Chapter 26
Isaac Milton
KC: yo Isaac!
IM: me Isaac!
KC: heh heh
KC: I have some news!
IM: Is it that your dad is alive?
KC: MY DAD IS ALIVE!!!
IM: Because I already know that
KC: :D
KC: :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
KC: :’D
IM: :)
KC: !!!!!
KC: I mean he’s SORT OF alive
KC: it’s not quite the same
KC: but STILL!
IM: That’s really cool
KC: I am SO HAPPY
KC: I want to meet him!
KC: if only my other body weren’t all dead, darn it!
IM: Yeah Liz filled me in on all that
IM: About your dad
KC: and is that
KC: uh
KC: ALL she filled you in on?
IM: Well she also told me that I was kind of responsible for messing things up last time
IM: But no one knows why
IM: so, like...
IM: my bad?
KC: and is that AAALLLLLL she said?
IM: uh
IM: she said the evil purple words came to get her?
KC: and is that AAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL?????????????
IM: Whatever you’re fishing for, I don’t think it’s like, in the pond
KC: you’re not picking up what I’m laying down?
IM: I’m not slipping in what you’re spitting
KC: eww, what?
IM: Isn’t that a saying?
KC: well ANYWAY
KC: I have some more VERY INTERESTING news for you Isaac!
IM: Oh, cool
IM: I also have something to say to you
IM: That I think you will find INTERESTING
KC: !!
KC: Isaac? Saying something interesting?!?!?
KC: :o
IM: Hey!
KC: well maybe you should go first then
KC: and we’ll just see how YOUR supposedly “interesting” thing stacks up with mine!
IM: uh, okay
IM: Here I go!
IM: (it’s just Eric convinced me it would be better, in consideration that we might die soon, to just not have any regrets)
IM: This is easier through text I guess
IM: but it’s still hard to say though
KC: um, wait
IM: Here it is: I think, maybe, I’ve got like a crush on you
IM: or whatever
IM: But I don’t really know, right? It’s like, maybe I’ve just never had close friends-that-are-girls before
IM: but
IM: like, what do I know right?
IM: I should have stopped a few messages ago
KC: ok
KC: umm
KC: I should have gone first
KC: well to start with, Isaac, I don’t really like you like that
KC: at all
KC: but that’s a good thing, really!
KC: it actually is, because of that VERY INTERESTING thing I was talking about earlier
IM: Ok, what is it?
KC: well
KC: it’s about my dad
IM: ok...
KC: see, how should I put this
IM: just say it
KC: right!
KC: so it’s like
KC: your dad...
IM: ...yeah?
KC: and my dad...
IM: please just say it
KC: are not as much different people
KC: as is often the case
KC: parentally
KC: between friends
IM: I see
IM: well
IM: shit
KC: Isaac!
KC: :o
IM: I should have known you’d pull a freaking Star Wars!
KC: me?
IM: not you
IM: Shut up, ARKO!
IM: What’s next, we’re all gonna turn out to be clones of each other?
KC: don’t be mad, Isaac!
KC: I thought it was super cool that we were siblings!
KC: step-siblings actually
IM: But this makes no sense!
IM: HOW could Nicholas Carter be my father!? I mean, I knew my dad adopted me before he disappeared, but I thought his name was like Frank or something!
IM: And what about my mom?!
KC: I don’t know :(
KC: my mom died, but we have different moms
IM: This is stupid
IM: Are you listening up there?
IM: This plot twist is BAD and STUPID
IM: And it doesn’t make sense!
KC: who are you talking to?
IM: whoever’s writing this bullshit
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
KC: come on, Isaac!
KC: also, Eric is having a bad influence on your language!
IM: Do I even resemble your dad?
KC: ...
KC: actually, now that I think about it
KC: kind of, yeah
KC: :|
IM: ok
IM: cooling down
IM: I need to think
KC: that’s the spirit!
IM: And pray
KC: okay, sure, that too!
IM: Please ignore everything I have said throughout this conversation
KC: but...
IM: Forget it!
IM: Let’s just rewind like ten minutes
IM: Just purge this from your memory
KC: okay!
KC: BZZZRRRRP!
KC: all gone!
IM: Ok, we’ll talk later
KC: yeah!
KC: I’ll be a cool big sister, I promise!
IM: You’re like three months older than me
KC: FIVE >:(
IM: wait
IM: but
IM: aw, whatever
IM: later
KC: later!
Isaac fell back onto his bed and stared at the glossy white ceiling. He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, put them back on. “ARKO,” he said. “You do DNA scans?”
“I can appropriate the appropriate facilities,” said a smooth classic-butler voice from somewhere above.
Isaac experienced a moment of confusion. Had…had ARKO said those two words differently? Appropriate and appropriate? Isaac wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell. “Do you have a sample of Kate’s DNA, by chance?” He would have been somewhat alarmed if ARKO replied positively. But no, ARKO replied, he only had Isaac’s and Eric’s and Elizabeth’s and Jimothy’s. Isaac didn’t bother wondering where these samples had come from.
Charlie became a penguin, which was unusual, and flopped up onto the bed to snuggle against Isaac, which was also unusual. When it came to blind immortal shapeshifting birds, Charlie was not the cuddly sort. But Isaac hugged him anyway and sighed.
What he needed, at this moment, was a distraction. And on the ADS…
“ARKO, what is the current name of this ship?”
“The ADS Revelation.”
Revelation. Was it mocking him? He had noticed a correlation between his activities and the name of the flagship, but nothing that couldn’t easily be chalked up to the imagination.
Anyway. On the ADS Revelation, there was no better distraction than Admiral Thelonius Dantalion Emberstar. Isaac threw on the standard black Void Suit in case he felt like a space walk later and stepped out into the sterile white halls of the flagship.
Isaac found the admiral at his usual station. Several lesser officers, most of them roughly human in appearance, surrounded the great leafy fronds of their commander. Isaac slouched about nearby, waiting for them to finish, trying not to appear as emotionally unstable as he felt. He felt, in specific: bitter disappointment, undirected resentment, and frustration. And beneath all this lurked a dark humor which appreciated the absurdity of the situation, urging him to laugh. None of this, he felt sure, was the correct response. The manly response. The Dwayne Hartman response. If a situation as ludicrous as this one had frustrated the hopes of Dwayne Hartman, would he mope about in self-pity? The thought of Dwayne moping for any reason whatsoever was laughable.
Something caught Isaac’s attention. Lady Stars watched him from the balcony on the upper deck. He couldn’t say how he was sure she was watching him, since he could see little besides her starry outline. She ruffled the mantle of her wings. Which stars were those he saw on her? He couldn’t tell; she was too far away to show much of Earth’s sky.
“Mr. Milton,” said the basso profundo double-reed voice of Admiral Emberstar. “What troubles you?”
“D-danger?” wondered Trepidation.
“No fear!” advised Valiance.
“His demise,” suggested Woe.
“Who cares?” asked Furor.
“What’s wrong?” asked Felicity.
It appeared that Admiral Thelonius had dismissed his lesser officers in order to speak to Isaac. Isaac felt bad about that, but only a little. He could think of no reason not to tell Admiral Emberstar everything. He doubted the Admiral could be of much help, but it was nice just to have someone to talk to. Or six someones.
Isaac explained the situation in brief, though not in as brief as he would have liked since he had to pause after every sentence to allow commentary from Admirals two through six. None of them really seemed to understand what the difficulty was, which raised new questions about Admiral Emberstar’s species, and specifically why he was called a ‘father’ and the other five ‘sons,’ but they did their best to cheer him up. Most of them. It was cute.
In the end, Admiral Thelonius imparted this advice to Isaac: “Need help, help someone. Need love, love someone. If sad, find sad. Sad together. It better.” This struck Isaac as having the ring of truth to it. It was like something Dwayne would say.
He received a message at this point.
FI: he is right! He is!
FI: I always liked that Admiral guy!
FI: he is so pretty
Isaac excused himself from the Admiral, though he knew by now that there was no need. The Admiral had been continuing operations on several nearby monitors unhindered, all while speaking to Isaac. It was not really possible to interrupt the Admiral unless he was audibly speaking to someone.
IM: Are you always just creeping on us?
IM: Waiting for drama?
FI: if you were stuck in a library, Isaac Milton, what would you do?
IM: Like...read?
FI: okay but if you also had watching some cool aliens do the Narrative as another thing you could do
IM: You think we’re cool?
FI: yes!
FI: duh!
FI: you are like animals
FI: and I love animals! I do!
IM: Weird
IM: Seems to me like humans are pretty boring compared to you daimon
FI: you just think that because you are a human
IM: I guess
FI: well I am sorry that your romance did not work out for you
IM: Please don’t call it that
FI: but you should do what the Admiral said and find someone to help!
FI: that is always a good idea I think
IM: I think so too
IM: Know anybody who could use a hand?
FI: whoa!
FI: oh wait
FI: that must be a human expression
FI: with a different meaning
FI: heh
IM: It means, you know anybody who could use some help?
FI: we are full of those people up here
FI: but you probably need somebody in the Narrative
FI: you should ask Anzu!
IM: Anzu?
FI: he knows everything!
FI: and I do not think he minds at all showing you things
FI: especially things like this
FI: he is really just a big softie!
IM: Well, I can check
He had serious doubts that Anzu was any kind of ‘softie.’ And he doubted that “big,” or any spatial category, consistently applied to his Guardian, either. Size meant nothing to Anzu. Spacey powers and all that. Anzu could fly in and out of perspective like a cartoon character, being whatever size he wanted to be.
“But how,” Isaac asked Charlie, who was scooting around on the floor nearby, still in penguin form, “do I find Anzu?”
Ask, Charlie told him. Anzu is wherever he needs to be.
Such advice seemed incongruous coming from a fat albino penguin attempting with little success to slide on the plasteel plating.
“Ok,” said Isaac. “Uh. Anzu. Can I…oh.”
He said ‘oh’ because he had ceased to be in the control deck, or anywhere onboard the ADS Revelation. The starry void encompassed him. He felt a moment of panic at not having his helmet, then remembered that he could transport it to himself instantly. He plucked it from his room and fastened it down over his head. Space, he had discovered, was not really all that cold. Objects in space were cold, but exposed skin didn’t freeze unless it touched something. Which made sense. There was nowhere for the body heat to go. It was like in—
Suddenly, Anzu. There, in front of him, possibly at arm’s reach or possibly miles away, a pure white shape of molten light. Anzu wanted him to speak; this was relayed to Isaac by no means of verbal or nonverbal communication. It was a fact burning hot in Isaac’s mind.
“Uh, Anzu,” he said, realizing that he had never before directly addressed his Guardian, wondering if some honorific was in order, wondering if crude words were sufficient, or perhaps even an insult of some kind to such an overwhelming otherness. Wondering, not for the first time, if Anzu was actually an angel—a real angel, not some odd eyeless construct of the Museum and the Narrative. Anzu seemed to fit the basic qualifications: bright, terrifying, overwhelming. And, apparently, both omnipresent and omniscient.
“I…” He faltered, mustered his courage, pressed on. “Can you show me someone who needs help? Someone that I can help?” All of this business with Anzu now seemed like a bad idea. Surely this was beneath Anzu. Isaac felt like a child bothering a busy parent over something trivial, a glass of water. It was a stupid request. He, Isaac, was quite capable of finding such people on his own. He could have asked ARKO. He could have asked Lady Stars. Anyone.
“You know what?” he said. “Actually, I—”
Anzu became a window. His whiteness faded, resolving into an image, a bird-shaped TV screen in outer space, facing Isaac, showing him something. Someone.
She was beautiful, that was his first thought. Not actress-beautiful, or beautiful in the way that someone might sketch a face or a figure with the intent to make it attractive. She was beautiful in some new and mysterious way that gripped him deep in his chest, that he could not put into words. Her eyes were narrow and pale, her nose hooked and sharp, her cheekbones high, her jaw delicate. She seemed young, though it was hard to tell. She sat slumped on a rock, shivering from cold, a charred and tattered blue blanket wrapped loosely around her. Was it the icy wind that made her complexion so pallid? A matted mass of chalky hair, knotted and stained, fell down her back, adrift in the wind.
Everything about her, from her posture to her expression to the state of her attire, proclaimed defeat. It was clear at a glance: this was someone who had been crushed, who knew failure, who had reached the end of hope and had given up. It was in her staring eyes, the irises eerily white. This tragedy added depth to her beauty, cementing her in Isaac’s mind as some kind of poignant fallen hero.
Isaac was just making a second pass, examining her unusual attire and surroundings more closely, excited and fascinated, when the vision blinked away—and with it, Anzu.
“Wait!” Isaac called. “Anzu! Who is she?”
No answer. Only the blank emptiness of whichever corner of space Anzu had dropped him in.
His heart was beating fast. He wanted to see her again. He had so many questions! Where was she? What had happened to her? Why was she so sad? It hurt him to think of her like that, alone and cold and dejected, in a way that he had never quite been hurt before. It made him think that he suddenly had a new priority.
The Bright World, he noticed, was not far away. Comparatively speaking. He could see, this close to it, that it was not just a big crystal like the stars. It had a complex structure; a spiraling, churning fractal architecture that defied comprehension.
He turned away from the Bright World, looked away toward distant Ardia and its moons. He saw something that looked like a flock of manta rays, aglow with neon lights, schooling in the dark nearby. “ARKO,” he said. “Got something for you. Top priority.”
But wait. ARKO might be good at finding things, but there was someone even better.
Yes? The word appeared in space.
“Find me Jimothy,” said Isaac. “I’m going to teleport.”