Chương 116: Epilogue 1

2104: 04: 20: 10: 02: 46 A woman and her teenaged daughter, and a woman, a man, a little boy and his older sister were standing on the water. Michael was being a fussy little twerp/Mom had told her a devastating truth, so Sam dove for her little brother/the edge of the boat. Below, she saw the great, alien bioluminescence of the Seattle Crater unfolding in all its glory as her parents laughed/Mom panicked at her actions. The lights spun to become the sun.

A midday ride at heavy gallop, a horse with one and two with two riders filling the air with joy. Juliana/Amber laughed/ hya -ed as two eight-/one fifteen-year-old kicked their heels into the horses' flanks. The two horses/horse-Sam didn't appreciate it one bit, snorting at their riders' antics and refusing to go any faster. Three thirteen-/four fifteen-year-old girls walked down the Bayside Boardwalk on a bright summer/autumn day, the former too tired to continue and the latter winding up at the wrong (or right?) end of a shitty robbery, returning home for the sleepover. It went great, but Ari/Saga either could not sleep or woke up way too early, and neither could Sam. She followed her friend downstairs and together they watched endlessly-rolling short-form videos until they both/Saga fell asleep again. A thousand other such scenes plagued Sam's mind in the instant the morning light punched her square in the eye, forcing her awake.

Like a hive, her mind was abuzz as memories flitted to and fro, creating connections and building bridges where necessary (and some Sam thought where it wasn't), her synapses aiming to return a Sam whole again. But the integration did not come without its fair share of problems. Regardless of the fact that pre-displacement Sam had lived far longer than her returned counterpart, the weight of the memory, the importance and defining impact they had on her; they were equal regardless of that fact.

The process was not, could not be an easy one. There was no straight line of memory, of being and becoming to be ordered chronologically from past to present, but rather a melding and blending, a mixing and matching and overlapping of knowledge, information and experience. There where the mind saw similarity, it thought 'eh, good enough' before slapping them together haphazardly and above all, painfully.

And that pain was a sharp one, coming from somewhere deep in the center of her brain, a place she'd never recalled feeling a headache before; a place she'd thought could not ache. It made it difficult to think.

Like her brain was still trying to connect the dots, neurons waking up from deep slumber and reconfiguring synapses that had either lain dormant and rusted until now, had been cut through by the Machine or her displacement itself, had been reused by the returned Sam, or had never even existed in the first place. But despite all of the difficulties, the moment Sam woke up she knew and remembered everything from her time as both the pre- and post-displacement Sam, of Sam-I and Sam-II… for better or worse.

And the first thing she felt? Sheer, acute embarrassment over what had just occurred. Despite her dramatics, Sam-II-self's final sacrifice had not, in fact, resulted in her 'killing herself' by splitting and combining one part with her Achronality-self and the other with the Machine. Sam-III- no, Sam Prime was a continuation of both; definitely not Sam-II's death or even Sam-I's rebirth, but simply both at the same time. And Sam had felt so self-righteous about it too.

Sacrificing oneself has ever been the hero's lot, huh, Sam thought, mentally groaning at the cringeworthy memory. Could she have been any more dramatic? Did she not have even an ounce of self-awareness whatsoever? What kind of teenager even was she, to be spewing lines like that so sincerely? Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick, Sam thought. Good that I'm already at the hospital, then, another thought said, unprompted. Sam groaned again at the workings of her own mind, this time out loud.

"Sam?" A familiar voice said, interrupting her self-flagellation. A voice that set her nerves afreeze. Sam opened her eyes and was shocked to see, "Dad?" in his own hospital bed, a Paperfold slack in his grip, staring at her in equal wonder.

"You remember…?" I nodded. Then, within such a short amount he could put a (admittedly very weak) speedster to shame, Pierce was out of bed and hugging her fiercely, whispering you're-alrights over and over again by her ear.

He kissed her on the forehead, turned her head left and right to both examine her and, perhaps, reacquaint himself with how subtly different she looked from what to him had been one or two days before, then kissed her on the forehead again before continuing the cycle, eyes growing wetter by the second. Not that Sam wasn't examining him just like that, and just as happy to see him as well – her tears just as real – but over it all lay a pall of incongruity, a disconnect of two minds holding three opinions.

One part of her insisted she'd just seen him yesterday, running for cover until they got struck by Chronomaniak's power; while another had never met Pierce before in her life, and felt confused by her own affection for the stranger; and yet another had believed she would never see him again, ever, and was beyond shocked to see him. But she could deal with all of that later, for now was a time of joy, hugs and tearful reunion.

"Mom's not here?" Sam asked once they separated, her dad dragging a chair to her bedside.

"Called away for the moment," he said, wiping his eyes, "to give a report to the Wardens and Guardians. Had to go all the way home, get in her costume again and all that. She'll return here as Peakstar when it's time for… your side of the story." He looked annoyed at the last part, then his eyebrows raised.

"What hap-" The door swung open, cutting him off.

"Ah, you're awake," said a strange man in a white doctor's coat flanked by two nurses.

"Good to see the monitors are still working." What monitors the stranger was referring to Sam didn't know. There were no machines here, except perhaps that weirdly fluffy, yet heavy with metal sweatband around her wrists. No, those were clearly the monitors he meant. He was also probably her doctor now that she thought about it. She was feeling a bit slow, so what?

The doctor walked up to her and began prodding and poking her, pulling up her eyelids, parting her hair and going so far as briefly putting some strange device into her ear and up her nose for some reason. Thankfully, the latter two were quickly pulled out.

"What's going-" no, she knew exactly what's going on.

"I mean: what happened to me medically speaking?" This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"An aneurysm," the doctor said as he finished his examinations, "specifically one in the hippocampus. Even some, hmm… swelling doesn't really cover it." He rubbed his chin as he tapped away at his tablet.

"An 'enlargement'; that fits better. It didn't seem to be inherently harmful, especially as it was quickly followed by a subsequent shrinkage. In volume at least; whether in mass is up to debate. It seemed denser, but I can't exactly weigh a living brain now, can I?"

"Enlargement? Shrinkage?"

"Yes. A quite interesting case. Never seen something quite like it before, and reviving the brain dead is my specialty so I know a thing or two about weird brains." Not just a doctor then, but a reanimator.

"Any issues? Pains, trouble speaking or focusing, sudden lapses?" She shook her head.

"Well, a bit of pain when I woke up and I'm feeling a bit slow, and my memories are…" What even was the word for something like that?

"Realigning?" he suggested, to which Sam nodded. He noted it down on his tablet before looking up again.

"Good. Excellent, even; that's what it's supposed to do." He smiled like a man satisfied with his work.

"Now, just to be sure we're going to do a bit of an examination focused on your brain, alright?" After being administered a series of mind, reflex and memory tests by the doctor and his two nurses, a couple of things became quickly apparent. For one, that she was as healthy as could be for someone who'd just yesterday suffered a (pseudo-)aneurysm.

For two, that whatever it had done to her hippocampus, it hadn't destroyed any of her memories or hampered her faculties when compared to her baseline they'd figured yesterday during the RAT. For three, that her memcordings were gone. Permanently. And she knew deep within, without even needing to test it, that parts of her shifter powers had changed as well, and that her superstrength, sleep resistance, and superefficient metabolism had vanished with the DOOR. Which made sense.

Those aspects had been given to her by the Machine, vampirized from the other achronally displaced still locked within the Achronality. And with her connection to the DOOR forever closed, she would never get them back. Good riddance.

"Great work, if I do say so myself," the doctor said upon finishing his examinations.

"Now that is not to say that you're all done for today. There are many more tests to be had later today – the testing never ends, ha ha!" Nobody laughed, his nurses staring at him deadpan. He scraped his throat.

"Anyway, before we get to that, there are also two gentlemen heroes-""One of them is a woman," the left nurse interrupted.

"-two gentle them heroes," he looked inordinately pleased with himself, "standing right outside, waiting for an interview." Pierce sighed.

"No rest for the afflicted." He sounded more resigned than angry. The doctor shrugged sympathetically.

"I complained about it to the hospital director, but alas, matters of state trump a patient's need for rest and test. Especially when that patient, for all intents and purposes, looks… well, alright I suppose. All things considered."

"It's okay," Sam said, more to her dad than the doctor.

"I have things they need to hear anyhow." The doctor nodded, closed his tablet and pocketed his stylus.

"Good, because they'll be here the moment we leave." He stood still for two seconds before one of his nurses poked him in the ribs.

"Which is right now. See you later today, Miss Pearsson, Mister Pearsson." And with that they left. Sam turned to her dad.

"You think that-""Definitely. I doubt she'd let another Warden-" The door opened again and in stepped Knowinner and Peakstar. Before the Guardian could even close the door, Kati was gone in a flash and all but threw herself onto the bed, starting a second round of hugging and tears even heavier than the one she'd had with her dad. Especially once she told her that she remembered everything, that she'd succeeded in getting her memories back.

Kati leaned back, cupping her daughter's face with a smile blindingly, superpoweredly bright.

"I'm so proud of you," Kati said. Tears sprang into Sam's eyes – and not just because of the light emanating from her mother's teeth. Between sobs, "I'm sorry," Sam said, sniffing her nose and trying her hardest to meet her mother eye to eye.

"I'm sorry." With confusion, "For what?" Kati asked. Sam's mouth opened and closed a few times. She didn't even know for what exactly she was sorry; there were too many options to choose. For what she'd said right before she ran off to the Machine? For all the lies and misdirections and eight months' worth of guilt?

"I-I'm sorry," Sam repeated, looking away and burrowing her face in her mother's chest again, ear to heart, hearing its comforting beat.

"It's alright, Sammy." Kati threw her arms around her again, resting her chin on Sam's head as she began stroking her hair comfortingly.

"Everything's alright," she said as Pierce rose and joined the hug. After a few moments though, "I hate to interrupt," Knowinner said, sounding as awkward as a grown man and Guardian hero could – and should – be for interrupting, "but the sooner we get the interview over with, the better it is for all." We separated, Pierce sitting back in his chair again, Sam scuttling to the backboard of the hospital bed, using her pillows as support, and Kati retreating to the edge of that same bed, not letting go of Sam's hand.

X Sam explained everything, and answered questions as best she could – which was more difficult than it had seemed at first.

Knowinner had some highly specific questions about the Achronality, the mirror-shards, the Machine and Project PLUTO, but the bits and pieces Sam-I and Sam-II had learned during the former's semi-hostile negotiations with the Machine, the information both had plucked from its form in the Achronality, and that final second where Sam-I, Sam-II and the Machine were as close to one as they ever were; these were difficult to parse and explain to the Guardian.

Nothing in the Achronality lend itself for easy interpretation. If Sam-II hadn't had the backdoor (or backDOOR) to her real body outside during the confrontation, if she hadn't shifted into the mirror-shard of the Achronality itself, and if she hadn't been so heavily intertwined with the Machine, her mind would've been lost the moment she sent it to the Achronality.

And Sam-I remembered nothing of her time there, her mind likely having shut down to protect it from the infinitely-recursive loops of memories reliving memories reliving memories. Knowinner thankfully accepted it all graciously and at face value.

"We've been trying to get in contact with the Mac-" Seeing Sam's expression, Knowinner switched tracks.

"With your… counterpart on the other side. Unsuccessfully so far, but if it is indeed as hostile to inhabitation as you've made it out to be…" Sam hadn't known her face had twisted until Knowinner unintentionally pointed it out by appearing taken aback, his eyebrows raising. She tried to examine, to pinpoint her exact feelings regarding her, as Knowinner put it, 'counterpart' in the Achronality. But whatever it was, hate certainly wasn't it.

"She's alive in there," Sam stated.

"That's part of what has us worried," Knowinner said, running a hand through his hair.

"We have a potential entrance to the Achronality and all those missing people, but we don't know how to get there nor whether going there will mean temporally displacing someone – or worse, get them getting rewired by what's left of the Machine."

"I don't think she would," Sam objected.

"Besides, she did send out Pierce." Knowinner nodded.

"True, yet also no one but him. Was it a spur-of-the-moment sentiment, or the- ah, her final good deed before getting subsumed by the Machine completely?" Sam shook her head. She didn't think that had happened, but had no logical counterarguments either. The Guardian sighed.

"Can you…" Knowinner side-eyed Kati and Pierce consideringly for a second, before asking his question anyway.

"Is it possible for you to shift into a mirror-shard again?" Before either of her parents could object, "I can't," Sam said, shaking her head.

"No inanimate objects anymore." Along with other changes to her shifter powers. No longer did she need to master her forms anymore, but in exchange she'd lost all duplicate forms. Thankfully she could also copy forms now by simply looking at them, instantly use new forms without needing to get used to their senses, and could shift between forms directly rather than having to first switch back to her real body. Knowinner nodded, taking it in stride.

"Hm. A shame, but perhaps its for the better." He scratched his chin, thinking for a moment before scowling in irritation.

"Not your fault, but it really is a shame though. All those people there, stuck. I can see the trail leading up to them, but I just don't know how to follow it."

"Don't you have the two shards?" Sam suggested.

"Couldn't you communicate through that?"

"Not really an option. Again, we don't want to risk someone getting achronally displaced."

"Okay?" she said, confused.

"I don't get what the big deal is. Can't you like, put a telephone in between them or something? Or maybe some other line of communication, I don't know." This time, it was Kati that shook her head.

"We tried all. Radio, wi-fi, fiberoptic and tight tachyons; no method of communication seemed to have worked so far."

"Even maker options don't seem to work," Knowinner added.

"It's like a black hole in that way; every signal we send into it just… disappears."

"Huh." Sam was surprised to hear it.

"I don't know why it shouldn't. If it worked for the Machine, why wouldn't it for you?" Knowinner raised his eyebrows.

"The Machine? What do you mean?" Sam looked at him, uncomprehending.

"You know, the DOOR of the Machine? That wafer thingy between the shards?"

"Wasn't that one of those parts connecting you to the Machine?" Kati added.

"You know, that your counterpart took with them when you separated? I thought you said it didn't work anymore."

"Well, yeah, but that was just my DOOR – the line it built between me and itself. You know, like an API or something? But the original, real DOOR was that wafer in between the two mirrors. I mean, it wasn't functional anymore but the framework's still there, you know?" A moment of silence." That was the DOOR?" Knowinner asked, looking surprised.

"I mean, yeah? What did you think it was?"

"The degraded computing core of the Machine itself," Kati said.

"That seemed the most logical conclusion anyway." Ah.

"The Machine's not material at all; just software," Sam said.

"You know, made of code and data and stuff? All the rest was just for the effort of getting something there, helping it interface with the outside world, keeping the effects of the mirrors contained; you know, stuff like that." Kati and Knowinner exchanged glances.

"I'll contact Neverender," Knowinner said. Besides being a maker known for making deceptively simple machines that last, Sam recalled Neverender having a reputation for adapting other maker machines into simpler versions as well.

"Call Tin Knightus too," Kati said.

"His specialty should work in helping restore it." Tin Knightus was a sound-type maker. Maybe they hoped it extended to communications as well? Knowinner power-walked to the door, pausing right as his hand was about to twist the handle. He turned around.

"Thank you, Sam. Recover well, and I hope to see you back in the field soon." And with that, he was gone, allowing the family reunion to resume.