FORGE

The blood from the cuts along Maggie's arms and back soaked into the clean white robe. She ascended the steps, through the smoky air of the temple. Howls and drums and screams and chants and laughter made music in the dark, twisting tunnels that branched off of the hidden chamber.

Crow looked down at her from the altar.

Maggie's eyes were cold and fierce, then suddenly sharp and playful. Crow saw the candlelight reflect silver in the blood dripping on the steps.

"You have faerie blood in you," Crow said with mild surprise.

"You're not accusing me of being a vampire are you?" Maggie asked with a smirk.

Crow's look became serious. "The bell is sounding One, I can hear it. It's time. To begin again."

Maggie nodded. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I've done this before."

Crow looked at her with sadness. Maggie wondered what Crow knew about her, and what secrets Crow knew about Max... But that would only lead her to doubt and worry. Turn the stone of the stairs to sand.

Crow spoke. "And likely you will come here again, though it will look and smell and taste different. And hurt the same."

Maggie remembered the time this place was that weird sci-fi womb in the Professor's Study. It had felt like forever when she was inside, and now it felt like forever since she had escaped. The Professor had had coffee waiting for her.

"Each time," she said to Crow, "I've gotten a gift."

Crow nodded. Maggie couldn't easily make out Crow's features in the shifting light of the temple. A young woman. Hair blond then dark. Then older, with long blond curls spilling down her shoulders and back. Then younger again, dark hair short. Eyes playful then wise, innocent then cynical. Sometimes Maggie could see her wings, other times it looked as if fire raged around her. Maggie remembered the wings that once sprouted from her back, or that would one day, that had or would, white or soaked red with blood.

The gift that Crow gave her was one she already knew, had used for years, had lost and found a dozen times in a hundred worlds. But Maggie understood that this place, here and now, was where she first got it. That this was when it was first given to her. And so she recognized it, and welcomed its return like an old, trusted friend, even as her eyes widened in surprise, seeing it newly, for the first time, discovering it, having won it finally. Knowing she would lose it again and find it again. Knowing now where and when it came from, here at this beginning. Here in Death, here in haunted solitude.

From one of his messengers, one of his lessons to her, another gift and a curse too - did Crow belong to him or he to Crow? She imagined finding him again one day and having that answer for him. But she could never do that to him.

Maggie took a breath. The smoke in the air stung her open wounds. Each trickle of blood felt like an ocean. And she knew that they would heal and be never more.

She wondered if Crow had somehow been here each time before. It was easy for Maggie to hate her, for what she knew, for what she had done. Maggie didn't like easy so much. So she had started trying to learn how to forgive Crow and to love her. Maybe that's why she was here again, or maybe this needed to happen. Maybe Crow was making it easier, maybe harder.

Maggie took a breath. She remembered Max warning her about avoiding certain frequencies of thought - only Max would call them that - warning her that they were where the transmissions from the Lab lived. That you could get trapped there. Maggie wondered again what exactly Crow knew about -

She took a breath. All that in the moment that Crow handed her the gift. And it started to shine. Absorbing the candlelight. Becoming bright.

And Maggie's robe was white, her wounds were healed. Her wings spread. Her memories and thoughts were still.

She took hold of her katana.

Convergence Three

Milton checked the figures on his sheet and rolled the dice.

"Got it," he said excitedly.

Ayanami nodded from the head of the table, checked her notes. She brushed her blue bangs out of her eyes and fixed Milton with a dramatic stare. "So Scorpio takes the shot and the bullet punctures the panel. Sparks fly... And the steel doors slide open. Everyone make one final health check as the toxins evacuate the chamber."

Shinji made his, as did Milton - and good thing because he was almost out - but Asuka failed hers.

Ayanami continued. "So Aries and Scorpio stay conscious, but you guys still have the action penalty. Gemini passes out."

"I start CPR," Shinji said, rolling the dice. "Got a seventeen."

"I try and keep aim on the doorway," Milton said.

"Alright, Gemini, you get another health check now, at +3 thanks to Aries. And Scorpio, your vision is still a little blurry, but you can make out one of the genetically modified security dogs creeping slowly down the hall. It snarls at you." As Ayanami described the scene, she also passed Milton a note, private character info the other players couldn't hear.

The note said: Scorpio hears a faint buzzing sound inside his head and a staticky voice says 'This transmission is coming to you...'

Milton and some of the other morning commuters had gotten to know each other over the months that they had all shared a car to and from work each day. Milton would often retell the events from his Sunday night gaming group to one or more of the regular train passengers, if he felt that they were in the mood to hear it. He knew they humoured him a lot, and thought him geeky, but they also seemed to enjoy hearing about the ongoing adventures of The Zodiac Squad. 

Of course, they had no idea that Milton's gaming group didn't actually exist - that it was something he imagined every night as he fell asleep. A wish-fulfillment fantasy where he played a Role-Playing Game with the characters from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Sometimes he would imagine Ayanami or Asuka going home with him afterwards, but mostly he imagined the gaming sessions. He knew it was strange to imagine pretending to be Scorpio instead of imagining actually being Scorpio, but for some reason he couldn't do it. He had this almost superstitious idea that if he started imagining being Scorpio rather than wanting to be him, that he would somehow never actually become Scorpio in real life.

So every Monday morning during the commute by train into the city, Milton Reddings told his made-up stories about made-up stories. Except the bits about sleeping with cartoon characters.
And this Monday morning one of his regular audience members said, "You know Milton, we could always use a guy like you at the company. If you ever get tired of your current job, that is." He handed Milton his business card.

"Thanks Greg," Milton said. He didn't exactly know what it was that Greg did for a living, but he seemed happy and well-paid. 

Milton looked at the card. All it said, above the phone number and the name Greg Logollos, was LEGACY.

The Space Between

Frank sat on the bench on the platform; he was in the middle of a Dirk Pitt adventure when Goner plumped down beside him.

"Damn this is weird," Goner said.

Frank chuckled because weirdness was all part of the package.

"Getting bored are we?"

"We've been here for days it seems. The train hasn't moved and there is no freakin' exits here."

Frank had thought about that but he really didn't have an explanation at all, but something was definitely wrong. He was way past the point of worrying. He now knew how Neo felt in Matrix Revolutions where he was locked between worlds. If he got a chance he would hunt up that movie and watch it again.

"Don't you find this uncomforting?" Goner asked. "I have a strange feeling as if someone has pissed off the DM."

That's when Frank laughed out loud whole-heartily.