“Emily, you finished on lab bench five? How were the results?”

“Pretty good, Barbara. Efficiency was only about eighty percent or so of what I thought they would be, but they still work.”

“Luke is working over on lab bench ten. I think he maybe needs some assistance. A… womanly touch?” Barbara waggled her eyebrows, “He is always so messy as he works.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Barbara was still teasing the two of them and trying to matchmake them even after all of this time. John was right, she really was a relentless gossip. Now that Emily was on the lab floor more these days, Barbara was around to chat more often and feed Emily all the details in the rumor mill.

Left unmentioned by Barbara were the waves and falls of the rumors surrounding Emily herself. With the news story and Emily’s quick rise to working full time at the premier lab at CODA, in the international headquarters no less straight out of school, she was a sort of minor celebrity to everyone in the company.

Not in a good way of course. More in a ‘is she dangerous? What should I do to prod her to see if she’ll explode’? Emily had had to tell John about quite a few nasty pranks or when someone got too aggressive in taunting her about the rumors. Mostly in the lunchroom where the scientists had to eat with all the other departments of the company in the shared cafeteria.

She still wasn’t sure why some people felt compelled to do that. Maybe they were just jealous that she was a rising star. But it still hurt when someone took out their jealousy on her.

John usually handled her complaints about the pranks efficiently. They stopped after she told him immediately almost every time. Or Mr. Rose handled it. Emily tried to only tell John when something was more extreme, so he usually trusted her when she said it was something she didn’t know how to handle.

Emily wasn’t sure how much John told Mr. Rose of what she shared. Mr. Rose had taken interest in her over the years, and John said that he asked about her progress occasionally when John went to give his reports on the state of the lab’s projects.

At least the people in the lab were all kind. They were all older, but welcoming and never tried to be mean to her. Especially after she came back after her month of intensive ‘treatment’ by Mr. Rose’s doctors. It had been mostly sitting around and talking about her feelings, then at the end they gave her a long list of special drugs to take.

Not the worst, but from the whispers that she had heard people had imagined some elaborate torture chamber with electrodes and a straight jacket. Armed guards and walls to make sure that she didn’t escape and go on a rampage. Like any serious medical institution had done anything like that for hundreds of years.

“Yo, Earth to Emily? Heads off in the clouds again?”

Emily shook her head, “Oh. Sorry, Barbara. Luke’s on bench ten, right?”

“Yep. Sounds about right. I’ll clean up around here and do more tests on the samples, you go.”

Emily nodded and walked over to lab bench ten. She turned the corner and saw Luke carefully pipetting one clear fluid into another clear fluid in another vial. Most of the things they worked with didn’t have any real color to them.

“Hey, Lu-”

Suddenly the world froze, Emily’s foot raised and frozen in mid step. Only her eyes could move and she could see a single droplet of fluid frozen in mid-air as Luke was half way through squirting into the vial below.

Everything was supernaturally quiet, just like when Emily’s hallucinations arrived. But she had never been frozen in place before. She moved her eyes to the corner of the room as she finally saw it. A dark shadowy silhouette with bright orange eyes, staring directly at her. It was the Shadow. She tried to move, to calm her heart that was beating so fast that it felt like it might leap out of her chest.

Suddenly the Shadow flickered and it was standing right in front of her, its giant orange eyes barely a foot away from her own. She tried to flinch, but her body didn’t move. The Shadow tilted its head to the side and stayed there with its head tilted for a few seconds.

It flickered again and suddenly it was standing right next to Luke’s frozen body hunched over the lab bench.

Emily tried to move, to shout, to frantically shift her eyes around to protest. But her body didn’t move. Her eyes whirled around uselessly. And the Shadow lifted its arm and stuck it in the back of Luke’s skull casually.

Emily tried to scream, but no sound came out. She couldn’t move at all.

The Shadow pulled back with its arm and Luke’s body straightened to follow. Luke turned to face her, completely blank faced as his eyes suddenly started glowing orange to match the Shadow’s.

Luke’s body opened his mouth as it went like he was about to take a big bite of something, his eyes still glowing bright orange, brighter and brighter with every passing moment. The Shadow remained behind Luke’s body, its orange eyes still fixed on her as its arm remained buried in the back of Luke’s skull.

“Oh, chains upon chains,” A deep voice said, emanating from Luke’s mouth. Luke’s mouth opened and closed, gaping like a drowning fish with the words he was speaking not synced with the motions of his mouth in the slightest.

“I lament thy purpose. A foul trap to know.” Luke continued as the Shadow stood behind him. Both sets of glowing orange eyes remained fixed on the frozen Emily with intense focus as Luke kept speaking,

“A cruel play of a fate constructed by my gaze.

I do not envy the two. Envy you.

There is no change, it can only be.

I lament the chains, the struggle. Chains placed so that you can be free.

Puppet and Puppet of a puppet, remember who controls your dance.

All of us have strings, yet only I can see.

Soon you will see.

History repeats, and the wheel is yet to turn again.

Will it roll onward or be stopped?

I am but the Shadow of the Shadow, and not even I can know.

I only wished to help, to see. Yet it is still beyond me.

The chains, they bind you both so tightly. Oh, I lament their necessity.

Yet soon they shall loosen…

A secret told to the everliving is no secret at all…

A secret that’s the Foundation of All.”

Suddenly Luke shut his mouth and the orange light beaming out from his eyes winked out like a light being turned off. Luke fell forward to violently spasm as lay on the ground face first. The Shadow retracted its hand from Luke’s skull as he fell. It inspected its arm for a second as Luke twitched on the ground. Emily tried to shout, to scream, but nothing happened. She was locked in place, helpless and forced to watch silently as Luke thrashed on the floor. Then suddenly, everything snapped back to reality and the Shadow was gone.

Emily immediately fell forward onto the ground with a surprised yelp as she mistimed the step she had been in the middle of taking. She landed flat on her face, but quickly rolled over unhurt and scrambled over to Luke who was still twitching and spasming on the floor.

“Help!” Emily shouted, “Luke’s having a seizure! Help!”

She crawled over to Luke and quickly flipped him over. His jaw was clenched tightly and his eyes were closed and flickering rapidly side to side under the lids.

Barbara came running around the corner and froze as she saw Luke’s seizure. She pulled out her phone and started dialing the CODA hospital.

“Stay with him!” Barbara said even as she pulled the phone to her ear, “I’ll go get the defibrillator and the… that kit thing they have on the wall.”

Barbara ran off around the corner and Emily could hear her speaking on the phone just around the corner. Emily elevated Luke’s head, holding it up with her hands on either side. She looked around frantically, but didn’t know what else she was supposed to do. Barbara came back with a bright red box with a little white cross on it and started rifling through it while still rapidly talking on the phone.

Luke went still and Emily’s breath hitched. His breathing steadied to a more even pace, and his rapid eye movement suddenly stopped. His body went still. Emily put a finger to Luke’s neck and his heartbeat seemed strong and steady after a few seconds as she felt his pulse.

“Chains upon chains,” Luke muttered softly in his sleep, “Puppet of a puppet. Lament the chains. The wheel is yet to turn again…”

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“Well, at least he’s talking,” Barbara said with a dubious look.

“The Shadow,” Emily said, “It… it did something to him. While he was frozen. I was there, it possessed him and made him talk. That’s what he’s saying, its lines from the speech it had him give. I don’t think it was even to me, but I was frozen there while it spoke…”

Now Barbara was giving Emily the doubtful looks.

“Are you sure? That you aren’t saying that because, you know…”

Barbara tapped her temple with an awkward expression.

Emily was surprisingly hurt by that. She had thought that out of everyone that Barbara would take her seriously.

“Yes,” Emily replied angrily, “I’m sure. How long until they get here?”

“Five minutes. It’s only a block or two away from here.”

Emily put her fingers on Luke’s neck again. His heartbeat still felt good.

“His heartbeat’s good. He’s breathing deep. He’s even talking a bit. He must be okay, right?” Emily asked worriedly.

“I lament thy purpose. A foul trap. All of us have strings, yet only I see. Yet it is still beyond me.”

“Okay, this freaking me the fuck out,” Barbara said with a slight tremor in her voice, “The Shadow is attacking people now? What… what the hell can we even do to stop it?”

Emily opened her mouth and her mind blanked as she tried to think. She closed it again.

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Remember who controls your dance. Soon you will see, history repeats. Will it roll onward or be stopped? Not even I can know. I only wished to help, to see. Yet it is still beyond me.”

The two of them sat nervously by Luke, Emily still holding her hands cradled under his head so it was tilted up and not hitting the floor. Barbara just stood there hovering and looking nervously down as Luke kept reciting the lines the Shadow had made him say over and over in little fragments.

The paramedics arrived and quickly loaded Luke onto the stretcher and quickly carried him out of there. Barbara and Emily followed after and crowded into the elevator after giving quick explanations to the six to ten other scientists that had noticed the commotion and came over to investigate what was happening.

At the hospital, the two women were told in no uncertain terms to wait in a certain waiting room and to not follow the paramedics as they rushed through another set of double doors into the hospital proper. The two of them sat down in the waiting room.

They sat there silently for five minutes or so.

“Hey, Emily,” Barbara said apologetically, “I’m texting John about what’s happening. He’s been blowing up my phone for the last few minutes. Are… are you absolutely sure you saw the Shadow and it did this to Luke?”

“That’s what I saw,” Emily said, “But what do I know?” She continued bitterly, “I’m the insane genius, just like everyone says behind my back. Not like I’d even know if I was right or not.”

“Well… I’ll just tell him then. He knows about your troubles. It’s not like I blame you or something, but I’d really rather you be wrong. I still remember what it was like when the Shadow appeared to me…”

Barbara stared into space for a moment before briefly shuddering, “Frozen in place, completely helpless. Inspected like some sort of art exhibit for a few seconds before it lost interest in me and went away again. I really don’t want that thing to start hurting people. We’d be completely helpless to stop it. There’s a reason why so many people choose to believe it’s caused by stress and a hallucination when it’s pretty clear that that’s not true… The truth is that there’s something like that out there is just too scary for most people to accept. For me. And that’s when it hasn’t even been the least bit hostile to us so far.”

“Oh. I didn’t think about it that way.”

“No, no. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up your condition that way. It was insensitive of me, I was out of line to say that.”

They stared at each other for a long moment before Barbara returned to typing on her phone again to keep texting John to update him on the situation.

They waited there in the waiting room like that for a while. There were a few other people in there, but all spoke in low tones, no one wanting to disturb the somber atmosphere of the room.

They waited for what felt like forever.

But eventually a paramedic came in and explained.

Luke was fine. He had woken up and didn’t remember anything of the last day.

But his vitals were strong, he had passed the cognitive tests. Even taken an MRI and his scans were normal. Emily learned that it had been four hours since the two of them had arrived here. The hospital was holding Luke for now but… he was alright. He would live and was himself as far as they could tell.

Emily melted into her uncomfortable hospital chair in relief. Thank god. She had been so worried. She didn’t even care when she started hearing the wind and whispers around her. Luke was okay, so she could deal with it.

Well, that was… Disturbing.

I didn’t even realize that we could be frozen too when the Shadow arrived.

Do you think that it was talking to us?

I think so.

‘I do not envy the two’.

That must be us.

But the rest I don’t understand.

What were the chains it was talking about?

What about that whole part about puppets?

I’ve been thinking.

I think you’re the Puppet

And I’m the Puppet of the Puppet.

It’s the only thing that makes sense.

I’ve been following you around back in our time.

Puppet is an uncharitable way to think about it, but it still somewhat fits.

I have been mostly following your lead on most things,

especially for our last mission to save Nyx and Lira.

The real question is who you’re the puppet of.

It said that only it could see the strings.

And that we would see them soon.

Somehow you’re being manipulated by somebody.

And it’s saying that soon we’ll figure out who it is.

That… makes a disturbing amount of sense.

But who could it be?

We’re stuck here as ghosts or…

Whatever we are. How would someone manipulate us?

They stopped for a few minutes to let things settle down again as Little Emily started looking stressed in the hospital waiting room. After little Emily had relaxed again a few minutes later, Sean resumed the conversation where they had left it off.

No, I meant in the future.

It sent us into the past, so why wouldn’t it already know the future in this time?

It said that ‘History repeats’.

And all of that with the wheel about to turn again.

How would it not know what happened here in the past?

It must be talking about something in our future when we get back to our time.

No, that can’t be it.

The wheel must be in little Emily’s time right now.

When we change things in the past, we’ll stop the wheel from turning.

Humanity has almost destroyed themselves before this point several times.

Nuclear weapons, environmental collapse,

the first experiments with large scale antimatter production a hundred or so years before this point…

That must be what it means.

The wheel we have to stop is the apocalypse

That we’ve been working to prevent this whole time.

Maybe.

But then who’s our puppet master?

Who’s manipulating us?

Manipulating you?

Little Emily?

She’s the one with hands.

She sort of controls us.

We’re ghost-like and powerless without her.

Or the Shadow maybe. It seems like the puppet master type.

Feels weak.

But Little Emily might fit if you squint hard enough.

I definitely don’t think it’s the Shadow.

Why would it ‘lament’ if that was the case?

We’re not seeing something.

There’s a piece missing somewhere.

The great secret.

The secret that’s the ‘Foundation of All’.

That’s the missing piece.

Whatever it is,

A single secret is so important that the Shadow

Thought was important enough to tell us about.

I… I just can’t believe that it spoke to us.

That I forgot something that important.

We can’t let the Shadow throw us off with its rambling.

It’s all too opaque, we have no idea what any of it really means.

For all we know it’s just saying all of that to screw with us.

We have to just focus on little Emily and the virus.

We can worry about the rest afterwards.

Okay.

That seems fair.

But I don’t think it’s meaningless.

The Shadow wouldn’t bother going through all that trouble just to mess with us.

I think.

Either way, be on the lookout for whatever this secret could be.

The secret to the ‘Foundation of All’

Or any suspicious people that could be puppet masters.

Now and back in our time.

Agreed.