We’re going to (try to) go to Sector II. With Jaceus—and Skylark.

It won’t work. The four remaining Sectors are blocked off to citizens. As per one of the first Edicts laid down by this Sector. Agate knows this but Jaceus does have the full powers and Gene of an Emulus. I have not met enough Emulus Scions to discern if the race has any special traits of its own but I do not know everything he can do and he is a prince.

Or rather, he was.

Good luck, Agate. I’ll miss the bread of your bakery.

A moment before I sense some forced humor. Thanks, d’Voris. But you should have told me that back in November.

I know.

I’ll miss you! d’Voris—receptors won’t work over there.

They might not even use receptors. I wonder if Sector I though is blocked off to Sector II… Agate—I’m going to tryouts for raider.

Agate’s surprise is golden. But it seems we will truly be going our different ways. It sounds like you took time to think about it. But you could probably do it.

None of the Beacons had seemed too surprised at my landing from ten meters above. Short of their players containing Scions, with traits similar to mine, a phenomenon unlikely given what I know, the level of physique was higher than I had imagined.

Even with body-maintenance prescriptions…

As long as you don’t become an Agent, Agate sends the Thought. I smile as I drink from my blue. The coffee in High doesn’t compare to yours either, I reply.

Don’t joke, that’s not even funny. Agate’s tone is shifting, and I detect her trying to say something—maybe she had even rehearsed for this conversation, as I had stood beside her as she rehearsed being a baker—I should have taken better care of her.

Good luck in tryouts, she says. I’ll try TM'ing you from Sector II. But—d’Voris, things are changing. Jaceus, Skylark’s very excited about everything, and the one named Cerise, you saw her, she’s still in college. There’s something different about her.

She did seem interesting.

I turn to the color coordinator again. Its eight plume dispensers continue to rotate in and out in the space between them, creating iridescent glows. The person sitting at my table turns his vase over in his hands, watching the red within curl and shimmer.

Maybe I should have gotten it—but I couldn’t. It has been five different coffee locations since meeting the Beacons, and each and every one used the color dispenser, randomly allocating one of the eight flavors to whomever inserted their hands into the space between. Red, green, orange, green, blue.

The past five years were interesting, I tell Agate. We never took down the Agency.

That was never going to happen, Melea. Before responding, I think briefly of the other members—former. What were Zefayus and Faer, Cade, Kelit, and the rest doing with their lives? We never finished our conversation about traits—and I never responded to their Thought messages after Alteryear for the Joys. What are—have you seen Nodari?

I must wait a full moment before her response.

No, I haven’t. Why? He was purified a long time ago.

Agate’s indifference is admirable. She will do well with Jaceus… Just wondering. I look at the face of the person now holding his hands over his coffee vase of red, attempting to warm it to no avail. When it doesn’t work he runs his hands through his hair again and again into the same shape. Once the shape has regained its stringy filaments of a burnished red, he puts his hands back over the vase, whose drink remains untouched.

I reach beneath my chair, and pull out the raider racket. I slide it forward on the table and he stops massaging his coffee.

“Merry Christmas, d’Voris, and a happy beacon to you,” he says, before encasing the cup in his hands again.

By Thoughtnote I add the brief note to Nodari’s subsection—continues using altered phrasing. Christmas, the holiday of the world last seen in 2162 before the AI Domini supercorp deleted it. And Alteryear brought us Alterfaces that never work on my body or mind.

I take back the raider racket, and with a Thought insert it into my V-port.

They recently made this available to pro raiders, Fazzid told me, indicating the space in front of him, reaching into nothingness and removing his racket. It’s just a V-locker like the ones we had in school but goes with you everywhere. I really like it, but don’t tell Siara. She prefers carrying her rackets over her shoulder. She still thinks she’s in university, he said, shaking his head.

I have two months and I haven’t started training yet. But I have the racket, and have been to suitably enough coffees even though I still haven’t gotten to purple. One cannot bypass the main colors until being given the first eight.

I take a look at Nodari, and he is still rubbing his hands over the vase. Fire cannot be made in the Sector… only by Scions. He is rubbing the vase like an ancient human, and the Scions of that time likely started it.

I cannot train with the Powers. Maybe I am just avoiding Mik’vael but the Agency does not need a Scion in its ranks. I do not like what I saw from the one named Xeric, already inculcated at such a young age.

“Red? Not again,” and I see that some young raiders are seating themselves at the table behind us. All five are carrying their rackets over their shoulders, marked by the letters of their school. The airstraps on their ankles indicate university level, and a small pocket of air in between two of them is glowing; a V-locker containing balls, restoring themselves. They've just come from a game.

“OK, team, let's review. Lacon, again, really good with passing. Just work on enduring for the seventh digits on.”

The one named Lacon, two vases with red in front of them, gives a stiff nod. The one speaking, likely their captain, claps them on the shoulder. “It’s only your third game. Tourney’s not for three months.”

“That's after Beacon tryouts,” a third player remarks. He’s paying close attention to a reduced holoscreen in front of him; it's showing game highlights.

“Yeah.” The captain nods and takes a sip from her vase.

I re-open my V-port and remove the raider racket and set it back on the table.

“Nodari, how is life,” I ask.

He says something to the empty vase. Nothing happens.

“Life is a highway,” he chants.

Sigh…

I think about a possible world in which the Agent Raegoth didn't come into headquarters and in which half of us weren't purified. I would have continued to step onto the Alterface each year and watch Lucas centimeter by centimeter get closer to Val’haya. I think about a possible world in which Mik'vael thought more about me, and maybe inform me earlier about their coming. I would have continued breaking Lucas’s weapons and edging closer to giving him a firm rejection after the first, five years ago. I think about a world where Lucas looked at me as he did Cade or Kelit or even the leader. But as hard as I focus on that world—like I am watching it unfold on holoscreen, so close that I can reach out and actually become real friends—it is as intangible as those alter plastic raider balls floating in space.

“Red, finally,” one of the university players says.

“Don’t drink like that before matches.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“When’s our next game?”

“Friday. Against Govern.”

“It’ll be easy. Guys, we’re not trying the Lightning until—”

“We know, we know, not until Governor’s arena.”

I open my holoscreen and here appear my memories. V-photos of Zefayus, his arms around Lucas and Cade, laughing with their backs against some storefront we were pretending to live by. Faer and Agate in hazy conversation with the leader. Glid’s bot attempting to cut Kelit’s hair. Valha’ya and Nodari entering, removing their visorfaces after an assignment. Wisteria and Porte arguing.

I thrust my hand through it. The images are unchanged, and I receive the next coffee. Another blue.

“Hi, Skylark.”

“Hi, Falara.”

She hadn’t been to Falara’s house in a while but it still looked plain and silver. Once something she had thought was cool, but it was really close to the nearest portal. Its front doors were shaped like an archway still and there were now miniature model portals lining the walkway up to it. They all had a symbol, and she was reminded of the objects that Jaceus had. They were after all from the same world.

It was still really hard to believe. Everyone in the other world had to have magic. It was normal over there.

“Skylark, I just wanted to tell you in person that there's something off about the portals. I think I know what it is but you'll see something when Jaceus will have to use his shape on the portal to take you to Sector II.”

So it was possible. Falara knew.

“You’ve been there too.”

Falara nodded. “That porter you went against for a bit. He took me from H‘trae 14 years ago but had to pass through Sector II’s version of portals, skyports, they look kind of like my door, or at least what I can remember.”

Sector II. There was so much Skylark wanted to ask. “They’re in the sky?”

“Yeah. From what I remember, a lot of the Sector is really high up in the sky. I forget what it's called but like we have alter, they have something that makes that possible.”

And not even magic. Skylark imagined running through clouds. No. Flying up there and just levitating and… well, she couldn't do that yet.

She couldn’t do that for a while.

She looked up at the sky. There were no clouds and it was clear.

She looked back at Falara.

“Hey. Are we going inside?”

Falara gave a slight smile. “I think the view’s a lot more interesting out here.” She curled one bright red strand of hair around a finger.

“Falara, you know how I made that guy float? As Jaceus told you?”

Falara nodded.

Skylark took a deep breath. “What kind of magic were you able to do, back in the other world?”

“Hahaha Skylark, I was only two.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Buuut Magy’cal are different. I was floating before I could crawl and I played with all my toys in the air.”

But she couldn't use her magic now. And only if she could. Skylark couldn't even imagine what Falara could do if she had continued to live in H‘trae.

There was something in the air, hovering shakily between them; Skylark thought of Jaceus and how he had taken control of the anti-Government rebel group of Scions.

Skylark walked closer to her friend and, slowly, put her hands on Falara’s shoulders. She imagined her friend breaking free of gravity's pull.

And, slowly, Falara's feet left the ground and she let out a sigh of unshakeable feeling. “Oh—” She kept going up, and Skylark released her hands. Falara started giggling, a smile of unadulterated expression on her face. She held her legs and slowly rotated, turning a full circle. Skylark eventually couldn't stop herself from smiling either, and laughed.

Jaceus looked at his followers, and smiled. It was time.

Agate, who was dressed in what was perhaps her University uniform; he did remember her saying that hers was one of the few, if not the only in the Sector, that required its students to wear. She nodded back. “I’m officially quitting school today, I think,” she said.

Sterne, who would likewise be abandoning his pupils, to foray into the portals with him. The teacher, arms crossed, was looking a bit past him; directly at the portal. This was, Jaceus knew, especially for them, new ground. He would still not tell them of the portals’ shape; none would understand, although something told him Cerise might—or “Claude.” He met her eyes next.

Cerise Rain, but her hair was a searing blue today, almost dark purple; and she was looking at Skylark.

Skylark was staring back at Jaceus, and her eyes were silver.

Luke, standing somewhat behind the others, was looking off, into the distance.

Jaceus walked up to the portal, and laid his hands on it. He felt for it—the shape it itself had. If all portals were the same.

But this time—Qumulo wasn’t here. Jaceus knew, though, that—she would not object. Perry had left, he’d said—to convene with the other Porters from across the world. And he was, in his own words, a novice compared to them.

But he, Jaceus, was a royal arted, of House Myodor. What could human beings from Earth do against one trained by Triomphe, the Silver Eagle, and one trained in his shape? He did not have to exert for R’aegoth; nor did he for Perry; it was time. If the portal had a true shape, then this—while no human—could be diagramed.

He thought of his—⧮.

He matched—remember the final image, Triomphe said, throwing his arms together, as Jaceus watched Triomphe’s γ match that of Ila ce—and the two clashed and collided—and Jaceus matched. He formed. He collided.

Externally he noticed the five others watching his work and nothing else—

—and the two forms became one. Jaceus then thought: Sector II.

∏

“Emulus firsthand. Likely arted—incredible,” came a voice, and it came from Cerise, but the voice was colored differently; so it was Claude at last.

The portal was no longer the prism Jaceus had arrived in upon being taken away from home; the portal was now a sphere, and gasps and expressions of awe percolated from around him.

Jaceus was now back on earth; but he found that his hands couldn’t stop shaking.

For they reflected the state of his heart at that moment.

“Thank you—”

“Jaceus, you’re amazing! Alter Jaceus!” Skylark exclaimed, coming up to the portal, and touching it. Her eyes were shining so bright, the silver in them struck him like their own moons.

Jaceus smiled, hopelessly. And then he noticed the others, all walking up to the strange new shape in their world. That he had made. Or rather, one that existed in Sector II, he thought—but that he had recreated. Perhaps it was the “skyport” Qumulo had mentioned.

“I wonder, you know, if the Government’s noticed,” Sterne said.

“I hope they’re dancing on their feet,” Luke responded, grinning. “They may have an army of Agents. But we have Jaceus.”

“Wouldn’t Sector II have Agents too, though?” Agate asked, and Jaceus then laughed. They turned to look at him. And this time, the expressions of awe and wonder, and even hope, on their faces—it gave him inspiration.

“I am not alone,” he said. “I have you all, don’t I?” he asked.

“Are we going to fight, Jaceus?” Skylark asked in turn, and he shook his head.

“Perhaps we shall see what each of you brings to the field. But I am Prince Jaceus. Do not feel obligated!” —and he saw Cerise quirk a smile.

“That field could be arraying us quite soon, Jaceus, if we don’t get going.”

He nodded. So she knew after all.

Jaceus remembered…

Their parents looking upon them, from their lettered pedestal. The five Myodor siblings kneeling, knowing that, with both parents choosing the Route of Divine Color, they were on their own. They were on their own to lead the Nötr.

His older brother Apolluceus stood first.

His oldest sister Etr ce followed; then Ila ce, and his younger brother Herceus.

He was the last to stand.

Jaceus stepped into the portal, and beckoned for them to follow.