“Who are you?  What are you doing here spying on that house?”  The speaker was a woman, young, blond, with blue eyes and not too many freckles.  “It isn’t safe.  You should run along home.”

            “But my family.”  Glen pointed toward the house. “My home is in America.”  The woman looked and frowned before she understood. 

            “Your family?  But how did you escape?”

            “I,” Glen had to think.  “I ran.  A voice in my head said run and I ran.”  Glen felt uncomfortable and a little afraid.

            The young woman got down to one knee to look him in the eye.  “Your family?”  Glen confirmed with a nod of his head.  “My name is Greta.  And I think you speak German very well for an American.”

            “I’m Glen.  I was Greta once.”  He paused, not because she said he was speaking German but because he thought of Greta and wondered why he did not think of her earlier.  She would have blended perfectly into the background.

            “You mean, I knew a Greta once.”

            Glen shook his head.  “No, I was Greta once.  She was a wise woman of the Goths, oh, long, long ago.”  He decided that maybe she had not come to mind because she was actually a Goth and not technically a German.  “Marcus Aurelius was Emperor back then.”

            Greta gave him a strange look but straightened up.  She shouted up the tree.  “David.  We have a complication.”

            A man climbed down out of the tree.  He had binoculars around his neck and swung from the last branch.  Glen had to use his hand to shade his eyes because the sun, nearly set, was at the man’s back.  “That side window looks like the only option,” the man said.

            “We have a complication.”  Greta repeated herself and pointed at Glen.   “Glen, this is David.  David, that was Glen’s family who was taken.”

            “I don’t get it.”  David ran his hand through his curly brown hair.  “What are they doing now that they need to take people off the streets.  I would think that would be a great risk if the locals started to disappear.”

            “But we aren’t locals,” Glen spoke up.  “We’re Americans.”

            “Tourists would give them much more time,” Greta nodded.

            David knelt down and smiled for Glen.  “Don’t worry, son.  We will get your family back, safe and sound.  You need to stay here and keep quiet and for a long time.  Can you do that?”  He pulled out a gun, a German Lugar from the war.  “Souvenir.”  He called it.

            Glen shook his head.  “I need to go with you.  Maybe I can break the enchantment.  You know, coercive magic has limits, like hypnosis.  A strong, familiar outside influence might break the spell.”

            David paused and looked up at Greta.  “How do you know that?”  He asked Glen but his eyes never left the young woman.

            “Greta told me,” Glen answered.  “My Greta, I mean.  Not her.”

            “And she is right,” Greta spoke up and then confirmed for David.  “He is right.  If they are enchanted and I don’t see how they could not be, the presence of their son and brother might be enough to break the enchantment.”

            “I don’t like risking the boy.”  David spoke, this time to Greta.

            “David,” Glen interrupted and his words came out in Hebrew.  “Are you Jewish.  Israeli, I bet.  Secret police maybe?”

            David frowned, grinned and frowned again.  “Are you a Jew?”

            “Nah!”  Glen sounded all American with that response.  “I’m a Presbyterian.”  He looked up at Greta.

            “Lutheran,” she said, softly.

            David shook his head.  “The German, maybe, but how do you speak Hebrew?”

            “I’ve been Jewish a few times,” Glen said like it was the most natural thing in the world.  “I was Korah long ago.  He fought the Witch of Endor, but I don’t like to think about that.  I don’t like witches.”

            David looked quickly at Greta.  She put on a serious face and put her hands on Glen’s shoulder.  “I don’t blame you,” she said.

            “Yeah.  My mom says the first time I saw the Wizard of Oz I ran from the room when the Wicked Witch of the West showed up and I wouldn’t go back no matter how much they begged.  I think I was three or four.”

            David stood, stuck the Luger in his back pocket and pulled out the corner of his shirt to cover it.  “I don’t like witches either, most of them anyway.”  He looked at Greta again.  “We better get going.  No telling what they are doing.” 

            Glen heard, “No telling what they are doing to Glen’s family,” but he was grateful David did not say it out loud.

            It was not far to the side window.  The house was on the end of the row and Glen imagined that was a kindness because only one poor family would share a wall with the witch house instead of two.  David kept his eyes on the corner of the house while Greta stepped up to the window.  Glen saw a mud colored stream leave Greta’s hand.  It was the color of that older woman’s hair, and Glen said as much.

            “You can see the magic?”  Greta asked as the stream penetrated the glass and reached the lock.  The window unlocked itself and drew itself up as well.

            “Sure,” Glen said.  “The other magic was purplish, but dark.  That’s why I ran.”

            Once the window was up, Greta turned to face Glen again.  “There must be some magic in you,” she said.  “Non-magical people cannot generally see the colors of the magic.”

            Glen shook his head.  “But maybe my Greta or another life is helping me see,” he said.

            “You are strange.”  Greta looked confused.  “I do not understand this talk of being other people.”

            “Ahem.”  David coughed quietly.  “Ladies first.”  

            Greta nodded and climbed up over the window ledge.  David helped Glen up to the window and Greta helped him on the other side.  She added “Shhh,” as if Glen did not know that.  David came last and fingered his gun as he touched his feet to the floor.  They were in a dark room since the window caught no light from the setting sun.  They imagined they were alone.  They found out differently when the lights came on and three men in suits already had their guns pulled.

            Amphitrite found the dolphins on her way back.  It was deliberate.  They were in such a playful mood she could not resist.  She loved to go down with them into the depths and shoot straight for the surface and leap out of the water.  Of course, she could swim faster and jump higher than any of them, but that was not the point.  And the fact that she had on her mermaid tail instead of legs was not the point, either.  She did not care who saw her.  The point was it was fun, and she was feeling rather playful.

             That may be why she swam right to the shore in her mermaid form and let the dolphins crowd her out of the water.  The beach was filled with vacationers by then along with all the locals who served and preyed on the vacationers.  There was a collective noise when Amphitrite’s tail vanished and she stood up on her own two feet.  Every eye on the beach was on her, and rightly so.  She was beyond beautiful, as all goddesses are, and she glowed just a little, as all goddesses should. 

            To be honest, there were two sets of eyes that did not see any of what happened.  They belonged to the two policemen who were trying to get a passport from Alice and Pumpkin, who naturally had reverted to her big form so as not to attract attention.  They were also wondering why a United States marine in combat fatigues was lounging in the sand.  Josh and Wilson, who saw the policemen coming, had gone into hiding by the food stand.  When Amphitrite came up to the group, she smiled for the one policeman before she turned to the other.

            “Excuse me.  Perhaps I can help straighten this all out.”

            The eyes of the man she smiled at got very big and he quietly breathed one of her many names.  He did not dare to say it too loud.  “Calypso.”

            Amphitrite frowned.  Presently she thought that name made her sound like a left over Disney character.

            “One minute, missy.  I need some answers first.”

            “Oh, Great Lady, I am so glad you are here.”  Pumpkin was hiding behind Sergeant Thomas’ big shoulders.

            “You need to call your government or home office or whatever you have.  We were all cleared at the airport on special visas.”  Alice the lawyer argued.

            “Alice, dear.  Do you mind if I have a turn?”

            “What?”  Alice paused and squinted before she spoke.  “Be my guest.”

            ”Pumpkin, you can get little if you promise to stay on my shoulder.”

            “But everyone is watching.”  Pumpkin was uncomfortable under the gaze of so many human eyes.

            “You can hide in my hair just like Periwinkle.”

            “May I?  Oh, yes Great Lady.  Thank you Great Lady.”  And without another thought, Pumpkin resumed her natural fairy form and shot straight to Amphitrite’s shoulder where she easily hid in those luxurious black locks.

            “Um.”  The policeman articulated.

            “Josh and Wilson!”  Amphitrite called and the two appeared like the fairy had once appeared.  Wilson stood like a statue and stared.  Josh made a circle where he stood as he tried to figure out what just happened.

            “Um.”

            “Just a minute.”  Amphitrite spoke in her girlish best while she wiggled her finger toward the sea.  A three year old was getting too close to the waves, unobserved.  The boy left the ground and floated safely back to his mother’s arms before Amphitrite turned to the policemen.  “Now, I understand there is a problem here?”  She smiled and at least one of the officers looked like he was going to faint from this vision of loveliness.

             The other officer shook his head, vigorously.

            “Well, good.  If that is all cleared up, we need to go.”  With that word they vanished from the beach and reappeared in the tight quarters of the Kargill cockpit.  Pumpkin screamed.

            “Now, Miss Pumpkin.  It hasn’t been that long since we have seen each other.”

            “Sorry, good Mister Smith,” Pumpkin said.  “I thought you were an ogre.”

            “She says that every time.”  Mister Smith assured everyone.  They were all staring at him with uncertain eyes, Alice in particular.  Amphitrite felt it best to proceed immediately with the introductions, and by the time she was finished, she could see that Mister Smith had won them over.  A Zalanid, it was said, could sell a drowning man a glass of water or a mother her own baby.  Fortunately for the universe, the Zalanid turned their talents toward negotiating peace and harmony in the universe.

            “Pumpkin.”

            “Yes Great Lady.

            “Have you had a good visit?”

            “Oh, yes.  I’ve made lots of new friends.”

            “But I think Moira may be missing you, don’t you think?”

            “Oh, I hope not.  That would not be good.”

            “I think you should go and see, don’t you?”

            “Yes.  Oh, but—“

            “Be good, Pumpkin dear.”  It was hard to say exactly how, but somehow the goddess managed a kiss on that little fairy cheek.  “Say good-bye for now.”

            “Good-bye for now.”  Pumpkin intoned the words exactly like the goddess, and then she vanished.  Amphitrite also vanished and Glen returned to sigh in Amphitrite’s place.  Everyone looked at him.  “It was too crowded in here.”

            “But she was so little.”  Wilson said it.

            “Yes, but I was afraid she would start touching things.  By the way, don’t touch anything until I tell you.”

            Mister Smith laughed quietly so Glen had to ask what he was laughing about.

            “With you, it is always a circus.”

            Glen felt that sounded about right.

            The beach in Bermuda was lovely but sad to say, that was not what they were there for.  Alice had her shoes off to wade in the waves and wet sand.  Josh and Wilson were too nervous to relax.  Josh was going to have to learn how to pilot an alien craft and Wilson was going to be the weapons officer.  Sergeant Thomas was silent and stood near attention.  Sadly, Glen knew there would have to be some military presence, not to mention the Sergeant might be needed as a bodyguard after all, even if not for him.  At least Pumpkin appeared to be having fun.  She had settled on Alice’s shoulder and was talking all about the salty wets blowing in her face, as she called the fresh sea breeze.

            Glen just stood and stared out at the water.  He had no idea where the ship was except that it was somewhere in the triangle.  Amphitrite would know, when he was ready.

            It was very early in the day.  There were a couple of joggers on the beach, but otherwise they did not appear too far out of place, being fully clothed.

            “You see, the thing is,” Glen said for anyone who happened to be listening.  “The gods have always been severely restricted in what they are allowed to do, even for the Kairos to perform his duties.  Since the time of the dissolution of the gods, that restriction has come to cover almost everything.  Danna was allowed to correct an indiscretion of one of her children.  Amphitrite was allowed to punish a poor Mereman and take a Sea Serpent back into the land of legend, so-called.  But as for human interaction, that is strictly forbidden.  Not to say that I have behaved perfectly over the years in that respect, but still.”

            “I don’t follow you.”  Sergeant Thomas spoke up at last since Alice was preoccupied with Pumpkin and Josh and Wilson were trying to figure out what was impossible for them to know anything about in advance.

            “I need to borrow Amphitrite.  The Kargill is at the bottom of the pond somewhere and only she can get to it.  At least the Kargill ship is there.  I fear the Kargil may have already been taken up and left the planet.  That is why Mister Smith has not been around.  That is why the Kargill has not sent him to protest the Vordan presence.”

            “The alien Mister Smith.  I read the briefing.”

            “I am sorry, Sergeant.  Please keep everyone here for as long as it takes.  I will be back.”

            “I understand,” he said, and even as he spoke the Stealth Bomber turned company jet flew overhead and waggled its wings.  Fyodor was taking Lockhart and a very disappointed Boston back to Washington.  Glen looked up and waved, though he doubted anyone up there noticed.  Then he went away and Amphitrite came out of the deep past to stand in his place. Amphitrite said nothing.  She walked straight into the waters of the Atlantic.  She dove or flew over the last curling wave, forty feet out into the deep where she disappeared beneath the foam flecked sea.

            Amphitrite instantly knew where the Kargill ship was parked, down in a trench where even the strongest human robot vessels would fear to go.  But that was not her first concern.  She had to find Melanie, and she did that in short order when she discovered the Gaian nano-chits made her stand out like a flood light on a dark night.

            Amphitrite reveled in the sea.  It was not just because she was once Queen of the sea—Queen of all the waters on the earth, but because in a real sense, the sea was her—part of her very being.  The wind and waves moved in her soul like the blood moved in her veins.  She knew every creature that lived in or on the sea or off of the bounty of the sea, intimately.  She knew them from the smallest plankton at the bottom of the food chain to the lumbering whales that sang of life.  And all of it could be moved and bent or changed as she decided it needed to be.  It was a very heady experience when she thought about it, so she tried not to think about it.

            Amphitrite knew every ship that sailed and every sailor and fisherman that ever labored by name.  She knew all divers and even the most casual swimmer, from the boy in Georgia jumping into a pool of fresh water to the thirteen-year-old girl on the beach in Malibu who only hoped that Mickey would notice her.  She tweaked that one.  Mickey would notice.  But really, she never had a say over people.  She never tested and tried men’s souls with the gods of old.  Being human and mortal in most of her lives would have made that too weird, even for her.  Besides, she had her own job: to keep the waters of history flowing in the right direction, and to watch over the sprites that lived and worked behind the scenes everywhere upon the earth.  Even now her water sprites, her liquid babies were gathering around her making bubbles of sheer joy.  Amphitrite could have stayed and played and been perfectly content for a thousand years, but instead she sighed.  She was a mile down, but still she sighed and left her waters behind.

            She appeared in the Kargill ship, in the control room, and saw that it was expanded in size to accommodate a visitor—not that the Kargill ever had a visitor.  It would be a tight squeeze, but manageable.  The Kargill was gone, as Glen had suspected.  Amphitrite made lights come on and freshened the air with a thought.  Then she sighed once more and got out of the way so Martok could get his hands on the machinery.

            “Thought control.” Martok pronounced after only a few moments of examination.  “I figured as much.”  There would be some adjustments to be made.  After an hour, his nimble, educated fingers having played with the systems sufficiently to make a working model, he turned to the life-support system.  Mister Smith was in cold storage, as Martok put it.  He needed a good thaw.  The process, probably done well over a hundred times during the last few hundred years, went flawless.  The Kargill was not nearly as advanced as some thought, and certainly Martok found the equipment fairly primitive, but it built well. 

            “Traveler.”  Mister Smith came out of his sleep rapidly.  “I see we are alone.”

            “But not for long,” Martok assured his friend.  “I have adjusted this equipment so we can have a human pilot and a human weapons officer.  I will fetch them in a minute along with a marine and Missus Pumpkin.  You remember Pumpkin.”

            “I do.”  Mister Smith smiled.  He had picked up a lot of human expressions over the years, though if he did not wear a heavy coat over his wasp shaped body, he would never pass for a human.  Even then, though his face looked reasonably human, it also looked like he dunked it a few times into a bucket of acid.  Some found him pretty hard to look at.

            “I will also be bringing a lawyer.  She has been studying the Kargill-Reichgo treaty concerning earth.”

            “Because?”

            “There are three Vordan warships parked out in New Mexico.  They need to be convinced to let me send them home.”

            “Vordan?”  Mister Smith rummaged through his photographic memory.  “I do not know these people.”

            “Reichgo space.”  Martok replied, and he shared the light distance from Earth which made Mister Smith whistle—a nasal sound of surprise.

            Martok shook his head.  “Technologically, they are not much beyond the human race.  They had help getting here and I need you and Alice to deal with them while I deal with the helpers.”

            “I see.  What exactly would you have us do?”

            Glen woke up on the aircraft in a sweat, but at least this time his mouth was not bone dry.  Alice, Boston and Pumpkin hovered over him with worried looks on their faces.

            “Was I talking in my sleep?”

            “You were tossing and turning.”

            “A few moans and groans.”

            “You were having nightmares,” Pumpkin spoke up and flitted around the inside of the craft on her fairy wings.  She looked like a trapped and agitated bird.  “I don’t like nightmares.  They’re scary.”

            “I don’t like them either,” Glen agreed, but this one had a point.  He gratefully accepted the coffee Wilson brought, blessed the young man many times over, and then he shouted toward the cockpit.  “Are we there yet?”  He put a good whine into his voice.

            Lockhart shouted back.  “No, son.  Read your comics and stay away from your sister.”  That got Sergeant Thomas to lower yesterday’s newspaper.  He shook his head before he went back to reading.

            “What are you, the three witches of Macbeth?”

            Pumpkin flew up to hover between Alice and Boston.  “Oh, I don’t like witches.”  Alice and Boston joined her on the conclusion.  “They’re scary.”

            Glen sipped his coffee and grinned.

            “Seriously,” Alice said.  “You were getting pretty agitated.”

            Glen sat up.  He called to his clothes.  They disappeared from the back of the chair and reappeared around him.

            “Neat trick,” Alice said.

            “Yeah, if only I could get a shower and my hair brushed the same way.”  He pushed his hand across his head to be sure no strays were sticking up.  “I have so little hair at my age you would think it would behave.”

            “I could brush your hair,” Pumpkin offered.

            “No thank you.  But maybe Alice will let you braid her hair if you ask nice.”

            Pumpkin put her hands behind her back, looked down and rubbed her toe in mid air like a little girl might turn her toe on the ground.  “May I, please?”  She asked in her sweetest voice.  Alice could not say no.

            “Makes me wish I had long hair,” Boston said.  She twirled a curl she had beside her ear, but the rest of her naturally red locks were cut rather short.

            “So what was the nightmare about, if I can ask?”  Wilson came over again with sweet rolls, danish and more coffee.  Glen grabbed the coffee pot and had to be convinced to give it back.

            “Well, let me ask you a question first.  What do you know about parallel universes?”

            “About what?”  Alice asked.  She was a bit distracted with little hands flying around her face.

            “Alternate realities, different dimensions, other earths.”

            “Oh, I know.”  Boston piped up.  “Like every time a person makes a decision, like going left or right, the universe divides and one universe goes left and the other goes right.”

            “That would make a lot of universes,” Wilson said.

            “Oh, infinite,” Boston agreed.

            “Wrong.”  Glen smiled when he said it.  “That is such a silly theory when you think about it—like we have this god-like power to create whole universes whenever we think or move or breathe.  No.  The choices we make are real, universal choices, cross-universal choices and we are responsible for our actions.  I mean, there isn’t a good Boston here and a bad Boston somewhere in some other universe balancing each other out.”

            “So then there aren’t other universes?” Alice  wondered.

            “Oh, yes there are, by the trillions.”

            “So there were trillions of universes from the beginning?”  Wilson was not following either.

            “No.”  Glen smiled and shook his head.  “Imagine reality as a tree.  The Norse understood something like this ages ago.  God planted the roots deep so the tree would grow firm and tall.  We don’t see that part.  But then the tree started to grow and mostly at first it was just trunk, like one reality.  But then branches started to grow, and branches of branches and so on down to the smallest twigs bearing the leaves.  God said, any branch that does not bear fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire, and I believe that.”

            “But something had to make the branches, didn’t it?”  Boston sounded a bit defensive.  “If not our daily decisions, then what?”

            “Time travel, the H. G. Wells way.”  They did not get it.  “I mean with a time vehicle of some kind.”  They still did not get it.  “Okay.  Let’s say you decide that Hitler was the most evil creature that ever lived.  So you invent a time machine and go back to some point before his rise to power, and you kill him.”

            “Doesn’t that change history?”  Wilson asked.

            “No.  You come home and find out Hitler never got killed.  So you go back again, even earlier, and this time you make sure and leave the body mangled and in pieces.”

            “Gruesome,” Boston said.

            “Yes, but you come home and find out Hitler still did not die.  So what is going on?”

            “Oh, wait.  Wait.”  Wilson got excited.  “I get it.  You’re saying that every time you kill Hitler, you actually make a new timeline, I mean branch.”

            Glen nodded.  “But when you come home, you always return to your own timeline, regardless.  It’s a good way to avoid two of you in the same place at the same time.  There’s some law about conservation of something or other.  Actually, time can be stretched like a rubber band, but you will return with or without a ship.  There are all sorts of calculations as to energy expenditure to breach time and how long one can stay in the past and all that.  You don’t need to know all that.  The point is after three or four or a dozen tries, someone figures it out and technology as a means of time travel is abandoned.  But you figure it out.  Small changes make no difference, but if you change history in some significant way, you change the whole universe, not just your world.  And with all of the species from all of the planets in all of the galaxies, even if most have not yet reached that level of technological ability, it still means trillions upon trillions of alternate realities.”

            “Wait a minute, ouch!”  Alice jumped.

            “Sorry.”  Pumpkin was sitting on her head enjoying herself.

            “But you time travel.”

            “I do.”  Glen admitted.  “But I am just moving the same basic genetic code with some equivalent flesh and blood back and forth through time, like I call it, trading places.  There is enough relativity in time, as Einstein said, so I don’t disturb the timeline with my actions.  The Masters, now that is a different story.  They do want to change history and that makes for serious problems.”  Glen stopped talking for a second.  “You don’t need all that information.”    There was silence until Wilson spoke again.

            “So what does this have to do with your nightmare?” 

            “That is for you to not know and for me to find out.”  Glen said, and he lay back to look up at the ceiling of the airplane.  His eyes were on the ceiling tiles, but his mind was somewhere out in the asteroid belt.

            “Oh.”  Melanie sat up.  “I sent for Jillian and my brother immediately on realizing what we were dealing with.”

            “Okay.  We can wait for them.”  Glen sat down on a chair while Melanie lounged on the couch.  After a while, Glen’s stomach grumbled.  “So, does she ever feed us?”

            “I wish you would stop calling it a she.  It is an it, and no it hasn’t yet.”

            The wait was not long.  Melanie and Glen heard the subtle whine of Gaian guns trained on the Nelkorian, seeking to break down the defensive, mental shield, wanting only to leave a stain on the earth where the Nelkorian once stood.  In this case, the Nelkorian did not have an army or the kind of sophisticated weapons needed to return fire and being as young as it was, it probably needed all of its strength to ward off the weapon.  Glen had his ears open and more importantly he had his mind open.  He heard the cry when it came.

            “Mama!”

            Immediately Glen left that place and Kartesh, his resident expert in abominations arrived and smiled for Melanie.  Melanie shivered in awe, but just a little.  Kartesh was only a lesser goddess after all, and not a natural born one at that.  All the same, Melanie felt blessed when Kartesh took her hand and they vanished from the locked room to appear on the street.  The whole front of the building was dust and they could see the Nelkorian struggling to fight off the attack.

            There was a white, shimmering light in the sky no bigger than a doorway, the only sign of the presence of the Gaian.  A beam of intense blue-white light came from that door, but it stopped a few feet from the Nelkorian like it was being held back by an invisible shield.  It did appear to be inching closer, however.  Meanwhile, the people in the street were stumbling about.  Some were unconscious.  Some were screaming.  The Nelkorian could not maintain possession of those hundred or more people and defend itself at the same time.

            “Ah, here she is,” Kartesh said the words as if she was waiting for this very thing—a thing which scared Melanie half to death.  Mama came.  There was a hole torn in the air where before there had been nothing to see, and the creature descended to stand beside her child.  Immediately, the beam from the Gaian ship began to push back.  Poor Ethan and Jillian looked to be in trouble.

            “Help them,” Melanie breathed.

            Kartesh merely smiled and patted Melanie’s hand to reassure her.  She raised her voice.  “Everything and everyone stop right where you are.”  Everyone, Gaian, human, Nelkorian, and everything including even the beam of power being projected from the Gaian ship froze in place.  “Not you, Melanie dear.”  She patted the girl’s hand again and the girl moved.

            Kartesh walked right up to the Nelkorians, and Melanie followed, but stayed one step behind just to be safe.  “Now, let’s see,” Kartesh said, and her hands went up.  Slowly, but with absolute, surgical precision, everything Nelkorian that was above and beyond a normal, human genetic type was removed and vanished, like it never existed.  Melanie watched as the bulbous heads shrank to normal size and faces formed, not like the out of sync, fake face of the girl, but real, live, normal and even average human faces—though Melanie thought the girl might be called cute. 

            When she was finished, Kartesh turned to Melanie and whispered.  “Michelangelo, eat your heart out.”  She grinned, but honestly worried.  She would not violate their minds by implanting a reasonable life story.  The violation of the mind was precisely the objection to their former existence, so what they did with their life at this point would be up to them.  Kartesh did not necessarily see that good would come of it.  Maybe this idea was a mistake.

            Melanie tapped Kartesh on the shoulder and pointed to a police car at one end of the street. lights flashing, siren blaring though they could barely hear it.  The police looked stymied, like there was a giant bubble of force around the whole block that they could not break through.  “Okay.”  Kartesh patted Melanie’s hand once more and they vanished from the street to appear in the Gaian ship which was itself parked in a different dimension.  The Gaian weapon turned itself off, on Kartesh’s instructions, and everyone moved again.

            Jillian went to her knees and pulled Ethan down with her.  Melanie took a second to orient herself and ran to the others.  “Jillian,” she said as she hugged the woman.  “It’s alright.  She’s a friend of mine.”

            Kartesh paid them no attention.  She watched and listened to the Nelkorian mother and daughter as they realized what had happened to them.  They were ordinary humans now, just like everyone else.  The young girl’s eyes got big, but she said nothing.  The mother wailed.

            “Alone.  All alone.  How can anyone live like this?  How can you be so cruel?  Curse you, forever.  Help me.  I am so alone.”

            Kartesh envisioned the mother committing suicide in the near future.  She could not see enough to know if the girl would ever talk.  She was only a lesser goddess, after all, and time she went home.  She turned.  “The Nelkorians across all of the worlds in every parallel dimension will all be restored to normal, human stature as we have done here.  We have been the nexus.  As we have done here, so I will do in all worlds.  God forgive me.”  There was a little tear in her eye when she vanished and Glen came back with the same small tear.

            “Well,” Glen said and he clapped his hands in an effort to change the mood.  “Good to see you again, Jillian.  Would you folks mind taking me up to Chelsea?  I parked my car up there and I don’t feel like walking.”

            Melanie fell back on the couch and began to thrash about.  Glen jumped up.  He wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, but he hesitated.  Finally, he consented, went away and allowed Bridget to take his place.  She went straight for the girl and hugged her.

            “Hold on,” Bridget said.  “I’ve got you.”

            After a while the thrashing subsided.  Melanie was full of sweat and tears, but she seemed in her right mind until she realized the man was gone and there was a woman beside her brushing her hair and wiping the sweat from her brow like a mother hen.

            “What happened to Glen?  Where did he go?”

            “He is right here.”  Bridget tapped her head.  “But he decided the way you were suffering and half out of your mind it might be best to leave you in a woman’s hands.  My name is Bridget.”

            “Bridget?”  Melanie scooted back from her touch.  “Are you an alien?  A shape shifter?”

            “No.”  Bridget laughed.  “Just the worst case of split personality in history.  And it is terribly difficult to keep things straight.  You see, I haven’t been born yet.”

            Melanie was back to shaking her head.  “Weird,” she said, but she appeared to be fully recovered and in record time, like she had help on the inside, which she did.  The Gaian were filled with nano-chits, not silicon nightmares, but organic, microscopic chits which acted like little computers but without the ability for self-awareness.  They could heal a Gaian from the most grievous wounds as well protect their minds from unlawful intrusion.

            “I get called weird a lot,” Bridget confessed.  “But I have dealt with an abomination like this one, or will in the future.  Anyway, this is a new design for me.  Tell me about this, what did she call herself, Nelkorian?”

            Melanie took a deep breath.  “James Nelkor experimented with the genetic code like Doctor Frankenstein.  He made a monster who promptly killed him and replicated itself in both male and female forms.  They feasted on their poor earth and that should have been the end of it, but one of them discovered how to rip open the dimensions and move from earth to earth.  That was when the Gaian went to war.  The war was officially over more than a hundred years ago, but obviously some Nelkorians escaped.  Now they are multiplying again and starting to seed the worlds like they wanted to at first.  The poor human race won’t stand a chance in any universe unless we do something.”

            “Yes, but do what, precisely?”  Bridget fell deep into thought to consider her options, or was it Glen considering his options since it was his life.  Did it amount to the same thing?  Bridget left and Glen returned, and to her credit, Melanie only gasped a little.

            “You must be that one,” Melanie said, but Glen did not listen.  Through Alice of Avalon he was in contact with himself in trillions of worlds, alternate earths, not like individual contact, but like a consensus of voices that came together rather quickly.  He spoke again when he came out from his introspection.

            “I’m glad the number of alternate universes is still limited, though that number is growing every day.

            “Why is that?”

            “I mean, I am glad there is not some evil Glen out there in the worlds.  I appear to be a pretty consistent fellow.”

            Melanie’s eyes got big.  “You are.  You just talked to all of your other selves across trillions and trillions of alternate realities?”  She could not believe it.

            “Yes, well, no, not really.  It was more just a general point of agreement.  And by the way, this is a different James Nelkor.  You know he appeared in multiple earths as well.  Most were not advanced enough for him to do his work, but a few were.  I don’t know who interfered with his work in most places.”

            “The Elders,” Melanie suggested.

            “More than likely,” Glen agreed.  “Anyway, we get to play nexus.  So let’s see what we can do.”