The three months since we had returned from London had seemed to drag on interminably, drawing out like a long, slow sigh after all of the hectic action, frantic emotion, and exhausting drama of our last day inside the Singularity. It had felt like trudging through mud, like every step of progress had to be dredged up from the muck with strenuous effort, and each one made the next slower and more difficult. The haze of uncertainty — of not knowing when it would end and when we would next make the journey to another Singularity — had hung about with the weight and persistence of the toxic fog we had been forced to brave for the entirety of the London deployment.
By contrast, twelve days was nothing. They dwindled rapidly, evaporating away like so much steam, and every preparation I made felt rushed and inadequate, like there just wasn’t enough time to get it all right and done properly. If I thought about it, actually stopped and considered every step I made, then I had to admit that I was being as meticulous and careful as always. My i’s were dotted, my t’s crossed, all of my buttons buttoned and all of my zippers zipped, but that feeling of being rushed wasn’t a rational one, and so it wasn’t so easy to quell with logic and reason.
Outside of that, things still continued like normal. I got up in the morning, took Jackie to the gym for my morning workout — taking a moment afterwards to enjoy watching the twins chase after Nero on the track — then took a shower before breakfast. Afterwards, I had a lesson with Aífe, trying to perfect my runic magecraft as much as possible in the quickly vanishing time before the next Singularity, then had lunch with the twins and Mash, and in the afternoon, gave Mash another swimming lesson.
Someone else might have eased off of those during those last few days to give everyone a chance to relax and breathe before our next deployment, but…
“America has numerous lakes, rivers, bays, and other bodies of water,” Marie explained when Mash brought the topic up. “If it was important for you to know before the London Singularity because you could fall into the Thames and drown, then it’s even more important now! The last thing we need is for you to get swept out by the tide at Cape Cod, or to drown in the Mississippi River! That’s why, we absolutely have to make sure you’re as prepared as you can be, Mash.”
“Of course, Director!” was Mash’s reply. “I-I wasn’t being lazy, I was just curious! Lord El-Melloi II…told Senpai and Senpai that they could have the last week off of lessons, so that their minds could be properly centered on the upcoming Singularity. That was all.”
…Marie wasn’t that someone. And, if I was being entirely honest, neither was I. Fortunately, while an extra week and a half wasn’t anywhere near enough time to master a new skill at all, even with Aífe’s new ability accelerating progress, Mash had already become quite a proficient swimmer. I wouldn’t say she could swim like a fish, but compared to how she was when we first started teaching her, she might as well have been.
So, in a way, our lessons with her in the afternoon were less lessons and more opportunities for us all to unwind a little and have a bit of fun. No matter how thinly veiled an excuse they were, however, Marie would never admit that it was as much a way for her to blow off steam as it was us actually refining Mash’s ability to swim.
Meanwhile, the spider puppets Da Vinci had given me danced about my room and wove. Fed on a diet of my magical energy and whatever I could smuggle out of the cafeteria, they spun lines of silk and, thread by thread, crafted a replacement for the costume I had (metaphorically) handed over to Da Vinci when I was first dropped here after Gold Morning.
I could have asked for the original back, whatever might have been left. But I didn’t need the whole thing, and the original lacked the literal magic I was putting into the new one. The only advantage the original had was the flight pack, and as far as I knew, that had long ago been dismantled and cannibalized for one of her projects.
Every night, I went to bed with Jackie, and she cuddled up to me, burrowing herself so snugly up against me that it was like she thought I would disappear in the middle of the night. The only thing I could do to reassure her — and to brace myself for what it was going to be like sleeping on my own again, without the comfort of her presence — was to wrap my arms around her and hold her there.
I’d thought she was going to be the one who would have the most trouble with my leaving on deployment and her having to stay here, but I’d had the thought before that it might be the other way around, and I was becoming more and more certain of that by the day. How attached I’d become, although I guess I’d warmed up to the Undersiders even faster, hadn’t I?
I couldn’t say I regretted it.
Two days after the briefing, us Masters were granted one, final trip into the Septem Singularity to soak in the Roman baths, as though to give us something to look forward to once the American Singularity was resolved, and then Marie told us all that there wouldn’t be another before our deployment.
“No!” Rika cried dramatically, clutching at her chest as though her heart had exploded.
“It’s not the end of the world!” Marie said waspishly, but it was a very poor choice of words, because even Rika stopped playing around and stared at her, unable to believe the pun. It was only after a second or two that Marie realized it herself, and she scrambled to backtrack. “I-I mean, it’s not that big of a deal! You’ll have plenty of opportunities to bathe again once you get back! But we’re about to Rayshift all of you into a new Singularity, and even if we have the energy to spare now that you’ve retrieved so many Grails, we need to do all of the calibrations to make sure you wind up where and when you’re supposed to!”
“For once, you mean?” Ritsuka said, and the look on his face showed his regret before Marie even whirled to face him with a furious glare. “S-sorry, Director, I didn’t mean… Um, it just kind of…slipped out.”
Marie grunted, then heaved out a sigh. Her letting it go was a visible, almost tangible thing, and no matter how annoyed she sounded, it lacked heat when she said, “Just enjoy it while you have the chance. It’s going to be a while before all of you will be able to do something like this again, so make the most of it, and then prepare yourselves for the next Singularity. If you have any complaints, then the only ones you’ll be able to blame are yourselves, so take responsibility like a proper Master.”
It was a testament to how far we all had come that she let it go at that. The Marie at the start of this all would have — had — been far harsher with them and far less forgiving, but the twins weren’t the only ones who had grown over the course of the last several months and the last two deployments. People were finally getting to see the Marie I had known since I first showed up here, a woman of determination and pride who was very capable of being a good leader, if she just learned to trust others to do their jobs and stopped berating herself for the slightest failures.
We did as she told us to and savored our bath that day. When it was time to leave and return to Chaldea for dinner, several people dithered and dawdled to put it off, well aware that it would be some time before the opportunity arose again for us to take another dip. Nero might have outright refused to leave, if Rika had agreed to stay with her, but fortunately, Rika had enough sense not to try something like that.
The rest of our allotted twelve days disappeared with speed. I did everything I could to prepare myself for returning home, back to Brockton Bay, back to Earth Bet, both mentally and physically. I double, then triple checked my ravens, Huginn and Muninn. I made sure the spider puppets Da Vinci had made for me were full up on their venom so that they could be ready to go without further feeding. I continued weaving for as long as I possibly could, down to the very last moment I could get away with it. I sat myself down and did my best to convince myself that — whatever happened inside of the Singularity — the events of my life on Earth Bet had happened and were over, and they were set in stone. Nothing we did and no one we encountered would change what had, for me, already happened.
It didn’t work quite as well as I wanted it to. It had been a relief, to some degree, to find out that we were going to be going to the Brockton Bay of 2011, before Gold Morning, before Scion, before any of my friends had to face the aftermath of the apocalypse, but in other ways, I dreaded it. Because it was an Earth Bet where I didn’t belong, where Taylor Hebert, Master of Chaldea, twenty years old, had no place.
This was not going to be a happy reunion. I was not going to simply drop in on everyone, smile, and tell them it had been a while, but I was happy to see them. If they recognized me at all, it wouldn’t be the person I was now, it would be the person I was to them then. I had…done a lot of growing myself since those days.
And Lisa… There was no way she wouldn’t notice. The scars on my forehead were faint, but not invisible. It would only be a matter of time before she put all of the pieces together and realized what inevitably waited for her in the future, and I knew what it would do to her to know there was nothing she would be able to do to stop it.
But, equally so, there was nothing I could do to get around that. Sparing my feelings, sparing Lisa’s feelings, those considerations simply paled in the face of the stakes and the enormity of our mission. No matter how much it hurt, if we needed the Undersiders’ help, then there wouldn’t be any avoiding it, not even for me and my best friend.
I wouldn’t call that a comfort, because it didn’t make me feel better. But it let me come to terms with the reality of it all, and the sheer fact that we wouldn’t have a choice made it easier to settle. We would do what we had to do and that was all there was to it.
The morning of the Rayshift arrived much the same as any morning in Chaldea: the halls outside were lit, but my room was dark, and the floor was cold. For several long moments after turning my alarm off, I laid there with Jackie, basking in her presence, memorizing the warmth of her in my arms, both inside and out. I could only stare out into the looming shadows of my room, wanting to stay in the comfort of my bed but knowing that I couldn’t.
Finally, I heaved out a sigh and extricated myself, slipping out of bed and letting my feet drop to the chilly tiles below. A shiver shuddered up and down my spine, tingling across my shoulders and to my elbows, and I ignored it as best as I could as I went about getting ready. A shower was in order first, which helped warm me up a little and wake me up the rest of the way. I might have stayed under the hot spray a little longer than necessary, letting it soak into my skin and pretending that it was washing away all of my worries and concerns.
By the time I got out, Jackie was still in bed. She was just lying there, although I didn’t think she was sleeping. A pang of sympathy struck me — she didn’t want to watch me go, so she was going lay there as long as she could get away with. It wasn’t the same, but I remembered doing something similar after Mom died. Just…lying in bed, numb, staring into nothing and feeling like it would just be a bad dream if I waited long enough to wake up.
I let her be and kept getting ready. There was no reason to force the issue. And besides, I would be a hypocrite if I tried to pretend that I wasn’t going to miss her dearly, too.
When I left to go eat breakfast, Jackie still lay there, and she remained behind as the door whooshed shut behind me. It felt strangely lonely and cold out there in the hallway by myself, but a deep breath helped brace me against it and I walked away.
I wouldn’t say it didn’t hurt a little that she wasn’t going to say goodbye, but I knew why she wouldn’t want to.
The cafeteria was as it always was the morning of a Rayshift, with a smattering of the less essential personnel sat down in scattered seats across the room and all of the on-duty technicians conspicuous in their absence. Emiya greeted me grimly at the counter where he served up the food, and he prepared a light breakfast for me, something that wouldn’t be unsettled when we Rayshifted in just a few short hours.
“Is Renée comfortable taking over for you while we’re gone?” I asked him.
“She is,” he answered. A little smirk curled his lips. “I think she’s looking forward to it, actually. It’ll be the first time she’s really had the kitchen to herself since we got back.”
And the first time she’d be able to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner on her own since we showed up at Jekyll’s apartment. I wondered if she felt a little stifled by having to share the kitchen with Emiya, but I’d seen Marcus struggle under the weight of trying to prepare food for the entire facility and every shift, so she might wind up being grateful to have Emiya back after we cleared the American Singularity.
When he finished dishing me up, I went over to the usual table and sat down to eat, trying to enjoy the food as best as I could. It wasn’t much longer before the usual trio of the twins and Mash appeared at the door, much more subdued and much more serious than usual. Even Rika wasn’t as bright and enthusiastic as she normally was, something that Emiya definitely noticed as he served them their own breakfast.
They found me once they all had their food and picked seats, dropping heavily into them as though a great weight was weighing them all down. I suppose I couldn’t blame them. We were about to go on another harrowing, life-threatening adventure, and their heads had been filled to the brim with warnings about exactly how dangerous a world they were about to enter. It must have been at least as daunting to them as it was to me, if for entirely different reasons.
“No Jackie this morning?” Ritsuka asked conversationally.
“She’s still in bed,” I told him.
“She is?” asked Mash, brow knitting together with worry. “Is she okay, Miss Taylor? Um, I didn’t think Servants could get sick, but…”
“She’s…”
I tried to think of a delicate way to put it. It wouldn’t be fair to say she was moping or throwing a tantrum, because both of those trivialized and infantilized her feelings when they were anything but childish and trivial. At the same time, it wasn’t a crippling depression either, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we came back after everything was over to find out she had spent our entire deployment lying in my bed and sleeping like a hibernating bear trying to weather the winter in peace.
“Coping,” I decided on. “With the fact that she’s going to have to be without me for the first time since we made our contract.”
Had it really been months already? I suppose it had. Sometimes, it still felt new and fresh and confusing, but there was a comfort in the routine of spending every day and night with her not far away.
“I guess she has spent every day with you since we recruited her back in London,” Ritsuka said thoughtfully, glancing towards the ceiling as though it would confirm his thoughts. “She’s probably going to be pretty lonely here without you.”
“Tii-chan can take care of her while we’re gone,” Rika suggested reasonably. There wasn’t a trace of a joke anywhere. “Dunno if she ever had any kids, though. Kinda hard to get up to hanky panky when you and your beau are chasing each other across France all the time.”
And there it was.
“I’ll have to see if she’s up to it.” A pause, and then I asked the heavy question. “Are you three all prepared for the Rayshift?”
They shared a look between the three of them.
“As prepared as we can be,” said Ritsuka.
“Shouldn’t we be asking you that, though?” said Rika. “I mean, this Singularity, Solly made it just to mess with you, didn’t he? There’s gotta be something crazy going on there.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but I wasn’t about to let that keep me from going. I wasn’t about to shirk away from what needed to be done just because the evil mastermind behind this whole thing had called me out in particular.
“It won’t be the first time someone has tried to kill me, or even the first time I’ve walked into a trap meant just for me.”
I’d escaped those times, too.
The twins shared a dubious look, but Mash just turned a grimly determined expression my way and said, “Don’t worry, Miss Taylor. Whatever the King of Mages has prepared, I’ll protect you, and Senpai, and Senpai, and everyone!”
Ritsuka favored her with a smile, but it was Arash’s voice that proudly told her, “Well said, Mash.”
“Arash!” Rika cried as he sat down next to me.
“Morning, everyone,” he said with a smile. “Just thought I’d stop by and check on everything before we got going.”
Jackie? he asked me, and a brief flash of annoyance curdled in my gut. Was I going to have to answer that question another dozen times this morning?
Still in bed, I told him. She’s…not dealing well with having to stay behind.
Ah, he said with something like understanding. I guess someone like her wouldn’t do so well with separation, would she?
He wasn’t looking for an answer, because we both already knew it, so I just pursed my lips and went back to my food.
“We’re as ready as we can be,” Ritsuka told Arash.
“Although I’m really kinda wishing we’d taken notes during our Parahumans 101 seminar,” Rika added. “I think I’ve got my Blasters and my Shakers mixed up, and what’s the difference between a Brute and a Striker if they’ve both got superstrength anyway?”
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“Hopefully, it shouldn’t matter too much,” I said to her. “If we run into any capes, just treat them like enemy Servants and let Arash, Emiya, or Aífe handle things. We shouldn’t be getting involved in the local politics, not unless it turns out one of them has the Grail.”
“Ugh,” said Rika, “Neo-Nazis with the Grail. Something tells me that won’t end up working out too great.” She stuck her finger under her nose and adopted a grumpy expression. “If we see a Servant dressed like a German officer with a funky mustache, I’m just gonna tell Emiya to nuke ‘em and call it a day.”
“Oh dear,” said Mash, “do you really think…?”
“With some of the shit we’ve seen, Cinnabon?” Rika said. She let her hand drop and sighed. “I really, really don’t think that’s out of the question.”
She was probably right. I didn’t know that we would ever face Hitler as a Servant, or even that if the E88 had the Grail that they’d be so bold as to summon him, but if Saint Nicholas was someone I had to admit would be a Heroic Spirit, then even Hitler, vile as he was, had the fame and the legend to make it.
It suddenly occurred to me that — if he was there — it was very possible that we might find gas chambers in Brockton Bay, put to terrible purpose against anyone the E88 decided “didn’t belong” in the city. It was entirely possible he would even depose Kaiser and take control of the gang for himself and start a Fourth Reich.
God, that would be a fucking mess.
“If we do come face to face with Hitler,” I said, “then Arash, no negotiating. Kill him immediately.”
Because there were at least three people I cared about that would be on his list, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. If Brian, Aisha, or Rachel had already suffered under his nonexistent mercies by the time we arrived, then I wasn’t even going to give him the chance to beg.
Arash looked at me askance, faintly surprised, but didn’t contradict me. “Of course, Master.”
“Oof,” said Rika, staring at me. She shivered theatrically. “I felt the ice from over here, Senpai.” She shoved another bite of her waffle into her mouth. “Not that I can blame you. I’m gonna tell Emiya the same thing before we leave.”
Ritsuka sighed. “I feel like I’m supposed to say something about how we can’t turn away any ally we might find in the Singularity, but…”
“Would the Counter Force…even summon someone like that?” Mash wondered.
I wished I could have said no, but the traitor who had brought Camelot to its knees and mortally wounded King Arthur was waltzing around the facility with us and playing video games against El-Melloi II. As villains went, the scale wasn’t the same, but the principle was.
There were some limits that even I wasn’t willing to push, though.
When I was done eating, I stood up and told them, “Make sure you’ve got everything you need to bring along with you before we go,” and then took my tray up to give back to Emiya. Then, I took my own advice and went back to my room to grab Huginn and Muninn and my spider puppets.
Jackie was still in bed when I walked back in through the door, lying there in the dark in the same position she’d been in when I left. I navigated my way through the room, grabbing the bag I carried my ravens in, and loaded them up. Once they were secured snugly inside, I loaded the spiders into one of the side pockets and secured them, too, hiding them among the creases and the folds. My knife and its holster went in their usual place, strapped in tightly, and lastly, I retrieved a singular glove made of shimmering silk. Rolling up my sleeve, I pulled it on my arm, and it went halfway up to my elbow. When I checked it, twisting my wrist back and forth, the slightest glimmer reflected in the light suggested the shape of the runes woven into the design.
Hopefully, they wouldn’t be necessary. But if they worked as I expected them to, then the next step was an undersuit to wear beneath my uniform, one that could protect me better than any suit of armor I had ever made for any of my costumes.
When I had everything I was going to take with me, I padded over to the bed and sat down next to Jackie. With my other hand, the one without the glove, I reached out to her gently and brushed a few strands of gray hair away from her cheek.
“Jackie?”
Green eyes opened, yellow as freshly cut grass, and she regarded me from under the fringe of her bangs. “Mommy’s leaving without us.”
I held back a sigh. “I am. And I’ll be gone for a while, but it’s not forever, okay?”
She tucked her head closer to her chin. “We know,” she mumbled. “We still don’t want you to leave us behind.”
I gave her a small smile.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I promised her. “And…” The idea came to me in a flash. “And once the Singularity is repaired, we can go back together and get a big bowl of ice cream to share. With chocolate, and sprinkles, and anything you want. And I’ll tell you all about Brockton Bay and what it was like growing up there. I’ll even take you to meet my mom, how about that?”
She peered up at me with big, doe eyes. “Really?”
I extended the pink finger on my left hand. “Promise.”
She reached out and hooked her own pinky around mine, and very solemnly, we shook on it. A little smile curled her lips when it was all done.
“Be a good girl while I’m gone,” I told her softly, and then I made to stand.
“Okay,” she replied. “Mommy?”
I paused and turned back to her. “Yes, Jackie?”
Without any hint of shyness or hesitation, she said, “We love you.”
My heart skipped a beat, and almost without any input of my own, my mouth said, “I love you, too, Jackie.”
And it was barely a surprise to realize that I meant it.
Seized by an impulse, I leaned over and pressed a kiss to Jackie’s right temple, and to see the way she smiled, you might have thought I hung all the stars in the sky just so that she could look up and admire them.
If Theo could see me now… It might have just rubbed salt in the wound. How much would it have hurt him to see me do with Jackie the sorts of things he must have done with Aster?
Jackie didn’t protest when I stood up from the bed, although she snuggled a little deeper into the blankets, as though to ward off the cold left in the wake of my absence. It made me want to bundle her up and take her along, and a little voice in my ear that sounded very familiar told me that I probably wouldn’t have to try very hard to convince Marie to let me take her along.
Every time I thought I’d gotten used to it, something happened that made me surprised at how attached I’d gotten to Jackie so quickly.
But I wasn’t going to abuse my friendship with the Director of Chaldea to get my way just because I was going to be a bit lonely at night for the foreseeable future, so I turned and left the room without another word. The door whooshed shut behind me, and I took a breath to brace myself, then adjusted the strap of my bag and began resolutely down the hall. I refused to look back at any point, knowing that my will might just crumble if I let myself dare to think about it too much.
I really was going to miss her.
Alone, I walked Chaldea’s empty corridors, accompanied only by the clack of my shoes on the white tiles beneath my feet, and I made my way through the halls towards the Command Room, where the final pre-mission briefing would occur and the goodbyes would all be said. I met nothing and no one, not even the white little ball of fluff that I was almost certain would somehow find his way into the Singularity with us, as he had every other time before since Fuyuki.
Maybe this time… But no. If only for Mash’s sake, because she loved that little gremlin for some reason, I would try to put up with its presence, no matter how strong the urge to punt it into the bay became.
It was almost a surprise when I finally came upon someone standing in the middle of the hallway, just steps away from the doors to the Command Room, a familiar head of silvery hair hunched in on itself. In hindsight, however, I probably should have expected it. Even though she’d been doing so well the last several months, even though she hadn’t had a major breakdown or a panic attack since we’d come back from London, we were about to head out on our most dangerous deployment yet.
It would have been more surprising if she had carried on as though nothing was wrong.
“Marie?”
For a moment, she didn’t respond, and I slowed as I approached her as though she was a wounded animal. Her shoulders hitched as I drew nearer, and when I came to a stop next to her, her head ducked further down.
“You’re going again,” she said quietly. “All of you. This is…this is your next deployment. The sixth Singularity.”
“We’ve done this before,” I told her gently. “It’s the same —”
“It’s not!” she burst out. “It’s not the same! It’s not the same at all! This time, you’re…!” She trailed off for a second, and then began again, still refusing to look at me, “This Singularity…isn’t the same as the last five. It’s not just enemy Servants you’ll be facing this time, and it’s not just people you’ve never met before who don’t know anything about you, you’re…”
What was I supposed to say? She wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t the same as the other Singularities. This one was personal, with people I knew. People I cared for, people I despised, people I could never forgive and people I could never raise a hand against. It wasn’t just a place or a time I’d read about in a history book or in the pages of some myth or legend. It was going to hit far closer to home for me, just because it was home, a home I thought I’d lost two and a half years ago.
This was a trap, just for me. Whether it was meant to make me give up or simply to make me drop my guard for the finishing blow, it didn’t matter. It was a trap and I was about to walk into it.
“I’ll come back,” I promised. To you, I didn’t say, because she wasn’t the only one who would be waiting for me. “I’m not going to stay behind just because it’s Brockton Bay and Earth Bet.”
Without warning, she whirled about and threw her arms around me, and I was so shocked that the only thing that made its way out of my mouth was a squeaky gasp high in my throat.
“You’re not allowed to die,” she breathed into my ear. Her arms shook. “Whatever happens, whatever you find, whoever is waiting for you there. You’re not allowed to sacrifice yourself. Not again. I still… Chaldea still needs you. There’s still another two Singularities that we have to solve. So you can’t die there. Understand?”
After a moment to get over the surprise, I wrapped my arms around her, too, pretending not to notice the way she trembled. Into her ear, I murmured, “Of course, Director.”
She held me for a moment longer, as though to reassure herself that I was there and real and I wouldn’t simply disappear into thin air the moment she turned away, and then she heaved out a quiet sigh and slowly let me go. As she stepped back, I let my own arms fall. I didn’t comment on the slight redness in her cheeks or the tips of her ears, but she looked far more composed and far more sure of herself.
Marie cleared her throat. “Good. I expect all of you Masters to return completely unharmed at the end of all of this, so I’m going to be angry if you do something reckless and foolish.”
One side of my mouth ticked up against my will. “Of course, Director.”
She nodded, apparently satisfied, and then turned and walked to the door to the Command Room. She hesitated for only a single step, a hitch in her stride right before she got to where the sensors would detect her presence, and then continued towards it. It slid open with the low hiss of hydraulics, and I fell into step behind her as we walked in.
Everyone else was already waiting for us on the inside, including all of the other Servants — minus Shakespeare — and Da Vinci. As a group, they turned when they heard the door open.
“Director Animusphere,” Da Vinci greeted us, “Taylor. Good. That means we should all be ready now.”
“The calibrations have been finished?” Marie asked imperiously, falling into the role of Director far more easily than she ever had before.
“There’s still some uncertainty, but the last fluctuation was an hour ago, and we’re not expecting another for an hour more,” Romani reported. “There’s no better time to do the Rayshift than now.”
“If we wind up on the other side of the country again, I’m filing a complaint with HR,” Rika said brightly.
Romani shrugged and shook his head helplessly. “I’m sorry, Rika, but this time, we can make even fewer promises about dropping you in the right place.”
“I do have a solution for just such an occasion, however,” Da Vinci chimed in. She retrieved a box from off of the Director’s console, much smaller than the last time she’d pulled out something new for us, and from inside, she produced a strange tube-like structure. It was maybe six inches long, and just thick enough around to look like it would be comfortable to grip, made of a cool, matte black metal, maybe aluminum or titanium.
“What the heck?” said Rika. “I thought you said you were making those e-bikes better! That’s got no wheels at all!”
“Hold on,” said Ritsuka, who had apparently realized something his sister had not. “Da Vinci, that’s not what I think it is, is it?”
Da Vinci smiled secretly. “Perhaps. You see, the problem with the previous design was its bulk. It was simply too inconvenient for all of you to carry around, especially across the breadth of an empire the size of Rome.”
“The only thing about Rome deserving of scorn!” Nero added. “Mm-mm! Even so glorious an empire can be difficult to navigate when it is so large!”
“Quite,” Da Vinci agreed. “So I needed to make them more compact, more…travel-sized, you might say. To that end, as I worked on the system we used to change Jackie’s outfit and give Aífe a little boost, I took what I learned to make a…Spiritron Bike, if you like. All it takes is a little application of magical energy, a twist of the main bar like so, and…”
She held out the tube, and before our eyes, a shape shimmered into existence, building itself up from the skeleton of some sort of machine one layer at a time. A motor first, I realized after a second, because then came the frame, the wheels, more plates of that sleek black material, even a tinted windshield that curved up over the tube that was now a handlebar —
Wait. Really, Da Vinci?
“It’s a Lightcycle!” Rika gasped.
El-Melloi II groaned. “Of course it’s a Lightcycle.”
“A what?” Jeanne Alter asked from the group.
Rika grinned and told her, “Oh, we have so got to show you guys Tron when we come back! Both the OG and the sequel!”
“If someone were to suggest that I took inspiration from such a thing, I could not deny it,” Da Vinci said coyly. “In principle, this is quite similar to a form of magecraft known as Shell Projection. Fortunately, although that tube might seem like a simple device, it contains the same battery that powered the previous version, only miniaturized. Although you will still need to feed it a steady supply of magical energy to maintain its form, the drain will be quite negligible. Frankly, your Servants require more energy to stay materialized hour over hour, so you should be able to get quite the mileage out of these.”
A moment later, the bike disappeared entirely, leaving behind only the tube it had started out as, and from inside the box, Da Vinci produced a rounded piece of the same material, shaped perfectly to accommodate the tube. When she slipped it through the semi-circular loop, it slid right in with ease, held snugly and securely. On the other side was a clip, sized for our belts. A harness.
“The holster is designed with you Masters and your uniforms in mind,” she continued. “I won’t promise that it’s impossible for you to lose these, but they’re secure enough that you’ll be fine as long as a Servant doesn’t rip them off of your belt. And if you should find yourself in a situation where you need transportation but don’t have access to your normal methods, then at least these will mean you don’t have to walk the breadth of the North American continent.”
“I’m not looking forward to riding across it either, Da Vinci-chan,” Rika said dryly, but she took the holstered tube when it was handed to her and attached it to the back of her belt after a little bit of fiddling.
“It can’t be helped,” Romani said as Da Vinci reached into the box and gave another one to Mash, then to Ritsuka, and finally one to me. “It would be convenient if the focal point of the Singularity really was where the Grail first manifested and it didn’t move far from there, but it’s entirely possible that we’re wrong and the Grail has already been moved to another location.”
I accepted my own ‘Lightcycle’ and set about rigging it on my belt. Fortunately, it really wasn’t that complicated, it was just harder to do when I couldn’t really see what I was doing.
Ritsuka sighed. “And now that you’ve said it…”
“You jinxed us, Doc!” Rika bemoaned.
Romani could only shrug helplessly.
“To reiterate,” Marie began, “we’re going to Rayshift a team consisting of Taylor, Ritsuka, Rika, Mash, Arash, Emiya, and Aífe into the American Singularity, as close to the 1783 echo in Cape Cod Bay as we can safely manage. Your initial goal is the investigation of this echo, and if there’s no trace of the Grail, to investigate the initial focal point next. Like before, the objective is the neutralization of the era’s deviant history and the retrieval of the Holy Grail. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” said Rika. “Can we file a complaint if we wind up in, like, Chicago or something?”
Marie’s cheek twitched, and she rephrased it, “Any relevant questions?”
“That’s plenty relevant!” Rika protested, but she went ignored, and she didn’t push the subject further. No one else spoke out as Marie’s gaze swept the gathered group. She nodded.
“Good. Finalize whatever last preparations you need, then Team A should head down to the Rayshift Chamber for deployment. It is…” She checked her communicator. “10:13. The Rayshift will commence at 10:30. You have that long to grab whatever last minute thing you need and make your way to your Klein Coffin. Dismissed.”
“And make sure you all come back!” Romani added. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks, okay?”
A couple of the Servants turned to Spirit Form and disappeared, although whether they left or not, I had no idea. Most of them stayed so that they could see us off and watch the Rayshift for themselves. Having already said my goodbyes to the one who really needed to hear them, I turned around and left the Command Room, although I saw Rika and Nero share a tight hug out of the corner of my eye and Ritsuka drift over to Jeanne Alter.
It was almost funny how quickly those two seemed to have bonded. But then, they went through Solomon’s prison curse together, hadn’t they? There wasn’t anything quite like life or death combat to endear you to the one fighting beside you.
I made my way to the Rayshift Chamber with Arash and Aífe dutifully following in my wake, although the twins and Mash weren’t quite that far behind (“Good luck, everyone!” Bradamante called at our backs). It wasn’t long before I found myself in front of the heavy blast doors that had, once upon a time, locked me in to doom me to what I had thought would be a slow, agonizing death. They whirred open to admit us, revealing beyond them the cool, dimly lit room with its cavernous ceiling and smooth floor.
Like last time, four coffins jutted out with lids raised, waiting for us to step inside them. My heart skipped a beat in my chest, but I swallowed past the nauseous, almost instinctual jolt of dread and made my way over to mine. The twins and Mash all did likewise, though they climbed in with far less trepidation than I did.
I hated it, but this was the scar left over from a lifetime ago. I would, I thought, always have some level of claustrophobia, likely for the rest of my life. Some scars took longer to heal than others, and some never quite healed at all.
I still stepped inside and let myself fall backwards into the cushioned harness, adjusting my bag to prevent my puppets from being squashed. My heart thudded traitorously in my chest, and all I could do was close my eyes and take deep breaths to try and calm it. It didn’t stop the uneasy shiver down my spine or the prickle of the skin on my arm.
Hydraulics hissed. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that the lid had closed over my coffin, trapping me inside. A tendril of cold fear still sliced through my stomach like a knife.
“All coffins secure, Director,” Da Vinci’s voice called, muffled almost to the point of being inaudible.
A moment later, the big blast door whooshed shut again, so huge that I could still hear it clearly and feel the slight tremor beneath my feet. The intercom crackled to life almost the instant she was gone, and a familiar computerized voice recited:
UNSUMMON PROGRAM START
SPIRITRON CONVERSION START
A chill swept down my body, from the crown of my head down to the tips of my toes, and a thread of excitement warred with the general sense of dread I had about returning to Earth Bet.
Passenger? I asked the void. Are you ready to go home?
There was no response, not even now, of all times.
RAYSHIFTING STARTING IN 3…
2…
1…
A bright light lit up my coffin, so bright that it seared through my eyelids, and then I was falling through a hole in reality, traveling along an invisible path through a canal of stars that twinkled as I passed. For a moment, for an eternity, Taylor Hebert ceased to exist, and I was one with the universe. I was the thrum of a neutron star, the melody of a spinning black hole, the flash of heat and plasma of the solar wind.
ALL PROCEDURES CLEARED
GRAND ORDER COMMENCING OPERATION
And then the world erupted with the sounds of battle.
Very technically, the last chapter of the London intermission. I thought about filling the space with a little more fluff...but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't bloat out into several more chapters, and I didn't want to do that. Starting a new subplot right after dropping so much hinting and foreshadowing about America felt too awkward and out of place.
So, next chapter begins the North American Epic Tragedy. Neither you guys nor the team is prepared for what I have coming down the pipe, and I already have a half-written interlude that is just waiting for its chance to make it on the docket.
In the meantime, fluff of an entirely different sort is in this chapter, and I hope your metaphorical teeth rot from it.
"No way. That really is the Grail? So fast! We just got here!"