Arcfire--Epilogue

by E. E. Bowers

You humans do love your endings, do you not? That tends to be for those Americans in particular, being as particular as they tend to be. You love your stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. The story has an opening act, with all of the nonsense and shenanigans confronting The Hero. And The Hero triumphs through usage of bravado and bullets! With folk wit and fisticuffs! With swinging sword and sleight-of-hand! (Well, less so that last bit. Americans vastly prefer blasting guns over broadswords. Men and women with broad chests getting the job done right-proper—said chests being sized massively for physiologically different reasons!)

In any event! The Hero killed the Evil Enemy. Then The Hero has a jovial workplace conversation with superiors before the credits start to roll. The End!

So there you go off to have your dinner and watch your Arsenal match before going to bed and working your own job. All is well in the world of stories because you have seen The End.

What we are saying in so many words is… The story is over! If this was a cinema piece concocted by Americans, then our recital and your witnessing would have ended with Annika going away with her briefcase full of an irresponsible amount of money. (Irresponsible, indeed! How many of you would trust a nineteen-year-old with one million euros? Football notwithstanding!) In a way, we do mean Annika because maybe that escapee from a cyber-punk parallel reality was the real hero of the story. But since you are dead-set certain this is about Aia for some strange reason or other, the cutoff would be when Aia made her reappearance and subsequent disappearance in the study. And since the fellows only had that room exist as long as they bothered using it, the alternative would have been a stare into the oblivion between universes.

A deathly stare, yes. Your pitiful human psyches and your perceptions limited to three dimensions (four at most at times) would be completely incapable of witnessing the space between. This is more-so because some spaces between universes are not necessarily…empty. We shall say that the entities therein would not necessarily be your cup of tea. But from our perspective? By Jove! A great many of those nebulous demi-beings certainly know how to throw a jolly good bash! Nothing is more a knees-up good time than a bit of the old inter-dimensional ultra-violence! What’s a little dissolution of consciousness and the occasional destruction of otherwise good neighbouring universes? After all, it’s not a good party unless something gets broken!

So indeed, something is broken. The continuation of the story, that is. If you are someone of foreshortened attention span and prefer your Manchester United to multi-dimensional meanderings, then so be it! Off with you, then! Go find your tele! We’re sure that you shall quite enjoy your fish and chips whilst watching your favourite team lose on the pitch and lose by one goal!

Which is to also say that…yes, the primary part of the story is over. Aia had been there to see to it that Lord Morkudum was put to oblivion in the most…ah, climactic ways possible given present technologies. Burnt to a crisp. Then shot with great big American guns. And then, as if that would not be enough, his remains being disintegrated into subatomic particles.

If there was to be room for a sequel, his end would have gone quite differently. It would have something along the lines of him tumbling over the side of a ledge of his outdoor party-room—falling out and away. In which case, such would be a Disney Death. No body, means no definite conclusion!

But, such was not to be. There was no such thing with that ungentlemanly gentlemen, for feudal lords seldom meet clean ends to life.

So no, there shall not be a sequel for Lord Morkudum. We mean this in regards to him having been wiped from existence as you would understand it. There shall not be a matter of him climbing out from a meat-filled crater of his own making after a country bumpkin had accidentally poured some excess vasi therein. The only meat-filled craters ‘round the vicinity of where the floating fortress used to be were craters made by morons.

Do you still wish to stay on for a while then? No, not stay on that oddish world of swords and starships. That would be ridiculous—as ridiculous as trying to maintain feudalism in a land where firearms are possible. (Six generations of inbred nobility trained for decades in swinging swords, and even the highest of barons amongst them can be felled by a peasant with a bullet costing nineteen pence! Hah!) What more is there to do? Once the biggest bastard of them all is taken down and out of existence, there is no one else! (Well, there is the vice-mayor of the city—a man as corrupt as anything bearing the label politician—but that is not Aia’s story.)

Still there, then? Still want to find out what comes to pass beyond the antics of that nameless planet? Or perhaps you still think that planet has a name, and we are just hiding it from you? (Rather easy, that. Tricking humans has all the challenge of a game of draughts against an intoxicated kindergartener. Not fun under most circumstances given the level involved, but still eminently doable.) Do you still wish to find out what came to pass next?

Ah well, so be it. Yes, there are things that still happened to this Aia in particular. There are more than a few varieties of Aia. Very well, a few trillion proliferations of Aias spread across a few trillion parallel universes—and those are only the known variants. And out of all of the Aias and the Annikas besides, you concern yourself with just…this…girl? Did you not hear us when we told you that the grand story is over?

So be it. Let us move on to mediocrity. Let us return to Aia—and Aia’s return to her boring world of Planet Moron. You must admit, it is certainly a more provocative and fitting term than naming your planet after dirt!

…

Aia appeared—or reappeared, rather—back on Planet Earth. There was nothing in the way of Hollywoodien dramatics. We did not have a gust of wind or jagged bolts of lightning. No, not even a static-carpet discharge. No Lovecraftian swirl of horrid energies. There was simply a pop of displaced air. And then…Aia was back.

Back to her planet Earth of origin, so there would not be the fun of encountering another version of herself and all of the existential debates therein. (How much of a narcissist would you have to be to want more than a few of you scampering about? In that regard, ask your parents!) Just Aia, back from adventures, back on a world that had nothing special going on in particular.

The girl looked around at a perfectly ordinary suburban street—what passes for ordinary in the American media sense. A decent-enough street lined with quaint houses resting upon green lawns. (Artificial lawns in some cases—the grass being as real as a celebrity’s face.) In an effort to give this place the appeal of nearby Los Angeles, there were palm trees interspaced along the route. Yes, this is America. With this being America, there were cars parked all along. Both sides. (A wonder that vehicles can pass at all.)

This is America. This is also nearing sunset—that cool breeze blowing along. With Europe being thousands of miles away and an ocean besides, radioactive fallout from World War Third was not of concern.

But to be on the safe side, Aia reached for her… Where would her smartphone be at this…? Ah, there we are! Not caring or even knowing how her precious personal electronics were returned to her, Aia tapped the appropriate icon on the thing and found that the gentle California breeze did not bear with it bad tidings of the ionising radioactive sort.

America, where the problems of world politics are thousands of miles away. Where there is enough idiocy happening locally that said far-away problems do not matter overly much. Well, unless there is another world war happening. Not that it will anytime soon, mind you. What, with the planet’s brush with the human apocalypse and all.

You would ask, why would we put that word down with a small a? So goes because it would not merit a capitalisation in our regard. Your species—you miserable wretches—could put yourselves out of everyone’s misery, and the rest of the galaxy would cheerfully go about its business of making scientific and technological progress! Humanity could disappear, and life would go on. That goes especially given how, with certain timelines and universes, a certain race of giant beetles is biding its time to take up residence on Earth after its most troublesome species.

The species of the galaxy making technological progress. And yes, you can count spiritual progress alongside that! If not for advanced and advancing technology, a land-based species does nothing but wallow in the mud and occasionally crack each other over the head with rocks. There are humans who loudly condemn science and technology. But then, they do so from the comfort of air-conditioned rooms whilst consuming foodstuffs crafted by robots. They are talking ill of technology merely to look cool. Which is to say, they do not actually believe what they say. How could a great many of your religions exist without the technology of writing, for example?

And now, not only was Aia back on her world, in her city, and on her street… Oh bother, Aia was back in the approximate time and place of her disappearance. And given how this is her time and her universe, most humans in existence hereabouts have gone beyond the mud-wallowing-and-head-cracking behaviours. (Most humans, excepting the Manchester United crowd. Never mind if mud-spattered televisions make for diminished viewing quality of football matches.)

This is a street with houses at the sides. This is the American street upon which Aia’s house may be found. And no, we shall not specify address for you. Do not even bother. Aia would not have any interest in relationships with those whose favourite pastimes involve rocks and mud.

With nothing of the sort on her conscious mind, Aia took a step. Then Aia took a moment to be amazed.

Was this truly her home? The street and the house therein. Or, was this some other world and some other time? If this was one of those hackneyed American science fiction films, a girl would have checked a newspaper stand. How quaint, that. Paper newspapers have gone out of fashion among the popular classes. Nowadays, people like Aia take out their smartphones to check the date and times. And Aia did so without even bothering to understand the amazing privilege of doing that. Because there were no smartphones on Planet Darkholm…

Just joking! That was not the name of that other world. Did we not mention time and again how it had no name? Now, moving on, Aia has been able to take out a smartphone from her garment pouch without even realising or remembering that there had not been a smartphone there before. Only upon returning to this world that the smartphone was returned to her possession. (That physical distributor of psychological drugs known as social media would have been quite a distraction from her quest and questing.) And now, Aia has returned to her smartphone addiction.

Tapping the screen hither and thither… Aia had confirmed her return to Earth. Her Earth. Unlike you, the girl does not have a direct line to trans- or multi-dimensional entities capable of sensing and knowing parallel universes and knowing which one belongs to her.

And yes, the girl confirmed what we already knew, what you had to know, what was not known to her. Not for certain. According to the time-stamps and dates and progressive line of doings on social media, this is still her world. Arsenal antics, celebrity idiocy, the usual. (Thomas Yorkshire signed on yet again for a two-year contract. Never mind him having run over six elderlies with a borrowed lorry!)

Time and place, yes. Not only had Aia been returned to the same place but also the same time. It was not even a minute from her having gone away. Which means, her friends were still gathered at the flat. An entire adventure of a lifetime passed for her, but not even a minute passed for her mates.

Ah, so what now? Looking around, there was nothing much else going on locally. Had this been a century prior, a great many Americans would be gallivanting out and about outside—some adults doing yard labours, some lawns being cut, kids playing when they should have been cutting the lawn, cutting school, etcetera. Even with school not being in session at this time, there was still a total lack of outside play. It’s more about inside play—and the threat of occasional nuclear fallout from World War Triple occasionally drifting over the Atlantic and Pacific would be no excuse. With nothing but empty lawns and silent houses with a great many cars parked around, there was no one to greet her.

So Aia would just re-introduce herself. Of course, the girl remembers her last place of business prior to being sucked away into adventure. Of all the copy-paste cloneage regarding house-design hereabouts—as was the case with just about every mass-produced American neighbourhood, there was one house positioned with familiarity enough.

And it was at this house that Aia knocked. If her mates had not called the police already or were debating doing so, they still ought to be in the salon and perhaps mucking about with the text that had caught the attention of the fellows.

Or, not calling the police. We did say debating doing so. How would you explain to an unimaginative group of law-enforcement agents that a girl-friend was sucked away by a trans-dimensional force?

You will not have much in the way of explaining to do—not terribly much time—for they will promptly end the call. That, or have you taken away for extensive questioning at the constabulary…or place of mental health. Perhaps a saving grace from the olden days was how lunatic ideas do not necessarily lead to being sent to houses of mental help. (Truth be told, a great many teens in America hold lunatic beliefs. They feel themselves quite at liberty to propagate them on social media.)

After knocking, Aia considered tempering her explanations nevertheless. At least to her parents and the adults… Erm, older adults. Nineteen is an adult in America, but nineteen is still too young by far to be given a job paying enough for independence.

And the door still did not open. And there must be a reason why. And that was why Aia did not knock again. With all of her taste of adventure and all of her antics regarding those who muck about with crossbows and sharpened sticks and six-legged means of fur-bearing transportation and what-not, a girl learns to be more cautious.

Leaning close and putting an ear close to the door, Aia could hear the faint sounds of a raging debate. No, not yelling about the value of the latest championship striker out of Kingston. They were instead, from the loud sound of things, yelling about what to do about the book.

So Aia rapped upon the door and had done so even more loudly still. (No, there was no doorbell. Those seem to have been phased out of existence with regards to American homes.)

And still no response. Even with whatever else could be happening in the world, leave it to those in an American household to not simply care. Someone at the door? Too bad. The match is on the tele. A thermonuclear, near-apocalyptic dust-up in Europe? So long as it does not affect the doings of my favourite singer-actress-model-self-help-guru, it is of no concern to us.

But there was still something that all Americans will respond to immediately. That includes naturalised people who have been made Americans by dint of law but nevertheless retain European characteristics. That especially includes youngsters.

Aia took out her smartphone from her tunic and promptly sent an angry text to Lindsey who was most certainly still there because that is most certainly her distinctly Welsh accent shrieking at Thomas in there. And for good measure, Aia texted Thomas as well.

And the shrieking…stopped. You would think that, for all of that drama and rigamarole, they would just keep going at it. Nothing quite like a nice little bout of emotional savagery to get your human dopamine levels flowing! All of that idiot-drama you like to see on your idiot-drama reality-television livestreams, you want to be part of it. But when it comes to that little hand-held electronic infant you carry in your pocket—or whatever passes for a pocket—you stop everything and see what’s going on. And after you do, maybe you will carry on your idiocy virtually.

But the thing about virtually receiving information is that you will…at times…forget that actual people on the material plane will require assistance… That, or just pretend that you forget. After all, that door is four metres away. That’s a touch over four yards for you Yanks—such considerations given due to Aia and her mates residing reside this the relatively radiation-safe country of America. Metres, yards, that is still just…so…far…away… There is a means of opening the door by AI smartphone command, but that icon is an entire fifteen centimetres above the social-media Twit-chat window. So very far away.

Yet someone in need of even more drama in their lives decided to do some shrieking at someone else for not actually getting up to answer the door! So, so very much laziness! Some more teen-drama noise later, and the door whipped open! There stood Lord Morkudum! He does a fair imitation of a shrieking teenager, it seems!

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Just joking. We are not saying that having the inbred idiot make an appearance is not possible. If so desired, we could make some metaphysical antics of the very sort take place. But we do not desire for it to take place. Lord Muckitymoron—foreshortenly also known as Lord Muckwit—has has ceased to exist in your timeline.

No, you’re better off worrying about the likes of Stevedore Beltran and his social-media fueled antics at successfully kicking off another war in Europe. You would think that a bunch of obese, sub-moronic layabouts would be incapable of fighting a war despite their absolute furious Hitler-esque shriek-sessions on social media. Whingeing about how exercise is hard and how they want to disband all of the world’s armies. And you would be right! That said, those dyed-haired army-hating youngsters were in no position to resist Lord Beltran’s fascist march across…

Oh, never mind that. No use telling you about it. No, you’re too busy gnashing your teeth at Aia’s perfect, perfect doll-like features along with her perfect, perfect pale-blonde tresses. Nobody deserves to be that pretty! Especially if it’s anyone but you.

And with her being so very pretty, of course someone had to brave the idea of taking the massive life-long trek of three long and treacherous metres across the sitting room. This meant depriving oneself of social-media for all of six to nine seconds! Oh, the horror…! It must be some kind of human-rights violation or international war-crime to be deprived of smart-phone social-media shenanigans for that long.

So in any event, with Nigel having braved that trek across the desert, he was deftly rewarded with seeing Aia. Seeing her. Also staring at her. Aia was always pretty even before her trip to Planet Trichrome!

Joking again! That planet still doesn’t have a real name. We could stop lying to you. But then, that would only leave you humans lying to each other. What would be the fun in that?

“Aia…?” asked Nigel, looking dumbstruck. Humans are dumb idiots to begin with and certainly look the part. For him to take on that facial expression of being dumber still, that was quite an achievement. Going that extra mile to use an Americanism.

“Yes, I’m back,” said Aia in English. The language came back to her with all the ease of having used it everywhere but on Planet Nameless.

Not that you noticed, what with you staring at Aia’s posterior and all, but there was suddenly the sound of scampering trainers across an indoor floor… (Oh, very well! The Yanks call them sneakers. So be it. Moving on, then.) Because footwear tends not to move on its own, it so happens that they contained the feet of a friend—a friend who rushed over to this doorway to find out if it was really…

“Aia!” shrieked a pale-skinned girl of raven-dark hair. Then, because words alone are never enough to achieve sufficient drama, the dark-haired girl just about tackled Aia in a grasping embrace.

Because the petite blonde was physically well-versed in in dangerous antics, the sudden grasp did not knock her down. Surviving the likes of a Kill-O-Blast beam was comparable to this.

“Aia! It’s really you!” came another girl, another blonde. (Blondes and brunettes, seems that mousy-brown locks are out of fashion these days among Euro-born youths. A trend all the more easily accomplished not with hair dye but with genetic re-engineering of scalp cells.)

And so it went after yet another two of Aia’s mates came to greet her after her disappearance. Oh, for goodness’ sakes! A petite blonde vanishes for all of several minutes from their perspective, and it is as if all the world has ended. They act as if they have never had anyone of theirs being trans-warped out of this dimension and into a parallel existence. If something so much as disappears for even a femtosecond, and their silly little human psyches have no recognisable explanation, then they are all psychologically bent out of sorts.

Truth be told, objects vanish from your universe most all the time. Said objects include the likes of full human bodies and the minds still entailed. (Given how humans behave, one is led to believe that their minds vanish quite often.) You humans prefer to believe that your universe is a perfect, perfect machine in which none of your so-called laws of physics are violated.

Again, silly humans. Silly minds. Since when do you set the laws of physics? You, who cannot even manipulate gravity sufficiently enough to affect warp-space travel. That, and the so-called great scientists among you do not even know what gravity is! Ditto for time!

Speaking of which, Aia’s mates were still at it. Three female humans all wrapt round Aia as if to keep her from being trans-warped away by trans-dimensional entities looking for a good time. (No, not that kind of time. So very, very perverted.) They went about mucking with artefacts borne of other times and other universes, daring to do so, suffering the results, and then not wanting to suffer the consequences.

Said a muffled, sob-gobbed girl-voice, “Where were you! You…went away! We were so worried!”

Really? Was that the best a human could say? Not so much as a Where the bloody blazes did you get off to? Or perhaps even, We will never again muck about with mutli-dimensional entities or the products thereof.

Of course, that last bit was a lie—for there are still quite a few humans below the age of twenty-five years. Young-adult humans borne of well-to-do families, always up to doing something absolutely asinine and stupendously stupid. Oh, look! There is a deadly frozen mountain climbed by meditating mystics to prove their worth! Let’s go climb it! Never mind the radioactive fallout from the war! Or perhaps, Let’s borrow a yacht, drink an entire hogshead of wine, and get sodded off our bums before we are lost at sea! Then there is the old standby for those born beyond the twentieth century, such as…Cocaine only kills fools, and we’re better than fools even if we act like them!

Which is to also say, of all the antics and shenanigans performed by Aia’s mates, there was no word yet as to what the Hell actually came to pass with the book. Or, what appeared in the form of a book.

…

“So what happened?” asked Aia, beating everyone to the question. It could very well have been the other way around.

After all, people would like to know what comes to pass to victims of trans-dimensional artefacts. You humand do not get to play with those sorts of objects most every day. And if you could? Oh, the fun we’ll have! Such would likely result in the wholesale destruction of your planet across multiple timelines and some parallel universes adjacent, yes. But fun, still.

“The book…” went one of the boys. We won’t bother restating his name. Should have been paying better attention when we first introduced him. “It… When it sucked you in, it vanished.”

“Like a social-media tricky vid!” went one of the girls other than Aia. “We thought Nigel was just doing some sort of TokTokker trick.”

“I had to explain to Lizzy that video editing can’t happen in real life,” explained yet another boy. “Could you imagine how crazy things would become if computers could modify reality?”

“I’m not dumb!” whined Lizzy. “We just had a real-live magic book make Aia vanish somewhere! Who knows! There could be space gods with steampunk super-computers that can manipulate real life!”

Oh, really! Of all the most astoundingly preposterous folderol and astounding balderdash that we have heard coming from humans (and we hear a lot of it), that has to be amongst the very worst! There are mildly intoxicated toddlers capable of more reasonable declarations! We try to exercise a modicum of tolerance for the asinine idiocy of your species! We really, really do! (Else, we of the galaxy could very much make do without the whole lot of you!) But for that statement to be made? Does someone want their species eradicated?

Space gods, indeed! The only gods your species would need would be ones willing to give you wits enough to stop attempting varous means of self-imposed oblivion. The so-called Americans amongst you tried banning alcohol, but that was perhaps as effective as two bricks slamming the flanks of your cranium.

In any event, back to these non-events. A group of eighteen-ish and nineteen-ish sorts of humans not doing much of anything but talking. They could be off doing something vaguely more important such as perhaps demanding automated means of removing fallout-contaminated topsoil from parts of their homeland-continents. Or, just give up on that and prepare themselves for a lifetime of space travel. (Don’t say space exploration when you send your piddling little inflated titanium cans into space for yet another meager trip to your planet’s sole visible-matter satellite. And what do you mean, you have not found the other moon yet?)

But no, just idly chittering away like the mutant primates they are. Aia was eventually left being able to start recounting her astoundingly atrocious adventure in that other world—a world with no name put forth by the humans that live there. Since Aia did not have the Arcfire with her—and good thing a human was deprived of the before-mentioned—the girl pantomined the shape and size of the thing. The girl was also sure to talk about the absolute destruction rendered by such a weapon. So mcuh power. So much possibility for idiocy when possessed by a peon. Speaking of haphazard losers, Aia was certainly sure to mention Jakk the Laid-Back Aprprentice, his brother Jhort the Wondrously Magnificent and his Mighty Motley Menagerie of Misadventurers. (Can’t call them adventurers if their ends resembled a collection of disparate subatomic particles! Bad endings, that’s what one calls misadventure.)

And not forgetting to mention Lord Morkudum, of course—that human-shaped piece of inbred idiocy. Given humans’ love of aristocracy and inbred aristocracy at that, Aia did not describe the lord as such. For all of his many faults, for all of his failings, he was nobility. In other words, a fascist by inheritance. And you love your fascism so long as it wears feudal finery and goes by the name of nobility.

…

In light of humans having foreshortened attention spans, let us skip ahead to the part where Manchester United gets trounced yet again. You sit there with your bottle of…whatever that brain-damaging alcoholic substance happens to be labeled. (Still paying for liquefied brain damage? We have told you about this. Just purchase a good-sized brick… Oh bother, save your money. Just find a goodly sized rock with decent heft and hit yourself in the head with it a few times. There, you have accomplished the same effect as alcohol!)

That said, we shan’t inform you about the champion striker who managed two astounding and rather carnivalesque goals quite suddenly. Since this tale takes place in your future, you would therefore have information to pass on to your gambling friends. Hopefully, not American friends—i.e. the sort that wears pin-stripe suits and performs amateur-hour knee surgery on those who fail to pay debts on gambling bets.

What’s that? Not what you really care about? Oh, perhaps you care more about Aia than some would presume. That would be a mistake. You hardly care about those haphazard sorts down on the street or living in one-room flats because their employers fired them en masse. You don’t care overly much about those drug-addled yobs that keep filling up party rolls in parliament. (Drug tests a-plenty for you peons, not for MPs. Oh, and don’t forget the prostitutes! Can’t have a right-proper parliament party without employing…ah, waitresses and escort-girls from houses of ill-repute.) None of that bothers you overly much. All that matters to you is watching Andrew Blackwell spinning up and about to launch that air-filled spheroid into the net. Go-o-o-oal-l-l!

Or, perhaps you only care about Aia Andersdotter because pretty people are cared about quite often. Small and lithe in a living doll sort of way—due to malnutrition and radiation exposure over in her homeland, of course. Like a doll, having oh-so-long pale-blonde tresses framing a pert pretty face. Girls admire her face and long hair. Boys are looking every elsewhere.

No, you would only care about Aia because of how Aia looks. All humans care about pretty people—so much so that you will give them your all. You will not see pretty people inhabiting one-room flats in Shropshire or Worcestershire or…

Did some of you decide to just walk away? So be it. Go on, then! Back to your silly little games on the grassy pitch where grown men dressed as school-yard yobs gallivant about a grassy field to kick in some balls. Is that your idea of a good time?

Meanwhile, we did say that the tale is over—more or less. No more Morkudums to muck about with. No more dashing maniacs-for-hire riding about on beasts too improbable to exist on your world. Or at least, not until after the next world war. (What world war? Oh, wouldn’t you like to know!) No more floating castles armed with technologies powered to irresponsible levels of destructiveness.

Yes, we said that in light of you possessing nuclear weapons. But, what piddling use is that? In the right or wrong hands, a premium quality Kill-O-Blast beam can split open a moon with all the aplomb of a butcher splitting open a sheep’s midsection in preparation of haggis. Would you cocaine-fueled bits of parliamentary rubbish with access to that kind of power? (Eh, what? What’s that you say about that last Arsenal match? Why, I have just the thing for that nonsense opinion of yours! Let’s see Pierre Truffult put one past the goaltender after I push this button! Ready…! Aim…!)

Can’t trust humans with Kill-O-Blast weaponry. Can’t even trust them with sharp objects. Or anything that has overly hard surfaces. Bound to use them to crack themselves in the head for a good time in lieu of purchasing alcohol.

And given how you have attention span enough to have remained this far, thus far, then you deserve to know what ultimately came of Aia Andersdotter. No doubt, some of you scraped together neurons enough to memorise that multisyllabic name of hers—just to know her name. That, and there may be neurological budget enough for heeding this next bit. ’Tis not a glorious fairy-tale ending. That’s not how things go. You could demand our intervention, but that would be idiocy. That would also be against the rules. Watching humans mucking about is our idea of a good time. Oh, and there is one more thing…

…

Eighteen years old, nineteen years old, those ages still mean being teenagers. Such ages also mean being legally an adult by the oddish laws of those humans calling themselves Americans. Oh, those Americans! (We should very much like to call them a great other things! But since you seem to hold them in high esteem—also given their immense clout on your miserable planet—we shall withhold such commentary. For now, at the least.) Aia and her restored circle of cohorts and friends are all legally Americans, but they still think themselves Europeans. Europe itself may be dusted with dangerously radioactive folly, but their homelands still live on in their hearts.

So here they sit, privileged with being born as living beings with brains enough to understand their existence, in a universe that has existed for a few billion years, luck enough to have a universe stable enough to grant them existence! The date and time is half past infinity, and what are they doing?

Why, drinking mind-altering fluids, of course! For all the privilege and luck granted by the universe and existence, these humans like nothing better than acts which destroy their consciousness! For European Americans, American adults, or just human adults overall, the thing to do is to destroy one’s brain. By the way, could we interest you in that low-cost alternative to alcohol? These two sturdy bricks are crafted with the hardest and highest quality clay. Smash them into the sides of your heads for results equivalent to consuming what’s in these bottles!

Aia’s friends were well into their next round of liquid conscious destruction, laughing and teetering, their lips as loose as their gross motor functions. So goes their inhibitions as well.

“Oh, my gods! We thought we had to call the constables for you!” cried one of Aia’s friends clearly not named Jared.

“When you just up and vanished like that, we thought you were abducted by aliens or something!” answered the friend not-so-clearly named Jared. Well, it’s not like humans communicate by quantum induction or tau-codecs, so names are not always so evident.

“Them Yanks call ’em cops, not constables,” declared yet another human not named Jared. With nothing better going on with regards to the limping, sodden antics of his intoxicated frontal lobe, he…took another hit of beer. And then… “What was I going to say?”

“Probably something about how constables can’t do a wit’s good regarding extraterrestrial abduction,” said Emma, also someone not named Jared.

“Cops,” finally insisted someone who was actually named Jared. “Leave it to the Yanks to grossly simplify the communications of anything in the way of… Something or other about long-winded things that we use to make sentences.” And another hit of ale. “Why can’t we make do without talking in talking language? Just think, and blammo! Thoughts get across!”

“What’s blammo?” asked another female friend named neither Jared nor Emma. “Whatever it is, does it give a better buzz than this?”

“Michtenlobe! Best beer around regarding what the Americans can do! Even if they have to use a German name!” declared Jared.

“Oh my goddess! Why is this about beer instead of being about Aia! That little platinum blonde bitch just saved a planet from fascism eternal, and all that you can talk about is a beer brand that’s better off being shoved up your ass!” declared Annika.

It took Jared a goodly few seconds to register a few facts. But since that was too long and too complicated for his addled wits, he just went with the simplest question possible. “And who the radioactive Hell might you be?”

“Does it matter?” went Annika. That trans-dimensional Goth-girl mercenary-for-hire then tapped her smartphone to tick off yet another item on her To-Do list before promptly vanishing from this universe.

Most everyone in the room had a similar reaction. That was a given, especially how most everyone here is of the same sub-species and in the same mental state—i.e. rather sloshed. To have someone of rakish disposition appear out of nowhere and make rakish commentary before disappearing again, that can be rather psychologically problematic for people of your planet. You are quite used to people and things only appearing by way of physical transportation. If it does not arrive by train, van, car, bicycle, or on two feet, then you cannot mentally abide. Trans-warp transportation is something that you cannot understand at this point and therefore mentally refuse to understand.

But alcohol does its thing, which prevents a great deal of your brain’s neurons from doing much of their thing. (We said neurons, not brain cells. There is a difference.) Thinking! We mean thinking! Such is what neurons facilitate! And processing!

This resulted in…them not reacting much to what happened. A rather pretty-looking Goth girl was here one bunch of seconds, gone the next. Vanishings and appearances, girls seem to be doing that quite a bit at this point—especially that girl over there. No disappearance from her recent reappearance, in this case.

What remains was how Aia was still here. So now, ale-swimming eyes and wobbly alcoholic heads were slowly rotating to look at Aia. Give them a moment. Those motor functions are still not quite up to snuff and not even by human standards.

“You’re…not going anywhere else again, right?” went Josh. And with that verbal effort accomplished, he had himself another drink.

Aia was still holding a bottle and had not consumed it—concerns of what it would do to her. (In truth, nothing much at all.) “No… I don’t think so. They have a great many other people to play with.” Looking around. “The book is gone?”

Alcohol-soaked and mentally sodden as they may be, there was still room for nervousness. Josh nodded somewhat soberly and gave a quavery response. “Erm… Yeah, it’s gone. After it did its thing, it just vanished. When you did.”

(What do you mean, quavery is not a word? Not on your version of Earth, we suppose. Besides, you did get the message. If a word is spoken and you understand it, then it must be a word!)

“It vanished when you did,” went Lucy, who was quiet all of this time. If you live in America, having a name like Lucy in the twenty-first century is reason to keep quiet.

“But you’re back. That’s the important thing,” said Josh. “So where did you go?” This time, not taking another hit from the bottle.

“I…” began Aia. And then, stopped talking. The girl recalled just how immensely powerful the fellows so happen to be.

They could do anything to any world in any known universe. Hell, smashing entire galaxies just for the fun of it! Would you want to mention them aloud? You wouldn’t, not if you want to keep your world, galaxy, and universe intact. The book-artefact was a means of getting their attention. And once that attention was glommed previously, it was probable that such attention could be acquired again.

Aia’s hope was that the fellows were no longer aware of her as individual or her world overall. ’Twas better that way.

Meanwhile, ’twas best to divert their attention. Her fellows, that is. Not the fellows. They just might trot out some other trans-dimensional artefact they brought out from the remains of radioactively dusted Europe.

“But what I want to know is, why are you...smaller than you used to be? And why are your ears pointed?” asked Sendalia. This pretty much confirms that Aia remains an immortal elf-princesse of synthetic corpus.