, it goes wrong. It had to be after the tower."

"WHAT had to be after the tower? What the hell are you talking about!?"

FX was fuming by this point, clenching and unclenching his fists and looking from person to person.

"We go upstairs now, have a drink, calm down, and then I tell you. Ok, FX? Triss goes first..." Triss headed up the stairs, followed by Smoke and Nick. FX stood there angry and confused, swore, and ran after them.

"Think about your memories. How far back can you clearly remember?"

They were sitting around the living room, Nick on the chair facing the others, Triss and Smoke on the couch and FX slouched against the wall. Smoke took a swig of his beer and replied.

"Depends what you mean by clear. I don't think I'll ever forget the things that have happened over the past couple of days, but I'm trying to remember what I was doing exactly a week ago today and I'm not entirely sure. I was just about to head out to find you," he nodded towards FX, who raised his can in acknowledgement then took a drink himself, "but we spent so long in that basement that I'm not sure what day was which."

"Exactly." Nick smiled. "I have the same memory as you, as most people, but it goes both ways. I can remember what happens this evening, tomorrow is pretty clear, but after that it's hazy. Definitely hazier than I can remember the previous two days, but it's not that much weaker."

"So you know what I'm going to say next?" FX said abruptly.

Nick clasped his hands together and stood up, beginning to pace to the side of the room and back.

"I hate explaining this bit to people. Ok, I kind of remember what's going to happen, but I also remember remembering what's happened, and then it changes when I cause something to change." FX's expression went swiftly from irritated to confused.

"What?" he said.

"You can change time?" asked Triss, leaning forward in interest.

"I can change what I remember is going to happen. So, FX asks me what he's going to say next. I remember what he was going to say - I need another beer, it was, by the way - but now I've said what he's going to say, it's changed. So I have the memory of knowing what he was going to say, but it's no longer correct. It used to drive me insane..."

"Sounds pretty confusing," said Smoke. FX snorted and finished his beer in three long gulps.

"You have no idea. I spent some time in a mental institution - they didn't believe me, just thought I was mad. I passed some tests, failed some others. A few of the doctors believed my ability was real, but most just thought I got lucky more than the usual. I had no idea what was going on, all these memories and half-memories, I could barely tell what really had happened and what might have happened."

He paused, took a deep breath, and continued.

"Eventually, I figured it out by myself. Didn't tell the doctors, didn't tell my family, I just stopped talking about it and acted like it wasn't happening. Of course it was, but every time too many people found out about it, it got complicated. So I left the clinic, took off from where I lived, and kept moving around."

FX looked up from where he had been eyeing the bottom of his can, willing some more alcohol to appear.

"So, you must have known about the invasion, then?"

Nick sighed.

"Yes, it was one of my most long-lasting memories. You have no idea how many times I tried to get people to listen - it was one of the reasons I ended up in the clinic. I have the memories of trying so many ways, so many. I tried the internet, back before it got locked down and regulated, but I was just another crazy. I tried telling politicians, but that just succeeded in getting the cops looking into me. You remember what it was like back then - everyone was talking about the new North American Federation, who was going to listen to some crazy kid talking about aliens? So I got out of the cities and just hung around, waiting for it all to blow up in our faces. That's when I started remembering you guys."

"Us?" asked Triss.

"Yeah, you guys. Just after the spheres started taking over, I started remembering seeing you all fighting the police, bringing down the towers. That's how I knew where to find you after you got out of the police station. Don't ask me why, because I can't see it clearly, but I know that of all the futures I remember, the only ones that don't feature those damn towers are the ones where I met you all."

"So we can do it, then."

The group turned as one to look towards the hallway entrance. Shade was leaning against the frame, looking at Nick intensely.

"That's why you've been guiding us, right? To get to a place where those towers fall."

"When the hell did you wake up?" exclaimed FX, standing.

"A while ago. I needed to think things through. To be honest, it took me a while to realise I wasn't dead. It's a strange sensation, being senseless."

"Ha, FX manages it all the time!" added Triss, then, at his furious look, "Not the time for jokes, I see."

Smoke interrupted, putting his hand out to silence the other two. "You know what Nick can do?"

"I figured it out a while ago. I'd had suspicions for some time, but it was only in the tower that it became obvious."

FX snorted again at the 'obvious' comment.

"You weren't knocking things over by accident. You knew exactly what would happen when you knocked those tools over."

Nick nodded.

"And we can't ask you what to do next?"

Nick looked down and shook his head.

"I can help, but the plans need to come from you. If I tell you what to do, things get a little... recursive, I guess. Stuff starts happening that wouldn't have happened, people try to preempt my instructions, it all goes to hell. But I can steer you all in the right direction."

"That'll have to do. We'll make a plan in the morning, but first, I need to know what's been going on since I blacked out. I feel like someone's been jumping on my chest."

FX's eyes started to flick around the room, not looking at anyone. Shade's eyes narrowed as he looked at him. "Ah, I see..."

"There's one more thing," interjected Nick, breaking the awkward silence. "Whoever or whatever that is in the tower, it can't know about me. Everything seems fine now, but every time he discovers me it ends in blackness."

"Blackness?" asked Triss.

"We die. Every one of us."

[1] He had to admit to himself that, even at a time like this, some moments really made up for all the rest of life's crap

[2] In what he now thought of as the "good old days"

[3] An incredibly difficult feeling to describe, and even weirder to say, he felt