Now, Earth

Cal breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the spire.

He was glad he wasn’t going to have to explain Tessa’s and Veronica’s broken bones. He’d be a literal world away by the time Remy and Megan found out. They were going to be pissed about the training plan.

His brother was smart and pragmatic.

Once Remy saw that the injuries were easily healed, Cal was confident that he would get on board.

The spires’ ethereal interior loomed in front of Cal.

It somehow managed to feel infinitely expansive and claustrophobic at the same time.

Cal donned his helmet, but kept the functions off. Past experiments had taught him that the helmet’s sensors didn’t like what they picked up when inside the spire.

The journey through the spire took a long time.

It was a short walk.

An hour and a day, the mists swirled around Cal.

It was like walking from the couch to the fridge and back.

A hike up a mountain and back.

A quick run back into to the house for sunglasses.

The journey was all of these things.

It was none of these things.

Hence, the great relief that Cal felt when he stepped out into the bright sun of a Northern California day.

“Huh? Night to day this time. What was it last time? I think I went from daylight to daylight. So long ago,” Cal muttered.

The university campus wasn’t much different.

The lawn looked less maintained. The grass was longer in spots. The shrubbery and flowers had gone wild.

The guns and other weapons pointed in his face was new.

Right, the cult.

Remy’s message had briefly touched on the issue.

Davis was under the cult’s control.

A problem for another day.

Cal’s eyes narrowed.

One of the women sported a sharp-looking tentacle instead of an arm and was pointing it directly at him.

Here and there he found signs of obvious mutation.

Tentacles, spines, shell-like armor.

“Stop right there! Who are you that you’d trespass in Deep Azure territory without permission?” a robed woman barked.

Cal briefly touched their thoughts, it was an involuntary reflex borne of the potential threat they presented. He withdrew his telepathy as soon as he noticed what he was doing.

That brief touch connected him to something old. Something as cold and dark as the deep ocean.

“Deep Azure,” Cal said. “Nope.” He severed the connection with a thought. He still hadn’t recovered from Mother Madrigal. He wasn’t ready to contest wills with another eldritch abomination.

“Answer me! I demand it.”

Cal ignored the cultist.

There was no point.

“Azure Bolt!”

A writhing mass of dark blue energy appeared out of the robed woman’s hands and streaked toward Cal.

It splashed harmlessly against his telekinetic shield.

The touch of it brought the connection back.

Familiar, yet different. Will you prove worthy of servitude, unlike your brother?

You’re lucky I’m on vacation, Cal thought. I am much more ruthless than my brother and I will do more than drop the ocean floor on your head.

Cal saw into the Deep Azure as it did into him.

They forged a connection.

Cal felt nothing but disgust and revulsion at the joining.

They struggled for a moment before both pushed away from each the other.

It seemed that the Deep Azure felt the same way about being inside Cal’s thoughts.

There is a truce.

Which I am not a part of, Cal thought.

The Deep Azure was wary now.

Break it at your peril. Break it and those you care about suffer. I have seen them in your heart. I have marked them.

Cal had nothing more to say. He rebuilt his telepathic walls and floated up into the sky with his two boxes in tow.

The cultists lowered their weapons and watched him fly away to the east toward the rising sun.

Cal hovered over Sacramento as he searched for Nila’s thoughts amongst the tens of thousands of people.

It was an unpleasant experience opening himself up to so many disparate minds.

Tens of thousands, all shouting their surface thoughts into his ears, no, directly into his brain.

It would’ve been maddening to a lesser mind without the abilities and techniques to mitigate the negative effects.

He found Nila within minutes.

The touch of her familiar mind brought joy to Cal’s soul for the first time in years. Though the sadness in Nila’s thoughts hit him like a punch in the gut.

He quickly withdrew his telepathy. It was wrong to intrude on her thoughts.

The multitudes of shouting voices in his head lessened to that of hushed whispers. Ever present, but manageable.

He flew over the State Capitol ignoring the shouts from below. He headed straight for Midtown. To an apartment building that had been new when the spires had appeared ten years ago.

Nila was in one of the apartments facing the street.

Cal took off his helmet and took a deep breath.

He was almost giddy, nervous like on their first date close to seventeen years ago.

His hand shook as he knocked on the door.

The wait was interminable.

Cal felt eternity pass before Nila answered.

Her eyes widened a moment before she threw her arms around him and cried.

Cal returned the embrace, as tight as he could without hurting her.

“Hey, love,” Cal whispered into her ear.

“Hey, love,” Nila returned in between sobs.

They melted into each other.

Time slowed.

They existed in their own world.

Nothing else mattered.

Their lips became as one.

For the first time in a long time, their world felt right.

At least for the moment, there was only happiness.

Cal was finally home.

“You should at least say hi,” Nila said.

“No, that’s okay. I wasn’t really close with any of them,” Cal frowned. “And they’ll ask me to help…”

“Then just tell them ‘no’. That you’re taking a break. That you’ll come back… you are planning to, right?” Nila had taken it for granted that Cal was coming back to face the Deep Azure cult. That he couldn’t let that evil continue to exist. The look in his eyes worried her.

They had spent half the night talking.

Well, Cal talked. She listened.

He had poured everything out.

The horribleness of the Mother Madrigal entity rivaled what Nila had seen in the temple beneath the ocean floor. She shuddered to imagine what Cal had undergone while imprisoned.

The false lives he was forced to live. The blood and pain he inflicted on the Inheritors in Mother Madrigal’s twisted efforts to strengthen her creations. The friend he had killed.

She had to look closely, but she could see the pain of it buried within Cal’s eyes when his control slipped.

As it did now.

“Yeah, yeah, definitely. Just… I don’t know when,” Cal smiled. “So, you know what to do right?”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to explain how these,” Nila looked at the silvery devices in her hand, “thumb drives work.”

“Easy, they’re wireless. Any laptop or phone should be able to detect it. The Threnosh assured me that they’ll be compatible with our inferior technology,” Cal said lightly, “no idea how that works or why they’re so sure,” he shrugged. “Oh, make sure they get the password right.”

“Right, wrote it down and memorized it. You’ve already tested me five time.”

“The stuff in those things are super important. Why I went to the Threnosh world in the first place. They present the first steps in potential diplomatic relations between our two worlds.”

“Do they know that our world isn’t exactly unified? From what you told me they have a monolithic government.”

“I don’t think government is the right word. I gave generally accurate information about us. I think since they’re dealing with an invasion from their upworld they’ll be eager to at least avoid an adversarial relationship with us. I just hope groups on our side don’t get stupid and think colonial thoughts. On the plus side, I’ve got a direct line to one of the Threnosh leaders.”

“Prime Custodian 3.” Such a strange name, but they were a powerful figure according to Cal. They had total control over an area half again as large as North America. There were fourteen such primes in control of their own territories. Nila wondered at the size of the Threnosh planet. “You know, they sound like a dictator from what you say.”

“It does seem that way, but I’m not sure the definition fits when the population isn’t being oppressed… aside from the Defectives,” Cal’s face twisted. “Their treatment is definitely messed up.”

“They might think it’s all fine, but—”

“Maybe, but we have to be careful about projecting our human ways on an entirely different species,” Cal said. “Okay, so all the operation manuals for the recoilless rifles and armor are also included in those drives. The one I’m going to give to the governor just has the diplomatic stuff.”

“Self-repairing armor,” Nila shook her head. Threnosh tech was like magic.

“It’s too bad the armor is dumb. Couldn’t include practically all of the active and passive systems. To expensive for me to bring through the spire. I guess they’re too advanced compared to our world’s tech.”

“But you had like over two million universal points… how much did it cost to bring over an armor with full systems?”

“The dumb armor I brought cost an extra 25k each. One with full capabilities was ten times as much.”

Nila’s jaw dropped. The numbers were staggering.

“Yeah,” Cal nodded in agreement. “It’s ridiculous. It takes so much just for me to travel through the spires. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get enough to go back. The only reason I got so many points was because of how difficult the last two years…” he shrugged.

“What about your hand? The R&D team were able to make prosthetics for Detective Ordonez and Jake, with magic they work just like the real thing.”

Cal looked at his three-fingered left hand. “It’s been so long that this feels like normal.” He turned away.

Nila reached out, but Cal was already walking to the front door.

“They can decide who gets to wear the armor. Mr. Del Campo and anyone capable of casting metal can probably make the bullets for the recoilless rifles. They just have to copy the ones I brought along. The sword and shield go to Hanna and… I guess you can tell them I’m sorry.”

Cal was gone and Nila felt a spike of fear that she’d never see him again.

She took a deep breath and told herself that wasn’t going to happen.

There was time before the others arrived, so she set about trying on the armor that Cal had brought specifically for her.

She pulled out the onesie from its container. Cal had raved about it. Claiming that wearing it felt like being completely naked while never being too hot or too cold regardless of the temperature. Not only that, he had said that it somehow kept one feeling clean and dry even after wearing it for hours and even days while performing strenuous activities.

“Impossible,” Nila murmured.

The next layer was another suit, flexible and lightweight like cloth, not that encumbrance was an issue for her, but stronger than military-grade bulletproof plates.

The actual armor plating went on next.

Cal had said that it was like wearing tank armor, but even better.

Even without an inertial dampening system like the Threnosh employed armor naturally dispersed a significant portion of the impact force.

A normal human wearing this armor could safely ignore small arms fire.

Anti-tank rounds would injure, but not kill.

Would she have fared better against the Deep Azure wearing the Threnosh armor?

Would Keisha?

“First question, why now?”

Cal regarded Alejandro Richards.

The governor of the California State Government had lost the interim tag in Cal’s five year absence.

Cal had avoided meeting with the governor in the past.

He knew that the man had been around his age and was some kind of low level staffer for a state assembly member before the spires had appeared.

The light brown skin of the governor’s face was marred by lines of wrinkles, his once black hair had gone mostly gray. Governor Richards looked to be a decade older than Cal.

Cal noticed his reflection in the office window. He hadn’t really noticed before, but he hadn’t aged a day. He filed away the troubling realization for a later date.

“I’ve learned many things,” Cal began. He weighed how much information he should reveal and how much he needed to keep back to protect himself and his loved ones. “The main one is that there are entities out there that can’t be faced alone.”

“Hence, opening diplomatic relations with these Threnosh,” the governor said.

“You don’t have to take my word for it. You can watch it for yourself.”

“A flash drive from a highly-advanced humanoid race from another world… monsters and magic are already hard to believe,” the governor held the small silvery Threnosh device in his hands, almost reverently. “The spires did say that there are other worlds out there and that we need to fight to gain strength and survive,” he sighed. “It’s been a struggle just to accomplish the latter with gremlins and mutated squirrels and rats.”

“Like I said, there are much worse things out there, though from what I heard about the Deep Azure and its cult, you should already be aware of that,” Cal said.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve known about the possibilities of true horror out there. I had one close to me for over a year. Trusted her like a little sister of sorts.”

Flo, Cal thought with guilt.

“I knew she was troubled, but I couldn’t fathom the truth. I still think about what I could’ve done differently. Maybe I could’ve helped her keep control,” Governor Richards said.

“Many could’ve, should’ve acted differently in regards to Flo.” Cal included himself in the count.

The governor smiled sadly.

Cal found the man easy to like.

Something tickled his thoughts.

He had closed his telepathy off as much as possible to drown out the thought pollution from the thousands of people in the area surrounding the capitol building.

Realization hit him.

The reason that he had been instinctively wary of meeting the governor back in the past. Why most people had always spoken well of the man? Why a low level staffer had managed to place himself in a position in power and keep it for so long?

Cal pushed back with his telepathy.

The governor’s eyes widened a fraction for an instant. Alarm flashed, but gone with a blink.

“It’s about trust,” Cal said levelly. “Survival requires it. Our world can’t do so as isolated pockets of humanity even with magic, Skills and other powers. We already have invaders. Did you catch it? I didn’t at the time, probably because I was on another world when Earth hit the ten year mark.”

The governor swallowed a lump in his throat. “Entities with special dispensation are allowed to come here. That doesn’t explain the Deep Azure’s appearance. Your nieces had the first reported sighting of a fishman and that was around four years ago. Intel suggests that the cult likely formed around the same time that you vanished… to another world, as it happens.”

“Trust is what matters now,” Cal continued, ignoring the governor. “Are you a good person, Alejandro?”

“Alex is fine… I try to be.”

Cal nodded. His involuntary reception of the peoples’ thoughts suggested that the California State Government was generally a good thing. Plenty of food and shelter. And other services that in some ways were superior to the pre-spires days. Corruption, abuse of power and exploitation of the vulnerable were at historic lows from what Cal could tell.

Then again his glimpse into the cultist’s thoughts suggested an even better quality of life for the majority. The thought of what the fishmen did to the minority sent a flash of anger through Cal.

It made him question his plans to step away for what felt like the hundredth time since the previous night when Nila had recounted all of the horrid acts at the Deep Azure’s feet.

Cal blinked at the governor's wary look. Like a mouse in front of tiger. The man looked like he didn’t dare breathe.

Cal forced himself to relax a measure.

The governor followed suit.

“Your ability… it’s how you managed to gain power and keep it.”

“I know what you’re getting at,” Alex frowned. “I had no choice. If one of the politicians took charge they would’ve thrown everyone else to the monsters to keep themselves safe. Law enforcement, the military, we’d have a situation where only those valuable in a fight would be getting taken care of. Everyone else would’ve been sacrificed as dead weight or used as meatshields or worse.”

Cal agreed with the words and he knew that it was of his own volition. Not due to the governor’s influence.

“Trust,” Cal said.

“What do you want?” Alex said flatly.

“A reason to leave that device with you. A reason to walk away from here. A reason to not get involved.”

“No one knows, although I’m sure Detective Ordonez suspects.”

“Don’t they wonder about your class?”

“I tell people its Governor: State of California, before that it had Interim in front, prior to that it was my job title before the spires appeared. It’s a plausible story. A lot of the older folks classes are just the jobs and careers they had. Even to this day some have kept them as long as they perform the same job or a similar function.”

Cal nodded. “Self-image plays a large role in determining classes, at least that’s the theory.”

“Seems likely. Though what does that say about people like us?” Alex said.

“You have the ability to make people see you in a favorable light,” Cal cut to the heart. He already knew the nature of the governor’s ability. He wanted the man to reveal it.

“Trust goes both ways,” Alex said.

“My own abilities don’t come from magic or Skills. I’d say it fits under the superpowers category. Like in comic books.”

“Or those movies. It’s the same with me. My superpower makes me really charming to most people. As if I was the most trustworthy person they had ever met. It helped me in the early days get all of this started. Otherwise our government would’ve been a bunch of warlords fighting over the right to exploit everyone else.”

“How does it work?”

“Picture volume control. I can turn it down to zero and turn it all the way up to eleven. It’s not foolproof. Spells, Skills and plain willpower can fight or outright cancel the effects, but no one has ever realized what was going on. How did you notice?”

Cal hesitated.

Trust.

He couldn’t be a hypocrite, but he also wouldn’t be a fool.

“Your powers are psionic in nature.”

“Right, that’s what my personal account page said. I’m a—“

“I don’t need to know the specifics,” Cal held up a hand. He wasn’t willing to reciprocate to keep things equitable.

“Is that how? Your powers are similar? In the same category?”

“Yes.”

The governor laughed, short and bitter. “I think your underselling it. Because I certainly can’t even dream of doing the things I’ve heard you can do. Your brothers? Are they in the same tree?”

“I can only speak for myself,” Cal said flatly.

“Fair,” Alex shrugged. “So, now that we established a rapport… what’s next? You taking over from me?”

“Not a chance. Just watch the Threnosh message on the drive. I’ve also included information about monsters and other threats.”

“We’ll get started on a diplomatic plan right away.”

“You’ll also want to get a strategic and tactical plan for some of the threats. I outlined which ones are likely to eventually make their way to our world.”

The governor ran a hand through his wavy hair. “That’s on top of the threats we don’t know about,” he blew out a long breath. “I notice you haven’t said a word about your plans for dealing with the Deep Azure cult.”

“I don’t have any immediate plans.”

The governor frowned. “You’re just going to let them… keep doing what they’ve been doing?” his voice rose.

“Just in the near term,” Cal said stiffly.

“What? I know you haven’t been around, but you do know what they’ve done to our people? I can have you meet with some of the poor women they used to—”

“I’ve been made aware,” Cal said.

“Then why? I don’t understand.”

“I’m taking myself off the board. There are reasons, but those are my business. Not yours.”

“What happened to trust?” Alex half rose.

Cal pointed at the silvery drive in the governor’s hand. “I’ve brought you information from another world. Along with an avenue to be one of the first to establish diplomatic relations with an entirely different species. A highly advanced technological one. Think of what you can exchange. Ask my old acquaintances from Davis for a demonstration of the least of what the Threnosh might one day be able to trade with us.”

The governor fell back into his chair like a physical force had struck him.

Cal’s anger was a palpable thing.

The governor had never experienced its like.

The door to a side office opened slowly, hesitantly.

Cal reined himself in as soon as he felt the thoughts of alarm in the other room.

Wide-eyed fear hit him as a small child peeked his head in the crack in the door.

Cal calmed himself with an effort. He strengthened the telepathic walls around his mind to keep the anger, sadness and despair that had been his constant companions for such a long time.

“What’s wrong, Julian?” Alex said as he quickly walked over to pick up the child.

“Nightmare.”

Cal instantly felt guilty at the child’s small voice.

“Hmm, can you get those during daytime naps?” Alex raised a brow at Cal.

“No… you shouldn’t be able to,” Cal forced a smile.

“This is my little boy, Julian.”

“He’s three,” Cal said in disbelief.

The governor nodded in understanding at the unsaid question. “We’ve done a pretty good job here at regaining some normalcy. People have food, homes, a reasonable expectation of safety.”

“The gremlins…”

“No longer appear in our homes as we’ve expanded our zones of control. It’s like the spires said. The stronger we get, the better our lives turn out. I can’t say we understand how it all works, but our collective strength is tied to our territory’s which keeps out monsters weaker than a certain threshold from even entering.”

“Just like for homes and other buildings,” Cal said.

“Except there doesn’t seem to be a secret boss to fight for the territory as a whole. Thank God for that! The ones in the buildings are bad enough,” Alex said. “Things have really turned around a lot since the early years. There was hope… until the Deep Azure cult appeared, that is. Now we face another existential threat.”

“The truce?”

“I think you know that will only last as long as is convenient for them,” Alex frowned.

Cal nodded.

“I can’t persuade you?”

“No,” Cal said. The risks are too great, he thought.

“Well, don’t wait too long. We can’t beat them by ourselves.”

The governor held out a hand.

Cal shook it.

“I’ll monitor the situation,” Cal said reluctantly. “If things turn bad, I won’t stand aside.”

The governor stared into Cal’s eyes, searching.

“I trust you at that,” Alex said finally.

Cal nodded then walked to the partially opened window.

“What’re you doing?”

“Leaving.” Cal winked at young Julian. “Sorry for waking you up, kid. Take care of your daddy.”

With that he pushed the window open and flew up into the sky.

Julian laughed with joy at the sight.

The doors to the governor’s office burst open.

“Detective Ordonez…” Alex nodded with understanding. “You just missed him. If you hurry you can probably catch him at the house we gave Nila Chen.”

The detective growled then turned on her heal and stalked away.

“Sorry, I tried to stop her, but—” the guard stammered.

“I’m sure you did everything you could. Don’t worry about it,” Alex waved the young Fighter’s apology away, “the detective has done the same to many others.”

“I’ve heard stories, sir, but I thought the vets were bulls— messing with me.”

“The important thing is that you tried,” Alex sighed.