Jackie awoke, realizing that she fell through gravity.

It was a void, completely white. But in the fashion that space is a “black void” and the ocean is a “blue abyss”. There were… These near-translucent veins, that were reflected against the “walls” of the scape. Dancing about in twitching, fading in and out, but cosmically graceful about it.

It all connected, leading to a source. A well that was crackling with the same wisp-like energies of the Shifts. A corridor that was made of molten, pulsating materials made of the stars—nebulas—galaxies and anomalies themselves.

It was funny how Jackie’s mind pondered if she was, in this order: a) in her Mindscape again, b) within a Shift event or c) finally dead.

“Damn it, Jackson. Are we dead?”

Jackie turned her head, seeing the scattered rest above her. River was “on” her side, Tracy was cradled, Aiko was floating about as Stark kept pulling her back, funnily enough the only one that was “standing up”.

Maddie was upside down. Nonplussed, hands on her hips as she drifted subtly about. “Because fuck me, I can’t escape you fuckers even while I’m taking a dirt nap…”

“Now that you’re here, I’m thoroughly convinced that it’s not the case…” Jackie crossed her arms, as she continued to lay down.

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“Because I’d be in Hell, or--?”

“Oh no, all of us would be—sans Stark. What I mean is… If we’re all here, then it’s definitely something more to it.”

“What it could possibly be…?” Tracy was very content in staying in her ball shape. “Other than reality finally giving up--?”

River’s eyes lit up. “The reality-bomb thing—Count Zero. Did he activate it while we were asleep--?”

“Or did we oversleep and missed the activation?!” Aiko screamed.

“Oh no no,” Stark chimed in, looking about. “A day’s past, I personally track, y’know, the passage of time—like, at the back of my head… This is the next day. So that means that it activated ahead of schedule.”

Jackie’s face dropped, in a mix of realization, confusion and surprise. “Did he do it because he thought we were gonna stop him…?”

“Ah, so he Ozymandias us. Or at least tried to—” River joined in. “—And before anyone asks, a comic book villain. The big twist of the story was that he did his evil plan ’30 minutes ago’ when the heroes thought they had more time to stop it.”

Jackie turned towards the aching well of power. “It must’ve gone horribly wrong, then…”

“Considering that this place looks to be a massive wound…” Stark mused. “Very, very wrong…”

Aiko pointed towards the well, “Who wants to bet that we have to go in there?”

“You might be right…” Tracy added. “Or, hey, it’s like a blackhole and we get shredded to pieces. But considering that reality might be destroyed, I guess it would be a fitting end to… Whatever-this-was for us…”

“Considering my thing’s gravity, as long as you stay close to me, I can at least create a buffer,” Stark reported. “But it’s up to you all.”

Jackie gazed. Watching the swirls, clusters of white matter break apart—reform—and ultimately create the spiral pattern. Resuming over and over.

“Suppose we got this far…” Jackie then sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”