In frustration, Victorio threw off his hand. As if anything they had to say would help. “Whatever! Look, it doesn’t matter.”
Brasil gawked at him, whereas Gatina bristled. “Say that again?” she said in a low, flat voice.
He turned on both of them but stared directly at Brasil. He couldn’t fake it anymore. He was done. He was tired, and he was done. “This is pointless. The universe is infinite, so everything we do has happened, but hasn’t happened in an infinite number of other places.”
Brasil held up his hands, motioning for Victorio to calm down. “No, no, tha’s puttin’ it too simply, son—”
“And don’t call me that!” he snapped. “You’re not my dad. I’m never seeing my dad again. What do you care about that? You can go home whenever you want.”
Brasil’s dull-blue eyes shifted to Gatina for a moment, and quickly returned to Victorio. “Listen, Aye—Aye know ye’re still upset, this isn’t what ye agreed to, but ye can’t—”
“Can’t what? Can’t go home? Can’t give a crap about fighting off some ‘sea of decay’ when it just doesn’t make any difference? Seriously, what does it matter?” He was now shouting, and it felt damn good. “Oh, while we’re arguing right now, an infinite number of universes just died. Oh, and an infinite more are fine. What about when I eat and sleep? Am I supposed to ever rest? What the hell does it matter?”
Brasil was going to say more but was struck silent when Gatina walked forward. She looked dead into Victorio’s eyes, her face suddenly very severe. Even Victorio was quieted by this; never once had he seen Gatina’s face so unanimated. Her gold eyes were thinned, her brow hard as she stood up to him. He could see moisture in her eyes. Her lips tightened and her paw-like hand lashed out.
Victorio’s face was shoved to the side as she slapped him, hard. He blinked, stunned, and heard Gatina’s heels clatter against the deck as she skulked off wordlessly. Gradually, he straightened, rubbed his stinging face, and his anger started to build again.
Brasil grabbed his shoulder roughly. “Victorio, don’t—”
“She just bitch-slapped me!” he announced, still not believing it himself. “What the h—?”
“Victorio, will you listen to me for one moment?” Brasil shook his shoulder. “Just listen. Ye said some very stupid things just now, ye were bein’ selfish.”
“Me?” he scoffed.
“I said listen.” After slowly releasing a long breath, Brasil let go of Victorio’s shoulder and motioned for him to follow. He led Victorio to the edge of the boat as it continued to lift into the air and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Victorio…We’ve both been very patient with ye. We know that ye’re dealin’ with loss, and we haven’t pushed for that reason.”
Victorio shrugged bitterly, looking out over the shrinking landscape of blue mountains and purple trees.
“But that was uncalled for,” Brasil finished, his face stern.
At the sound of Brasil’s voice, Victorio felt a twinge of guilt building. “I was just angry—”
“I don’t care,” he cut back. “Ye don’ know anything about Gatina and I. Ye haven’t even bothered to ask, have ye?”
He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and shook his head.
“No? Because ye’re too busy mopin’ to think about anyone else,” he said. “And you think we’re just yer merry wee characters walkin’ about? Why ask more, then?”
Victorio’s jaw went slack. Brasil was right. He still couldn’t separate them from the fictional versions he knew before. Were they different?
“Me…I…I joined the Cartesian Guard because they saved meh world,” Brasil continued with a nostalgic smile. “Not the Empty mind, just…ah, long story. But ye were right, I can go back any time I please. See me brothers and sisters…and the place is beautiful—not near as fancy as yers with ‘cell phones’ and ‘interstates’ and the like…but it’s home.
“Gatina…” he said distantly, his face growing hard. “She isn’t s’lucky.”
The sinking feeling was now a stone in Victorio’s midsection. There were differences. Differences he hadn’t bothered to know. “What…happened?” he mumbled.
“The Empty took her world,” Brasil said softly, his eyes narrowing. “There was no Spear Bearer that day to arrive and save them. Her mates in magic school, the rest of her litter…her parents…they’re all gone. She just woke up in a nexus—sometimes that happens, y’know. Sometimes when a world dies or is taken, some of the residents are just scattered around the multiverse. Most often in a nexus point. A place where a lot of universes cross,” he explained. “Someone from the Cartesian Guard found her and took her to our headquarters. She volunteered to join the Guard.” With a short sigh, he lowered the brim of his hat a bit. “Just to do everything she could to fight the Empty. So that…maybe a few less would have to go through what she did.”
Victorio was left hollow, staring into nothing, his face tensing in thought. Now her eagerness to hunt the Empty was obvious, and the ranting she did at the cult leader Demios even more so.
Missing his home was a depressing feeling, but imagining is simply not being there? Or Angala and Demario stared down by the Empty? In disgust, he tossed the thought aside as quickly as it had surfaced.
“You ever feelin’ sorry for yourself?” Brasil said with finality as he left Victorio’s side. “Then think about that for a while. I hate to, personally,” he added. “Breaks me damn heart too much. And the fact she never stops goin’ on is good enough reason to never complain m’self.”
Gatina sat on the back of the boat, her legs dangling over the side while she leaned against the railing. Her tail twitched lethargically as Victorio neared, his hands in his pockets. He swallowed hard and gently cleared his throat.
Her furry ears flicked once, but she didn’t turn around.
Very cautiously Victorio eased by her side, propping his elbows on the metal rails and looking up at the bright night sky. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she mumbled back, rubbing her eyes.
Awkwardly, Victorio glanced around, desperately trying to think of the right words to say. “Um…wow…”
Gatina rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “I guess I’d be pretty stupid to think Braz wouldn’t say after what I did.”
Victorio tightened his lips and took a deep breath. “I was…pretty pissed that I agreed to be the Spear Bearer and didn’t really know what it meant…but…while I was pissed, I still didn’t know what it meant. This is…bigger, you know, than just me.” He grew quiet, his memory returning to the last day in his dimension, standing in his father’s office and staring at a photo of himself, his brother, and sister. “And I-I guess there are some things I have to do even if I don’t like it.”
A long silence followed, as Victorio just stared out at the sea, not wanting to turn his head and face her. “So…yeah. I’ve been a dick. All that stuff about infinite worlds—I was just making excuses. I can’t actually understand infinity,” he said softly. “But I can understand what I see around me, and I don’t want to see it go away. I like it.”
He finally turned to Gatina, and saw a warm, if sad, smile on her feline face. “You’re right about one thing.” She lightly punched his shoulder. “You are a dick.”
He laughed and nudged her in return. “Next time I’ll pimp-slap you back.”
“Next time I’ll use claws.”
“And then I’ll blow in your face.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Brasil’s warm chuckle interrupted them as he walked up to the scene. “So…problem solved?”
Gatina scoffed. “He’s still here, isn’t he?”
“You couldn’t chase me away if you tried,” Victorio jabbed back, grinning.
Brasil smiled and nodded. “It seems yer finally ready to do your part. Glad to hear it.”
✽✽✽
It was an uneventful night, and Victorio and his entourage had moved past the awkwardness from earlier that evening. Fo
r the first time, Victorio was enjoying dinner with company. It felt kind of like a family gathering. He hadn’t realized Brasil’s cooking was actually pretty good, but then again, anything tastes better when eaten with friends. They were real, much more real than he had allowed himself to accept.
“—So then Stephen is all like, ‘Yeah, well,’” Victorio continued, finishing a bite of stew. “’Then I guess I’ll just stay out here with the food’ and we realize we left all of it outside and we’re like ‘Noooo, the rations!’ And he’s out there eating the chocolate and laughing at us.”
While Brasil only chuckled lightly, Gatina laughed and her tail swished happily. “We did stuff like that at school,” she added with a smile. “I’ll have to tell the story about the fifth tower sometime.”
“It’ll ‘af to be later,” Brasil replied, polishing off the final bits of his stew with the last of his bread. After setting down his bowl he let out a satisfied sigh. “I think a ride would do us well after dinner?”
“Head to the cloud line?” Gatina clarified eagerly, her ears perking up straight.
A smile grew over Victorio’s face. “Seriously?”
“Ye haven’t really enjoyed a good flight yet, hm?” Brasil added with a smirk. “Ya never seen anything until ya seen a storm from above it.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Going from above, they had approached a distant storm and watched the swirling, violent seas of pitch clouds crash into one another. When so close, thunder was terrifying, rattling every bone in Victorio’s body and vibrating his teeth—and the dance of sparkling tendrils of lightning through the dense wind and clouds was one of the coolest things he had ever seen in his life.
Eventually they drifted to quieter skies, and the three pulled their blankets and pillows out of their respective rooms onto the deck. For the first time in weeks, Victorio slept peacefully while staring up at unknown stars.
It wasn’t home. But it was pretty good.
Chapter Ten
Small Worlds
It was between travels several days later that Victorio began feeling the isolation of their life. The three of them were getting to know each other more, and he was really enjoying his time with them (any battles with the Empty aside), but something was missing. It left a pit in his stomach when he realized exactly what it was: school.
Of course, it wasn’t like school was really what was missing—there was nothing about classes, teachers, or racist administration he missed. Also, nothing about school lunches (except for those square pizzas, he really missed those square pizzas), or getting up early, or the bus. None of that. Just…seeing more than just himself and two others, he guessed. His friends too. Every story he shared with Brasil and Gatina about his friends was bittersweet, like talking about another life. His new one was so much smaller.
Infinite universes, and yet so small…
“Do you feel where the weak spot is?” Brasil called over the wind ripping across the deck of the Twilight Runner.
As Victorio scanned a candy-coated landscape below—watching frosted and chocolate chip forest animals running from the grasping tendrils of dark energy—his eyes locked onto the source. “Yeah! I see it. Just go down.”
Gatina was next to him, her paw desperately pressing her hat to her head. “Is someone down there?” she blurted.
“The best help we can give them is getting Victorio there!” Brasil barked back as he sent the Twilight Runner down at high speed.
“I got this!” Victorio shouted, feeling the barest dregs of impulse the Spear still held on him. It was just like he and his SoCal friends would practice. He had this. As the ship was just close enough to start reaching the Empty’s attentions, Victorio leaped from the prow. His head echoed his many attempts at parkour—distributing weight, guiding himself, moving to roll—
And just smacking into the ground heavily.
Nobody saw that. Nobody saw it.
It was not his most graceful banishing of the Empty from a plane thus far, but nobody saw. After destroying the link, Victorio pulled himself to his feet and stretched uncomfortably.
“Thank the gods the Spear Bearer was here,” a voice called.
“Salema!” Gatina cried happily. Running across the mint-smelling grass, she bound over to a woman standing near the remains of what had to have been a life-sized gingerbread house.
The woman in her twenties held out her arms and accepted Gatina’s eager hug. She was tall in heeled boots, and Victorio was struck by her. Not in the way that some dudes got stupid around girls, but he was still impressed—she was really pretty. A high ponytail held straight, black hair that draped down to her shapely hips, and sparkling, violently green eyes that were all the more piercing against deep brown skin. She allowed Gatina to hop back from her and straightened her top, the shoulder torn from combat with the Empty.
“Wow,” Salema whispered as she locked eyes with Victorio. “It really is you. I’ve never seen anything rip through the Empty like that…”
“You were by yourself here?” Brasil chided as he walked up to her. “What were you thinking?”
“Nothing you need to let Dad know about,” she offered uneasily, glancing between Brasil and Gatina.
While Gatina instantly gave her the thumbs up, Brasil cleared his throat and folded his arms over his chest. “Convince me.”
“I was on a mission!” she blurted largely in the kind of panic that Victorio knew well. “A dark faerie had made a whole net of tunnels to this plane, setting it up almost like a spiderweb to lure in prey. I was busy dealing with her, the Empty just showed up. No warning! No explanation.”
Brasil grunt once and sighed. “Just pay more attention.”
“I got your back, Salema,” Gatina insisted. “I’ll make sure Brasil doesn’t tell Enki—I mean, crisis averted, there’s nothing to tell—”
“Whoa,” Victorio blurted, pointing at Selma. “Whoa wait, is she saying Enki is your dad?”
As Salema smiled, the resemblance was unmistakable. The nose shape was similar, the eyes (aside from being a bright, unrelenting green) were identical, and her jawline was close. She nodded and slipped her hands into the pockets of her high-waisted jeans. “That’s my dad.”
“So are you…are you a god?”
“Nah,” she assured him with a dismissive wave. “Not even technically half. Long story.”
“And you probably need to get back to base?” Brasil offered.
“I probably should,” she said, shrugging. “Hope to see you around.”
“Yeah…see you around.”
“And work on those landings.”
Dammit.
Chapter Eleven
The Zig
The meeting with Salema weighed on Victorio, especially how eager Gatina had been to see her. It was like watching him and his old friends meet up.
“Hey,” Victorio ventured softly as they traveled over a grass-filled plain. “I’d like to meet the rest of the Cartesian Guard.”
From his spot at the wheel, Brasil’s eyebrows raised and he smiled. Before he could respond, however, Gatina jumped in front of Victorio, her eyes sparkling. “Really?”
Taking a step back unconsciously he shrugged. “Sure? I mean, why not? I’m not really a member, would that be okay?”
“Of course!” Gatina agreed eagerly. “You’re the Spear Bearer. They’d love to meet you.”
“And I’m sure Enki would want to see your progress,” Brasil finally managed to get in.
Suddenly anxious, Victorio shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them occupied. Thinking of Enki always made Victorio unsure of how to react. “Cool. So, like…I mean, I don’t really know what you guys do. I mean, not really.”
“Enki told you we keep an eye on interdimensional threats,” Brasil offered, bringing Victorio’s memory back to that fateful night.
“We try not to mess with too much on various planes, that’s their own business,” Gatina added with a shrug. “Unless it has world or plane-shattering conseq
uences.”
Brasil nodded gravely. “Sometimes something that big…there’s not a thing we can do. Except try to help as many residents escape as we can.”
“You mean like…if I’m not there?” Victorio asked uncomfortably.
“No, no,” Brasil corrected with a gentle shake of his head. “Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes forces destroy worlds or planes that have nothing to do with the Empty…Sometimes natural, sometimes not. And just like people…sometimes universes grow old and die.”
“Not everything can be stopped,” Gatina mumbled, her gold eyes drifting to the floorboards.
“And if it can’t, we still help how we can,” Brasil said. “Or if the worst happens and…and you know, there are refugees scattered…”
“Like me,” Gatina said with a weary smile.
“…Like Gatina…well, sometimes we find a home close to theirs, sometimes they choose to stay where they are…sometimes they join the Cartesian Guard, eh?”
She added a misty-eyed nod in his direction. “Yeah. Sometimes.”
Folding his hands behind his head, Victorio shrugged. “So, let me meet them.”
With a proud grin, Brasil stood straighter and adjusted his grip on the wheel. “Aye, let’s.”
The Twilight Runner surged forward, and the by now familiar sensation of jumping between dimensional doors swept over Victorio. Instantly bright daylight and clear skies shone, replacing the overcast grey that had hung over their last location. The heat of the air was palpable, causing immediate dotting of sweat all over Victorio—and he instinctively stepped back into the wheelhouse to avoid the relentless sun.
Ahead of the Runner, a tower of sorts stretched into the sky. It was ancient, the sand-colored form resonating an age Victorio could never begin to guess—every arch lining its spire and the wide paths of steps on its base so unlike anything he’d experienced. The shape was awkward, at first, he thought it was a pyramid, but it wasn’t. It was twisted like someone had shaved down a mountain to look like soft-serve ice cream.
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