Suddenly everything went quiet, and the video feeds in the control room changed to all show the same thing. It was Custodian Op'a'an. She wanted a report. I couldn't help there. It had to be Gary, pretending to still be a Peacekeeper, Billy, doing illusions to make things look normal, and Balae reading the consoles to feed them the info they needed to make it convincing. Although I was useful when Balae needed a console smashed up. Time to let the badger rage out again.
Op'a'an was dealt with for the moment and we needed to get down to the reactor room. There was an access tunnel, but it was awful. All mucusy on the inside, and pulsating slightly. I was doing OK until we came to the vertical drop though. I probably could have climbed down by myself, but after the disaster at the tower block I was a bit scared. I asked Carmilla if she could do the thing with the webs again, and she said yes, but she could only take one person that way, and of course that would have to be Gary. Balae could float herself down, and Billy had his climbing gear. So we ended up swapping roles, and Billy carried me. I think that made him appreciate all the times I carried him. Although I don't think it was as hard for me to carry him as the other way round.
We all got down in one piece, but there were a bunch of Peacekeepers in the reactor room, including one of those really big ones. Carmilla wanted to know if we were going in quiet or loud. I guess she didn't know we have our way of doing things. Quiet, until we have to get loud.
Balae went in first, after making herself very tiny, and then I couldn't see what she was doing but it was like there was an invisible angry cat in the room with things getting knocked over all over the place. Billy went in, and found himself face to face with the massive Peacekeeper, but I was ready for it and charged in to knock him out of the way before his fist could connect. It felt good to just let go for a little while.
Then the bombs were set, and I was ready to go and look in the secret room. Except Carmilla wasn't. I didn't know how we were going to convince her, but Balae had it all figured out. She told Carmilla everything, about the shadow, and what Harold Winfield and everyone else had done to stop it, and how the answer might be in that room. She had trouble believing it, but me and Billy told her it was all true, and she could trust Balae. Then Balae had some more to say. Stuff she'd figured out for herself, about how Faustus still had his powers, and how that meant he was in league with the shadow. And Carmilla believed that. It all made sense. That was why he wanted us to blow up this factory. Nothing about stopping the Asterions, or protecting people. He just wanted to take away our only shot at stopping the shadow.
For the first time I actually felt sorry for Carmilla. She ripped off that demon mask she was wearing, which must have reminded her of Faustus. And if that wasn't bad enough, her spider face opened up a bit, and Billy freaked out and ran away. I tried to warn him, but it wasn't enough. So now she was heartbroken on top of everything else. And she was looking at me.
So I did something I never thought I'd do, and gave her hug, while telling her that I had thought I was going to have to rip her face off for hurting Billy but it turned out it was the other way around. And she hugged me back, and I think she called me 'sister', which was a bit weird, but she seemed a bit happier. Enough to come with us down to the secret room anyway.
Billy was the first down, and Carmilla was the last, which seemed like the best way to handle it at that point. Carmilla lost her grip on the way down, but I managed to catch her. Then we had a look around, and the room was full of giant brains. They had to be running simulations, because every so often one would flash up a notifaction saying 'Simulation Terminated: Solution Requires Causality.' I didn't know what that meant, but Balae did, and together we worked it out.
The Asterions didn't know one specific thing about the shadow, and that was that the reason Harold Winfield and everyone had been able to change reality was because of the shadow making them stronger. And if they'd waited longer, and fought for longer, they would have got strong enough to change reality even more, and got rid of the shadow forever.
And the problem with that was that it had made all of them kind of messed up. I could see that was hitting the others really hard, and I was afraid they were all about to give up on the spot. Except that wasn't how I saw it. I reminded them that we'd all come in here knowing we might die, and we'd prepared for that. At least, I had, and when I said that I could see that I wasn't the only one. And we all knew that even if we didn't die, the shadow was coming and we were all going to die anyway. But now we actually had hope. There was a way to defeat the shadow, and it wasn't going to be easy, and it certainly wasn't going to be fun, but we knew we could do it. We could be heroes.
And I guess neither of my friends wanted to be heroes the way I did, but then they didn't start out where I did. What mattered is that they were still with me. And the five of us got out of there, and once we were clear of the factory, all five of us put our hands on the detonator and we pressed it together.
And then I went home and gave Tiffany her Peter Rabbit book back.
Since then we've all become a bit famous. There wasn't much government left once the Asterions left, so Billy and his dad are sort of leading while things get put back together. Balae doesn't have to hide being an alien any more, and a lot more space whales have shown up. It seems like everyone at the Gull is looking after one of them now. Carmilla didn't get back together with Billy, which is probably a good thing. I still see her quite often, but we don't really have much in common, besides our past.
I convinced Tiffany to introduce me to her parents, and I think they've kind of made me her unofficial big sister. So I've been spending some time with them. Besides that, I seem to be spending most of my time training. There's a big fight coming when the shadow arrives and I've got to be ready.
After that, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what I'll remember, or if I'll even still be me. But if I can keep hold of this journal at least I'll know that I wasn't a guard dog, or a victim, or a troubled youth. I was a hero.
No comments:
Post a Comment