“There’s no logic to it,” Tanya told him. “I’m not even sure where we go when it happens. I would guess no where you want to be. Whatever the pheno-ph-cause is, it produces a massive energy pulse. At least… I haven’t been able to measure it yet. But... it must be there. I mean, it must be, it’s been damaging equipment, I’ve been pulling charred parts out of the teleportation shield lattice.”

“Maybe it’s a targeted attack on that system,” Wildwing suggested.

He had asked her to drop everything else. He had not wanted to. There was so much that required her attention. Yet he could not ignore pieces of their home seeming to lose grip on reality. What had started as a wall appearing where there shouldn’t have been had spread, as if the Pond itself were confused.Inexplicable shifts in building architecture propagated throughout: a wall moving, a room vanishing, a section joining where it hadn’t before. Then it would remember and correct, with no apparent cause for the confusion or reclamation of sanity.

Being inside the first shift was bad enough. Being outside of one, Wildwing found, was something worse, as he had to wait to see if his teammates trapped within came back, worrying that maybe they wouldn’t each time.

It would have perhaps been smarter to vacate until they had determined the cause, but every time they visited the idea, it came down to the shield generator being too important to give up, and the base as a whole being too dangerous to leave in the hands of whatever forces may have wanted it. So, as far too many things recently seemed to, it became Tanya’s task to crack, while they tried to weather the Pond’s new moods.

She had ushered Wildwing into the lab with an unnatural cheer for the hour of the day. He had been the one that had insisted on the meeting, but had slept so poorly the previous night, and the night before, and every night prior, that he was sorely cross at his own command.

They had been slowly adapting back to their old schedule, the one they had maintained before they thought Dragaunus was sunk at the bottom of the sea. It meant early mornings and late nights, and at least one person awake at all times, standing a lonely watch over everything. Some of them did better with the adherence to schedule than others, but Wildwing was confident that they would be able to maintain it as they had before, eventually.

The biggest obstacle in their time management was the addition of two people who were not necessarily antagonistic, but he still could not find within him the ability to fully trust.

The lab was a disaster to his eyes. Tanya began and swapped between projects as they bored her. The state of the space frustrated him, but she seemed perfectly happy in the center of her cyclone, so he could not find it in himself to reprimand her. He would occasionally remark about safety—there were more than a few things in her care that could have caused all sorts of disasters—but every time he asked, everything dangerous was carefully sealed and stored, and everything scattered about amounted to notes and tools and wires.

“If it is an attack on the shield, it’s not a very effective one,” she said, bringing him back to their conversation. “I designed it to be redundant. We would have to lose multiple sections simultaneously for the shield to be significantly weakened,” she looked at a map of the Pond’s systems on her display, highlighting locations for him. “What will be a problem is if it hits something like Drake One or the fusion generator.”

Without Drake One, now that they no longer had the Mask, they would be blinded completely. The fusion generator was a relatively safe device, under normal circumstances. But it required careful maintenance to keep the reaction that powered the facility under control. A disruption to its containment would simply vaporize them with the force of a small star.

“I don’t even know if the disruptions are natural or artificial,” Tanya shook her head at the display, irritated.

“Is… that something that could be natural?”

She opened her bill to say something, and stopped, touching a stylus to her lips, then waved away that thought and started again, “Maybe.”

“Okay, I admit that was not the answer I was expecting.”

“Wildwing, I think, I think now might be a good time to clarify that my qualifications are tied to a very specific set of circumstances.”

“I’ve never doubted your abilities-”

She made a gesture to cut him off, and when he stopped, she pointed at his feet. “Why don’t you fall through the floor?”

“Because it’s solid steel,” he said, mystified.

“What you’re describing as ‘solid’ is the interaction between the electrons in the floor and those in your boot repelling each other,” she said. “When you break things down enough, there aren’t so much rules as there are… probabilities. The vast majority of the time, when you take a step, that’s going to be true, and the ground is solid.”

He looked doubtfully at his feet.

“Most of an atoms mass is the nucleus, but most of its size is the empty space that the electron probability cloud occupies. Speaking purely within the realm of quantum mechanics, it’s possible that one time you’ll put your foot down and the atoms in your whole body will align in such a way they will simply pass though the atoms in the floor without resistance.”

Wildwing squinted at the floor with suspicion, worried that he was going to receive a demonstration.

“It’s an infinitely small probability. No one’s seen it happen, not that I’ve ever heard of. But the math still says it’s possible,” Tanya explained.

“You’re talking about theory,” he said.

“Dimensional gateways were theory,” she answered, folding her arms.

He had no argument for that.

“Here’s the problem: Everything I just said is true for our universe. I’ve been running on the assumption that, because our matter didn't fling in separate directions upon entry, that this one runs on the same rules. But… I never confirmed that. I-I-I mean why would you think to, right?”

This seemed to amuse her, rather than trouble her as it should have.

She gestured to her diagram of affected sections again. “These are things that were never meant to interact. Our Puckworld, Winterwing’s, here, the kingdom of Anaheim. The barriers between these places are supposed to be absolute. You’re not supposed to be able to leave your plane of existence.“Everyone, including our two visitors, has been trapped inside one of the missing areas at least once. Drake One has recorded each instance, and has seen no evidence of it outside our premises.It seems likely something we either caused or attracted. That could mean that yes, it is Dragaunus, because manipulation of spacetime does seem to be very within his abilities.”

Wildwing could hear the unspoken implication. “Or?” he prompted.

“Or, based on the fairly limited area the pheno-ph-shifts have occurred, it could mean this universe literally cannot sustain the fusion reactor, and by maintaining one, we’re causing the behavior.”

“Do you think we need to shut it down?”

“I would have insisted on it, but there’s something that doesn’t make sense. The shifts never happen in an empty room. They always target one of us.”

This had not occurred to him. On reflection, she was right. There was always someone caught in a building shift. He always had to wait and see if a person, not a section of empty wall and ductwork, were coming back. Given how big the building was, and how little of it was occupied at any given time, he should have realized sooner.

“It’s not the same people every time, but it’s always a room with at least one person. You could make an argument that it’s a quantum behavior manifesting on a large scale only when someone is in observation to collapse the probability wave-” she halted this thought, remembering herself, and smiled sheepishly. “But, I think, for now, that rather than overcomplicating things, that we will say that if your boot goes through the floor, that perhaps probability aligned to let you pass through, but it is far more likely that someone has cut a hole.”

Despite himself, Wildwing could not help but brighten at the small joke. “It would be nice, to have some simple answers, for a change.”

“It is very strange how I seem to either be bored or far too busy,” Tanya mused.

“I’m not sure what we could do to alleviate that. You’re still the most qualified to do-” he gestured at the disaster of the room, “-anything.”

“The most qualified this time,” she corrected. “Perhaps, if I can pinpoint what the energy surge is, I can use that to walk back the damage done and see if there’s something we’ve missed in the corrupted surveillance footage. In the mean time, if it is always an occupied section that is affected, maybe the safework around is the fusion core can be handled through the maintenance drones.”

Wildwing had been the one to think to pull the recordings, after the first shift had happened. He wanted an unbiased view of the kitchen in those moments. The kitchen itself had appeared to be in the exact same condition as when Duke had walked out. Their two visitors, Winterwing and Emily, had managed to reunite within it, yet there should have been no way into the room that bypassed three people standing in the adjacent hallway.

On top of that, Emily seemed completely unharmed.Her limbs that were previously knotted in sores became perfectly unblemished, and the parasite had ceased its advance in every scan that followed.

Nosedive and Grin, who had been with her moments before the shift, had answered in confusion when questioned. They seemed to have forgotten why they were in the medical bay at all, until the bloodstains on the medicom were pointed out, and they realized they had been watching over her, only to become confused again when asked how they had failed in the task. It did not matter how they were asked, or who did the asking, they could not account for how events had unfolded, and every attempt led them into the same circular chain of questioning. It was a very specific and very troubling amnesia, that the two drakes could not even directly recall having for longer than a few minutes, when they would forget again, and no medical scan could explain its persistence.

The surveillance playback Wildwing wanted existed, but it was scattered into meaningless chunks of visual data, and the audio was a high pitched screaming that sounded so distorted it must have been a hallmark of Tanya’s missing energy pulse.

“I realize there’s not a whole lot of assistance any of us can give you, but feel free to tap anyone you need to help out,” Wildwing said.

“I’ve enlisted your evil twin,” Tanya said with grin.

“Ill advised if he is an evil twin,” Wildwing observed. “I am excited to see where everyone finally lands on these nicknames, since you’re all having such a good time.”

She waved away his sarcasm with a small chuckle, “It only keeps going because it annoys you. But, if you’re going to insist on sup-sup-watching them both, it’s going to be less hassle if you put Winterwing to work. Maybe he can crack that weird book of poetry after all.”

“You don’t mind being left alone with him?”

Tanya shrugged, “What’s he gonna do?”

Which was amusing, and he did not for a second doubt that it was a fair question. People tended to underestimate Tanya in a physical fight, but changed their minds rather quickly.

“Any suggestions about what we do with Emily?” Wildwing asked.

“I can put Winterwing to work because he has some academic skill that is tangentially related. I don’t think she can do anything,” Tanya scoffed, and added more lowly, “She is not cooperative.”

He also could not think of a good use or place to put Emily. She had no training, no schooling, and still, weeks later, refused most of their attempts at what could not be called friendship, but perhaps could have been called camaraderie.She submitted to daily scans of her internals, because she had very little other option on a planet of primitive alien medicine, but she was not pleased about it. Had there been no parasite to speak of, they would have had no leverage on her at all.

And still, weeks later, they could not glean what Dragaunus wanted with either of these people. The parasite seemed to have failed. It killed its initial hosts, but, as Tanya noted in the thick of the crisis, there was no evidence of spread. The two corpses they had were safely stored, in a cold unit that they had built for purpose. Illness had not passed to those who were in closest contact or exposed to unfortunate viscera. It had failed to eliminate its last host entirely. They still could not remove it from Emily without killing her, and every medicinal route Tanyahad found effective in small tests of tissue failed when directly administered.

“I do have something useful for you. It finished overnight,” Tanya interrupted his thoughts again, and walked to one of her fabricators, tapping at the control. The door swung open, and she pulled from it a near-perfect replica of his armor.

“We can test the interface before practice, and make any adjustments afterwards,” she told him.

He only nodded.

“It think it will fit better,” she said, oblivious to his mood. “The first one wasn’t made from your measurements,” she nodded to his old, discarded armor on one of the work benches. The first iteration had been damaged by a genetically engineered monstrosity months before, rendering its kinetic and wave absorption useless. “The second one was identical because we were pressed for time,” referring to the armor that Dragaunus’s goons had stolen. “I-i-it’s been a while since materials science, but I tried my best. I think it’ll last you a bit longer, too.”

Tanya presented him with the new piece, clearly pleased with herself, “Oh, uh, it looks about the same though, hope that’s okay.”

“That’s fine, so long as it keeps me from manifesting new holes,” he took the breastplate from her, and snapped it on. Sure enough, it did not pinch his shoulders as the previous model had. She waited patiently and helped him with the gauntlets.

“I was able to make a few upgrades to the circuitry, though!” she beamed.

“Upgrades,” Wildwing repeated. “This isn’t going to become sentient and try to strangle me, is it?”

“That-that only happened because you kept putting off the maintenance,” she scowled.

He looked at her incredulously, pointedly testing the physical interface for the shield. Sure enough, it activated as easily as ever.

“I got better purification! It should feel lighter but have better crush resistance and dampening,” she gestured to a pile of notes and drawings that had been sitting alongside the fabricator. “I might see if Mallory or Nosedive would like to swap to it, it offers a bit more protection than what they have.”

She carried on this narrative for several minutes before she remembered that he was there and realized that he had not said anything, and stopped herself. “Is... something wrong?”

“No, you did good Tanya. You always do,” he said. The armor did indeed feel lighter this time, but it was still good to have it back. He almost felt like himself. “I just wish everything was that easy to fix, that’s all.”

Somewhere in the belly of the raptor, the remaining fragments of the Mask of Drake DuCaine must have been stored somewhere. The Saurians would have kept it as a trophy. They would have been unable to stop themselves. Wildwing would not have counted himself as spiritual on any measure, but there was something profane about it being in their care. It didn’t matter tactically if he liberated it, he suspected that it was permanently destroyed. But, even the shards, those would be worth recovering. They could not be permitted to stay there.

Tanya tapped on the edge her display pad. “You know, I was thinking about that,” she set the pad down and moved to a nearby console. “The Mask was damaged last year, right before your armor. I built a full schematic.”

“You’re kidding,” Wildwing stared at her. “How?”

“Well, I had to pull the damn thing apart anyway, I drew it up while I was in there,” she shrugged.

“You only had it a day.”

“I can get a lot of work done when I’m not being bothered every ten seconds,” she said, with just a hint of defensiveness. She found the digital files she was looking for, and pulled them up. “I did it in case something more...uh...catastrophic happened.”

He was astounded. He had no idea. “You think you can make another one.”

“Theoretically,” she gave an uneasy gesture to dampen excitement. “The main problem is processing power. Nothing on Earth is advanced enough.”

“What about Drake One?”

“Drake One is the size of a building because it’s thousands of processors working in tandem. I can’t replicate that on such a small scale. Not...not with silicon chips. The only thing we have access to that even comes close is the Aerowing’s nav computer. I considered pulling it, but it seemed more important that we don’t accelerate so fast our bones crush.” She gave a gesture of packing a snowball between two hands, apparently finding this amusing, then remembering herself and coughing a single awkward laugh.

“Yes, I think I agree,” Wildwing said, and gave a melancholy look to the drawings. The solution was right there, and yet just out of reach. He annoyed himself internally with the phrase ‘the answer is staring you in the face’, and she must have seen the scowl.

“We-we could fashion something anyway,” she offered. “Even without the functionality, you’re going to want something to protect your face on the ice.”

“You said there’s nothing on Earth advanced enough,” he said. “What if you had the option of looking offworld?”

“I’m not… I don’t know? I don’t know how far out we would have to look.”

“If we could track down Flork and Zork, maybe we’d be able to trade for it,” Wildwing proposed. It had been some time since he had seen or heard from the strange pair of traveling gardeners, but they periodically sent him longband messages from places he had never heard of, somewhere far beyond Earth’s small sphere of influence. “Maybe they’re never seen a cactus,” he added.

“That’s not a bad idea. From what little we saw of Charg’s station, I bet we could find something adaptable.”

“Give me the specs you need and I’ll try to contact them.” It felt like a long shot, Wildwing already knew without being told that anything he procured might simply be incompatible with their tech. It still felt better than doing nothing. He couldn’t fix what was lost, but maybe he could make the loss a little less devastating. That seemed to be the plan, for the time being. Make the losses less devastating.

They were interrupted by a beep from Wildwing’s newly installed communicator. Tanya appeared to have seamlessly planned the transition to the new armor without any complications. Except, when he answered it, Mallory’s image was completely upside down.

“You have a guest,” Mallory said.

In the background of her call, he could hear shouting. From the architecture behind her, she must have been standing on Drake One’s platform.

“A guest with a broken collarbone, if you do not hurry,” Mallory amended.

“I’ll-” he paused, awkwardly trying to maneuver his arm to speak, “I’ll be there in five.”

“Is everything okay, you seem-”

“No, it’s fine,” he cut the call and looked to Tanya with narrowed eyes.She appeared to be trying to suppress a smile.

“You did this on purpose,” Wildwing accused, pointing at the communicator.

“Consider it a little extra incentive to come in for maintenance when I say and not three weeks later,” Tanya said, just a little too smugly.