JACKIE:

When I came to, the darkness of the slipstream hugged me on all sides. I did it! I successfully used a fire portal to enter the slipstream.

“Firestorm?” I called out into the void.

I exhaled and portal sparks drizzled down. There were fewer portals available to me this time, and I had no clue how to find Bennu Island. I needed my trusty guide, so I called out for him again.

“Firestorm! Where are you?”

“Over here,” he answered.

I turned to see him step out from behind the nearest portal. For the first time, I saw who had been leading me. I saw his scaly skin, his drooping face, the sharp talons sticking out below his tall body, his wings…

“Firestorm?”

He was a Bennu bird! How could a Bennu bird be my leader in all of this?

“I know I’m not what you were expecting,” said Firestorm.

“You’re a Bennu bird!” I screamed, stating the obvious.

“I prefer to be called a phoenix. And you, Jackie… you’re a Phoenix Gene carrier. We need to finish what we started.”

I was speechless. This was who, or what, I’d been following this whole time? What did it mean that I was a gene carrier? And what happened to Grace and Zayne?

I reached my hand out and gently touched his skin. It was dry and scaly, but most notably, it was hot. He had the power of a thousand suns inside him.

Firestorm pulled away from my touch and said, “The answers are this way.”

He turned, flapped his epic wings, and flew through the sea of portals. I ran to keep up. As we moved, the portal lights streaked, creating tunnels. Some streams connected, creating divergent paths. There were so many probabilities to explore. How did Firestorm know how to navigate this place?

“How long can I stay here this time?” I asked instead.

“Not long. Fire portals range in strength. Next time, crank the heat before you enter. Before I take you back to where we left off, I need to show you something else. A new portal in the future opened.”

“Future? Like it hasn’t happened yet?”

“Exactly. When we gain access to future probabilities, they’re not written yet. But it means they’re the most probable thing that will happen. The decision is almost made, and everything is falling into place,” Firestorm explained.

“Can we change it?”

“We have to change it.”

Firestorm rounded a corner and flew into a spark.

I focused on the portal to follow him inside.

“Come see what Bennu Island looks like in the probable future,” he called back to me.

The portal pulled me inside, but this time felt different from the last. I became one with it. The scene engulfed me more fully.

As the future stream sucked me in, Firestorm called out, “Jump on!”

I flew through the sky and landed on Firestorm’s back. The thrust of it all threw me off balance, so Firestorm had to zip down to catch me. I gripped tightly onto his scaly neck as he flew over scorched and burned land.

“This is Bennu Island in the future?” I asked with a gasp.

The island was unrecognizable. The lush forest was now a field of fire. The only constant was the Grid.

“It will be if we don’t fix the timeline,” Firestorm said as he flew over the fiery landscape.

This exact image flashed before me as I ran away from that cop on the rooftop. I’d been here before, but how was that even possible? How far into the future was this? Were Grace and Zayne still here? My mind reeled with questions.

Off in the distance, I saw the complex sitting on the lip of the volcano. The castle tower was complete, no longer under construction as it had been the last time I saw it.

Perhaps because this was a future portal, I was much more immersed in the stream. Rather than being a passive observer like I was last time, I felt the hot air blowing on my face and smelled the smoky field of fire. I felt the coarseness of Firestorm’s skin. Being fully inside the stream made me feel more in control, like what I did mattered to the future outcome. As Firestorm suggested, I could change it. But how exactly?

“What happened here?” I shouted to Firestorm over the wind.

“Incoming!” Firestorm called as he took a sharp turn away from the complex.

I looked back and saw a gaggle of Bennu birds chasing after us. My stomach dropped.

Could I be physically hurt in this stream?

“Three scavengers hot on our heels. Hold on tight.” Firestorm flapped his colossal wings rapidly.

“What do they want with us?”

“Dinner,” Firestorm replied.

I figured I could indeed be hurt in the slipstream by how hard Firestorm flapped his wings to get away. Maybe I preferred being a passive observer. I didn’t dare ask Firestorm any of my questions as he struggled to fly faster than the hungry predators coming after us.

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One scavenger flew dangerously close, so Firestorm abruptly dipped down to fly nearer the scorched land. Intense heat emanated from its embers.

The scavenger flew above us, poised to pounce. The skin on my back tingled with fear. Firestorm craned his long neck as he soared back upward. He swiftly knocked the scavenger out with a backward thrust of his powerful head. The Bennu bird called out in pain and fell into the fire below. The force of the blow almost knocked me off, but I kept my grip.

“A little warning next time!” I yelled. My hands shook as I tried to regain my composure.

“Stay sharp!” Firestorm worked overtime to keep up the pace. Another scavenger gained on us and nipped at Firestorm’s tail with its sharp teeth. I kicked my foot out, but it was too far away for me to make an impact.

Firestorm flew above the scavenger and pivoted abruptly to face it. He opened his mouth and blasted it with fire. It was as if he had a flamethrower between his teeth!

Firestorm didn’t stop until the scavenger yelped and retreated. I realized how incredibly powerful Firestorm must be, and it scared me. I had no idea what I was dealing with, but there wasn’t time to stop down. There was one more scavenger to contend with.

Firestorm zigzagged away from the final Bennu bird, but this one was quicker and more gruesome than the others. The scavenger picked me up with its talons and knocked me off Firestorm’s back.

I screamed as I plummeted away from the Grid-covered sky, but nothing came out. My breath caught in my throat, and my stomach crept up to join it. I felt sweaty and light-headed as I plunged toward the fire filled earth.

A cryptic image flashed through my mind’s eye. In some sort of memory from another place and time, I plummeted into the lower magma chamber of a volcano…

The sound of loud grunting snapped me back to the present. A Bennu bird screeched with pain. The next thing I knew, I landed on Firestorm’s back again. He saved me! I flipped onto my belly with a deep sense of relief and clutched his neck once more.

“We’re safe,” he declared.

We soared over the fire below as if Firestorm was searching for something. A building, surrounded by flames, came into view.

“Over there!” I said, and Firestorm flew toward it.

Sweat dripped from my face as we came closer to the scorched land. Fire seemed to be Firestorm’s plaything, but I’d melt as soon as we touched down.

“Pull your legs in tighter,” Firestorm instructed me as he swooped toward the building. “Now slide your body over my torso.”

I didn’t know what he meant, so I froze. We were coming in hot and the scavenger was following us again, so there wasn’t time for error.

“Slide down toward my belly so I can protect you!” Firestorm screamed as he quickly made his descent.

I shifted my weight down and gripped onto his protruding stomach with my arms around his neck and my legs around his middle. His belly heaved as he breathed. I heard his heartbeat reverberate through his scaly hot skin. He used his wings to protect me from the flames as he touched down. I coughed in smokey air.

“Hurry, Jackie. Get inside!” Firestorm yelled as he opened his wings.

I released my grip, jumped down, and felt the building at my back. I turned around and struggled to open the unhinged door hanging by the top bracket. Half-opened, I weaseled my way through and closed the door as best I could.

I watched Firestorm face off with the scavenger through the large crack in the door. I was safe for now, but was Firestorm? Without him, I wouldn’t know how to navigate the slipstream to help anyone, not even myself.

He fearlessly went head to head with the Bennu bird. Both creatures were similar in makeup; massive bodies with epic wing spans, long drooping necks, scaly skin, sharp teeth and talons. They were evenly matched, and I winced when Firestorm took a direct hit to the face. His blood glowed as it splattered onto the ground. He didn’t miss a beat, though. He flapped his wings to fly upward and blew a barrage of fireballs so powerful, they knocked the scavenger backward. Firestorm jumped onto its back and unleashed a fury of fire, bites, and pecks from his beak.

The scavenger’s cry made my skin crawl. It was way more intense than the general calls I heard in the previous stream. These screams were full of intense pain.

It made me thankful Firestorm was on my side. If he wanted to, he could rip me in half without breaking a sweat. He delivered a final blow with his flamethrower and pushed the scavenger into the nearby flames. It shrieked as the fire consumed it.

Firestorm moved to the door I hid behind and banged on it.

“Jackie, let me in!”

I pulled the broken door back with all the strength I could muster and let him inside. He contracted his large body to fit through the door, and I closed it behind him as best I could.

“We don’t have much time. The scavenger will rebirth quickly and could try to get in.”

“Those things can rebirth?”

“That’s what phoenixes do,” Firestorm replied matter-of-factly. “Do you recognize this place?”

I looked around the building for the first time and realized it was the warehouse where Grace found Zayne in the cage. It was in complete disrepair, covered under more layers of filth and ash, but it was the same.

The eery space gave me chills. Rather than one cage where Zayne once lived, there were rows of cages. Some cells housed skeletons and rotting carcasses. Bits of broken drones littered the floor. The shelves still contained torture devices of every kind, but there were also three-ring binders. I picked one up and saw that Life Rite logo I couldn’t escape.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“We have to stop Life Rite. They’re going to burn the island to the ground. They’ve done enough to hurt me and my people, but this will be the end of us. You’ll help me, right?”

“What do I have to do?” I asked. “How am I supposed to change anything? They’ve got me right where they want me!”

“What do you mean?”

“The fire portal I used to get here was in my Life Rite luxury apartment. I have to stay there for two weeks while I recover from the PX virus.”

Firestorm craned his neck and gave a look of confusion, at least that’s what it seemed. It was hard to read a Bennu bird’s face. Still, that look made me wonder if PX was even real. Was Life Rite taking care of Baxter, or was that a lie, too? I couldn’t trust anything they said. I should have demanded proof.

“Have they taken any blood from you, Jackie?”

“Yeah…”

“Don’t give them any more!” he shouted.

“Like I have a choice, Firestorm.”

“You’re not safe with them.”

“What can I do? I’m their prisoner.”

My mind reeled. What did they want with my blood, and why was Firestorm so adamant not to give it to them? Sure, I could use the slipstream to escape on some level, but my physical body was still in that apartment. I felt helpless and wanted to cry.

“You have more power than you know,” Firestorm told me.

He could probably tell I didn’t believe him. I felt like a loser.

“Let’s go back to the previous stream,” he whispered. “You need to see where you fit into all of this, who we’re up against, and why.”

“I’m curious to know what happens to Zayne and Grace, but I’ve got bigger problems. I need to find out if Life Rite is taking care of Baxter or not. Plus, I’ve got to protect myself. You said it yourself. I’m not safe with them.”

“We’ll get to all that, I promise,” he said. “I’ll teach you how to bring your physical body into the slipstream with you, but first you need to see the rest. I need you to help me save Grace.”

“Save Grace?” I asked. “I thought the goal was to bring Life Rite down? Why does Grace need saving?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Your vague answers aren’t enough anymore. I’m going back for my Pops.”

“Jackie, Grace is your mother!” Firestorm shouted. His words startled me.

“What?”

“I told you, your mother needs our help. Grace is your mother. We need to save her.”

WTF!? New questions naturally arose. I spat them out all at once.

“I thought my mother was dead. If she isn’t, why did she abandon me? Besides, Grace is my age. How can she be my mother?”

“Time works different in the slipstream. I hope you’ve seen that by now. She didn’t have a choice about leaving you with Baxter. It was for your own protection. But who is protecting her?”