Eos, Chapter 5.1: Back on the Job

A/N: For those just joining us, in this universe, there are 32 parallel realities overlapping each other, and sometimes people fall between those realties for reasons no one really understands. Dameon fell down to the bottom reality 3 years ago to find that this reality has suffered an apocalypse. Now he's a rescue worker who flies all over the former US to bring in other "fallen" and take them back to the one stable country in this reality. Right now, he and his team are on one such mission.

“Five minutes to landing,” June announced over the intercom.

Dameon leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly. Underneath him, the hoverjet shudder into landing mode. This ride had been a long one, three and a half hours of tedium putting them somewhere… southeast? Near the coast, Dameon thought. The reading had come in at five a.m, dragging Dameon and his team out of bed.

Across the tiny cabin, Jade hadn’t put her book down yet, but she was tapping an impatient rhythm on the armrest. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her frown in concentration, red hair tied in a business-like ponytail that swayed as she shook her head at something.

He still hadn’t made his choice. It was the last day of Isa’s three-day grace period. If he didn’t use the code she had given him before midnight, she would assume her offer was declined. Dameon looked down at his watch. He had long since committed the code to memory. All he had to do was go to his texts and enter it in.

Jade knew nothing about any of it, of course. But Dameon didn’t need to ask her opinion to know what she would say. He closed his eyes and heard her voice.

“Um, yes, accept it! Think of all the inside knowledge you'll have. Think of the good we can do with it.”

Or Dameon could simply wait. Do nothing. Remain a rescue worker. It would be easy. Why take a side at all? He had no trust in the government and no faith in the rebels. Why risk everything for an idealized dream?

God, why couldn’t he be left alone?

Another voice swam into his head, this time a memory of a voice he hadn’t heard in three long years. “It does sound all screwed up, but you can make a difference, Dameon. I believe in you.”

The memory blossomed in his mind, nearly four years ago now, a cluttered lab room, a stick of a boy perched on the edge of the table, bushy afro framing an anxious, eager face.

Sam. Dameon’s chest ached. His true brother, four years younger than Dameon, a genius in physics, left behind when Dameon fell through to Layer 32 three years ago. Technically, it was Sam’s fault Dameon had fallen through — a faulty program released a beam of omicrons at exactly the wrong time — but Dameon had never found the heart to blame his brother.

I wish I could, Sam, Dameon thought. I wish I knew if I wanted to.

The hoverjet touched down with its usual slight jolt. Dameon vaulted up, pushing aside thoughts of Sam and rebelling and everything else. For here and now, he had a mission. He exchanged a sly glance with Jade, their hands going to their sides to check their stunners at exactly the same time. Prep was simple this time — a priority four area wasn’t dangerous at all, and according to his watch the weather was perfectly clear.

Outside, the air hung heavy and thick as a blanket, stiflingly warm compared to Eos. June had set them down in the middle of a lonely stretch of rural road. Thick forest towered close on either side of the road. Once, the forest would have been kept well back from the road, but in the last decades, the wild brush had almost swallowed it whole. It had rained recently, and the disintegrating asphalt was damp.

A few paces down, a break in the trees gave way to a driveway, leading to an old house just visible through the trees. “Whoever it is should be in the house, I’m guessing,” said Jade, consulting her omicron reader.

“Dameon, the scanner says the fallen is with a group of others,” June’s voice said in Dameon’s ear.

“Could they be the exiles?” At Dameon’s side, Jade’s eyes went wide.

“I can’t tell,” June said. “Be careful. Remember, we’re not allowed to fight them.”

“I know that.” I’m not stupid.

“Sneak up the driveway, you think?” Jade said, eyeing the forest.

Dameon hesitated. “No, no reason to hide that we’re coming. If it is the exiles, they didn’t try to hurt the last group who saw them. Besides, there aren’t any vehicles here other than ours — they’re supposed to have Jeeps, ATVs, the works.”

He and Jade hurried up the driveway. The ancient house loomed over them, dilapidated and overgrown. Its windows were broken and in places the wood seemed to sag, but it still had a roof and its structure looked sound, putting it ahead of most houses.

The front doors were heavy oak, intricately carved, and they were standing open. Inside, a hallway and a staircase were wreathed in shadow. Distant voices drifted from inside.

Dameon lifted his hand and knocked on the door. “Hello?” he called.

The voices hushed, and for a minute no other sound came.

“Should we go in?” Jade whispered.

Dameon motioned for her to wait — something was moving down the hallway. An old but hardy bearded man stepped out of the shadows and halted on the threshold of the house. He frowned, his arms folded. “Who’s you?”

“We’re from Vitas,” Dameon said.

“Never heard of it,” the man said. “That your gang?”

“No, it’s a country,” Dameon responded in even tones even as he blinked in surprise. These days, it was rare to meet a feral who didn’t know what Vitas was. He supposed that with little other than deep forest around for miles, if there had never been a fallen nearby before — and since this was a low-population area, that was likely — they really would have no way of knowing about Vitas.

“We cover much of what used to be Canada, as well as parts of the former northern US,” Dameon explained.

Now it was the man’s turn to look surprised — and suspicious. “You’re mad,” he said gruffly. “That many people, organized like that? Not since the collapse. You don’t talk like you’re around here, that’s for sure, but then how did you get here? And what in the — “

“Would you like to see our hoverjet?” Jade cut in. “It’s parked in the road outside.”

He glared at the interruption and repeated himself. “And what in the name of God would you want with us, huh?” After a moment’s pause, he added, curious, “A hoverjet?”

“Like I said, we’ll show you if you want,” Jade said. “And what we want is simple, really — “

“Has someone new… arrived here recently?” Dameon asked. “This morning, maybe a little earlier. Confused, didn’t know where they were?”

The man stared at them for a long moment. “Come inside,” he said, stepping back from the door. “We’ve been trying to get some sense out of him.”

“Thank you,” Dameon said, holding out his hand as he crossed the threshold. “I’m Dameon, and this is Jade. If all goes well, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

“Jonathan Cox,” the man nodded, giving Dameon’s hand a firm shake. He led them down the hall. “Showed up this morning, just a few hours ago, rambling about everything suddenly having been abandoned and overgrown. Says one moment he was walking downstairs, everything went black, a second later his house is in ruins and nobody in sight.”

Him and everyone else who had ever fallen through the dimensions, Dameon thought grimly.

“Yeah, that’s the kind of guy we’re looking for,” Jade confirmed.

“He’s in there,” Jonathan gestured through an open door. “Have a seat. I’ll call the others, and you’re going to explain exactly what you want with Mitch.”