Conversation Space: The Ultimate

[powersthatbe]

You feel as if you've stepped through a door.

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[powersthatare]

"My task is to see that the World does care," he answers, gravely. "It may bode well that you do."

[otomechapilot]

That statement gives her pause: Sara heard the caps.

"Is that why I'm here?" She says. "Because I care about the small w 'world?' Cause I have people back home that need my help. And I don't know how much you know about my home, but I need their help too."

The nonhumans she's met previously were not reasonable beings, but Don Orlea has proven to be very different from those assholes.

[powersthatare]

"There will be others on this Journey who will help you," he says. "But I cannot return you until it is complete. There are too many worlds, and no-one has the power to open a hundred doors to a hundred worlds and return you all."

[otomechapilot]

Sara folds her arms and considers, but not very long.

"Fine. If my friends and squadmates won't miss me till I'm back - if I wake up the next morning as far as they know - I can live with this. Cause a world that cares about the people in it is worth fighting for. But what happens if you lose? If we lose?"

[powersthatare]

"That depends entirely upon who wins. SAGE, Mortimer, and myself can place you back at the point from which you were drawn. Others can replace you, but perhaps not at the same point. Still others... you would never return."

[otomechapilot]

New names. "Are those friends of yours, or just more like teammates?"

[powersthatare]

"SAGE is both. Mortimer... is a more distant ally."

[otomechapilot]

She nods her comprehension, and offers her hand to shake. Hopefully he'll understand the gesture.

"Can I ask why you work with Mortimer?"

[powersthatare]

He mirrors the gesture, awkwardly, but stops short of actually making contact. "We are very different beings. But we have close allies in common."

[otomechapilot]

She'll turn it into a salute, then.

"What else do you think we'll need to know?" she asks.

[powersthatare]

He arches a bandaged eyebrow. "Nothing," he says, simply.

[otomechapilot]

"Then I'll just, how did she put it?"

She does a passable impression of a stern, clipped commander: "Keep my eyes peeled and head on a swivel."

Then she laughs. "Wish me luck, and show me where I need to go?" she asks.

[powersthatare]

"I wish you luck," he says, with formal stiffness, and then, "Look behind you."

Somewhere in the middle of the turn, the island seamlessly becomes the interior of a wooden horse, and the strange bandaged figure is gone.