Venessa: How do you get into all of your stuff? I mean, don’t you forget the password sometimes?


    Ethan: Oh, yeah. All the time. But…


    Ethan touches the safe door and a portal forms to the inside. He grabs a stack of clear tablet files.


    Venessa: ‘Kay. I guess that helps.


    Ethan: Can you sort these files into ‘Ceased’, ‘Hiatus’, and ‘Continued’?


    Venessa: How do I do that?


    Ethan: ‘Ceased’ is orange, ‘Hiatus’ is yellow, and ‘Continued’ is red. Just put them in separate piles.


    Venessa: Alright.


    Venessa sees many pictures of people that she doesn’t know on the screens of the files. However, she recognizes a few of them. She sees a girl from her grade in the ‘Hiatus’ section. Her file is labeled ‘Hazel Grace Wilson’.


    Venessa: What are these files for?


    Ethan: People who kept their gifts, people who didn’t, and people who will get them back.


    Venessa nods: Why do you have files for them?


    Ethan: So that we know who they are when they find us.


    Venessa: When they find us?


    Ethan nods: Everyone who chooses to keep their powers becomes a Keeper. That’s their fate.


    Venessa: But…what if they don’t want to become a Keeper?


    Ethan: Then they give up their powers. It’s the way the world works. You see, with the gift comes a delicate balance…


    Venessa: Why do you guys get to decide their destiny anyway?


    Ethan: We don’t. It’s actually closer to them deciding their destiny.


    Venessa nods and continues sorting the files.


    Ethan: You don’t believe me, do you?


    Venessa shakes her head.


    Ethan: Well, one day you’ll understand. That day just hasn’t come yet.


    Venessa sighs: This is a lot of files. How many are there?


    Ethan: Oh, this is just for the Saint Louis area. I have many more in other safes and in the storage room.


    Someone knocks at the door. Ethan opens it.


    Dortor: Agent Ethan, you and Levi are needed in Torronto immediately. There is a large-scale power outage.


    Ethan: Hostilities?


    Dortor shakes his head: Human error. I would be shocked to see Hostilities showing their faces within three days after what has occurred in Thailand.


    Ethan grins: I’ll be on my way.


    Ethan begins walking away.


    Ethan: Oh! I think Venessa’s getting bored sorting files. Would you mind showing her around the building?


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Dortor: I would be happy to.


    Ethan leaves.


    Dortor: Come along, Venessa.


    Venessa sighs. The two of them begin strolling down the halls.


    Venessa: You can teleport, right?


    Dortor: Yes.


    Venessa: Can you teleport me out of here?


    Dortor: No.


    Venessa: Ugh! Why not?!


    Dortor: Because this is where you are supposed to be right now.


    Venessa: Why?


    Dortor smiles: Cory is your father and his way of discipling you was to bring you here.


    Venessa scowls: He’s not my father. I don’t have any parents.


    Dortor: Neither do I. Yet, I found a family in the Commander and the Keepers.


    Venessa:(sarcastically) Good for you. Not everyone is like that.


    The two of them pass by a door labeled “Cyclone Sector Coordinator”.


    Dortor: That would be my office.


    Venessa: Will I get an office?


    Dortor: Not unless you become the head of a Sector, which is unlikely. There hasn’t been a change in positions and I doubt there ever will be.


    Venessa: That’s fine. It seems like a lot of work to be head of anything.


    Dortor laughs: Well, you’ll still have to labor much as a Keeper, even if you don’t lead a Sector.


    The two of them pass by the Resting Bay, another labeled office, and what looks like a monitor room with multiple projections of different continents. Dortor and Venessa then walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Members of the Cyclone Sector move about busily, speaking with the other Keepers or talking to each other in their language. There’s a room that Venessa recognizes as the secret passage to the Presley house, and another for monitoring what looks like outer space. She notices a peculiar projection of what looks like a pink-ish sphere with a core filled with galaxies. Outside the large sphere is a strange, moving blue cloud. Or a heat structure. She can’t tell.


    Venessa: What’s that projection?


    Dortor: Which one?


    Venessa: The one that looks like a cell model.


    Dortor: That is the structure of the multiverse, the Bridge, and the Vast.


    Venessa pauses and blinks.


    Dortor smiles: The center of the sphere, or the “nucleus”, contains every universe that exists. The pink space around it simulates the Bridge. The Bridge is the border between the multiverse and the Vast. It’s my homeland.


    Venessa: So,...you’re not even from this universe?


    Dortor shakes his head: No, I’m not even from a parallel universe.


    Venessa: Is the Bridge really pink?


    Dortor: No, it’s not pink. It used to be a beautiful place. Crystalline and with colors you could never imagine. It’s a wasteland now.


    Venessa points to the swirling cloud or electrical current around the Bridge: Is that a storm in the Bridge?


    Dortor: That is the Vast. It’s a fickle thing, outside of every known part of the world. It’s always moving, never still. Almost…alive. My colleagues and I have been trying to understand it for years, but we’ve recently concluded that we simply cannot know how it works.


    Venessa: But you’re so smart and powerful enough to blow up planets!


    Dortor: Our intelligence has limits, as does our power. Only that which comes from the Vast is limitless.


    Venessa and Dortor pass by an unlabeled door next to the projection room. Unlike the other rooms, the inside of the room seems silent. Venessa steps over to the door and listens inside. There is someone inside, but she can’t hear them. The silence is overwhelming.


    Dortor: You must never enter that room unless explicitly told to. You’re not ready yet.


    Venessa: ‘Kay. I’ll stay out.


    Dortor: Funny, I expected you to ask me a question about what’s inside.


    Venessa: Nah, I’ve seen enough horror movies to know to stay out of forbidden rooms.


    Dortor nods: I see. That’s a wise observation, but I promise that there is nothing horrific inside that room unless you’re on the side of the Hostilities.


    Venessa: If you say so.


    Dortor: I see that you don’t believe me.


    Venessa: Is it a room where you torture Hostilities?


    Dortor: No! If we tortured Hostilities out of spite or vengeance, corruption would emerge!


    Venessa: What?


    Dortor: Oh. We would be as bad as them if we tortured them to an unjust extent.


    Venessa: What extent of torture is just?!


    Dortor: Injuring them in battles and sending them limping back to Wyverna. It’s not torture in the traditional sense.


    Venessa: Well, I’d say they deserve more torture than you guys are giving them.


    Dortor: What they deserve is out of the question! Our ideas of what is just cannot be relied on as the final say! We can’t know the full extent of what will happen as a result of our actions!