"I want to ask about Jack," I say. "Hold up."

Mikayla pauses in the empty hallway, like the world has ceased to turn around her. I can feel all of space go deathly still as she slides her phone slowly towards her side. Gently, the words leave her lips: "Who told you?"

"Amy." I cross my arms.

Her face breaks. "So you weren't lying about her, were you?"

I laugh like I'm not deathly offended right now. "No. I wouldn't."

Mikayla treks back to me. She examines me like Olive did, drawing herself far too close to my face. I can smell all the vanilla and hand sanitizer glory of her face, like she hasn't changed at all from that first day, and when she caresses one of my ears with her hand, I still feel the bones beneath her skin. Muscle tenses around it-- recovering, living tissue-- and I realize how close we are to each other.

I wrest myself out of her grip, my ear graced by the sting of fingernails on flesh, and my breath quickens as my lungs collapse like a popped balloon. My jaw goes rigid, face clenched into an inhuman mask of fear and fury, and I manage to breathe, covering my face, "Mikayla. I'm not him. Whoever he is."

"I know. That's the worst part," she says. "I don't love you as a romantic partner. I need you, as a friend, because there's almost no one else who makes me feel alive like this."

"Almost?" I peep.

"You're offended."
I suck in a breath.

"Unbelievable." She rolls her eyes, like all of this is a long, drawn out joke. I catch the gesture between a web of fingers. "Finn's a pretty great guy. Most of our conversations are purely civil, but great guy."

"Fair," I wheeze. I think my voice must have broken in the last few minutes. I manage to recompose myself, face unlocking, fingers drawing back, and I ask, "It's today, isn't it? Friday."

"Don't treat it like it's my birthday. It's an act of cruelty on the part of a government that knows they can boss my family around, and it's a personal failure on my part, because I made the wrong choices one too many times and took so long to save the world that I never saved it at all." It's rehearsed. Comes too easily. I don't mind. Heaven knows we all have our own speeches, the ultimatums we never get to declare to other people.

"It's not a birthday," I agree. "Jeez. I just... if I can get Mr. Harring and Ms. Haven to flash me the thumbs-up, do you want me to walk home with you? I can help with the boxes. I'm pretty strong. It's all part of..." I flex one of my biceps, which is less impressive than I know it to be. "...a ruthless regimen of scientific testing for the purposes of creating superhuman mutants because something something taking over the world, something something no one in my quest understands how science works, let's just throw 'turbulence' in there, and maybe the end of all worlds to boot, if the 'anomalies' keep happening."

"Two today," Mikayla says. "Still converging. Government's having a harder time covering them up, the locals are beginning to take notice. Not as much as you'd expect--" She glares at one of the cameras hidden in the corners of our school hallways. "I'll explain things later. You're coming with me, Renard."

I can't help but smile, because through everything, there she is. "Fine, fine. If you insist," I tease.

She gags on our way out, but she still grabs my hand and pulls hard. "House being foreclosed. Moving belongings. Need physical assistance," she explains, rapid-fire, to the H&H squad.

Ms. Haven ruffles through her bag and raises a hand to Mr. Harring, announcing, "Wristband." He complies, handing it to her, and she secures the tracker around my wrist, like I'm a five year old at a waterpark putting on one of those bands that prove your height and that you didn't sneak in through the woods or something.

"We'll be back for you at six," Mr. Harring booms.

"You don't have to put on a big show for Mikayla, she already knows you're both softies."

"Call me a softie one more time and you end up in a federal penitentiary," Mr. Harring smiles.

"We're minors!" I yell, already being dragged down the street by a particularly flustered Mikayla.
"Gerald Laws," Mr. Harring yells back, already backing out of his parking spot. (I mean, he barely fit in it to begin with.) He puts his foot on the gas and I go my way.

Suburbia.

One of these houses has to be yours, or was, before you died in this world. In this world. It's amazing how three words that really, make nothing better, somehow make everything better.

"You know much about the Gerald Laws?" Mikayla asks.

I shake my head.

"They let us be prosecuted as adults, especially if we have abilities or any instability that makes us a greater risk than normal human. They're probably the reason they bothered assigning you two federal agents. Like it or not, you're..."

"The dangerous kind. Yeah. Like I haven't heard," I snark back.

"You take it so well. That's all," she halts again in front of her house. There's a large white truck camouflaged against the house, with a ramp down the side and furniture slowly being piled in.

"You're not being sarcastic?" I follow her into the house and up the stairs. She opens the door to her room, which is no more barren than we left it, save for a dusty spot where the bed used to be. She begins plucking things off the walls, starting with one of several conspiracy boards. All the boards are connected by rope, so she has to pull them all down. "Uh, so..."

She kicks a box. "Books. Clothing. Don't spill my panties, and definitely don't spill my books, Renard."

I have no idea why I'm here. I hoist up the books first, which is more difficult because of the size than because of the weight, and hold my chin against the top to secure it. I then begin bounding back down the stairs and out to the truck, which waits, like all dormant predators, perfectly still in the midday sun. I can smell hardwood and a slightly more rancid, oily scent, probably from the exhaust. I place the box down next to the truck, then back up slowly.

Mikayla's mom exits the truck in one bound, not showoffy, but nonetheless impressively agile. She sizes me up like Mr. Harring and Ms. Haven used to, and asks, "Did Mikayla ask you over?"
"No, I invited myself to your residence," I mutter.

"Derrick! Stop being snarky!" calls Mikayla from inside.

"I'm just here to help," I answer honestly. "I'm sorry that this happened to you. I-- I-- um,"

"I'm sure your parents would have done the same for you given the choice," she says, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Hon, there's no need to cry. Mikayla's told me all about you."
"You're a good parent, a good person, and I wish I could be as selfless as you are," I gush, "Mikayla's so lucky to have you and to have a family who still talks to her and loves her even after everything and-- and--" There is snot coming out of my nose. On a scale of one to sassy lapel flip, this is a vanish into the night and move to the Arctic Circle level of embarrassment.

"Thank you for coming to help us move, but I think they've got this, alright?" Mikayla's mom says. "If y'all really insist, you can go get the last few bags out of Mikayla's room."

Mikayla emerges from the doorway with a cardboard box labelled 'clothes'. "Derrick, you're a mess."

Master of Empathy Mikayla Ahlam, everyone. The best friend and the worst enemy I've ever had, generally simultaneously. I wipe my face off with the inside of my coat. "I'm fine," I say. "I'm sorry, your mom is so cool that I had a violent allergic reaction to her incredible human spirit. I spend most of my time around Extras, who've used it all up, so the allergy doesn't flare up often."

Mikayla hits me in the head with the back of the box. "Get back upstairs."

I do, but only so I can grab two more boxes to show her up. Mikayla looks at my boxes with a keen glare but takes one down behind me, anyways, and as I ascend the stairs, smirking, she dashes past in a blaze of gold and back down and around to my position in a matter of seconds.

She smirks. "You're not tough shit."

"Oh, you wanted me over. Shut up," I say, bounding up the remaining steps.

"Clearly that was a mistake!" she yells, grabbing another box. I take two and hold them together with a third, my abs blazing as I clunk back down the steps, and Mikayla hits me in the back with her superspeed so that I fall down. One of the boxes falls across the hardwood, revealing at least a dozen of those Fairy Magic serials that no one has read since they were ten.

"Speaking of mistakes," I grin right back, canines revealed.

Mikayla gathers them up. "I couldn't just throw them away, could I? They were formative. I used to buy all the Nancy Drew books, all the Boxcar Children, basically anything where there were so many books that it seemed impossible that the author could have written it all in the timeframe they did. I was one of the leading investors driving these poor souls to madness."

"I feel like you could knock out one of these in an afternoon," I offer. "So you probably weren't stressing them out that much."

She shakes her head. "Stories are investments. Most of the good books out there are basically... Extras telling their own stories, anyways. There's a lot of room there, for creative extrapolation." She sets the box upright and carries it out under her shoulder, although I can see her arm shake even under long sleeves. "Sorry for expressing some doubts, by the way. Mind you, reasonable doubts."

"No problem. I just thought you'd get it, seeing as things are crazy lately. So, do you know how long the Reema Spiral says we have until the end of the world?"

"You mean a convergence? Maybe a few weeks, tops."
"You're kidding," I say.

Mikayla shrugs. "Nowhere's safe. Nothing's sacred. Speaking of such, as long as you're here," she slips out her phone as she puts the last box down. "We should go. I recorded an anomaly this evening, at least a predicted one. I wanted you along for the ride, and what do you know? You happen to be in town."

I gesture to the wristband, which is locked tight. "Well..."

"They'll find us before you need to go home," Mikayla insists. "I'll take the drop. Derrick. I'm going with or without you. Okay?"

"I'm coming," I insist. "How far away is it? Will we be back at five, at least, for pick up?"

"How fast can you run?" she smirks.

I know what she wants me to do, which makes things a thousand times worse. Instinct beckons at the edge of my mind, waiting for me to give in and take the reins, and I close my eyes, resentfully. It's her last day at this house. I'm trying to be a good friend. There are a thousand reasons to at least indulge her. I dip my foot in the well of unresolved emotions and find I can't tap into anything. "I'm sorry, I'm kind of mentally stable right now and--"

She asks, "Should I kiss you again?"

I feel my stomach twist. "That'll-- that'll do it," I say, and she steps forwards. "No, as in you saying that already ticked me off enough. Come on." I tense my shoulders. "Let's run."

We tear down the streets. Mikayla's barely breaking a sweat, seeing as she's slowing up for my sake, but I feel myself puffing even with the enhanced stamina. Fox brain does not like the rivers of asphalt, nor the cars, nor the power lines or standardized rows of houses. Animals visit suburbia, but if we've made our home here, in the cities, we've also pushed a menagerie of megafauna out. Maybe I'm just a particularly affected fox who only lives in the forests anyways. Not that far off the mark.

I zoom back into reality when Mikayla practically slaps my back. We've pulled up at a laser tag center, in the middle of a public area. Mikayla darts into the crowd, what sparse crowd there is, by walking casually through the parking lot, all the while keeping her eyes on our prize. "We can head in the back," she says, pointing towards the side of the building. "This is the perfect place for something to take a kid. No wonder."

"Uh huh," I say, already hearing the sound of outdated 'electronic' music and smelling pizza and children. "We're just going to bust in the back?"

Mikayla begins walking towards the alley between buildings, which is rancid, and jerks her head back. I follow with the lightest step I can manage, my voice breaking into a keening whine as we approach the back. The emergency exit door is melted down, revealing a dark passageway that leads to a janitorial closet. "It looks like someone or something is already here."
"That's... nothing you've just said is encouraging. If i had to quantify it, I would go in the other direction and say everything you just told me convinces me that things are far, far worse than expected," I call after her.

Mikayla's already in the building. With lightning speed, she takes from one hallway to the next, flinging open the doors that give easily. "We're in the staff area," she says. I step a little closer, as hesitantly as an animal trotting across a road, and Mikayla holds me back with a thrust that's far more powerful when she practically lobs it into my throat. I stare down at her arm, and she brings her finger up to her mouth. Her face is wide in a cracked smile.

"Oh, come on," I grumble.

Mikayla points to the staff room, and then to a door beyond them, which is basically shuddering on its hinges from the noise from beyond it. A curl of errant smoke comes from beneath the door, beckoning us forwards. She makes a motion with her hand and I nod. The two of us dash across, sticking beneath the staff room door, which is deadly silent. I can still scent the burning metal of the door far behind us. All the fire alarms in the hallway appear to be shot, too.

As I enter the laser tag room, I can't help but think that whoever came here before us might not be someone we want to trifle with.

Mikayla has no such inhibitions. She dashes across the field in a blaze of gold, checking left and right. An eight year old peers up at her, shocked, and asks, "Are you an Extra?"
"Yes, but I'm also a Game Master!" she smiles. "Are you doing alright? Need any help, err, kidd-o?"

Okay, so it's almost convincing. I almost believed, for a second, that Mikayla was good with children. The child says, "No, ma'am," and keeps toddling along with their gun close to their chest. Right afterwards, a laser beams down from the second floor and zaps them.

The alarm goes off. I slam against the wall and plug my ears. "What's that?" I yell.

"Derrick! It's just the game over sound. The kids are leaving. That means we can look around," she says. I'm still twitching against the wall. "Dude. Chill."

I manage to give her a thumbs up, and she walks into the darkness without me, disappearing into the mist. "Mikayyyylaaaa..." I whine.
"You've never been to a laser tag game before, have you?" she asks.

"Who would invite me?" I ask the darkness. "Huh?"

"You're so sad sometimes," she sighs, and then the alarm starts going off again. "Okay, so now you might want to be worried."

"What's going on?" asks one of the kids. Their packs beep, "Game over. Please proceed to the exit."

"The exits are closed!" complains another, tugging Mikayla's shirt. "Ma'am, can you open the doors?"

Game over, blares a louder noise.

A stream of lasers fires off the second floor, above us, and none of them are the tiny green things that come out of the packs the kids are wearing. Several singed holes on the opposing ceilings emerge into existence following the blasts, and the noise continues to ascend. One of the kids is crying.

"We'll sort this out," Mikayla promises them.

"Are we going to get abducted?" asks the girl who pulled Mikayla's shirt.

"Hm," Mikayla says, "See, not if I can handle it."

"No adults ever get involved in abductions," I yell as I follow Mikayla, but she's far faster than me. I'm turning a corner and she's gone down three hallways. "It doesn't make any sense. Why would we--"

I hit a kid, who points, his arm rigid, at the walls. His companion, in the same colored ridiculous light-up suit that he's in, is trying to shoot a variety of familiar, red-pupiled eyes on the walls. "They're not going down, game master," says the kid. "This isn't some kind of dumb prank, is it? Because the CGI on these is soooo bad."

"Yeah, you caught us," I say. "It's a prank. Now wait right here."
I turn another corner, passing the smoke machine, and ascend onto a ramp that brings me up onto the second floor. Mikayla flies past me, skidding against the ground as a dark, writhing tentacle slams her aside, and she brushes herself off and dashes back towards the darkness.

"Mikayla, we don't have weapons," I yell. "You especially don't have weapons."

"I don't--" Mikayla yells, doing a turnabout and slamming a tentacle with her foot, "Care, Derrick!"

"Duck!" someone screams, and Mikayla and I get down just in time for the darkness to dissipate around our heads as a yellow laser burst soars over us, hitting the other wall. The architecture of the building, or at least of the arena, is quickly coming into question. "Howdy! You guys alright?" Diving around the darkness is another teen in a laser tag employee outfit, complete with large white letters that spell Game Master.The shirt doesn't fit them well, and their hair gleams in the blacklight. In one hand they hold a blaster, and five glowsticks are layered around their neck. "Derrick? Mikayla?" asks Alya.

"Alya!" I yell. "Wait, what's--"

Alya trains her blaster on the center of the darkness. "If you're," she makes an incomprehensible gargling noise, "Please tell me now, because I will blast you otherwise. Rogan's Pact. We made it in Pleiades. If you are there, give me a sign..."

The darkness swings a tentacle towards her, and Alya blasts true at its center. The darkness implodes, all the lights come on, and the sprinkler system goes nuts. Below us is a mess of screaming children all rushing for the exists and Alya, who wipes her face clear of sweat and sprinkler water. "Sorry," she tells us. "Rough day at work. Well, kind of. I had to come once I got the sign, since she sent a transmission? Look, sorry for the confusion, everything's managed now, you can go home or something."

Mikayla's eyes narrow. "What... transmission?"

Alya holds up a blinker. Its little more than a white button, which is flashing on and off. "I found this at my windowsill. My girlfriend contacted me for the first time in months. They said they had a way for me to get back to work with the Intergalactic Agency, so I gave them a good meet-up place, since I work here when I'm not with NASA," she says with an almost manic laugh. She folds her hands, and dips them towards us, "So, that was a lie. Also I think I might be a Portal-class, which means aliens might not be a thing, and I'm having a bit of an existential crisis. No biggie."
"Alya," Mikayla begins.

"Your girlfriend 'contacted' you?" I ask.

"Uh, yeah, as in my girlfriend from my quest? She's kind of an eldritch squid person, which is why I thought that might have been her, but when I got here, no dice. Actually, no anything. I would have at lea-a-ast liked to have said goodbye to her, you know?" I recognize the voice. That's the let's-pretend-I'm-okay-even-though-I'm-emotionally-devastated-voice.

"The same thing has been happening to me," I offer. "Amy's been contacting me."

"Your dead double?" asks Alya.

"Yes," I say. "Glad someone was paying attention."

"Okay, this is way too specific. Mikayla, have you heard anything from anyone on your quest?" asks Alya.

Mikayla shakes her head. "I told you, I failed and then my parents unplugged my life support. Everyone is dead. Mission failed."

"Well, consider today a success, I guess," Alya says. "No kids got abducted, right?"

"That... doesn't answer any of our questions though. If you've been seeing this, and Maris has been seeing this, and I have... wait, Alya, if this anomaly happened because you chose to respond to the transmission, then did you cause it, in a sense?" I ask.
"Well, I told them the staff room would work better, but no points for precision, I guess. They were probably using me to get at kids anyways." Alya says.

"But how could the Reema Spiral predict that?" asks Mikayla.

"Hands in the air," calls a booming voice from the exterior, and two agents come in in full gear and all devices blazing. Alya drops her blaster. I put my hands up, my wristband emitting an equally obnoxious singing noise. "Derrick Renard, you are an idiot and you're coming with us."