by James Riley
A thousand objects slammed into her with the force of a flood, and she took a step back in shock. Feeling like she was drowning in her own head, her thoughts disappearing beneath the weight of the possibilities, she grabbed for something, anything that could stabilize her mind, and came up with sleeping gas.
Before it could wash away in the river of ideas, she focused all her attention on it and started to turn. But as soon as she did, she realized that Dr. Verity’s Quanterian soldiers all probably had breathing devices inside those black helmets, and sleeping gas would be useless.
Silently groaning, she released the image and dove back in.
GiantmirrortorelfectthelasersmightsendthemrichocetingintoKielorevenoneoftheQuanteriansMaybeshecouldbecomealaserrifleherselfandshootalloftheirweaponsbutnoshewouldn’tbefastenoughWhatabouthowaboutwhatabout—
As if from an enormous distance, a small part of her could hear Kiel still trying to distract Dr. Verity. “Why don’t you let the Magister wake up, and see if you can take him in a fair fight?”
“Why would I ever do that?” Dr. Verity asked. “Fair fights are the worst kind. Only a fool doesn’t prepare ahead of time, which makes the fight unfair in his favor. Now enough of this! It’s past time that I doomed the Magister to some parallel death hole. Or maybe a world full of magician-eating fish. Or one where humans are made of fire, and for the rest of his life anyone he ever tries to touch will burn him!” He frowned. “Why can’t I just make up my mind? This is unusual for me.”
“Sounds like you’re getting old,” Kiel said, throwing Bethany a look that she barely noticed through the barrage of ideas.
Dr. Verity sneered. “You seem anxious to cut in line for your own fatal trip through the portal. If that’s the case, I’m happy to oblige. I’ll even grant you a swift death, if you bow before me and admit my superiority.”
“Nah,” Kiel said, stepping forward. “That’ll never happen. Because I’ll beat you. I always beat you. We’ve fought each other for seven books—”
“Don’t you start!”
“Everywhere and every when,” Kiel continued, “from the future to the lairs of the snow giants, from alternate realities to beyond the end of everything. And the one thing you’ve never been able to do is stop me.”
Dr. Verity pointed the smaller ray gun he had in his lab coat at Kiel. “I’ll take this as you volunteering, then.”
“Bethany?” Kiel whispered back at her. “I’m ready when you are!”
She stared at him, her mouth hanging open, not sure what to even do.
IcouldbecomeatruckoranaircraftcarrierexceptthatwoulddestroythetowerHowaboutagiantcannonoranotherbulldozerNothatwouldn’tworkAnelectricfenceamirrorawashingmachineadollwithcreepyeyesacastleapileofdeadleavesaswimmingpoolarocktworocksthreerocks—
Dr. Verity strode forward and placed the tip of his ray gun up against Kiel’s forehead. “There you go, boy. I’m giving you your moment. Now, tell your jokes. Give me some more of that arrogance. Be the hero. Show me how brave you are, so much braver than me, the man you’ll someday become.”
“Never,” Kiel said, practically spitting with disgust. “You think I’d wear a lab coat out in public? Look at me. I’m rocking this cape!”
Bethany clenched her fists, desperate to just pick something, anything at this point, but separating the possibilities was like trying to stop a gushing faucet.
AlightrayoraTwilightthrowingstaroranowlstatueorabookofpoemsorapenciloraspaceshuttle—
Dr. Verity slowly smiled. “You do know exactly how to push my buttons, don’t you?”
Kiel shrugged, throwing a quick look back at Bethany. “You just make it so easy. If you’re such a genius, how have you managed to never pick up any fashion pointers?”
“I know what you’re doing here, Kiel,” Dr. Verity said quietly, his smile fading. “I know that you’re all too ready to throw down your worthless life for what you believe in. I have no idea where you got that from, since I’d certainly never be that gullible. But I also know your weakness.”
Kiel abruptly froze and flashed another look at Bethany. “No,” he whispered.
Dr. Verity smiled and nodded at Kiel. Five of his Quanterian black helmets surged forward and grabbed the boy, holding him tightly as Dr. Verity advanced toward Bethany, his ray gun now aimed at her.
Her eyes widened as he neared, but the ideas in her head only increased, just images now of everything and anything she could think of flashing through her mind.
Cowsfencesbarnshighwaysmotorcyclesbicyclesshovelsvaultsdoorsbathtubsrocketshipscreditcardscellphones—
“It’s never about your own personal safety, is it, Kiel?” said the scientist. “It’s always been about the Magister, or Mentum’s daughter, or this girl, hasn’t it? You have to be noble. To be good. To be protecting someone.”
“Don’t, please!” Kiel shouted as he struggled against the black helmets holding him down.
“I guess you weren’t doing as great a job distracting me as you thought, were you?” Dr. Verity asked. To Bethany, he leaned in, the tip of his ray gun now on her forehead. “Give me a show, will you, girl? I want this to really get to him.”
A tear slowly slipped down her face as she realized she couldn’t stop, couldn’t focus, couldn’t do anything. Too many options, she was paralyzed, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t become anything, she had to rewrite herself into something that—
And then Dr. Verity pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 33
The ray passed right through Bethany and hit the wall behind her, which immediately began to warp from wood to brick to cement.
Dr. Verity frowned. “Now that’s unexpected.” He fired several more times, but the beams traveled right through her just like the first.
Bethany, as surprised as anyone, brought her hands up to touch her face . . . only to have them pass through her head as well. She looked down and saw that not only were her hands transparent and fading fast, but so was the rest of her body.
She’d rewritten herself at the last possible moment, turning into a cloud. But it’d been too much. She couldn’t hold herself together anymore.
“No!” she tried to shout, but no sound came out. Her legs began to separate, floating away like fog in a slight breeze. She grabbed for them, but her hands left too, slowly fading as they went.
“Beth!” Kiel shouted, struggling against the black helmets.
“I’m so sorry, my boy!” Dr. Verity said, looking genuinely sad. “I really thought I could kill her in front of you. I don’t know what’s going on!”
Scattered memories seemed to pass through her mind like a swiftly flowing river through her brain. She grabbed for the ones she could, holding on to them tightly, no matter how unimportant: eating lunch with Owen in the cafeteria at school, hiding books beneath her bed, helping Kiel set up his magically created house down the street so he could go to school with them.
But this time, the memories didn’t fix anything. This time, it was too late.
Dr. Verity lowered his goggles over his face and stepped in close, examining her transparent hand as it wandered away from her. “Fascinating,” he said, the goggles whirling and lighting up. “The things we learn while on murderous rampages!”
She screamed silently, doubling down on her memories in an attempt to pull herself back together. There was her mother, crying over the news of a Doc Twilight comic book selling for some crazy amount on television. Here was Kiel, hugging her good-bye when he left for Magisteria, telling her he’d see her again in a year. And then Gwen, amazing Gwen, showing her the fortress of friendship she’d built for the two of them on the moon.
She closed her eyes, concentrating as hard as she was still able. Remember what it was like to be half-fictional. Remember your nonfictional self. Remember what it was like to be whole—
Suddenly she felt something pass through her body, sending even more parts of herself floating away. Her eyes flew open, only to find an even bigger shock awaiting her.
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br /> “You?” said a Bethany in a normal, everyday school outfit, her eyes widening as she looked up from where she’d apparently landed on the floor. “You’re . . . you’re disappearing!”
“Bethany?” Kiel said, still held down by the black helmets. “Where did you—”
“Owen brought me,” nonfictional Bethany said, still staring at herself in wonder and horror.
Cloud Bethany glanced over and found Owen also on the floor, a few feet away from the portal, as if he’d come flying out of it somehow.
“Bethany?” Owen whispered, looking at her with horror. “What happened to you?”
“Are you kidding me?” Dr. Verity roared. “How many of you people are there? Two of the girl, and three Kiel Gnomenfoots? All we’re missing is—”
“Me,” someone said from behind him. Verity whirled around and found a very angry Charm standing behind him. She reared back, then drove her robotic fist into his stomach so hard he went flying across the room.
Bethany just stared as she continued to disappear, not believing what she was seeing. Where had Charm and Owen come from? And why was her nonfictional self here, of all places? Had she come to judge Bethany one last time?
“Charm?” Kiel said, watching in wonder as the half-robotic girl laid out the remaining black helmets holding him down.
“Are you really you?” she growled, grabbing Kiel by the shirt and looking him right in the face.
“As much as any of us are, I guess.”
“Vague answer checks out,” she said, dropping him to the floor. “But trust me, we’ll be having a very long talk later.” She spun around toward the mad scientist. “Verity! Free my people, or I’m going to shove that ray gun somewhere you won’t like.”
The doctor held up a hand for them to wait a moment as he wheezed in and out, trying to recover his breath. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, but instead, he aimed his ray gun at Charm and pulled the trigger.
The blast shot out far too fast for anyone to completely dodge. Instead, it hit the lower half of Charm’s robotic arm as she brought it up to protect herself, the arm immediately morphing into a short, straight sword extending from her elbow to what used to be her hand.
“Could you please just stand still?” Dr. Verity snapped as Charm stared down at her former arm with disbelief. Verity aimed again, but this time, Kiel was ready and threw one of his wand-knives straight into the scientist’s shoulder. Dr. Verity screamed, dropping the ray gun, and Owen grabbed it, then aimed it at the scientist.
“Don’t move!” he shouted. “Unless it’s to fix Bethany. Then you can move all you want.” He paused, glancing at Bethany with concern. “What did you do to her, anyway?”
“It wasn’t him,” Kiel said, moving over to Bethany and staring at her sadly. “She rewrote herself too many times, just like Nobody does. Only now that the worlds are separated, there’s nothing anchoring her, nothing holding her back from just . . . becoming pure possibility. This happened a bit before, but she was able to pull herself back from it.”
Owen stepped in closer to Bethany, but it was getting hard for her to see him. The entire room seemed to be getting fuzzier by the minute. “Bethany, can you come back to us?” he asked quietly. “We’ll help. You’ll help—your nonfictional self, I mean!”
Everyone turned to look at nonfictional Bethany, who took a step back. “Wait . . . I don’t . . . if we go back—”
“She needs you,” Kiel said softly, and fictional Bethany felt like she’d been punched in the heart.
“Look at her, Bethany,” Owen said to her nonfictional self. “She’s going to disappear. It’s like Kiel said, she needs an anchor. And that’s you.”
Her nonfictional self cringed, but she nodded and stepped closer, raising a hand toward Bethany. “Look at you,” she said. “You messed up again, and now I have to fix things. Just like always. Thanks so much for that.”
Bethany tried to say something, shouting about how her nonfictional self was really to blame, but even if she could speak, she knew it was pointless. She really had done this to herself, and without her other self, she’d disappear.
Maybe she really had been the side of Bethany messing everything up all along.
Her nonfictional self took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I can’t keep blaming you.” She looked around for a moment. “Of all the people to not show up here, I could have really used Gwen right now. She’d be the first to forgive us both. Wouldn’t even matter what we’d done.”
Bethany nodded her agreement as her nonfictional self’s hand drew closer, brushing against Bethany’s arm. As the two touched, Bethany screamed out in silence as her other self did the same much more loudly, incredible pain coursing through them both. The agony was so intense that they each pulled away, staring at the other.
The floor began to shake, first gently, then harder until her friends all almost lost their footing. Bethany tried to find the source of the rumbling, but she couldn’t move anymore, could barely even think. What was happening?
“You should have listened to me,” a familiar voice whispered from behind her, then moved around to face her. “But now it’s too late,” Fowen said so softly that only she could hear. “I had to tell him what was happening. If I hadn’t, he’d have known I betrayed him. This is on you.”
Owen groaned loudly. “Are you kidding me? Him? Again?”
“Oh, stop it, Nowen,” Fowen said. “Like I’m not sick of you too.” He looked back at Bethany and lowered his voice again. “I told you to go over to her world. If you merged there, he’d never had known. But here, he was going to find out. And he’d know I was involved. You didn’t give me a choice.”
Bethany felt a chill run through her noncorporeal body. Did he mean . . . ?
The floor above them—no, the entire tower above them disappeared. In its place, a featureless giant peered down at them, empty eye sockets glowing with dark purpose. Behind the creature, the sky glowed from a white void of nothingness surrounding everything.
“I warned you what would happen if you didn’t stay in Jupiter City, Bethany,” Nobody said. “If you can’t follow my very simple rules, then I’ll have to deal with you permanently.”
CHAPTER 34
Nobody pushed a hand inside the room, then sent a finger snaking toward the portal, smashing the glass into pieces.
“No!” nonfictional Bethany screamed. “That’s the only way back!”
“You’re all to blame for this,” Nobody said, sliding his other hand to the floor. As it touched down, his body seemed to flow from outside the tower, down his arm, and reform in a normal, human size where his giant hand had been. “I tried to give you a chance to live your lives, but you couldn’t let things go.”
“You monster!” Kiel shouted, leaping at Nobody with his wand-knife in hand. He stabbed toward Nobody’s stomach, but a hole opened where the knife hit, then closed around the wand, ripping it from Kiel’s hand. Nobody absently threw his arm out, smacking Kiel into the wall, where he slid down to the floor, barely conscious.
Charm roared in anger and swept her new sword arm down at Nobody’s nearest leg, and this time, it cut right through him. Only the leg immediately reconnected, and Nobody just shook his head sadly. “You really are disappointing me, all of you,” he said, holding out his hand toward Charm. His fingers shot out and grabbed her robot leg, then retracted back into his hand, throwing her across the room easier than he might swat a fly.
Owen looked down at the ray gun in his hand, then aimed it at Nobody. “Don’t move,” he said, hoping he sounded more intimidating than he thought. “I don’t know what this thing does, but I’m sure it’s not good.”
Nobody turned his faceless head in Owen’s direction, and a chill went down his back. His older self’s words flashed through his head. One by one, you’ll lose your friends along the way, until finally it’s just you against Nobody. And that’s a fight that no Owen Conners has ever won yet.
But wait a sec
ond. His older self had said that Nobody would be in a castle, somewhere within the story Owen had written about Bethany’s father. Was this not the right time?
Or better yet, maybe he had a chance now, instead of when all his other selves failed?
“How is your heart, Owen?” Nobody asked him almost casually as he reached out and slammed Kiel back against the wall. “Have you figured out by now that fictional inventions won’t last very long in your world?”
“They would if the worlds were still connected,” Owen said. “Now back off or I ray-gun you.”
Nobody spread his arms wide, and a smile appeared on his face. “You think you can hurt me with that? Oh, Owen. You’ve never been able to stand against me. You played the hero, but that’s all it was: a game. Now please, step aside, if you want me to save your friend.”
Owen dropped the ray gun slightly in surprise. “Save . . . what, now?”
Nobody pointed past him, to where fictional Bethany was barely still visible, just bits of her at a time, and even those were fading. “You’re not relevant here, Owen. Go back to your world and live your normal life. You have no place in this story anymore.”
Owen blushed hard but lowered the ray gun, unsure if Nobody was telling the truth, but not willing to let Bethany suffer if he was. Nobody nodded, then moved past him toward where both Bethanys waited, each staring at Nobody with pure hatred.
“You two obviously can’t be left to your own devices,” he said, approaching the twins. “I gave you both the gift of freedom that we fictionals never had, and you betrayed that gift. You betrayed me.”
He stopped before fictional Bethany and extended a hand. As it grew out toward her, it slowly formed into a long, transparent sort of cylinder.
“You can’t be trusted, I’m afraid,” Nobody said to her. “And for that, I have just one last solution.”
“Oh, it’s you!” said a voice from right behind Owen. As Owen whirled around, something hit his hand holding the ray gun, and he dropped it, groaning. A wrinkled hand caught the ray gun, then brought it up to point at Nobody.
