The ride home was uneventful. Ethan, Michael, and Tara; Satan himself wouldn’t attack that bus. Everyone, excluding Michael who was not much of a talker, visited and got to know each other better during the ride home. Alicia and Dawn seemed to fall in with each other fairly quickly. Elsie of course immediately idolized the two older women, and horned her way into the group, which they accepted. Ethan spent most of his time visiting with Dawn’s parents who he remembered to be part of the resistance in his first quest. They helped raise Leita, and Ethan was eternally grateful.

When they arrived in Central Park, they immediately sought out Bill who took them back to the hidden sewer where Ethan and he had their first meeting. Dawn and her parents were anxious to get their microchip implants disabled, and Bill set to work. All he had to operate with was an electromagnetic scanner to detect the microchip, and a souped up portable ultrasound to fuse it with heat. It was crude equipment, not without its risks. It was difficult to be accurate, and he might burn parts of the brain.

“I should warn you, this is a measure of last resort,” Bill said. “Almost everyone suffers additional brain damage from the procedure”.

“How bad?” Dawn asked.

“Every case is different,” Bill replied, while scanning each of them. “If these people have microchips, they’re disabled,” he said. “I’m not picking up an electromagnetic field on any of them.

“We definitely have implants,” Dawn said. “By force, all three of us were recently upgraded to the new exploding microchip”.

“I can’t find anything,” Bill replied.

Ethan looked at Michael for an explanation. Michael shrugged like he didn’t know anything about it.

“Hmph,” Ethan snorted. “Are you sure that thing’s working”?

“It’s working”.

“Do you think those implants are defects or something?” he asked Bill.

“I have no idea”.

“Maybe the new ones are undetectable?” Ethan pressed.

“I don’t know,” Bill replied. “I doubt it.”

“Hmph,” Ethan snorted again, walking up to Dawn and her parents and looking at the back of their heads. He didn’t see anything. “Well, I’d hate to put our trust in this scanner and find out in a couple of days it was wrong. This is life and death we’re talking about”?

Bill shrugged like he didn’t know what they could do about it.

Ethan looked at Alicia. She was looking noncommittal, almost disinterested. Ethan wondered if she found herself yet. That would mean she was aware she was Tara. Sometimes self-awareness takes awhile for Gods who come to earth. They need time to grow into themselves. He bet Alicia had.

“Alicia,” he said. “Why don’t you have a look at the back of their heads. Maybe you’ll see something”.

Alicia shot Ethan a look. More like the look. The look that told him she was well aware of who she was, and realized she was detected.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“How would I know if there’s implants in their heads,” she asked.

“Who knows? We’re desperate. Just have a look”.

“Fine,” she replied, giving in and glancing over at Dawn and her parents. “There’s no implants”.

Ethan wondered who she was here for. Tara only came when there was a soul in need of transcendence. Although she seemed to be a component of Ethan’s quests, her purpose was always independent of it. She was here for someone, and to her, that was her only business. Whatever help she may contribute to Ethan’s quests was secondary. In all of their adventures together, she had never revealed to Ethan who she had come for.

“If you have implants they’re disabled,” Ethan proclaimed.

“How can you know that for sure?” Dawn asked.

“Because I’m from the future,” he replied. “I have a funny way of reading it, but you can trust me. You do not have microchips”.

Dawn and her parents looked more than relieved. Ethan wondered if it was one of them Tara had come for. Did she remove the implants because now was not the right time for them to die?

Ethan looked around the room. “I guess the first thing we have to figure out is where to house all our new friends. What do you think Bill”?

“This bunker is about the only room we have that the Consortium doesn’t control”.

“This is pretty cramped,” Ethan replied. “Especially for Dawn’s parents. What about that rec center down the road”?

“It’s used to house Sheriff Bobs. There’s hundreds of them in there”.

“Whatever for?

“In case there’s an uprising,” Bill replied. “They stockpile deactivated Sheriff Bobs in various locations outside the Consortium in the event of a revolt”.

“Hmph!” Ethan snorted. “Seems to me everything in Central Park should be under our control. Michael, let’s go see about clearing them out”.

“Oh, Bill,” Ethan remembered. “Where do you keep that axe you found on the ferry handy? It belongs to Michael”.

That got Michael’s attention. “You found Slash”?

“Slash?” Ethan repeated. “You call it Slash”?

“Yes. A cut made by a violent sweeping movement. Slash. What’s wrong with that”?

“Nothing,” Ethan replied. “It just sounds a little melodramatic, that’s all”.

“Everyone gives their weapons names,” Michael retorted.

“Yeah, but Slash? Seems to me, you’d give it a proper name like Henry or something. Slash sounds a little pretentious, wouldn’t you say”?

“Henry,” Michael repeated in disbelief.

While the two were arguing about the name, Bill walked over to the wall of the sewer station and removed a few loose bricks, retrieving the weapon in question.

“Take your damn axe,” he said, throwing it on the big table in the center of the room to stop the squabbling between Ethan and Michael.

It had been wrapped in burlap, but cut through upon landing on the table and sat glistening for all to see.

“Oh!” Michael gasped. “After a millenia apart, my beloved Slash has come back to me”.

“Yeah, well don’t get too intimate with it,” Ethan joked. “There’s a child in the room. How’d you lose that thing anyway”?

“It was when I chased Satan to the Borderland. That was the second time I came to fight him. He had become too powerful left on earth unattended, so I came back to imprison him. He was much more powerful and the power between us created an energy field the entire world could feel. He had become bigger than I alone could overcome, and out of desperation really, I threw Slash to cut through the energy field and create two separate worlds; Earth and the Borderland. The two worlds did part, but when it was over I was standing on Earth and Slash was lost in the Borderland”.

“Yeah. That’s where I found it. In the Borderland,” Ethan confirmed.

“You were in the Borderland?” Michael asked, looking at Ethan appreciatively.

“I was,” Ethan replied. “Now take your axe”.

For the first time in over a thousand years, Michael picked up Slash. Everyone was expecting the room to light up or something, but nothing happened.