"I know you're telling me that my brother is gone, but he and I are twins. We are connected. He's still alive somewhere."
-Oriana Sanders

ESTHER

I can't believe what I'm seeing. Everything Tamara told me is true. I'm back on Earth, but also back in time, standing in a public park, surrounded by kids and adults and dogs and birds and squirrels. Nothing has been destroyed, no one has been corrupted. 

"You still have the portable FTL drive, right?" Tamara asks. 

I nod, though I'm too busy looking around at everything that is still so full of life to really process that I'm still holding the FTL drive in my hand.

"Excuse me, can you tell me what day it is?" Tamara asks someone passing by us. 

The man doesn't answer. She tries another person, who still doesn't answer. She grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me into focus. "We need to figure out the date. We might be too late or too early, I have no idea."

I see a man walking toward us on the path, so I wave my hand at him and say, "Excuse me, sir. What day is it today?"

"Monday?"

"The date?"

"July 1, 20--"

"--Thank you," I interrupt him and turn back to Tamara. "Are we too late? Do we have time to find my cousin and the boys?"

"We have five days until the end of the world," she says.

"Is that enough time?"

"It's enough time to find them somewhere and get out of here. That won't be easy. We're in DC right now. Do you have any idea how many people are alive in DC at this time?"

I shake my head.

"Too many for us to just easily find the people we need to find."

"Any ideas where they could be?"

Tamara shakes her head as she scans the park. "We are near a coffeeshop where some of us would go before our mission to Janus training sessions. If my crew is here, it's possible they are in familiar places."

"Let's check there then," I say.

I follow Tamara down busy streets, a few blocks in the blistering heat, and by the time we turn onto the street of the coffeeshop, I'm desperate for water or something with ice, anything. 

"How are we supposed to survive here? We don't have any money," I say as we near the shop.

Tamara's face brightens. "We won't need it. We found them."

She hurries toward the coffeeshop door, and now that she's out of the way, I see what she saw in the window: Tempest, Neo, and Yuri sit at a table in the front of the shop with Galaxy. 

"Michelle," Tamara calls once we are in the air conditioning.

Galaxy slowly stands up and walks over to Tamara, before wrapping her in a hug. "What are you doing here?" Galaxy, or I guess Michelle, asks.

But I can't be bothered with their conversation. My heart pounds in my chest and my feet move to the beat, carrying me to my cousin. 

"Esther!"

"Tempest," I cry, hitting her body so forcefully with my embrace that both of us lose our breath. "I'm here to bring you home," I say. "You're going to go home."

"She can't," Yuri says, standing up.

I wipe the tears from my cheek and bow before him. "Your father sent me to get you too. You as well, Neo. We are all going to go home."

"No. We aren't," Yuri says. 

"We can't talk about this here," Galaxy says, grabbing my arm. "We need to go back to the Janus crew place and talk. Don't make a scene, don't ask questions, just follow me out. You too Tamara."

"Is she serious? What's going on?" I ask.

"She's serious, just follow her," Tempest whispers to me. 

I take Tempest's hand and together, we walk back into the scorching heat to follow Michelle-Galaxy. I keep an eye on Yuri the whole time, though. He seems hollow. This isn't what I expected. None of this is what I expected.

***

After lots of sweat and dehydration, we reach a memorial that looks familiar to me from the textbooks I'd read in school. Ironically, from the very textbooks Michelle-Galaxy would use to teach me, back when she was... different. We are at the Lincoln Memorial. Before we climb the stairs to see President Lincoln on his seat, Tamara turns back to us and says, "There's a water fountain down there. Go get yourselves something to drink."

The four of us young people rush to get in line to drink, while Michelle-Galaxy and Tamara hang back. Apparently they are immune to thirst.

While in line, I turn to Tempest and whisper, "What the hell is going on here?"

Tempest looks around, and then says, "Michelle will explain. But we are stuck here. I'm sorry."

"No, we aren't. Didn't you hear me? I'm here to bring you all home." 

I wave the portable FTL drive in front of her. 

"This will take us back to the Mayflower."

Her eyes light up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Why? Was... was Michelle-Galaxy just going to have you all die here?"

"Shh," Tempest reminds me, and then she whispers, "She has a plan for Yuri. He won't make it."

"He has to. The Emperor thinks you pushed him to come here. We can't go back with just you, me, and Neo. I promised I would bring Yuri home."

"If you can convince him to come, good for you."

Tempest sounds angry at this, but doesn't say anything to Yuri who is standing a few people behind us in line. What happened between them?

"Well," I whisper, "we have five days to convince him, and if not, trying to explain yourself to the Emperor is better than being here when the blasts happen."

"Yeah, we'll see about that." Then she smiles. "Thank you for coming for me. I am glad I'm not alone, you know, just in case we don't get out in time. I'm glad my family is here with me."

That gives me an idea. "We have family here, actually. We do. Want to try to find a way to get to Pennsylvania with me? Before we leave? We can meet our grandparents, your great-grandparents."

She smiles at this, but so much of her joy and spunk that I'm used to seeing in her has been sucked away it seems with each portal jump. "I'd love that, but it depends on what's going on."

Finally, it's our turn to get a drink, so we hydrate as much as possible, and then rejoin Tamara and Michelle-Galaxy at the foot of the stairs, where Michelle-Galaxy is finishing explaining something to Tamara. 

"So, I'm mindless back on Janus now?" Tamara asks.

"Yep," Michelle-Galaxy says. "You'll get used to it." She pats Tamara on the back.

"And that's why no one can see me?"

"Yep. Again, you'll get used to it."

"No one can see you?" I ask.

Michelle-Galaxy waves me away. "It's a long story." The real Galaxy would never do that, she'd teach me, but this isn't the real Galaxy. Or maybe it is? I can't keep up with everything. I just need to get Yuri, Neo, Tamara, and Tempest back home.

Neo and Yuri join us now from getting a drink as well, and it almost seems like Neo is acting as Yuri's guard. What the hell is going on with Yuri? This is all so strange.

The six of us ascend the stairs of the memorial and when we have finally reached the top, Galaxy turns to the left where, in the shadows, behind a roped off section of the memorial, sit about twenty Janus crew members like Tamara and Michelle-Galaxy. I recognize so many of their faces from Hicksmon, but as I've learned from Michelle, they are not the people I know.

"Hey crew," Michelle-Galaxy starts, "I found these guys by where the portal drops off today. The three you don't know aren't invisible. They are going to save the world."

The crew, apparently the invisible crew, cheers. 

We are going to do what?