On his screen, Jonah told the two that they needed to discuss the events inside. Diana, who was not properly dressed for a princess in the city, reluctantly agreed. Her bare legs shone in the city light and she helped him with Kalyah. The signage of the hotel started to blur on Jonah and he knuckled his eyes, squinting at it. Stopping, it became clear to him. Above the door read: Twinklings Hotel. Then on the door it was: Employee entrance, do not enter.

“What’s wrong?” Diana wondered.

Jonah stammered, checking his screen to make sure. Several apps had been added to his phone. The gray phoenix app had vanished and in its place was: Universal Translator Beta, HeraRadio, Hera GPS Beta, HeraDatabase Beta, and Earth Internet Access. The old browser on his phone opened to a no internet page, but a pop up came with it. Run Earth Internet Access? He hit yes and the homepage loaded within a blink. Was his heart beating faster from magic or nerves?

Before he knew it, the page was loading a search of his own name.

Son of One Hit Wonder star, Amy Godfrey, dies in a lone car crash.

Jonah wheezed, remembering the flames that burst up around him. A fuzzy nightmare of orange and red. He trembled, unable to stand as Kalyah and Diana carried him in through the door. They put him up against the wall and Diana held his arm, examining the screen.

“This is what you told me? The news on your phone?” she asked, flicking her finger across the glass. She wasn’t as careful as him and had to scramble her fingertips to actually read it.

Kalyah, urging him to breathe, was also checking out of curiosity. “Oh honey, your world is so callous in its papers,” she said, huffing.

“It says nothing about the state of his body,” Diana remarked. “Why would they not say anything about it?”

Taking his hands back, Jonah rubbed at his face. With the two people beside him, he was feeling solid again. The existential crisis was fastly fading. Those that were left, that didn’t abandon him, they would be wondering. His coworkers would care, wouldn’t they? He brought up the social media app that he hated, but still used. His profile was filled with mourning posts about him.

A life lost too soon.

May you finally have peace, baby.

He’s with his mother now in heaven.

No, he was here, they were worrying about him for no reason. He tapped at the screen, trying to comment. A message came up.

Jonah Godfrey, you died, you cannot return. I know, I’ve tried. There is no use scaring those that loved you. They will not believe you. Be glad that you have those to mourn you and an end. You could have left with no reason why. Make the best of what you have here. This is my last message.

-M

The screen sank back into Jonah’s arm. Sitting between his legs was the tiger, staring at him with its bright blue pools. He turned to its master, who’s furrowed scarlet brows and deep brown eyes were centered on him.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He pecked her lips, which made her relax and smirk “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, his voice feeling husky and strange.

To Kalyah he gave a hug, patting her back.

He rose up on his own, tired, but feeling stronger than he had in a while. Maybe it was all the new possibilities loaded up into him. He had never been happier to have a phone with so much memory on it. The old one had given up the ghost right before he got his job and this one was the upgrade. It was one of the few things that made him keep working. Trying to gather up enough money from his work alone to buy one. A big empty house with no one but the ghost of his mother in it. All those posts were family that had not visited since the funeral. Now they cared about him apparently. Years rotting his house and they didn’t stop by or check up. They sent messages on her birthday and his. Living a few states away, that was all they had time for.

His mother had pushed away a lot of her friends when she was dying. They wanted to know where the royalties were going. It went into her poisoned IV bags, the ones colored like piss. By the time she passed only the house and the trust was left for him. Just enough to skate by in a place bought and paid for by her hard work.

Jonah was remembered by her to the general public and all her art was reduced down to one success. It was an insult to her, that stupid news article. What had happened to him? He skimmed it, and Diana was right. Was it covered up by the government? Did they know about other worlds and kept it secret?

Did it matter now?

In Hera, the home he had come to accept quickly, he made his way to the elevator. The two amazing women were watchful of him the whole way, setting their hands on him. Stopping before it, he examined the thing gathering dust a far way from the stairs. Apparently there wasn’t any room for it where it might make sense, so it was attached to a storage room. The whole hotel made no sense, as the device was hundreds of feet from the door. The elevator was wide enough for cargo, a gated mesh running across it, plain and drab like the rest of the building.

The panel was hanging off it, but he saw the wires were all intact. What was wrong with this thing? He put his hand to it, aware of Diana’s communing with the trees. Nothing spoke to him. He ran a search of all kinds of different panels and the like. It made no sense to him until he shined a light on the inner workings and found a diagram that matched.

A screw was missing.

Had they really let it gather dust this long over a screw?

“Are you going to repair it?” Diana asked, scanning the machinery.

“Could you clear the dust?” he asked.

She nodded. One hand sent in a wave of air and the other caught it in a swirl before it could blow out at them.

Kalyah was peering in as well. “Hmm, it looks like a nervous system,” she said.

“Thankfully its not that complicated,” Jonah scoffed.

“Are you alright, honey?” she asked.

“I’m really tired, but I’m not about to have you walk me back up the stairs,” he said, yawning.

The hotel hosts came over, asking about what he was doing.

“Fixing your elevator,” Kalyah said proudly.

“Damn, that thing is impossible,” the lithe elf man said. “The mechanic that put it in never told us how to change the lights. Something fell and its impossible to get a screw that size.”

Jonah, who had already been searching diagrams about the exact length and diameter of the needed part, held up his hand. He had plenty of extra metal inside of him and out of his finger came the screw. “The lights don’t affect the running of it,” he said, knowing that his exhaustion was making him more curt.

“They don’t?” the elvish man said to the other.

His fellow shrugged.

“Well, the… others just used magic lifts through the air, so that thing isn’t that useful,” the host defended.

“If few people live in the city and this place is never used except as storage, then are you two that useful?” Diana asked with a responding shrug. “There are wards that could do your job.”

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“You’re staying here,” the first host snapped. The two men might as well be twins with the same black hair and widow’s peaks.

“Don’t harass them,” Kalyah said, patting Diana’s back. “They have fragile egos…” she mumbled quietly.

Twisting the screw in all the way, Jonah flipped a circuit on the back of the panel and a whir of power entered the device. There was a magic orb down in the wall that spun as a glowing gyro. He was glad that it wasn't cracked, the diagrams on it were far more complicated. Fitting the panel back into place, he pressed the button. No light showed up as he did so. Having some kind of understanding of it, he held his finger there. The filament had popped, but it wasn’t made of earthen material. Willpower and some knowledge. Now he had all the knowledge in the world and some from Hera. Everything that he had looked up was there so far. The Machinist gave this world elevators, so of course it was there.

Pushing his magic through his finger, there was a bit of static and the button lit back up with a reddish light. Smiling, he shook out the tingle. The gate rattled across the elevator and they entered it, the wood floor creaking. He slid the gate back in place.

“None of the cables are damaged?” Diana wondered.

Heavy steel cables, pulleys, brakes set into the sides, a counterweight. This time when he touched the wall he saw through it. The machine didn’t speak to him, but it shone clearly in his mind. He knew this one, with the help of his phone. The Machinist had given him so much information. Information that he took for granted on Earth. He could never use all the random facts there, but they were at his fingertips and practical now.

He had never felt more safe inside an elevator. “It’s all fine,” he said. He snapped his metal fingers with more of a thud than a snap. The device started up and as the counterweight slid down, they slid up.

Diana and Kalyah braced themselves, laughing along with him.

“What a wonderful conversation you had,” Diana said, beaming at him.

He leaned back against the wall as they ascended those five short stories.

It took Jonah a while to explain all that he had seen and heard. Diana was peeved to have so little on the new villian. This new Machinist that had helped Blodwyn gain her freedom and plot the princess’s murder. No that wasn’t the correct term for them and Diana liked the new title given to Jonah. She couldn’t pester him anymore on what he didn’t know, but she would like to settle something with him before he rested.

“What do we call this new person if she has no name?” Diana asked, pulling the blanket over him. He had sat down against the headboard when he entered and as the minutes passed he got lower and lower on the bed. Now he was fully supine, eyes heavy.

Jonah yawned, a wide jaw stretching affair he was too tired to cover up. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s weird you call all technology ‘machines’,” he said. “This woman knows a whole lot more than me. I don't know if she lost her limbs or if she upgraded herself or something.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe the world tore at her too.” He flexed his fingers before his face. “Anyway, I guess we could call her Technno…” His screen flashed with images, he swore to explain them fully after a nap. “Technophile?”

“That seems acceptable, though I hope that I can know her true name and have her captured one day,” she said. “While you rest I shall write up a report for my mother. I won’t send it right away, it won’t do any good at the moment. We have no one besides you Machinists who knows about this ‘internet’. I know you were flustered and the man wasn’t willing to divulge much, I only wish he would help us more. To think I once was fine with his abstaining from the war. My search for revenge blinded me to the complications of this all.”

“The frustrations weren’t well recorded, only the victories,” Kalyah commented, having listened silently for the whole recounting. “The whole world being able to talk to each other within seconds. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

Sighing, Jonah rolled over, eyes closing. “The internet is the most wonderful thing ever made and a fucking plague on humanity at the same time,” he said. “It depends on how you use it or where you went on it.”

“Explain it later, rest now,” Diana said, setting up the noise machine for him. It was the only way she had survived the dead silent room. There was also a fan going as well.

Kalyah and Diana left him and he started to sleep softly. Besides the door, the Priestess checked over the rune for a second time since returning. It hadn't discovered any sign of Flies and Diana was glad to have it around.

Kalyah sighed. "Well, now we start our plan," she said, smirking. "As earth shattering as this discovery is, it doesn't change much for us."

"It is of great import for me, Jonah hasn't been this happy since he woke up," Diana countered.

The Priestess nodded, smiling at her patient. "Yeah, he seems to think it makes him useful again, but he's useful anyway," she said.

"Exactly, I rely on him immensely," Diana said.

"Do you remember not having time for him?" Kalyah asked with a raised brow.

"I think I was lying to myself," Diana remarked. Aiko came up to her leg and she scratched its head as its whiskers tickled her skin.

"We all do it sometimes," Kalyah said quietly. "I did for a decade. I didn't think Angelina was evil, but I should have left when I saw that Night Crew. I thought I couldn't leave." She shook her head. "Anyway, do you mind if I come to ask for your advice on my wardrobe?"

"Of course not, I've done it countless times," Diana smiled. "All of my female friends spent hours discussing what fit them best. They called me 'manly' for only taking a half an hour at most to get ready for a banquet."

A shadow passed over Kalyah's face and she lingered there silently.

"I'm sorry, have I offended you? Do you take your time?" Diana wondered. "I'm fine with those women that do."

Kalyah's green eyes darted from Diana to Jonah. A nervous energy sparked off her. "Can you come to my room?" she asked.

"I would rather use your room to write up my report," Diana said, rushing off to grab some paper and pen from her bag.

She met Kalyah in her room, which was much the same as theirs, only that the bed was in the center, not along the wall. She was setting out clothes on it, small dresses for a small woman. Diana offered to move the bed closer to the door or wherever she wished. Distracted, Kalyah asked what she was saying and when repeated, kindly declined.

"What's the matter?" Diana wondered.

Hands on her broad hips, Kalyah swallowed. "Which one do you think would entice a sailor the most?” she asked, fixated on the dresses.

Diana took a moment, noting the deflection. “Does their gender matter?” she asked. “I know very little about elven preferences, especially here in their Kingdom.”

Kalyah stared resolutely at her. “They don’t care, so long as I’m a pretty looking girl,” she said.

“No offense, your hairstyle is a bit boyish, I’ve not seen it on an elf, but you wear it well,” Diana replied, feeling at her own auburn locks. “I would not be able to pull it off, everyone would mock my big cheeks eventually. I hardly wear it up because of them. You lived in Academia, you know the legend of the ‘piggy princess.’”

The Priestess flattened her short hair. “It’s a dwarvish cut among the elves,” she said with a sigh. “Dwarves have big ears to hear the trembles in the earth. Elves have ears pinched by Corpine to hear danger in the primordial world.” She pushed on her ears that stuck out and up. “I had long hair once, it caught on these things and I looked so silly. Primvene said I should feel glad for the way I looked, because Corpine had made me perfect… I didn’t see it, all I saw was a stranger in the mirror.” Aiko caught the nervous speed of the Pixie’s heart, Diana seeing the nervous energy returning to her eyes.

The Druid chose her words carefully. “Well, whatever you saw, I only see a very beautiful woman before me now,” she said with a smile. “One willing to throw herself on the gruffness of sailors and smugglers to save lives.”

Kalyah exhaled a long breath, swiping away at a lone tear. Hopefully she knew she didn’t need to speak about whatever issue was in her head. Diana had not come across any people with such a condition from Meniten, seeing another person in the mirror. All she saw was more person than she wished, part of that was rentension she couldn’t help. She never saw someone she didn’t recognize, but heard about how debilitating it could be.

“I don’t like talking about it, elves don’t care,” Kalyah said quietly.

“Many Nymphs like to mix and match parts as they see fit,” Diana commented. “So many Druids should not care either.”

“I guess I’m a mixed Nymph then, its not healthy to try and keep what Corpine didn’t give me. I already fucked up what I have trying,” Kalyah said, a deep scowl cut across her face. She gripped her wrist, shaking her head in some old disappointment.

“I didn’t mean that to insult you,” Diana said, hugging the small woman.

“I know, I know,” she said, patting her forearm. She examined the princess as she withdrew. “You’re lucky to be born like you were. I always thought the papers were too cruel about you too. How fucking rude to mock a growing little girl.”

“I had no neck until I was nearly a teen,” Diana said, patting at her not so slender, but at least present neck. “And this round nose.” She tapped her face, flaring her nostrils like a pig.

“Jonah looks at you like you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen,” Kalyah said with a chuckle.

“You’re a fine woman to him too.” Diana smiled. “We are both equal in our femininity to him.”

Kayah nodded, laying her hands on the dresses of various styles and textures. “I was close to telling him, but I didn’t,” she said solemnly.

“It doesn’t matter to him, nor does it matter to me,” Diana said swiftly.

The Priestess nodded again, moving lighter. “I feel like it’s a secret I’m holding back, but that’s only part of the curse. I’m lucky I don’t rely on medicines, I have my faith to shape me. Primvene gave it to me originally. I pray to maintain it. That’s the reason I’m still so devout, despite leaving her and the church.”

“Was it one of the reasons you left?” Diana asked, sitting down on the bed.

“One of, but not the only. Some of the higher ups were worried about what to call me. I knew Primvene would always call me a Priestess,” she said, a grimace for the past quickly fading.

“More luck for you,” Diana said.

“Yeah, I hope I can return with more good to tell her than bad,” Kalyah said, picking up a short black dress. Putting it up to her chest it only fell a few inches past the bottom of her hips. “What do you think? Would you tell all your smuggling secrets to a girl in this?”

“Hm, I think I would,” Diana said with a nod.

“Well, it’s settled then. I’m off to worship as much information as possible out of those randy sailors,” Kalyah said happily.