{Earth}
Sagan walked into a space meant only for her. Bed, dresser, walk-in closet, entertainment center, and desk furnished the impressive room. Framed pictures of her and her friends covered every surface. Xelan wanted the Progeny to feel at home in the stronghold. He decorated each of their rooms to suit their individual personalities down to the sheets.
The room looked undisturbed, so the damage must be closer to the entrance. She Seamswalked six feet at a time, mindful for signs of structural fallout. Every time her foot stepped into the Seam, she peered around the empty world between worlds. Grayscale cathedral halls stretched white bone to an arched ceiling so high a mist collected in the vaults. The hard floors were stone, a softened shade of black.
The Seam went on endlessly. Forever. When the Icari spoke of the afterlife, Eternity, she imagined it looked like this. Ash fell like snow, slow and unceasing. It left her so lonely. It didn’t help that only she and T.a.o. could step foot into it. None of her friends, nor Korac, could tread in the place. They stepped through it and into the next conduit.
Sagan flashed through it about a dozen times before she heard the first cry.
“Karter?”
Tameka. They were in the kitchen, and, as Sagan neared, dust plumed from the ravine Xelan used as a stairwell.
Sagan Seamswalked next into a massive wall of wreckage. The reality too overbearing, her heart stopped as she cried out, “Tameka, can you hear me? It’s Sagan. Are you all right—”
“Thank, Elden!” Jack cried out. And Sagan immediately sighed with relief. He went on, “We’ve accounted for everyone but Karter. Caedes is badly injured and Ross is unconscious.”
A boom resonated through the rocks, rumbling the gravel and dust.
“What’s that?”
Tameka answered this time as Chris called again for Karter, “Bones and Cypher in the crawlers. Para and Colton are watching Rayne. Para wanted to help find Karter, but we need at least one Icarus with the King. I have to bring the other Valkyrie good news. Can you get us out?” The edge of panic in her voice freaked Sagan out. The redhead always maintained her composure.
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“Hell yes, I can. Anywhere in the room where I can fit? Describe a spot in the room as it looked normal, and I can pop in.” Man, she wished she wore clothes under her coat this time. It’d help to take it off. Keep it from getting dirty. But then again, Korac’s eyes shone with celestial light every time he opened it to find no other barriers between them—
Focus. Elden, why? She gripped her stomach and doubled over with a hunger cramp. Every one of her appetites hit her all at once. Talk about fucked up timing. While she dealt with her selfish first world problems, Tameka gave her instructions.
Sagan walked into the kitchen closest to the stove. A small empty space housed the group. Tameka’s long hair draped around her like a dusty cape. All her scrapes already started healing. Chris recovered from a bleeding bump on his head. Jack couldn’t stand. His legs looked mid-healed broken. Even so, he held Ross in his arms. Blood seeped from the back of her head. Caedes… Sagan hadn’t seen that much Icarean blue blood cover a man since Rayne defeated Nox.
“I need to get you out.”
Chris, codenamed Batman, shook his head. “Not without Karter.”
The next boom shifted a shelf of bedrock and a waterfall of rubble crushed the dining room into ruin. They all took cover. By the time it finished, Sagan resolved herself to washing the Lyriki armored coat and polishing the Icarean axes. “Okay, Chris. But I have to get Pax out of here. I’ll take them to the Ecology and come right back to help you search for Karter. But promise me you won’t move from this spot until I return.”
“I’ll stay put. Don’t be long.”
The group gathered together with Sagan in the middle. “Cross my heart—” Poof. Drop off. “—And hope to die.” She returned, leaving the other group abruptly in the Ecology for treatment. The lobby looked full, so they’d be fine. “Where did you last see her?”
Grimly, he pointed to the recently demolished dining room table.
“Right.”
Another boom.
Chris got on the comms. “Bones. This is Batman. Hold for now. Structure too unstable. Seamswalker on scene. ETA ten minutes. Over.”
Cypher, one of Xelan’s first Iona employees and currently Kyle’s right-hand man responded, “Roger that, Batman. Over and Out.”
While he set to that task, Sagan flitted around the open concept space. Everywhere she went, tiny rock slides increased her anxiety with their foreboding of the inevitable. Nacres were a blessing of Tritan technology. Without them, the people in this room couldn’t survive this cave-in. That being said, she never wanted to know how long a nacre-bearer might survive while pinned under a collapsed stronghold miles beneath Egypt.
“Karter? Can you hear me?” She Seamswalked closer to the dining space, warily. “Are you there?”
Nothing.
Chris looked on, concern naked in his dark brown eyes. He loved that tall, muscled Valkyrie female with her rainbow colored mohawk and crazy Mad Max fashion sense. Sagan found no fault in it. Karter was truly loveable.
“We’ll find her,” she assured while carefully dislodging some rock.
“Let me help.”
She held out a hand and tried to keep her voice gentle, “I move faster on my own.” She lifted another mid-sized slab. “If I sense so much as a belch, I’ll be over by you before you can blink—Hey. Hey! I think I found—”
A new nightmare.