Shades Of Forever

"Great Grandpa!"

I'm shaking him and shaking him but he just won't move. Why won't he move? Why won't he wake up? He's so light, almost lost beneath the blankets.

"Wake up, please!"

The strength suddenly leaves my legs, and I slump next to the bed.

"Please..."

"What in the never-god's pickled-"

I turn to look at the doorway as a barely-dressed MacWillie abruptly falls silent, short hair spiked out in clumpy tufts. She draws in a deep breath, concern etched across her face.

"...shit. I'm so sorry, young Sky."

"He won't wake up, MacWillie!"

She walks over and looks down at Great Grandpa, then kneels next to me, placing a broad hand on my back.

"...there's no easy way to say it, Sky. He's gone."

"No! He can't be... he was just sleeping... go get Window Doctor! Someone get Window!"

"Aye, I'll go do that, Sky. You just wait here, okay?"

She retreats from the room but I barely notice her go, my mind racing in circles about nothing at all. My hands hover over the blankets, but I don't know what to do with them. Nothing's working. Great Grandpa won't wake up.

Time passes, and then Window is in the room.

"Can I examine him, Sky?" he asks gently, and I nod, shifting to the side. Window will figure out what's wrong.

He pulls back the blankets to Great Grandpa's waist, revealing his favorite blue and white patterned nightshirt. The stethoscope briefly rests on his unmoving chest, and then Window sighs.

"I'm sorry. He has passed. It was peaceful."

That's not right. That can't be right. I want to yell at him for being wrong but I can't quite figure out how to talk.

More time passes.

Somehow Stove is next to me now. My throat hurts.

"Sky. Can you look at me, Sky?"

I manage to wrench my eyes away from the silent form. It feels like moving through tar, as if there's some horrible gravity sucking me back towards the bed. Have I been screaming? Stove is squatting next to me, spectacles low on her nose.

"That's it. Now, can you take a deep breath for me?" I do as she says. "Very good. Can you do another?"

With the second inhalation it's like a dam bursts in my chest. Sobbing, I lunge forward and wrap myself around Stove, clinging to her.

"He's..."

I can't finish the sentence, shudders racking my body. Stove's arms encircle me, holding me as a waterfall of pain pours out of my every movement.

He's gone.

Great Grandpa Axe is dead.

My last family is dead.

I don't know how long it takes me to stop crying, but eventually the tears dry up. I sniffle one last time and let go of Stove, looking at her through blurred vision.

"It's too soon. I'm not ready for him to be gone. He never finished teaching me how to be a Memoriam." I wipe an arm across my face. "We had so much left to talk about."

She looks at me sympathetically.

"There's never enough time for those we love. We can only appreciate the moments we're given." She hugs me close again, a whisper in my ears. "He was always so proud of you."

I let her help me to my feet, my knees protesting from being bent so long, and the rest of the room finally registers. Broom is looking at me with concern, standing by the door, MacWillie next to her, now fully dressed. Huckens is on the other side, his own eyes red, and I even see Violet's face peeking through the doorway, though she quickly disappears, the clicking of her dog's nails on the floor fading away.

I wish I knew the right words to ease your pain.

"We're here for you, Sky," Broom says, and MacWillie and Huckens nod. I smile tremulously at them.

"Thank you. What about..."

I can't finish the sentence, but Broom seems to understand what I'm saying. She walks over to me and Stove.

"I'll take care of the funeral arrangements. Why don't you take some time to yourself."

I'm about to agree when MacWillie clears her throat uncomfortably.

"As much as that's the right thing to be doing, we have a wee problem. An issue of time, you might say."

My eyes widen.

"Is the Wutan-Weylan fleet here?"

"No, not yet, they're still a day out, but whatever the little git did to make her way here has put a gravfox in the henhouse. There's emergency logistics requests pouring in from all five corpos for every unit within a thousand light years of Earth." MacWillie's voice lowers. "They're sending in anything they can scrape together as quick as they can flog the engines. We really need to know what she knows, and we need those incognito field parts yesterday."

Ice crawls down my spine, momentarily eclipsing the grief. That's right. The village isn't safe yet. I don't have time to mourn. My brain starts racing, the polar opposite of my earlier blankness, spurring me into motion, and I start towards the door.

MacWillie holds her hands out, Huckens gulping next to her.

"Hold on a minute, let's not be hast-"

"There's no time, MacWillie!"

I duck under her arm and out into the hall.

Sky, she has a point. Remember what happened last time you-

"Violet!" I barge into her room and she looks up at me from her seated position on the bed, startled. The dog growls from her lap, wispy parts unfolding into ominous weapon sketches, but I ignore it. "I need your help!"

"...you what? Aren't I a prisoner?"

"...what? No, don't be stupid. We resolved that yesterday."

"We did?"

"Stove's helping you, right? That means you're staying here until you feel better. About yourself and your family."

She stares at me, completely lost for words.

"Come on." I tap my foot impatiently, ignoring the rustle of the other four filling the hallway behind me. "We don't have much time. Did you have breakfast?"

"I... no?"

"Hurry up then. I made a scramble. Let's go."

I wait for her to stand from the bed before I turn and head for the kitchen. The dog barks behind me and she whispers something to it I can't hear. In the hallway, Stove tries to reach for me.

"Sky-"

"It's okay, Stove." I give her the best smile I can manage. "If I'm moving, it doesn't hurt as bad. My mind's working, I promise."

I don't wait for her to respond, trusting that they'll trust me. Instead, I hurry to the kitchen to prepare a plate for Violet. I hope she comes soon. There's a lot we have to do. I nod at Torch in her seat by the wall, who regards me warily. She's apparently taken over for Jasper.

"Condolences on your grandpa. You doing something stupid again that's going to interfere with my sleep?"

"...not this time. I think. Thanks."

The veteran Idiot grunts, and bodies start filing into the kitchen. MacWillie first, then Broom, then Violet, scowling dog in her arms, the pair pushed along by Huckens. Stove brings up the rear and I motion Violet towards the last serving of scramble, sitting on the counter.

She looks at it hesitantly, then shifts her dog to one arm and uses the other to grab the waiting fork and takes a bite.

"...mmmm! That's good. What settings did you use on your food printer?"

I throw a dishtowel at Huckens, silencing his opening mouth, and motion for her to sit at the table.

"Uhm, the best one. Don't worry about it. Look, MacWillie says everything is going to go wrong tomorrow. Will you help us?"

She pauses, a second mouthful hovering before her lips.

"What do you mean, 'everything is going to go wrong?'"

"I don't know who you really are," MacWillie rumbles, "but there's an avalanche of shit getting ready to dump itself on our heads, and I'm hoping you can tell us why. I'm tracking logistics requests from twenty seven different task forces across all five corpos, and that's just in the last two hours."

Violet freezes, fork trembling in the air in front of her face.

"...fuck."

Her eyes go blank, the dog's blazing into bonfire gleams, and then she returns her attention to us, teeth bared.

"Pen... no, couldn’t have been her. Someone figured out you're here, and it must have leaked." She stares at me directly. "I have the Blackbeard under control, but once those other fleets start arriving in-system it's going to be too much for me to handle. They'll be looking for me too after that."

I slide onto the chair across from her.

"Who are you, Violet?" I ask. "Why does your family care so much about getting you back?"

She gracefully lowers her still-loaded fork to the plate, not spilling a morsel.

"I'm-" she pauses, and for a second I think she's going to let us in, but then they harden. "I'm nobody. And you're right," she looks at MacWillie, "that's an avalanche of shit. I don't think any incognito field is going to avoid that much attention."

"It will," I interrupt, "if we give them something else to look at. You said they're after me, right?"

"Ayup."

"Well, then if they're chasing me, they won't be looking for the village. I'll lead them away."

Violet drops her fork with a tinkle and starts laughing, softly at first, then full blown cackles. The dog woofs from her lap, somehow mocking.

"You really have no idea what's after you, do you? How are you going to run from the entire galaxy? How are you even going to get off this planet?"

"By putting one foot in front of the other. No matter how long it takes."

Her laughter dies out.

"...what's your plan? Just for my amusement, of course."

"First, we go get the incognito field parts. We can use the Hellhound to-"

She holds up a hand.

"Wait, what's this 'we' business?"

"Someone has to fly the Hellhound. I obviously can't." I look over at MacWillie and Huckens, who both shake their heads. "So it needs to be you. It'll be a lot quicker to get there and back if we use the ship, and I need something to carry the parts. I don't want to risk taking Huckens inside, or having to leave him there if I fail."

"And I don't want to go inside," Huckens adds fervently. "That recording from your first attempt was awful."

Violet's eyes blank again, and then she shivers. When they clear, she looks at me with wary respect. "You're willing to go back into that? I knew you had levels on me, but I didn't know you were that high." She takes a sip of water.

"I'm only level eleven."

She sprays water across the table, drenching me and the remnants of her scramble.

Sky, you shouldn't tell other people your level. That's considered very important information in the Diaspora.

"I'm being honest, Box." I wipe water from my face with one of the cloth napkins. "If she's going to help, she needs to be able to trust me."

"You're insane." The dog barks in agreement, then Violet's lips quirk upward. "I like it. What's to keep me from just leaving with you once you're in the shuttle? Since I'm sure you've already thought of that incredibly obvious issue."

Pete's head extends out of my shadow, yawning in her face with a maw full of needle-point teeth that reflect the light the wrong way, then the Entity goes back to sleep. Violet swallows, her dog bristling in her arms.

"Okay, yeah, that's a good point." Her eyes narrow. "Fine, let's say I help you. What's in it for me?"

MacWillie and Huckens open their mouths but I forestall their indignant response.

"You want to be safe from your family, right?" She doesn't say anything. "If you help, you can stay here in the village after the incognito field goes up. They won't be able to find you here. Everyone will be chasing me."

"That's not enough. Assuming you even make it off-planet, I'm just trading one box for another. There's no infonet access here. Sure, somehow you're receiving from ridiculous distances, but there's no transmission. There's nothing here but dirt and weird trees."

An idea comes to me.

"MacWillie, you can make a transmitter, right? How strong would it be?"

That's an incredibly bad idea, Sky. You can't give a net integrator access to that kind of power.

"I'm not sure we should be doing that," MacWillie says simultaneously, rubbing her chin. "Aye, I can put together a transmitter in two shakes, but you'd be handing her a loaded singularity gun."

"And now I'm interested." Violet leans forward, eyes gleaming. "Answer the question, ogre lady. How strong would the transmitter be?"

MacWillie's brow furrows.

"...if I linked two trees, you'd have access to the entire galaxy. Any net touching on reality. These engines are bloody big. Also, I'll snap your neck if you call me that again."

Violet takes a hitching breath, then whispers something under her breath. The last part sounds like 'make them pay,' but I'm not certain, even with Box's sudden enhancement.

"I'll help," she declares. "You build me a transmitter like that, and I'll keep this village safe myself. Even if the incog field doesn’t work I can scramble their integrators. They'll never be able to find me."

I really don't think we should be doing this, Sky.

I clap my hands together, ignoring Box.

"Good. Broom, Stove, you'll-" the grief surges up, but I push it back down. Have to keep moving forward. Remember the past, but take care of the living. Be a Memoriam, like Great Grandpa. "You'll arrange the burial? Please?"

"Of course," Broom replies. Next to her, Stove fixes me with her piercing eyes.

"You'll talk with me after this immediate problem is resolved, yes?"

"Yes, Stove, I will. I promise."

"Good." She turns to Violet. "I expect to speak with you again later today as well. You've begun the process of healing, but it is a long path. There are many more steps to take."

"Okay," Violet says in a muted tone, her glee fading. The dog whines at her and she pats it absentmindedly. I look over at the two engineers.

"MacWillie, what do you need for the transmitter?"

"Not much. That ship you took the receiver parts from should have what we need."

"Box, is it safe for them to go there?"

The chances of a reality anchor appearing this soon is very low. Less than .04%. I feel like I have to give one last warning about the dangers of handing a net integrator a-

"Box says it should be fine for you two to salvage from the starfly. One of the Idiots can lead you there; it's not too far of a walk. You can do that while we're getting the incognito field parts."

"Aye, if that's what it takes, the lad and I will see it done."

"Thanks, MacWillie." I push my chair away from the table and stand. "Let's go, Violet. We don't have much time."

I'm not going to fail the village again. This time I'm getting those parts.

This time I’m not going alone.