CHAPTER 26 – COMPANION ARC: PRIYA AND TIMECURRENT

Current Time

Dogged by the heat, Veles performed a spell that turned the beads of sweat that matted her body into marbles, so they would roll easily off. "About time" she chimed, seeing Echo approach from the distance, walking besides a woman she had never seen before, but was sure was another stranger her mother had befriended on her travels. "Can you honestly tell me you had it all under control" Priya teased, knowing it would throw her daughter's mood a tad. "Oh, it's been swell. You missed the part when we went into a movie theater and someone had the bright idea to tap the butter-pump and we were all flooded in for five hours" Veles grumbled. "Glad you weren't a casualty. That's a far too silly way to go. Then tell me what progress you've made daughter; you know how diligent I can be about that" her mother pried. A few days of military history passed by in brief. Distracted, the commander looked down at a deer licking the palm of her hand. Veles wiped it off on her dress, following up with an excuse, "this little guy has been following us around for days, seems to like us … shoo, shoo … the grownups are talking". "Wait a minute, take a look closer. Do you think this is just an ordinary deer?" Echo reacted. Veles placed her hand on the shoulder of a nearby brigadier, and he time-lapsed, walking in the direction that the tap of her hand had sent him towards. "Man, that is some potent stuff" Veles exclaimed. "Before we came to the Earth, Ruin and Timecurrent promised each other that if she ever became lost, she would send a deer to find us, and bring us back to her, so our friend here is our new guide, for the time being. No pun intended" she explained. Nadine was led away by two brigadiers to a safe-house. Lifting its ears to a pat on the back, the deer skipped down the street, leading them to where a used-up cardboard paper towel ring was laying across an intersection, the size of a subway tunnel. Going through its length, they found themselves orbiting above the dark side of the moon, the stars twinkling in the background. As the tube slowly rotated their vision swept past more of the lunar landscape. Echo took the deer in her arms as the gravity shifted, still led by the direction which it gestured to with its pointy ears. "Over there is the temple of the voices of reason. Telenon must be away somewhere else. I don't feel his presence. This isn't good" Priya noted as her eyesight fell on the architecture bathed in the black of space. "How are we even going to get inside?" Veles wondered. "Don't worry about that part, the building will just segment to let us in. I just hope our girl there" Priya said, cursing herself for not seeing through the lies, for encouraging the bitterness that held him hostage with permission. Just like she predicted, the walls created a makeshift entrance to the walkway that led to the main chamber. Inside, sitting on the floor with her back to the left side of the throne-chair was TImecurrent, tears escaping from underneath a black blindfold. One leg was stretched out across the floor, the other she hugged with both arms. "Plus-Minus, we are here, we love you, now let's go back home before that monster comes back" Priya said, kneeling down with Veles. "Hail to the Maelstrom Allegiance" she whispered, and wiped away tears with her hand. Slipping from her palm they fell onto the floor and became jack-in-the-boxes. Priya quickly crushed them with her foot so they would not disturb their talk with noise. "Time, what did he do to you? Why are you wearing that blindfold?" Veles reviled, then reached up to her head to pull it off, but underneath it was yet another one of the same exact type. "I put the blindfold on myself with a spell. I wanted to only see my imagination and its glory" she replied. The deer licked a puddle that a jack-in-the-box had devolved into. "You are not well, Time. He is just using you for your magic, he doesn't love you!" Priya shot back. "No, no, no, you're wrong. I'm his little teddy bear that he hugs when he goes to sleep at night. He brought me roses made out of five hundred years. He made me earrings out of a microsecond". "No, he doesn't care about you. Men do this all the time, they get into your head and drive you crazy, but your stronger than this, I know it. Time, we are your family. Telenon is evil. When he is done with you, he will get rid of you so easily like you're not even a person. Your being controlled" Veles exasperated, furious at the broken look on her cousin's face. "Do you remember what your old life was like, how much fun you had during the easy years? Time, you helped defend the SOTA against the alliance and were one of our greatest champions. We love you, we can't live without you" Priya added, interlocking her fingers into hers. "My old life was real jazzy, but it didn't have … him. He makes me happy like a hiccup. Before, time was featureless, but now its rife with color and new potential. I know when he comes back, he will make me his wife, and make a wedding dress for me, weaving it out of yo-yo string like I told him. We will hold hands and rose petals from the mouth of a dozen deer will surround us, scattering everywhere, then he will tickle me with stubble on his cheek as he kisses me. He will breathe dimensions into me with his kiss" she dissented. Without letting a moment elapse for her words to sink in, Echo came back with a question she knew would hurt the girl, "Time, does he love you more than the Maelstrom Allegiance?". "He loves me! He loves me!" the girl, rocking back and forth against the wall and the chair pleaded. "Don't let him hurt you!" Veles shouted. "But …" the patron, trying to claw back at reality stammered. Reaching into a fold she took out a pocket watch, took the hour-hand and grew it into a knife. "If he doesn't then nobody will" Time, in a hushed voice predicted. Veles was quick to intervene, grabbing her wrist and slapping it out of her hand. More tears rolled down her cheeks, pelleting the wood-boards below, but this time they did not transform. "Take me home, sisters" the patron, in a cracked voice, said as if the sentence itself was an inexpiable sin. Pulling the ragdoll to her feet, they walked across the room. "I can sense it now, the turbulence is being amplified by timid rainbow splashing, dissociative treasure hunt and lure effervescence, each technique from one of the three Wolasian schools" Priya observed. The walls of the temple of the voices of reason parted. Being a nuisance, the deer licked Veles once more, causing her to time-lapse all the way through the divide into the tube and back to where they started. "Damn, lost another one" the scientist blurted. "She'll be back. I guess it's just you and me for now. She … saved my life, so don't let me think about him anymore" Time maintained. "I won't. Just rest your arm over my shoulder" the newcomer instructed. "The temple has drifted away from that tunnel. Here, let me make a bridge so we don't have to bother" the patron designed. Lifting a hand up to her face she removed a layer of the blindfold, laying it down like a road for them to walk on. Making their way across, Priya noticed the surroundings had yielded to darkness. "Time, where is the moon … sigh … we are in another …" she grieved. Her sister hugged her tight as a whisper of "Maelstrom Allegiance" reverberated through the dismal ether. Television sets displaying different phases of the moon, from crescent to full shed eerie subliminal light.

Traveling onwards they came across blindfolded people who likewise laid down their layers, forming paths to make bridges through the world's lonesome cavity. Following its trajectory, they discovered dart-boards with fragments of forest, and other paths attached around their circumference, leading to other places. Darts would collide from out of the ether and slowly mature into trees. Time tapped on Echo's shoulder and pointed to some people so she could witness a quirk of conversation. By touching their blindfolds together, two people could trade layers, with one person's unraveling from their blindfold and setting onto the other's in quick succession. Sometimes this process happened so swiftly that watching the layers was akin to watching the pages of a book flip by. Due to the inordinate number, trading them was mathematically inconsequential. Jumping over a creek of the static ocean, Time pulled the other's arm as a snake peeked through the grass, "Look where your walking!". It headed the other direction, much to their benefit. As Echo reached the edge, she handpicked a ribbon that seemed not to lead into the absence of being.

Drawn half-way to another island in the distance, their road was instead blocked by a gathering of people around a table. Needling their way in was simple enough. "Did you come here for the slices too?" one of them asked, hearing their distinct footsteps. "Not quite, we were just passing through" Time rebuffed. "Hopscotch! Everyone has been talking about this for weeks. I suppose you two just want the first pick" the man assumed. Echo squinted in confusion. "Here he comes!" clapped a woman beside them. Wearing a white hat, a chubby chef lay a duffle-bag and a jar of marbles besides the leg of the table. Unclasping the bag, he lifted up a big gleaming marble, with frilly inner glasswork onto the surface. Grasping a long carving knife, such as that used to portion turkey on a thanksgiving, he went to work on the marble, hewing it in two. Holding a hemisphere with one hand he slowly carved a very thin slice – VTS – of marble, handing it to the first participant who wrapped it around himself, as a sleeping bag, and lay on the ground falling fast asleep. Gifting the next thin slice to a woman, she threw it over her head, letting it cover both her face and shoulders, then ran about twirling and laughing in joy. At times she would light up as if her body was a metaphysical strobe light. Another person took a thin slice and just held it with one hand, watching it wobble. Yet another person wrapped their thin slice around their shoulders as a cape and flew off like super hero. Distributing the marble to the crowd, the ecstasy of the VTS began to grow in intensity. "I love this thin slice! I want to be the pages in a book!" the woman cried. Standing in front of them, a tall, lanky gentleman wrapped a thin slice around himself, then multiplied into marbles, scattering into microgravity. Pretending to be a chef, an old man tossed his thin slice up in the air, twirling it and catching it as a pizza dough. As he caught it the slice became a pizza with marbles instead of pepperonis and he divided the slices up amongst the crowd. Besides him a young man stood on the circle of a slice he had placed on the surface of the black fabric that was their new ground that day. Reaching into his body, he pulled out very thin anatomical slices and threw them into the crowd. A few of them made a whistling noise and wiggled away into the unknown. Jogging all the way from the dart-island that they had only departed from, a tawny haired woman handed out thin cross section slices of trees. Each of them showed rings that betrayed the years of their parents. Laying a marble slice as a circle onto the air, a man with short white hair summoned geometrical forms. Cross sections of thin slices fell out, generating two dimensional shapes. Soon enough the chef was done with one hemisphere and began on the other. Flocks of ghosts lured by the commotion arrived, reaching for thin slices and laid them on their bodies. Many of them became human again, although one of them wrapped a thin slice around themselves like a sleeping bag and rolled across the ground until becoming a cannoli, the type of cream filled one that you would find in an Italian bakery. "Please, let's try it just once" Time begged. "Oh … alright" Priya caved, soon regretting her decision as the chef threw her a slice that she was too nonchalant to lift her arms to catch. It slapped into her face like a pizza dough thrown at a random person. "It tickles" Time exclaimed as the crowd layered VTS upon her. Images began to float into Priya's mind through the medium of the floppy mask. Scenes of people cutting thin slices of things – tomatoes and oranges and kiwi and deli meats – then cross sections of physical objects at all scales of reality – of atoms and houses and plants and slices of time that included scenes of her life – folds drooping onto those below and deforming as the thin slices were cut in succession. "What is this room, it looks familiar? she said aloud as the outlines of a study-like setting assembled out of white blindness like coffee cream. "Of course, … this is my laboratory, and that is me over there at a table. Must be one of the semesters before the chamber" she recalled. Stealing from a napkin box dispenser, the researcher slid on a set of lab gloves and retrieved a mushy pink brain from what could have been a beer cooler on a better day. With keen precision she used a sharp knife to cut a very thin slice of brain matter. Holding it high, she could assess the harmonious design of the noble organ. Then her perspective shifted, so that looking through the mask she saw from the viewpoint of the brain slice. It wobbled between the rubber of the researcher's two fingers. Bringing the cross section to a microscope, a short study commenced. Priya looked up from the flat surface of the microscope observation tray. Disks of beautiful glass hovered above. It tickled to be looked at so carefully. Done with a brief examination, the scientist once again picked it up, but less carefully this time. "This slice is too thick" she sighed, then with a foot opened up the lid of a trash can and tossed it in. Darkness overcame Echo's vision. A rush of madness soared through. Peeling the mask from her face and tossing it onto the table. The patron started to laugh, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! everything has come full circle!" and ran towards a wide cobblestone water-well that the ghosts had brought and lain onto the blind-fold path. A ring of people leaned over it, filling it with their laughter. Without the spark of rational thought Priya leapt headlong down the well, into the same darkness that the slice had been condemned to. "Ha ha ha ha ha! This is the end!" she rabidly bellowed, her voice ringing off the cobblestones of the bottomless tunnel. Tumbling became a natural state of being. Down and down unless there was something that could …. stop her. As the momentum evaporated, she gasped. Straps pressed tightly around her back and arms and legs. Slowly, deliberately, the ring of locals standing around the well raised her upwards with the ribbons of their blind-folds. "Get her!" chimed in her ears with the sound of a familiar voice. Meeting an imperfect circle of light Priya was lain down at the foot of the well. Focus returned as the bitterness of life crept out in tears. Throwing her arms around Time, she held her tight, thanking her breathlessly. "Sometimes we all need to be saved, just promise me you'll never do anything like that again" Time said. Her friends' embrace was warm and sweet beyond conception. "Thank you, Time, do you have anything for me to bite on? I'm famished" she begged. Handing her a cannoli, her sister gobbled it up with little concern for dignity. "Wait, was this the cannoli …" Priya stopped, thinking of the ghost that had wrapped itself in a sleeping bag of the very thin slice. "Nah, that's just something I had in my pocket" Time confirmed to her relief. "I'm lucky to have a real sister. I grew up as an only child and it was rough" the patron relayed … with extra breaths so she knew her words were real.

Up ahead the path ended at another dart-board. The girls skipped past an embankment into a paltry thicket. Laying it's back against a tree a wooly sweater played with a big bottlecap, throwing it occasionally and catching it. Farther on, a cluster of cottages had gardens of wooly cotton in tiers of brick enclosures. As a ball grew larger, it produced enough electricity to elicit the others to aggregate. Then it touched a brick, causing electricity to flow into the settlement. Inside the first cottage they found the television running on a cooking channel. Flamingos standing in the vestibule became pink cockroaches that scurried and hid under the floorboards. "Switch that off before it starts playing something dumb" she instructed Time. "Looks like she's making a drink" her friend hesitated as the presenter of a cooking show went to a blender on a counter. Opening up the shelves she collected a handful of jack-in-the-boxes, crammed them in the blender and made a smoothie of a frothy pink color. "Here honey, try this, it's good for your metabolism" the presenter said with a smile, handing her a cup of smoothie by passing her arm through the screen. "Yum! that was good" Time credited. "Oops, you got a little bit on your chin, let me take care of that" she insisted, then removed the skull from an audience member and folded it into a white napkin and stuck her arm through the screen again to wipe off the excess dribble on the girl's lip. Echo had enough. Rotating the channel switch with telekinesis, the view-screen returned to static, inebriated pixels of imagery. "What is it doing Priya? The grain is flowing inward instead of across" Time fussed apprehensively. "Get over here!" her patron demanded. Guarding the couch from the glare of the television, they stared into the technological veil, into a plane with the suggestion of movement underneath. "All hail the Maelstrom Allegiance" the box recited monotonously. "Time! This is big. This realm is a bridge to the space that harbors the imprints of the Voices of Reason as they cycle. If we can just communicate with one of them, we may gain an edge" the scientist gathered excitedly. "Are you sure about this, it could be dangerous?" Time stalled." Yes, sis … if I can just get a little bit closer. The box looks unstable though" she lurked forward, inching carefully. "That's not what you should be worried about" Visioness appeared holding the throat of the snake that boldly sought to reach the patron. Under duress by the intonation, the box's mere frame could not withstand, collapsing on itself into useless parts. "Rainbow, you gave me a heart attack, and the box is gone now, I had it!". "You're welcome" Visinoess replied, her essence cancelling the serpent's disguise. Priya and Time looked again, only now it was more than just a simple beast, having shed its skin. "My, my! This is one of Obsidian's constellation serpents. Teddy will see red for his betrayal" she affirmed. "At least give him a chance to speak" Visiones cut back, prompting the memory of how Obsidian had tried to reach her with a message during their capture by pirates. "I am only a herald, so please don't hurt me" the constellation began in the voice of The Night, animated by her unique prowess, "during this unpleasant trouble I received a visitor from the Ring. He was a Jordicorian, one of the abbots of Bronze. Teledock, the name should be familiar to you. By contact … a single touch, he stole a portion of my power. What I witnessed next is difficult to relate. Not a man, but a black circulatory system radiating with echoic power, your power. This character called himself Telenon, like our enemy, although I know not why. He forced me to tell him all I knew about your whereabouts. Hopefully this message arrives first, so be on your guard" the serpent warned, dimming into nonexistence as the star-points of its body lost vigor. "So be it" VIsioness shrugged indifferently, fading back into the body of her host.

Outside, in the midst of it all another wooly sweater was holding a big bottle cap upside down. Dolls of ballet dancers marched about the circle of the cap to the delight of the sweater. Another played with a rotary dial telephone. Making it to the edge of that island, Time directed her attention to the appearance of an astronaut in a space-suit drifting by. He seemed to be alive, but without thrusters, the fuel having been depleted hours ago. Lifting the visor, a tree sprouted and grew from the darkness within. Both girls leapt onto the nearest branch and began climbing until gaining a substantial height. Time returned to their present circumstance, discussing it vividly. Her friend waited for her to relent. "Now this is an awfully good view of all those bridges and islands, it should be easy to trace the best path from here" Priya observed. Just as easily as tissue paper a blindfold bridge snapped as an hourglass broke through. It rotated, letting the grains naturally slide down the incline into the other chamber. To their amazement it grew many orders in size, so that before they knew it the grains had gained substantial color. Priya instinctively stepped back when she saw them in their true light, as marbles. The hourglass crashed through an island, and shamelessly dislodged its paths without injury, continuing onwards. They watched its departure, and the flowing of marbles like sand on the sea. "Had to open your big mouth, didn't you?" Time kidded. "Alright, I didn't know time could be so … in your face" Priya admitted. "Believe me, I thought it was only a toy at first as well. Over the years my perspective has changed. Let's get down from here and find that path to Tijuana" she instructed whilst balancing on a thin branch over to a spot above where an empty astronaut suit with an open visor had gotten caught in the tangle of foliage. Dropping down through it, they came out at another visor of a suit on one of the dart-islands that had survived. Supple melodies welcomed them, emanating from a young man playing a guitar for his attentive lover, both blindfolded and oblivious to the destruction that had only just been wrought on the landscape.

"Hide and seek is over Echo" came a voice seeking them out from beyond the dart trees. Telenon, a walking circulatory system of shadow stood before them. Adrenaline and sorceric senses kicked into overdrive, but Priya could not decipher the foul energy that had once been the very makeup of the creature. "Are you here to finish what you started?" she demanded. Inquiring eyes passed over her. Priya felt her soul under the microscope of his curious gaze. "The waters are colder here" Telenon ruminated. "That didn't answer my question. I know you have been seeking me out. I heard it from The Night. If you try to fight me you will not live to tomorrow" she threatened. "Yes, I am here to finish this. I remember that day long ago. Dreamer sinking through the water … bubbles springing from her mouth. They formed into nascent realities comparable to this, one among many that did not survive" Telenon, bracing against the bitter wind of memory, recounted. "We were lucky. A monster tried to drown us" Priya declared, curling her fists. Slowly the creature stepped closer to them. The patron's forehead became wet, intimidated by the approach, her body metabolizing magic in preparation for the battle. "Echo … You were born from loss, but you have changed" Telenon said, a somber voice highlighted by a note of optimism … happiness. With incredible relief Priya understood the purification of the Telenonic energy through the eons was complete. "Telenon, it is good to finally meet you. If only our original meeting had been on better terms" she confessed. "Agreed" he smiled, causing Time's eyebrow to twitch as she experienced opposing, contradictory impulses, one of latent desire, the other of mortal fear. "What are you looking for now that you have found me?" she questioned. Telenon took a step back, "I don't want anything else other than to be a free man". Anxious moments passed, until a reply came from the Empress, "There's nothing wrong with that". A knowing glance shared between the two, the man turned to Time, "This place appears to be tied to your blindfold, young lady, do you need help?" he asked. "Um … yeah. I've basically tried everything. None of my spells work" Time complained, a little red-faced at her defeat in regards to such a simple task. Telenon lifted his hands up to Time and removed the blindfold.

Around them, the natural light and heat of Tijuana embraced their senses. Veles ran over, pulling Time into a vortex of hugs. Nadine's presence ... was conspicuously gone. Talk commended on numerous topics including the man that they had brought with them, camouflaged so as not to incite retaliation. High-rise apartments in a sea of squat local shops and chain-stores made up the northern flank of the city. Time noticed ordinary details that had survived the turbulence, simple rooftop gardens, shingles caked with the incandescence of perennial summer. Around their skirts misshapen debris loitered. From the destruction of a neighborhood theme park the rail of a roller coaster lay across the ground, flaccid and lifeless. Excitement from the regiment spilled out, but not because of their arrival. Craning her neck Priya witnessed the cloudscape yielding. Rectangular shapes let the tops of the clouds lap against them as more arrived in great number. "My word, an armada" she discerned, pointing to the formation of Rikiral Exclamation-Point ships within the substance of a flashback that superseded history. "Empress, do you recall reading in history about White Jade, how the lunar capitol was destroyed during the war?" Veles whispered. Everything was already set in motion. Straight lines arrowed through any resistance, sanitizing the city. "Wait! No!" Priya cried. The regiment far ahead of them vaporized before their eyes. Time clung to Veles, the scene flooding into her senses until all that was left was dust and ruins and emptiness. Dots of the exclamation points sizzled with electricity as they cooled from the bombardment. "If only we came sooner" Priya insisted. Hearing the plea, Time's ears perked. "Sister, give me your coat" she requested. "Can you really? What do you need?" she asked. "A kite" Time specified. Wind entered the sails of the lab coat lifting her upwards, higher to the height of the ships. For some reason the clouds felt the need to continue to lap their undersides against the tops of the exclamation points, simple black geometries freed from the pages of a letter. "As long as time exists, you can never disappear" the girl said to the memory of the clown that sought her out before its passing. Focusing time trophy, chrono-dream and marathon harmony, her appearance shifted. "I hope you know what you're doing" Priya thought as the girl became a clown and let go of the kite. A feminine clown. As Timecurrent removed the red foam nose, in her hand it transformed into an atom, a cloud of electrons whizzing around with insatiable speed. Protons and neutrons were soft and pliable so she squeezed, unleashing a shock wave of temporal energy. Receding above the clouds, the armada was expelled back to the beginning of the flashback. Below, a city came ... gradually ... out of a disheveled sandbox. "Time, you saved Tijuana!" her patron acknowledged breathlessly, untangling the younger from the kite string that carried her down to earth. Priya looked into the girl's eyes and watched as the clown makeup drained off of her face like rain. Quickly they dispatched the regiment to circulate anti-coffee syringes to anyone affected by the disorder. "Controlling it within the framework of the flashback is a remarkable feat, a step towards its destruction" she relayed to Veles.