Young Writers Society

Verona broke into a huge grin. “Lani!” she cried, flinging herself at her friend. “I’ve missed you so much!”

They held each other tight, and for a moment, Verona everything that had happened in the last couple of months, all the times Verona had cursed Lani for not being there when she needed her, were intangible and unimportant compared to their reunion. Lani was here, now, and in the arms of her friend Verona felt happy for the first time since that fateful day on the tram.

They broke apart, and Verona got a good look at her friend for the first time in two months. She would have liked to say that Lani hadn’t changed, but that wasn’t true. Her friend’s once long, blond hair was now cropped shorter than Verona’s in a boy’s crew cut, and that wasn’t the only change. She wore a utilitarian jumpsuit, with a belt hung with gear cinched around her waist. There was something more alert, more confidant in the way she stood, and a lasergun dangled easily from her hip.

“I’ve missed you too,” Lani said. “Being in the Absolutes is great, but I’ve missed everybody. You’ll have to tell me everything that’s happened, but not now. Unfortunately, we’ve got a deadline to meet.”

“What do you mean?” asked Verona.

“We’ve got to get back to Base 4 and get you settled in. In a few moments, they’ll find out you’ve escaped, and there’ll be a manhunt underway.”

“But then we can talk, right?” Verona said.

Lani looked hesitant. “Yes, of course we’ll talk, but Verona, you’ve got to understand the way all this works. I’ve got jobs to do, and you will too once you’re initiated. We might not be able to see each other that often. I don’t think they’ll give you a job like mine.”

“What’s your job?” asked Verona.

“Oh, I’m a field agent,” said Lani proudly. “Best job there is. It’s how we get all the important stuff done – meetings with informants, infiltrations, assassinations. Ulna’s one of us – she’s been undercover at the prison for a while now. But being a field agent means I’m gone a lot. And it’s dangerous.” Her eyes sparkled.

“That sounds…great,” said Verona, disappointed and a little concerned. She was starting to realize just how thoroughly she had managed to cut herself off from everyone and everything she knew and what she had gotten herself into. All she had left was Lani, who would be gone all the time. And Lani’s description of her job – assassinations? It looked like the Absolutes might be playing more dirty than she’d known. Great job, Verona, she thought. You’ve managed to screw things up quite nicely for yourself.

But another voice inside her said I’d do it again, if only he had died.

Footsteps, many and hurried, sounded in the distance and broke the awkward silence. They were coming for Verona, searching the surrounding area in the hopes Verona hadn’t teleported away already. Lani looked alarmed.

“We’ve got to hurry. Here, let me teleport you.” She stepped forward and placed her hands on Verona’s temples. Verona could feel Lani’s mind pressing against her own. They couldn’t form a psychic connection – only twins had one – but the Rooms were intersection points between minds. With permission, a friend could bring you into their Rooms, and vice versa, allowing them to be teleported to a location they haven’t been to before.

It could also allow that friend to Shape your body, but that required much more trust, as body Shaping was dangerous and difficult to get right.

“Let me in,” Lani urged. “Don’t worry, we’ll brief you on where the base is later.”

In spite of herself, Verona hesitated. She trusted Lani, but she was also sure that Lani would believe almost anything the Absolutionists told her, and in spite of their help, she didn’t trust them. They had helped her escape because they knew Nirvana hadn’t meant for her to be imprisoned, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t dispose of her if they saw her as a threat.

Of course, it wasn’t like Verona had anywhere else to go, so she opened her mind and let Lani pull her into the Room.

Verona had never been in another person’s Room before. It wasn’t much different from her own, except that her Room only had a few dozen worlds in it, and of those only her homeworld was anything other than a gray, featureless sphere.

Lani’s Room, however, seeming filled to bursting with globes. In reality, there were probably only a few more globes than Verona had, but almost every one of Lani’s globes were pockmarked with color, and some were nearly all the way full.

“Do you like it?” Lani asked.

“It’s amazing!” Verona said. “How have you been to all these places?”

Lani laughed as she selected a globe and started zooming in on their destination. “Knowing the lay of the land is very important in the Absolutes, especially in my job. We believe in using the gifts Nirvana gave us to their fullest extent, something the government isn’t very good at doing. I haven’t actually been to all of these places – the ones that are filled all the way in are because I studied maps of them. Studying them lets us teleport to more specific areas, even if we haven’t been to them before.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” asked Verona. “You don’t know what’s there – you could teleport into a brick wall.”

Lani opened her mouth to answer, but she suddenly went rigid, as if she had been hit from behind. She uttered a surprised grunt, then keeled over onto the floor, clutching her stomach.

Verona rushed to Lani’s side, hardly able to understand what had happened. They must have found us. But why - why would they shoot? And why haven’t they shot me? Lani was struggling to speak, but the Room was going fuzzy and breaking up, and Verona knew her friend was about to lose consciousness or worse. She couldn’t see the wound in the Room, but it didn’t seem good.

Suddenly, every muscle in Verona’s body seized up and burned like they were on fire. She fell to the floor, twitching, screaming against the pain.

Through eyes half-closed with pain, Verona saw Lani reach up with a last burst of strength and touch their destination. The Room dissolved in a blur, but Verona couldn’t tell if it was the normal blur of transport, or if her friend's soul had gone to Nirvana and her Room no longer existed.