For the better part of a year I lived in an abandoned office building. I'm still not totally clear on what Universal Servicing Systems did, but I do know that they left the place in a hurry - it was like they just locked the doors one day (about four years prior to me finding it, according to the desk calendars) and never came back. There was still electricity. There was a working vending machine, albeit filled with expired food, which I bought things out of using change I gathered from desk drawers. Someone had left a blanket, and a travel pillow, and there was even a janitorial closet with what was practically a shower. Probably it had been meant for filling buckets or cleaning something but it meant I could get clean with hand soap and also wash my clothes, putting the spare set in the stairwell to dry.

It was my little slice of abandoned office heaven. I ate a lot of expired snacks, a few pizzas when I found money somewhere in the building, and even occasionally had some fast food when Tony - a friendly drug dealer that I would sometimes chat with from a safe distance - would buy extra for me. But I did occasionally need to make some money for food, and panhandling was risky because not only was I fourteen but I looked my age which meant the police would try to pick me up. Instead, I made an arrangement with a shady pawn shop and started selling things from Universal Servicing Systems when I got hungry. The guy behind the counter - Carl - offered me terrible rates and I was always nervous I'd get caught hauling things to and from the shop, but sometimes I just really needed to hit the store.

And my nemesis was Paul. Paul wasn't his real name, I never learned that. Paul was a security guard, not for Universal Servicing Systems but for two of the three properties that bordered it. And because of his route, and because there were only so many good places to easily get over the fence when I was coming and going (especially if I was lugging office equipment with me), Paul was always on my ass.

I don't think he ever really knew that I was living in the Universal Servicing Systems building, or if he did he never managed to convince anyone to root me out of there. Instead he would just lie in wait, and if he caught me cutting through one of his properties he would lunge out and try to grab my wrist. I pride myself on being sneaky, but Paul was a fucking ghost. He was overweight and when he tried to chase me he'd run out of breath almost immediately, but Paul the security guard could practically turn invisible when he stood still and he was lightning fast with that grab.

Every time I snuck through my heart would be pounding. There was something about that arm shooting out of the shadows like a striking rattlesnake - though without the courtesy of the rattle. And it was worse, somehow, because I knew it was coming - and because sometimes it didn't. Sometimes he wasn't there at all, or he was on the far side of the building from the route I had chosen. It was probably really only every fifth time that he made a grab for me, but those times where I got past without incident paradoxically made me more nervous the next time. He only got me twice - the first time I bit him and slipped free, and the second time he was wearing leather work gloves. Those were a solid two weeks apart, but he hadn't let his guard down.

It wasn't a trip to the pawn shop that got me, that second time - I had found a password on a sticky note, and discovered that the computers still worked even though they no longer had a network connection. On the computer I logged into I found yet more passwords stored - this was all totally against the Universal Servicing Systems data security policies according to the employee manual I found and browsed through - and within a day I had access to twelve computers with mostly boring information on them but also a few juicy hints at private lives.

A scanned court document for a speeding ticket, some custody paperwork, a love letter. It was very exciting to me. One of the computers, belonging to Eleanor Lewis, had a note on it about having a spare key for the lockbox in the hide-a-key by her front door, and I felt like there was some slim chance it would still be there. Eleanor's address was located on the receptionist's computer, and I prepared to go on a quest. "You're going to get caught," Tony said when I told him, and I rolled my eyes at him and hopped the fence and immediately got caught.

Paul had been this lurking figure for more than six months, sometimes an exhilarating game and more often a nerve-wracking gauntlet. But in an instant, it was over. He got me. And I realized, as he handed me off to the police, that he was always going to get me eventually - there was no possible world where I could have avoided him forever. I suppose it's not surprising that I had a little flashback to that moment as we hid from General Telen. He was going to find us, clearly. He had marched into an enemy city to get us. His soldiers had found us on the way to the Necropolis. We had ditched him by going through another plane of existence, but nope! Still found us, within a few days of us getting back on the road. He was as inevitable as Paul the security guard, but when he finally caught us it would be a sword through my chest rather than a hand on my wrist.

I was crouching behind a rain barrel, watching Telen. He hadn't seen me, and was just standing in the middle of the town square with the Behemoth and... chatting. There was no sign of the others. I'd thought about ducking back down into the ruins under the city, but I had been worried about getting trapped down there in a dead end and had been hoping I could somehow check on everyone else and make sure they were hiding. I still wanted to do that, but without knowing the position of the soldiers Telen had brought with him I was terrified to go anywhere. Connie was across the street from me, flattened up against a wall. She raised an eyebrow, and held up two fingers.

I'd trained for a few days with Hugh, and Sige had showed me some wrestling moves that I had not in any way mastered, and Connie had given me some pointers on knife fighting. I was confident that I could, nine out of ten times, defeat an unarmed opponent about the same size and weight as me. I had beaten armed soldiers, and people way bigger than me, but I still felt like that was largely due to me getting some lucky shots in. Add to that the fact that these people were far from average soldiers, and it seemed clear I had no chance whatsoever in a fight. The two of them walked out of sight and I hurried over to Connie - thankfully my shoes were working once more, leaving my movement silent.

"Telen and Behemoth just went that way. Haven't seen the others, they could be anywhere."

Connie glared at me. "How did you know?"

"I told you, it was a dream. I don't know, okay?" Our whispers felt much too loud. "Do we try to circle around to help Sige and the others? Go down to check on Mila? Run, and hope to regroup later?"

She looked... exhausted. Not just physically, though of course I'd bounced her out of bed after only a few hours of sleep - she was still rumpled from trying to put on her traveling clothes without taking off her temporal device first - she also just looked emotionally drained. "I want to stay, they kick me out. I want to run away, they drag me back. It's a bad fucking joke. I... I want you to run. I'll stick around, buy some time."

Connie straightened up, stretched, and gripped her hooked weapon tightly. "Yeah. This is fine. You go, straight that way I guess, and then... lay low for a while. If they get me, then maybe they'll decide they're done. I'm the one they really want anyway, I'm the one that blew up their lab and gave all that intel to Hammersmith and... they should leave you alone, maybe. Oh don't look at me like that. I'll try to get away or kill them or whatever, and I'll rewind if I need to - hell, I'll burn out my Dumine to rewind again if it comes to that, which would mean they'd need to kill me three times in a row to make it stick. But these guys... they can probably do that. I fucked up, okay? I should have stayed in Theramas with Hammersmith, let her stick me in a cage until this really was over. But you know how it is. We can't do that. We can't stay put." She put her bag down, and tucked it behind a broken crate. "Once they leave, you can come back for this if you make it away. It's got my notebook, and the model of the room we found in the Necropolis."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I just nodded. There wasn't anything to say. We both took a deep breath - in unison just by coincidence - and went our separate ways. And then, obviously, I circled around and followed her. Had I fallen and landed on my head at some point in the alternate timeline? How did any version of me think I was going to just run off and let my... paradox twin or whatever you want to call her get murdered? Really she should have forbidden me from running away, based on most of my life so far that would have had me on the road immediately out of spite and blind defiance. Instead, I darted from one house to another watching for the soldiers.

I found one - not Telen or the Behemoth - looming over the rescued kids with a sword. Errod was staring at the man with absolute fury in his eyes, but the way they were standing made the situation clear; if Errod made a move, the soldier would slash down into the kids. My heart started pounding. This guy wasn't one of the fresh recruits I'd fought with Hugh, he had magic at a minimum and possibly also magic equipment. If he hadn't already been on guard maybe my boots would have let me charge and get enough of an attack in that I could deal with him, but with him poised to strike... I hid, watching.

"I see how it is," Errod said, "you're too much of a coward to face me and have to use children as a shield."

The soldier stifled a yawn. "Eh, either way I'd be killing a child. Pressuring you to surrender is doing you a favor - there's a chance the General will let you live. Drop the sword, come sit with the other children, and I promise I won't slit your throat unless the General orders it."

Errod slumped, and dropped his sword. He marched forward, and at the last second spun with a long knife in his hand - he had concealed it somehow, but his form was awful and I could see the attack coming from a mile away. The soldier grabbed him by the wrist practically without looking and twisted until the knife fell, then laughed as he sheathed his sword.

"You're terrible at this, do you know that? The way you were holding that sword, I was more worried you would hurt yourself than do anything at all to me. But now, well, you're going to get hurt anyway. I think I'll take an eye - how does that sound?"

He reached under his cloak, presumably for a knife, and I charged. I made it about halfway to him before the whole world spun and I found myself hanging in the air. I was weightless, and no matter how I flailed around I wasn't able to move my body closer to the buildings. There was nothing to grab onto, no way to get down.

"Ah, I thought that might do it! When you first snuck up I assumed you would charge right away, but when you stopped... well, I was curious what it would take to override your caution."

He gestured in an offhand way, and Errod floated up into the air as well. He still hadn't bothered to turn and look at me. "Okay little boy, you float there and try not to hurt yourself. You can keep your eye for now, understand? You're not who we're here for anyway."

Errod looked shocked and confused - clearly he hadn't thought the man could dismiss him so easily. I thought about throwing my knife, but it wasn't really made for that. I tried to think if I had anything else I could use, something I'd forgotten about that could somehow save me. Finally the soldier turned and examined me. "Well. You're one of the two the witch told us about. Telen will be pleased. Are you the one that destroyed Ulren's laboratory, or the one that killed Elbren?"

"Neither. Or... I don't know who Elbren is, I guess I killed a couple of you pricks."

He nodded, and smiled. "It was cleverly done, but you won't do the same to me. I have... protections. He tilted his head strangely and spoke into his shoulder as if it was a radio. "I have the secondary target contained. South side."

"Well," Errod said, "this hasn't worked like I hoped it would. I'm sorry. I really thought I could save someone."

"It's fine. You tried. Let's just hope that they'll let the kids go. I'm really sorry that I got you into this mess, Errod. You should have stayed at home."

"We couldn't. We had to leave, and anyway - we wanted an adventure, and to get Dumines, and... we chose this, Callie."

The soldier clapped. "Very touching. I'm very nearly crying, it's adorable. Now tell me, where is -"

But he didn't finish, because Sige materialized out of the shadows behind him and those big orange Muppet hands of his wrapped around the soldier's head before giving it a sharp twist that somehow rotated it about a hundred and twenty degrees. We dropped, slamming into the ground so hard the air was knocked out of my lungs for a moment.

I sat up, gasping, and stared at Sige as he lowered the soldier to the ground. He hadn't come from anywhere. There were some shadows but they hadn't been anywhere near large enough for Sige to hide in, and he never would have been able to get to them without being seen in the first place. Had he just somehow snuck up on someone from another plane? He looked at me and winked.

Errod grabbed his sword and tried to sheathe it but missed and sliced his belt off. Cursing, he pulled the sheath and belt off and threw them aside and started searching for his knife, which it turned out Elba had palmed after the soldier knocked it from Errod's grasp. I gave her a respectful nod before getting Errod's attention. "Go. Take the kids to safety. Just hide somewhere, break into a house if you need to. Sige, we have to find Connie."

"No!"

I looked over, surprised at the tiny but angry outburst. It was Tig. "You came to rescue us! We should stay together!"

Of course I hadn't specifically come to rescue the kids, but I wasn't about to tell Tig that. "There are more of these guys, Tig. Stay with Errod, stay safe."

The kids all looked at each other, and muttered something in a language that sounded strangely familiar but which the bracelet didn't translate. I could tell they were up to something, I had seen that look in the mirror too many times. How had I found so many people as crazy as I was? Connie made sense, she was me, and obviously the mercenaries were mercenaries. But Errod? Katrin? And now these kids? How was I attracting all the people with such disregard for their own safety?

Still, they followed Errod - and not a second too soon. The Behemoth was walking towards us. He was shirtless, and the rictus grin on his face made him look like some sort of feral animal pretending to be a human. Sige laughed.

"Aww, is this him? This is the guy everyone is so fucking afraid of? Gotta be fucking kidding me. You got an older sister you could send over, little guy?"

And it started. Just like in Theramas, the Behemoth began to distort. His arms stretched, his back unfolded somehow, there was a terrible cracking and popping noise as he continued to grow. Sige darted in close, and while the Behemoth tried to swipe at him it seemed like his coordination was off while he was in the middle of a growth spurt - the arm moved awkwardly and even jerked some as another joint popped and expanded.

Sige was on his back in an instant, putting him into some sort of headlock - but it was clear that couldn't last. The Behemoth was still growing, and there was simply no way Sige would be able to hang on once he was full size. I tried to help, running close and slicing with my dagger, but a knee slammed into me and sent me rolling back with a cracked rib - and when I looked, the cut I had made was already gone.

Sige just laughed again. "Naw, stay back kid. Just getting comfy up here..." and then the Behemoth's eyes went wide. He reached back, trying to dislodge Sige, but it was too late - with an almost comical popping sound, they vanished leaving nothing behind. All I could do was stare at the empty spot where the two had been, waiting and hoping Sige would re-appear. But after thirty seconds or so I had to admit there was a chance he wasn't returning - so I did the only thing I could and headed further into the town looking for Connie.