Echo of Two Worlds
Book 5 — The Last Full Stop

The Fourth Observer

Lira's Archive

The Consortium. Ten years later.

In all those years, our life never did become normal.

It became ours.

We no longer woke at every signal from the Archive, no longer grabbed for weapons whenever a portal opened, and no longer gathered the whole family in the middle of the night just because someone had had a suspicious dream.

Though that last rule had to be repealed about a year after Eva was born.

Our daughter had inherited far too much from her father: the red wolf eyes, the impossible calm in the face of yet another catastrophe, and an astonishing ability to say the most terrifying things as though she were asking what was for breakfast.

That morning, it was her voice that woke me:

— Mom, just don't get scared.

I opened my eyes.

Eva stood beside our bed in black pajamas. Her long dark hair lay in disarray over her shoulders, and in her hands she held a small matte-black cube.

Anubis, who had been sleeping at my feet, lifted his head, saw the object and hissed instantly.

The Author lay beside me. His eyes were already open.

— I'm not scared yet, — I said carefully. — But I don't like the opening one bit. Where did you get that?

— It was under my pillow.

— It wasn't there yesterday.

— I know.

— Archive?

A blue hologram flared in the room.

— The object is not registered. The moment of its appearance was not recorded. Cameras, sensors and the internal security system detected no intrusion into the residential complex.

— Wonderful, — I muttered. — Ten quiet years. That's more than I ever expected to get.

The Author got up and looked at the cube.

It reflected no light at all. It seemed that what Eva held was not an object but a neatly cut-out piece of emptiness.

— I didn't touch it, — our daughter said at once. — Almost.

— Eva…

— Only once. Just a little.

A thin red line ran across the surface of the cube.

The Author's eyes flared the same color.

In an instant I swung my legs off the bed and reached for my bracelet.

— Archive, gather the family. Everyone.

Four minutes later, our living room was packed.

The Architect arrived first — barefoot, in black trousers, a cigar in his mouth. Earth's Artem came next with his wife Gemini. She held her husband's hand tightly, but still found time to hug Eva and check that the girl was unharmed.

Gina and Alpha arrived together with Pirate and Dexter. Dmitry came in last with a bottle of cognac, looked at the black cube, and silently set the bottle down on the table.

— I won't even ask. But I have a feeling it'll come in handy.

The Architect leaned over the object.

— Archive, composition.

— Unknown.

— Energy structure?

— Absent.

— Age?

— Impossible to determine.

The Architect drew on his cigar and looked at his brother.

— Congratulations. Our family now owns a thing even the Archive knows nothing about. I'm starting to miss the days when people simply tried to kill us.

Eva carefully set the cube down on the table.

— It appeared after the dream.

I looked at her at once:

— What dream?

— I was grown up. Much older than I am now. Everything around me was burning, but not with ordinary fire. The stars were burning. I was holding this cube and talking to someone behind a door.

The Architect stopped smiling.

— What door? — Earth's Artem asked.

— A black one. Not the Last Door. This one was bigger. It wasn't trying to erase anyone. It was holding someone inside.

— Who? — Gemini asked.

— I don't remember. But the grown-up me was very afraid he would get out.

The red line on the cube flared brighter. Anubis hid behind my legs.

— Mom, in the dream the grown-up me asked me to pass something on to Dad.

Everyone looked at the Author.

— What exactly? — I asked.

— That the ten years are over.

The cube opened without a sound. A hologram of the adult Eva appeared above the table. She was about thirty. She wore the Architect's long black coat, and her eyes burned so brightly that her face was barely visible.

— If you're seeing this recording, it means my younger self was safely born, the Last Door has been destroyed, and the timeline has held. Mom, Dad… I'm sorry. I couldn't reach you any sooner.

Behind her, for a moment, a gigantic door appeared, hanging in the middle of dead space. Something struck it from the other side. The surface of the door buckled.

— I held him back for ten years. But now he knows where the Consortium is. And he knows who created him.

The recording cut off. Three lines appeared in its place:

BEARER: EVA ELKIND

STATUS: FOURTH OBSERVER

TIME TO SEAL COLLAPSE: 09: 59: 58

The countdown began.

Eva looked at her father:

— Dad, you wouldn't happen to know who I was supposed to be holding behind that door?

The Author laughed:

— One more stupid creature, the fourth by my count, that's going to try to dictate its terms to me all over again.

The Architect took the cigar out of his mouth:

— Ten years on, brother, and your diplomacy can still stop any war. Though usually only after the other side has been annihilated.

The hologram of the adult Eva suddenly turned her head.

She had heard him.

— Dad, it's not a creature. And it isn't dictating terms to you.

Dexter was at the cube in an instant:

— This isn't a stored message. The link is two-way.

— The channel cannot be traced, — the Archive confirmed. — The signal is coming neither from another point in space nor from another time.

— Who were you holding the door against? — I asked.

The adult Eva looked at the Author.

— His last character.

— He stopped writing the script ten years ago, — the Architect said coldly.

— Which is exactly why that one was left unfinished.

The cube began to rise slowly above the table. Its plates slid apart, revealing an utterly black core. The space around it warped.

The Architect was in front of us in an instant. Earth's Artem shielded Gemini with his body, and she activated her azure chains and readied herself to defend her husband. Gina and Alpha took up positions beside their father. Dexter and Pirate sealed the exits.

— Protective perimeter activated, — the Archive reported.

— Nobody leaves, — the adult Eva said. — If you open a portal, he gets a road into every reality the family has ever visited.

A low male voice came from the black core.

What was frightening was not what it said.

What was frightening was that the voice sounded exactly like the Author's.

— He didn't create me.

The Architect slowly turned his head toward his brother.

— Looks like the fourth idiot knows you a little too well.

— I know him better than any of you. I was there long before Lira, the Architect, Gemini or the Consortium ever appeared.

A figure appeared inside the cube — the same height, the same shoulders, the same wolf stare. Only the eyes remained completely black.

— You know my name, Artem Elkind. Ten years ago, when you left your world, you decided to leave me behind in it. You took the power, the love, the freedom and the new life. You left me everything else.

The Author smirked:

— Okay, so, one more anomaly — but a creature all the same, and an idiot all the same, judging by your behavior.

The figure did not take offense.

— That is exactly the answer I expected.

The Archive ran a full scan. Thousands of lines appeared around the figure, folding themselves into a sphere of data.

— The object has no unified biological, digital or energy structure. It consists of fragments of deleted realities.

Scraps of worlds flared up around us: the station the Author had once powered down with a single command; the figure that had tried to compress realities; the diplomat who had threatened thousands of people; the creature that had offered a life without pain or choice; the shadows that had come for our unborn daughter.

— Every reality leaves an informational trace, — the Archive reported. — Even after complete deletion. Over ten years, the fragments merged.

— Like garbage that piled itself into one big heap and learned to talk, — Pirate concluded.

— A fairly accurate definition, — Earth's Artem agreed.

The adult Eva struck the invisible barrier with her palm:

— Stop provoking him! He gets stronger every time you acknowledge him as a separate person!

Everyone fell silent at once.

— Now that would have been worth mentioning earlier, — the Architect observed.

Eva asked:

— Why does he look like Dad?

— All the detected alterations of reality were carried out by a single power, — the Archive answered.

— His power, — the creature confirmed. — He deleted worlds, rewrote consequences and decided who deserved to exist. Each time, a particle of his will remained. It bound together everything that was destroyed.

— So you're not who he used to be, — I said.

— No.

— And not his copy.

— No.

The Architect smirked:

— So my brother was right. You're just an anomaly.

The black eyes flickered.

The Author took out a cigar, lit it and smirked:

— So there is no choice, since any decision at all makes you stronger. You're an anomaly, and judging by your reaction, you've admitted it. Any interference or any splitting up will lead to the family falling apart. Very good. Then only one thing remains: I accept all your terms.

For a second the creature froze, clearly not expecting that answer.

Then it suddenly materialized right in the middle of the living room. The lines vanished. The timer went dark. The cube dissolved.

The Author laughed:

— Point proven.

His eyes lit up. He waved a hand, and neural bracelets snapped shut around the anomaly's wrists and ankles. The creature fell.

The Author set a chair beside it, turned it back-to-front and sat down.

— And now, let's get acquainted one more time.

I looked at my husband and couldn't hold back a smile. Ten years hadn't made him any less insane. He had simply learned to use his own insanity more precisely.

— As long as it existed as a condition, it couldn't be touched, — the Architect realized. — But my brother accepted the terms, and the anomaly had to become part of reality in order to receive that consent.

— Confirmed, — the Archive reported. — The object voluntarily passed into a material state and began to obey the laws of the Consortium.

— So the greatest enemy climbed into the cage on his own? — Pirate laughed.

— His logic was built on resistance, — Earth's Artem explained. — He'd calculated refusal, attack, inaction and an attempt to split up. But not total agreement.

The image of the adult Eva began to break apart.

— The timeline has changed. Dad didn't do that in my past.

— What did he do? — I asked.

— He refused to accept the terms. He sent part of the family to rescue the other Lira and stayed behind to hold the door himself. The anomaly gained two points of existence. A rift opened between them.

The adult Eva smiled at her father through her tears:

— This time you beat it with your very first decision.

Little Eva pressed her palm to the palm of her own adult self.

— My future no longer exists, — the adult one said.

— Will you disappear?

— The me you're looking at — yes. But now you'll live a different life.

— Will it be better?

— That will be your choice.

The hologram scattered into particles of red light.

◆ ◆ ◆

The anomaly called itself the Remnant.

After materializing, it had no power and no channels of communication left, but the information it had brought was real.

— When you left your world, a causal void formed in it, — the Remnant explained. — Artem Elkind couldn't simply vanish. He still had documents, a job, bank accounts, acquaintances and obligations.

— The world created a virtual replacement, — I remembered.

— At first, the simplest compensation. A set of messages, calls and other people's memories. People went on believing he existed, he was just temporarily away. Every new question created a new answer. Every answer added details. The digital trace began making decisions on its own.

— An intelligence is capable of learning, — Gemini said. — Even if it started out as an imitation.

— Before leaving, the Author assumed the world would create a virtual him. When it first manifested, the Author destroyed it with a snap of his fingers. But he destroyed only the manifestation, not the cause. The vacant place bearing the name Artem Elkind remained.

— Reality created a replacement a second time, — Dexter realized.

— The second time, it learned from the mistake. The new Artem Elkind made no attempt to leave the bounds of his world. He strengthened his position inside it: went back to work, restored his connections, gained access to the accounts, found the people who had once hunted the real Author, and offered them a deal.

The impostor used a look-alike, surgeries, a modified voice, documents and the real Artem's preserved medical samples. For the people around him, that proved to be enough.

— He learned to use the faint residual alterations of reality, — the Remnant went on. — In the Author's world they grant neither immortality nor energy power, but they make it possible to sense portals, and people who have come into contact with another reality.

A house in the Cayman Islands appeared on the hologram. Armed men were watching a woman who looked frighteningly like me.

— That's why he needs the other Lira. She's the only person in the Author's world whom he deliberately saved, changing the fate that was meant for her. She carries the strongest trace of his choice.

— What is he going to do with her? — Eva asked.

— Take her alive. She's the first half of the key.

The Remnant looked at the Author.

— The second half is you. The attack on the woman is bait. The impostor is counting on the real Artem coming back for her and opening a portal. After that, he'll try to seize the Author's phone and force him to voluntarily invite him into the Consortium.

— He studied my brother for ten years and still thinks he can force him? — the Architect asked.

— Then he studied badly, — Pirate observed.

The Archive zoomed in. There were twelve men near the house, and four more waiting in the cars. A boat sat in the harbor.

— The seizure is expected to begin in thirty-seven minutes.

The Author looked at me and the Architect, sending an encrypted mental message:

PROTECTIVE PERIMETER AROUND THE OTHER LIRA. SEND HER TO THE CONSORTIUM.

— Now that's interesting. Go on, — he said, while the Remnant told us about the impostor and his own squad of seven people, whom he called his family.

I heard my husband's decision before he ever said it aloud.

— And with the real, merciless you, my love. Lead the operation, — the Author said, and kissed me tenderly on the lips.

I returned the kiss, then turned to the family.

— Archive, prepare a direct crossing into the boat. Dexter, load an autonomous copy of the tactical complex. Pirate, you block the engine, the weapons and communications. Gina and Alpha take the upper deck. Earth's Artem and Gemini hold the perimeter around Eva. Dmitry stays with the Architect. The Author stays next to me. He doesn't take out his phone, doesn't rewrite reality and doesn't blow anything up without my permission.

The Architect laughed:

— She really is your wife, brother.

The portal opened.

I was the first to step into the boat's engine room.

In ten years I had grown used to being a wife, a mother and the keeper of our home.

But the Archivist had never gone anywhere.

She had simply been waiting for the day the family would need her again.

◆ ◆ ◆

The operation took a matter of minutes.

Dexter seized control of the boat. Pirate stripped it of its engine and weapons. Gina and Alpha neutralized the guards. A short spatial jump carried us to the house.

The first SUV came to a stop across the road after I landed on its roof and knocked out the driver. Pirate tore the weapons away by force of will. Earth's Artem moved beside his wife Gemini: she held the attackers with her azure chains while he shut down their electronics. The Architect stopped bullets in front of his own face and sent them back precisely into the engines of the cars.

The Author never left my side. He let me lead.

The last two attackers burst into the house.

I reached the entrance first.

In the middle of the living room stood a woman with my face. Only her eyes held none of the Consortium's experience or the Archivist's power. There was ordinary human fear in them.

— Let her go, — I said.

The weapon in one man's hands crumbled to pieces. Gemini burst in after me, wrapped the second man in an azure chain and slammed him into the ceiling.

— Alive, — I reminded her.

— He's alive.

The other Lira stared at me, unable to say a word. Then she saw the Author.

— Artem?..

He stopped.

Before him stood the woman he had once refused to kill. The woman with my face, for whose sake he had abandoned his old life and, in the end, found us.

I went up to her first.

— It's all right. We're here to help.

— Who are you?

— Lira Voss.

She gave a nervous laugh:

— That's my name.

— I know. It's a long explanation.

The television on the wall switched on. A man appeared on the screen, trying to look like the Author: the same haircut, a black shirt, stubble and a cigar. But the resemblance remained artificial.

— The operation has failed, — the impostor said. — Then again, I had allowed for that possibility.

He looked at us.

— Now I understand why he refused to carry out the contract.

The Architect stepped up beside his brother.

— So you're real too, — the impostor said.

— Unlike you, — the Architect replied.

— For the last ten years, I'm the one who has lived in this world. I worked, made decisions and cleaned up the consequences of his actions. To the state, the banks and his acquaintances, Artem Elkind is me. And here you're nothing but a man who vanished ten years ago, leaving behind blood, debts and corpses.

I took my husband's hand.

— Choose your words more carefully.

The impostor smiled:

— Welcome home, original. Let's see whom this world chooses as its real Artem Elkind.

The Author looked at me and the Architect. We heard his encrypted message; the impostor noticed nothing.

— Uh-huh. Go on, take this world, — the Author laughed.

While the impostor's attention stayed riveted on him, I went over to Earth's Lira.

— In a moment a field will appear around you. It will carry you to a safe place. If you want to come back afterward, that will be your choice alone.

She looked at the Author and nodded.

Dexter activated a silent crossing. Earth's Artem and his wife Gemini shielded the portal from the camera and left with the woman.

The impostor went on proving that the world recognized him and him alone.

— You still haven't understood, — I said. — He doesn't need your office, your company, your accounts or the recognition of the people he left behind. He came back for her.

The impostor saw the empty house on his monitor.

— Where is she?!

— Home. In my husband's real home.

While he was delivering his monologue, Dexter downloaded all the data. The impostor's biometrics did not match the real Author's. The documents and financial information were handed over to law enforcement, the assets frozen.

— You can't just leave! — he shouted. — You have to face me and prove which of us is real!

I pressed myself against the Author's shoulder. The Architect stood on his other side and laid a palm on his brother's back.

— He doesn't owe anyone anything. For ten years you tried to make the people around you recognize you as Artem Elkind. For him, it's enough that his family chose him.

Eva waved at the screen:

— Goodbye, not-real Dad.

We stepped into the portal.

◆ ◆ ◆

Earth's Lira stood by the Consortium's panoramic window.

When the rest of the family appeared, her gaze settled on the Author. She walked up to him.

— Ten years ago I received an anonymous message: instructions, money and a new route. I was told to drop everything and disappear. I followed every instruction, and all this time I've been trying to understand who saved me. Was it you?

— Yes, Lira. It was me, — the Author answered calmly.

She slapped him across the face.

The Architect flared up, Gina stepped forward, but I stopped them.

— Do you have any idea how frightened I was? I abandoned my home, my friends, my whole life. For ten years I flinched at every phone call!

She raised her hand once more, but instead of striking him, she embraced him.

— Thank you. Thank you for not killing me.

I felt a sharp, human jealousy. A woman with my face stood before me, embracing my husband.

But it wasn't a rival I saw.

I saw a person who had only now met her savior.

— Why did you risk everything for me, of all people? — Earth's Lira asked. — We'd never met.

The Author didn't look away.

— I didn't know you existed in real life until I was handed the contract to eliminate you. Before that, I was writing a crime and science-fiction saga in which I invented everyone you see in front of you. I created Lira Voss too, who in the end became my wife and gave me our girl, Eva. I fell madly in love with my wife. So I couldn't let the other her — meaning you — disappear. I did what I had to do: I helped you go into hiding, and I myself went to them, into the other world. Or rather — I simply vanished.

— So you didn't save me because you loved me, — she said quietly.

— He saved you because his love for me wouldn't let him kill a woman with my face, — I answered. — But the decision he made was for you. He gave you the chance. You made the choice.

Earth's Lira learned that the contract had come from her own husband. We offered her safety, an apartment and the right to decide for herself whether to ever return to her old world.

Eva went up to her:

— Can I call you Aunt Lira?

— I suppose you can.

— Then you're part of the family now.

— A person has to want that for themselves first, — I reminded her gently.

— Fine. Do you want to be part of the family?

Everyone laughed. Even Earth's Lira.

The Archive reported that the impostor had left the rehabilitation center before the police arrived. A message had been left in the office:

YOU GAVE ME YOUR WORLD.

I ACCEPT YOUR CHOICE.

WHEN YOU WANT IT BACK — I WILL NAME THE PRICE.

— He still hasn't understood that my brother has no intention of taking anything back, — the Architect smirked.

Earth's Lira looked at the shining city beyond the window.

— I'd like to stay. At least for a while. To get to know this world and understand why you gave up the reality you were born in for its sake. You wouldn't mind?

— Not in the least. Besides, there's already a groom for you here. Right, brother? — the Author laughed.

Everyone stared at him, eyes bulging.

For the first time in his life, the Architect choked on his cognac.

— What?!

Earth's Lira slowly turned her eyes to him:

— Was he talking about you just now?

— Unfortunately. My brother sometimes has fits of absolute insanity.

— Sometimes? — Gina asked.

— Constantly, — Alpha corrected.

Eva studied them both seriously:

— Well, why not? Uncle is single. Aunt Lira is single too.

Dexter incautiously offered to calculate their compatibility. The Archive had already begun computing.

— Preliminary psychological compatibility is eighty-seven percent.

The Architect demanded the result be deleted, but Eva had already saved it for the family history.

Earth's Lira smiled:

— I didn't come here for a husband. A few hours ago someone tried to kidnap me, then I met my own copy, her daughter, and the man who was supposed to kill me. I think the wedding can be postponed for the time being.

— Completely agree.

— For a hundred years or so.

— A perfectly reasonable term.

— Though for immortals that's just a long first date, isn't it?

The Architect realized he was being made fun of.

But when Earth's Lira said she had no intention of replacing his former wife or the woman he had once loved, he answered without any sarcasm this time:

— Then we understand each other.

They looked at each other a little longer than complete mutual indifference would have required.

The Architect agreed to show her the city — strictly as a tour. She took his arm.

— Of course. An ordinary tour with a man whose psychological compatibility with me is eighty-seven percent.

At the door, Earth's Lira turned back to the Author:

— Do you always arrange other people's private lives this easily?

— No, I arrange my own life just as easily, — the Author laughed.

When they had gone, I asked my husband whether he had really sensed something between them or had simply wanted to see his brother choke on cognac for the first time.

— I'm an Architect, Lirochka. And his brother. I'll tell you honestly, just don't tell them: it's entirely possible that in a year we'll have a new addition, — the Author laughed.

I looked at him:

— An addition?.. Are you talking about a child?

His eyes flashed red for an instant.

That was enough.

The Architect and Earth's Lira returned four hours later. She was already dressed in the Consortium's black, and she held a cognac in her hand. The Architect appeared behind her, without his cigar and wearing an expression of extreme irritation.

— Your brother is impossible, — she told the Author.

— She tried to hijack a patrol ship, — the Architect reported at the same moment.

— I asked if I could fly it.

— In mid-flight.

— You were explaining too slowly.

— You steered the ship between the residential towers!

— And didn't hit a single one.

She took his forgotten cigar out of her pocket and held it out. Their fingers touched. Both fell silent.

— Archive, assign Earth's Lira permanent quarters, — the Architect said.

— Specify the location.

— Next to mine. Purely for security reasons.

Eva slowly turned to the Author:

— Dad, is this your secret?

— In spite of everything, my love, I'm very glad we have such a clever daughter, — the Author laughed.

— That's not an answer.

Eva quickly reconstructed the logic of the conversation and repeated aloud the phrase she had overheard about a new addition in a year.

The Architect looked at his brother:

— I know you. You don't say things that specific by accident. Did you sense the probability of our choice, or did you actually see the future?

— If I say I saw it, will you believe me, brother?

The Architect looked into his eyes for a long time.

— Yes.

The smiles vanished.

— The future is not an order, — Gemini said.

— And an event that has been seen remains only one of the possible outcomes until a person makes their own choice, — I added.

The Archive recorded a brief burst of prognostic activity in the Author, lasting zero point four seconds.

The same figure with which our wedding had begun, Eva had appeared and the timeline had changed.

— Dad saw a point of choice, — our daughter realized.

The Architect asked:

— What exactly did you see?

— To be exact, I saw Earth's Lira with a child in her arms in an apartment in the Consortium. She was telling him that Daddy the Architect would be back soon. A photograph of the two of you hung on the wall, and on the holographic clock I saw the date — roughly a year from now.

The Architect didn't laugh and didn't reach for the cognac. For a moment, all his armor vanished: the sarcasm, the wolfish smile, and the calm of a being that cannot be killed.

He was already the father of Gina and Alpha. But now he saw the possibility of a different home — a woman waiting for him to come back, and one more child who knew him simply as Dad.

— Don't fear the future just because the past once turned out to be painful, — Gemini told him.

Earth's Lira asked:

— And the child was mine?

I reminded her that the vision demanded nothing. She could refuse, choose another person, return to her own world, or live alone.

The Architect went up to her:

— Right now you need safety, a room of your own and time. Not a groom.

— And what if I want to go on getting to know you myself?

He fell silent.

— I'm not deciding on a marriage or a child, — she smiled. — I'm agreeing to a second tour. And to dinner.

— Agreed.

Eva asked her father:

— Dad, was it a boy or a girl?

— A boy, — the Author smirked.

Gina and Alpha looked at their father at the same time.

— So, a brother, — Gina said.

— A little Architect, — Alpha added.

— We haven't even had a first date yet, — the Architect reminded them.

— We have. You spent four hours showing me the city, — Earth's Lira objected.

— That was a tour.

— We flew alone together, drank cognac and argued about the ship.

— It still wasn't a date.

— Fine. Then tonight will be the first.

When she asked whether they had been happy in the future he had seen, the Author answered:

— Yes, because on the table I also saw something that looked like vacation planning.

Earth's Lira smiled cautiously.

— So we weren't just living in the same apartment and raising a child. We were also planning to go somewhere together.

— Vacation planning is not proof of a happy marriage, — the Architect observed.

— What a stunning ability to find the bright side in everything.

They started arguing again.

And for the first time, an argument between the Architect and a woman wasn't destroying the family, but carefully creating a new possibility within it.

— So where were they planning to fly? — I asked my husband.

— I saw, but I won't tell. I have to leave at least some intrigue, — the Author laughed.

I narrowed my eyes:

— You live in the same apartment as the Archivist and a ten-year-old daughter who inherited my curiosity.

— I'm not curious, — Eva objected. — I eavesdrop professionally.

Through the window we watched Earth's Lira take the pilot's seat while the Architect settled into the chair beside her. The ship shot up sharply into the sky.

The future he had seen did not destroy their freedom.

It only showed that after everything he had lived through, the Architect still had the chance to come home to a woman who was waiting for him, and to a boy who called him Dad.

And from there, everything depended on them alone.

◆ ◆ ◆

Far from the Consortium, in the world the Author had willingly left behind, the impostor sat in a dark underground office.

Screens glowed on the walls with photographs of every member of our family.

Seven people sat across from the impostor.

His own family.

— He gave up the world, — said a woman in a gray suit. — The plan has failed.

— No. He did exactly what I wanted.

— He took Lira.

— And opened a crossing.

On the central screen appeared the energy map of the portal through which we had carried Earth's Lira to the Consortium. The signal had almost faded, but it still existed.

— We can't stabilize the coordinates, — said the man beside her. — The endpoint keeps changing.

The impostor laid his palm on the table. On his finger rested a tiny black particle of the destroyed cube.

— Which is why we won't be opening a new crossing. We'll use the one that's already been opened from the inside.

— By whom?

The impostor zoomed in on the image.

At the center of the model was the Consortium's isolation cell.

Inside it sat the Remnant.

The prisoner's eyes opened. Black lines crept slowly up his neck.

The impostor smiled:

— By my first family member.

The Remnant lifted his head and looked straight into the Archive's hidden camera.

And then said, in the impostor's voice:

— Begin phase two.

Phase Two

Lira's Archive

The Consortium. 03: 17.

The Archive's voice woke me:

— Lira, wake up. We have a problem.

My eyes opened instantly. The Author lay beside me, but his eyes were already open. Anubis leapt up between us, arched his back and hissed toward the door.

— What kind of problem, exactly? — I asked, reaching for my bracelet.

— The prisoner is in the isolation cell. The neural bracelets are active. The protective perimeter has not been breached. However, seventy-two seconds ago, a process of biological materialization began inside the medical complex.

The Archive had found seven encrypted packets in the autonomous copy of the tactical complex. We had brought them from the Author's world ourselves, after the operation to rescue Earth's Lira.

Three minutes later the family had gathered at the medical sector. The Architect showed up barefoot, with a cigar and a weapon. Beside him stood Earth's Lira: judging by her evening dress, their first official date had been interrupted only moments before. Earth's Artem came with his wife Gemini. Gina, Alpha, Pirate, Dexter and Dmitry with a bottle of cognac appeared behind them.

In the isolation cell, the Remnant still sat in his neural bracelets, but his body looked lifeless.

— No biological signs of life, — the Archive reported.

— So only the shell is left in the cage, — Earth's Artem realized.

At that moment the door of the medical block shuddered. A heavy blow came from inside, then a second.

BIOLOGICAL MATRIX STABILIZED

SUBJECT 1 OF 7 READY

— Seven, — Alpha said quietly. — The impostor's family.

I ordered the Archive to open the door. Behind it stood a white medical capsule, and inside it a woman of about forty in a gray suit. I recognized her: she was the one who had sat across from the impostor in the underground office.

— I'm unarmed, — she said, raising her hands.

— That's temporary, — Gina observed.

The woman explained: the other six would not appear until she sent confirmation. The Author took a step forward. The red light in his eyes grew brighter.

— He said you'd destroy me the moment I appeared, — she said to the Author. — Call me one more stupid creature and send me to the scrap heap.

— If that's what you believed, why did you agree to go in first? — I asked.

— Because your world has something ours never had. The right to refuse.

She called herself Marta — the only name she had ever chosen for herself. Officially, Marta had died nine years ago. The impostor had found her after a car bombing, restored her body and made her part of his artificial family. He had done the same with the others: found lonely, broken or officially dead people, gave them back their lives, and gradually turned gratitude into obligation.

Marta looked straight at the Author:

— I know how to destroy the impostor. But first I want to hear an answer from the man who built his life around freedom of choice. Do you see a living person in me, or one more character who can be deleted once she's stopped being convenient?

— Both, — the Author answered calmly, drawing on his cigar.

She frowned.

— Explain.

The Architect smirked:

— To him you're a character, because you're part of the story. And at the same time a living person, because the moment you refused an order of your own accord, the story stopped belonging entirely to him.

— Just like us, — Gemini added. — Once, each of us came into being by his will. But now we stand here by our own.

— So he can still delete me? — Marta asked.

— He can, — I answered honestly. — Just as my husband can destroy a ship, a city or a reality. Being able to do something doesn't mean being obliged to do it.

Marta told us about phase two. The seven were to infiltrate key worlds, but the goal was not an ordinary attack. The impostor wanted to make someone in our family voluntarily acknowledge his right to make decisions. He needed Eva most of all: our daughter had been born after the Author stopped writing the script, and so her choice could legitimize a new Author.

A timer appeared on the panel.

SIX PORTALS OPEN IN: 04: 59

If the time ran out, the others would enter six moments of our history when the family had been most vulnerable.

— Let them open, — the Author replied.

We all froze, but a second later we heard his encrypted mental message:

THE MOMENT THEY ENTER ANOTHER WORLD, THEY BECOME MORTAL AND ARE INSTANTLY TRANSFERRED TO US — ALREADY IN NEURAL BRACELETS.

He had no intention of defending six moments. He was turning them into six traps.

When the timer hit zero, portals opened on Earth's Artem's balcony, in the Maldives, at the gates of the sixteenth century, in the Manhattan suite, outside Dmitry's house, and in the central hall of the Consortium on the night before our wedding.

A person stepped out of each — and vanished at once. A second later all six materialized before us, stripped of protection, their hands and feet locked in neural bracelets.

— Spatial link with the reality of origin severed, — the Archive reported.

But instead of rage, what appeared on the prisoners' faces was relief.

— It worked, — said a gray-haired man who gave his name as Viktor. — We got out.

They had known: if Marta didn't send confirmation, it meant the family had learned the truth and the escape plan had worked. None of them wanted to change our history. They had used the impostor's portals to leave him.

We decided to vote. The Author kissed me on the lips.

— We decide together.

One by one, the members of the family spoke in favor of temporary asylum and individual screening. Earth's Artem and Gemini were the first to support them. Gina demanded the neural bracelets stay on. Alpha proposed housing the seven separately. Pirate agreed on the condition that he be allowed to run an introductory training session later. Dexter ordered continuous surveillance. Dmitry observed: if a person realizes he's fallen in with the wrong crowd and walks away before he starts killing, he should be given the chance to make things right.

Earth's Lira reminded us: ten years ago, the Author had given the same chance to her.

The Architect voted last:

— I don't trust you. But if even one of you harms the family, it won't be the asylum that turns out to be temporary — it'll be your lifespan.

Even Eva raised her hand for them.

The decision was unanimous.

But the moment the Archive registered the seven's right to their own choice, every screen went dark. The impostor's face appeared on them.

— Congratulations, original. You've acknowledged created personalities as living. Now that applies to me too.

He declared that he no longer intended to take the Author's place. Instead, he would create a world of his own. Behind him, a new universe began to take shape.

— You gave your characters freedom. Will you now allow your last character to leave and create his own reality — or will you destroy me because you're afraid of what I might become?

The Author's eyes lit up brighter than I had ever seen them. His voice turned bestial, truly a wolf's. Everything around us trembled, and red lightning darted through the medical sector.

— Hahahahahahaha! Killing you would be far too petty. You, as a great being, deserve to experience something truly unforgettable.

The Author slowly closed his hand into a fist. The impostor clutched at his heart, fell to his knees and screamed.

— You threatened my family again. I warned you. You wanted to create your own world? Be my guest.

The Author spread his hands. The impostor vanished from the screens. A second later, everything returned to normal.

The Archive detected a new, isolated reality. At its center was the impostor — alive, mortal and stripped of any ability to control the world from outside. He had received a universe of his own, but had become its first ordinary inhabitant.

— What did you make him feel? — I asked my husband.

— Probably the pain you feel when you lose the people closest to you forever, while looking them in the face and being unable to do a single thing about it.

I understood: a pain like that can't be invented without having lived through it yourself. I embraced my husband. Eva pressed against him from the other side, and the Architect laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

— You're not alone anymore, brother.

But the flow of time in the new reality turned out to be accelerated. In a few of our minutes, the impostor lived forty-seven years. He grew old, built a city, met a woman, raised children and finally found a real family.

And then his world began to fall apart.

A fiery crack ran across the sky. The impostor embraced his wife and children, for the first time not trying to give orders. He simply didn't want to lose them.

— My love, did you leave a way to open one last portal there? — I asked.

The Author looked at me and understood everything.

— Open the portal, — he said calmly, and drew on his cigar.

Standard technology couldn't synchronize with the accelerated time. So the three Architects joined forces: the Author provided the point of existence, the Architect held the space, and Earth's Artem brought the flow of time under control. Gemini wrapped her husband in azure chains, keeping the energy from tearing his body apart. I channeled the Author's power into the Archive.

There were one hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seventy-two people in the dying reality.

We opened hundreds of small portals. The Archive distributed people among the Consortium's unpopulated sectors, medical complexes and ships. Gina and Alpha brought in the military and civilian reserves, Pirate the ship network, and Dmitry held an unstable section of the perimeter.

The last one left was an elderly woman in a small house on the outskirts. Earth's Lira jumped after her, and the Architect rushed after them. They made it back an instant before the universe was destroyed completely.

— Evacuation complete. One hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seventy-two people rescued. No casualties, — the Archive reported.

The impostor, forty-seven years older, stood before the Author beside his wife and children.

— I threatened your family. I tried to steal your name, your life and your world. And you saved me, my family and every person I created. Why?

— Not everything in this life can be copied, — the Author said.

The impostor understood. He had copied the face, the voice, the mannerisms, the sarcastic smile and the habit of wearing black. But he hadn't managed to copy the main thing — the ability to give up power for the sake of those you love.

— I don't want your name anymore, — he said. — I don't want your place. But I have no name, no story and no past of my own.

— You have a past, — I answered. — You lived forty-seven years. You have a wife, children and more than a hundred thousand people who know you as someone entirely other than my husband. And the name you'll choose yourself.

Then the Author snapped his fingers.

A soft red wave passed through the sectors. The impostor, his family and all the inhabitants of the dead world grew young again and were fully restored.

— I think you'll have plenty of time now to choose for yourself, — the Author smirked.

The Archive confirmed mass cellular regeneration. All diseases had vanished, genetic damage had been repaired, and the biological age of the adults had stabilized at the peak of physical prime.

I asked my husband whether he had given them back only their youth or made them immortal. The Author smiled slyly and kissed me on the lips. I understood perfectly: the second option.

— You made one hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seventy-two people immortal?

— One hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seventy-three, including the former impostor, — the Archive clarified.

The Architect burst out laughing:

— Brother, you create a problem of galactic proportions, kiss your wife and hope she'll sort out the consequences herself.

— He doesn't hope, — I answered. — He's absolutely certain of it.

But immortality must not become a sentence either. I asked whether the Author had provided a way to voluntarily give up eternal life.

— Of course. If they want to, they can become mortal again. But I don't think they'll want to, — he laughed.

The first to want it was Anna — the same elderly woman Earth's Lira and the Architect had pulled out of the dying world.

— My husband wasn't in your reality, — she explained. — He died long before it was created. I'm not asking you to kill me. Leave me the health, the youth and the chance to live one more life. But let it end naturally one day.

The Author snapped his fingers.

— Done.

The Archive confirmed: Anna's regenerative structure had been deactivated, natural aging restored, and her current young age preserved.

That simple snap proved to everyone that the freedom he had given was real. The Author didn't argue, didn't try to persuade, and didn't try to keep a person in an eternity she didn't want.

Eva watched Anna go, lost in thought.

— Dad, if someday, a billion years from now, I ask you myself to give me back my mortality, will you do it with a single snap too?

— I think first your mom and you and I will weigh it all one more time, and then… — he sighed heavily. — And then we'll see.

Eva hugged her father.

— Good answer. Then for now, I choose to live.

— Highly advisable, — I said. — You have lessons at nine in the morning.

The Archive registered a new ethical directive:

IMMORTALITY IS A RIGHT, NOT AN OBLIGATION.

REFUSAL IS PERMISSIBLE ONLY WHERE CONSCIOUS CHOICE IS PRESERVED.

Beyond the panoramic windows, dawn was breaking. Dexter was tallying the cost of resettling a new immortal civilization. Pirate proposed naming the sector "the Republic of the Accidentally Rescued." Gina and Alpha argued about security. Earth's Lira still held the Architect's arm, and both pretended not to notice.

Dmitry raised the bottle, but a crash came from the isolation cell.

— If that's a fifth stupid creature intending to conquer everyone, become me and play at being Shakespeare, then I choose two glasses first, — the Author said, tired and calm.

He and the Architect drank two glasses each, after which we finally opened the isolation cell.

Inside lay the ruined shell of the Remnant. A fluffy tail stuck out of its chest. A second later Anubis climbed out, holding a black fragment of the cube in his teeth. The cat laid his find at the Author's feet and meowed demandingly.

— The fifth stupid creature turned out to be a kitty, — the Architect observed.

Anubis hissed.

— A cat. A very clever, dangerous and respected cat.

The fragment no longer held any energy, opened no portals and changed no reality. The threat was gone for good.

We returned to the panoramic window. Below, the lights of the new residential sector were coming on. The rescued people were greeting their first dawn in the Consortium, embracing their loved ones, and understanding for the first time that now there truly was an infinite amount of time.

The Architect raised his glass:

— To those who were given the chance to start over.

— To those who once made a hard choice and never regretted it, — Earth's Artem added, looking at Gemini.

Earth's Lira gently touched her glass to the Architect's:

— And to a future no one is obliged to fulfill just because they once saw it.

I embraced my husband and laid my head on his shoulder.

— And to my insane Architect, who is capable of destroying an entire universe, yet will still come back to save every one of its inhabitants.

The glasses came together.

Beyond the window, three suns were rising at once.

And for the first time that long night, no one was trying to be the Author.

Everyone had finally received the right to be themselves.

For Family Reasons

Lira's Archive

I woke in the middle of the night to a dull thud coming from one of the bathrooms.

For a few seconds I lay motionless, listening to the silence. My husband slept peacefully beside me, and no more sounds came from the corridor.

I threw on a robe and walked barefoot out of the bedroom.

The bathroom door was ajar. Inside, the light was dimmed, and a broken glass lay on the floor. Earth's Lira sat on the edge of the bathtub, clutching a medical scanner in her hand. She was staring straight ahead as if a verdict had just appeared on its small screen.

— What happened? — I asked quietly.

She slowly raised her eyes to me.

— I'm pregnant.

Silence fell.

I looked at her. Then at the scanner. Then at her again.

PREGNANCY CONFIRMED. TERM: THREE WEEKS. CONDITION OF MOTHER AND CHILD: STABLE.

— Does the Architect know? — I asked.

Earth's Lira shook her head.

— Not yet.

— Are you happy?

She lowered her gaze to her belly and carefully covered it with her palm.

— I don't know. I'm happy… and scared to death. After everything the Author saw in the future, I can't shake the feeling that I'm acting out a script that's already been written.

I crouched down in front of her and took her free hand.

— The future showed a possibility, not a verdict. This child doesn't take away your right to choose.

— I will never give him up, — she said sharply, gripping the scanner. — Don't even think it. I just want to know that this is my life. That I came to this myself, instead of meekly taking my place in someone else's vision.

Before I could answer, a sleepy Author appeared in the doorway. His hair was tousled, his shirt buttoned wrong, his eyes barely open. Judging by his expression, he had heard everything.

He looked at me. Then at Earth's Lira. Then at the medical scanner in her hand, and sighed heavily.

— Girls, at what point did my crime sci-fi turn into a saga called "For Family Reasons"?

I covered my face with my hand, unable to hold back a nervous laugh.

Earth's Lira grabbed a towel and threw it at him.

— It's not funny!

The Author caught the towel, now fully awake.

— Tell me just one thing, — Earth's Lira said, not taking her eyes off him. — Did you really see only one of the possible versions of the future… or did you know all along that tonight was the night I'd end up here with this scanner in my hand?

The Author looked at me first, then at her, with a sly smile. But I understood perfectly well: in the good sense, he had seen this moment too. So there it was — one more intrigue he had kept to himself so as not to take away a choice.

— I think I'll go back to sleep, — the Author replied with a smile.

He turned and took a step toward the door.

— Stop right there! — Earth's Lira and I said at the same time.

The Author froze, but was in no hurry to turn around.

— Don't even hope, — I said, crossing my arms over my chest. — You are not going to toss out that sly smile, wish us good night, and vanish under the blanket, leaving us to sort out yet another one of your unrevealed intrigues.

— So you knew, — Earth's Lira said quietly.

There was no anger in her voice. Only the fear of a woman who had suddenly realized that someone had seen one of the most important moments of her life long before she had.

The Author slowly turned around.

Earth's Lira rose from the edge of the bathtub and came up to him, still clutching the medical scanner.

— You knew I'd get pregnant right now. You knew the father was the Architect. You even knew I'd be sitting here in the middle of the night, afraid to tell him.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor.

The Architect stood on the threshold.

Barefoot, in nothing but black trousers, his shirt unbuttoned, his face perfectly calm. Only his eyes had already begun to glow faintly red. He had heard enough to understand what mattered.

His gaze dropped to the scanner in Earth's Lira's hand. Then to her belly.

For several long seconds the True Architect — a man able to look death in the face, stop armies, and change the fates of entire worlds — simply stopped breathing.

— Is it true? — he asked.

Earth's Lira nodded slowly.

— Yes.

He walked over to her but stopped one step away, as if for the first time in his life he didn't know whether he had the right to come closer.

— Are you afraid of me? — he asked quietly.

— No. I'm afraid you'll decide everything for me again. That you'll start protecting, calculating, building walls around us…

— I won't.

— You already have, — she whispered. — Even now you're standing there trying to work out how to keep the child safe from the entire universe.

The Architect lowered his eyes. She had hit the mark exactly.

— Maybe, — he admitted. — Because I just found out I'm going to be a father. And I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel.

Earth's Lira sniffled and unexpectedly laughed through her tears.

— Welcome to the club.

He finally took the last step, gently laid his palm on her belly, and looked at her in a way he had never looked at any person in all the known worlds.

The red light in his eyes vanished.

— I won't decide for you, — the Architect said. — But if you'll let me… I'll stay beside you.

Earth's Lira covered his hand with hers.

— I'll let you.

I felt the tension ease a little for all of us, and turned to the Author.

— And now it's your turn, my love. What else did you see in that future and decide to hide from us?

— Come on, family, please don't make me, — the Author said with a lazy smirk.

I walked slowly over to him and straightened the collar of his misbuttoned shirt.

— We won't make you. Freedom of choice, remember?

The Author's smile grew even wider.

— But you're not going to bed either, — I added.

Earth's Lira laughed despite herself, and the Architect looked at his brother with that same wolf's stare they both understood without words.

— I don't want to know the whole future, — he said. — I don't want to know what my son will be like, who he'll become, or what mistakes he'll make. That's his life. But one thing you will tell me. Will my family be safe?

— No, — Earth's Lira said quietly. — Don't ask him that. No one can promise us eternal safety. Not even him.

She looked at the Author.

— I want to know something else. When you saw me with the child in my arms… was I happy?

Footsteps sounded in the corridor again. A drowsy Eva came out of the bedroom, hugging Anubis to her chest. The cat looked as though family secrets, pregnancies, and midnight interrogations had finally exhausted his patience.

— Mom, Dad, why aren't you asleep? — our daughter asked, yawning.

Then she saw the scanner, the Architect's palm on Earth's Lira's belly, and our faces.

Eva was instantly awake.

— Wait… Dad, you knew again and didn't tell anyone?

Now there were five of us looking at him. Even Anubis narrowed his eyes in obvious reproach.

I put my arms around the Author's waist and laid my head on his shoulder.

— We're not asking you to reveal the whole intrigue, my love. Just answer one question: in that future, was Earth's Lira happy?

— Let's put it this way: Lira was modified too — at her own personal request. Because she declared she wanted to stay with this man forever, — the Author said with a smile.

The bathroom fell silent again. But now it was a different kind of silence.

Earth's Lira slowly looked at the Architect. Fear, tenderness, and shock appeared in her eyes all at once. It was as if she saw before her not just the man whose child she was carrying, but an entire eternity beside him.

— I asked for it myself? — she whispered.

The Author nodded.

The Architect took his hand from her belly and stepped back half a pace.

— No. You're not obliged to do anything just because a version of you that was seen once made that decision.

— I know.

— You can live an ordinary human life. You can grow old. You can leave me one day. I won't let the Author, or the Archive, or even the future take that choice away from you.

— Be quiet, — Earth's Lira said softly.

The Architect froze.

She came closer and laid her palm on his cheek.

— I haven't decided anything yet. But don't you dare start preparing in advance for me to leave you.

His wolf's stare wavered for the first time.

— I don't know how to hope for eternity, — he admitted. — Because I know too well how much it takes away.

— Then you'll learn.

Earth's Lira pressed her forehead to his chest. He hesitated, almost uncertain, before putting his arms around her, then closed his eyes and drew her close so carefully, as if he were holding two lives in his hands at once.

Eva silently came closer and looked at Earth's Lira's belly.

— So I'm going to have a brother?

— Formally he'll be your… — I began, and fell silent, trying to work out our family architecture.

— Don't even try, Mom, — Eva said wearily. — Ever since Grandpa Dmitry showed up, our family ties are easier to draw as a map of the galaxy.

The Architect unexpectedly laughed. Earth's Lira smiled through her tears too.

— That's not quite the question you answered, my love, — I said to the Author.

— Yes it is, Mom, — Eva objected quietly. — A person doesn't ask to be given an eternity beside someone if they're unhappy.

I kissed my daughter on the top of her head.

— Sometimes you're frighteningly smart.

— Genetics.

Anubis wriggled out of her arms, jumped onto the edge of the bathtub, and meowed demandingly, as if asking us to finally wrap up the nighttime family meeting.

Earth's Lira stood in the Architect's arms for a few more seconds, then looked at the Author.

— All right. Suppose one day I ask for the modification myself. But what happens to our son? Does he stay human… or did you see another immortal Architect beside us?

— Technically, the child is already born modified at the genetic level — from a modified mother, — the Author explained calmly.

The smile slowly faded from Earth's Lira's face.

— Wait… But I'm not modified yet.

The Author said nothing. And that turned out to be enough.

— So the modification happens during the pregnancy, — I said. — Before the child is born.

The Architect turned sharply to his brother.

— Is it safe?

For the first time, there was real fear in his voice.

— The Archive wouldn't perform a procedure that could harm them, — I said. — The modification will affect both the mother's body and the child's genetic structure.

Earth's Lira walked over to the mirror. Her reflection still belonged to an ordinary woman from Earth — mortal, vulnerable, entirely unprepared to make a decision about eternity in a single night.

— So I chose immortality not just for myself. I chose it for my son too, before he could ever decide for himself.

— You gave him the chance to live, — the Architect said.

— No. I decided what his life would be.

— The way any mother makes decisions for her child until he's able to make them on his own.

— But not every mother chooses eternity for him!

Her voice broke.

The Architect wanted to come closer, but she raised her palm.

— Please… give me a few seconds.

He obeyed, though every part of his being demanded that he go to her, hold her, and find the right solution immediately.

Eva looked thoughtfully at Earth's Lira.

— When he grows up, can't the modification be switched off?

— It can, — I answered. — If the technology preserves the right to reverse the choice.

Eva shifted her gaze to her father.

— It will, won't it?

Now everyone was looking at the Author.

— My love, you didn't create a child locked forever inside someone else's decision, did you?

Earth's Lira turned to face him.

— And when exactly did I ask for the modification? After tonight… or after something happened to us that made me afraid of dying?

— Actually, in two hours and fifty-three minutes, — the Author said, glancing at his watch.

Everyone's eyes went to his wrist at once.

— What? — Earth's Lira breathed.

— Dad… That's not a prediction anymore. That's a schedule, — Eva said.

I looked at the clock. There really were two hours and fifty-three minutes left until the moment he'd named.

The Architect stepped closer to his brother.

— What happens in two hours and fifty-three minutes? Does someone attack? Will she or the child be in danger?

He was already mentally calculating defenses and evacuation routes.

Earth's Lira grabbed his hand.

— No. You are not turning the next three hours into a military operation. If something threatens us, I want to find out about it myself. Not from his vision and not from your calculations.

She turned to the Author.

— Is that why you kept quiet? You knew not only about the pregnancy, but that in a few hours I'd ask to be changed?

The silence became almost tangible.

I understood why the Author had kept this intrigue to the very last. Had he said one word too many, no decision of Earth's Lira's could have been considered fully free anymore. She would either have submitted to the future he'd seen, or done the opposite purely to resist it.

— Now you've put her in an impossible position, — I said quietly. — If she agrees to the modification, she'll think she's following the script. If she refuses — that she's fighting it.

— No, — Earth's Lira said unexpectedly. — He hasn't taken anything from me.

She set the medical scanner on the edge of the sink.

— I'm not going to count the minutes. I won't run, hide, or try to outwit the future. For the next two hours and fifty-three minutes I'll live the way I would have lived without his words.

— That's impossible, — Eva remarked. — You already know.

— I know. But knowing isn't an order.

Earth's Lira looked at the Architect.

— And you won't try to persuade me.

— I won't.

— You won't ask me to choose eternity beside you?

He smiled almost imperceptibly.

— I want to spend eternity with you. But even more, I want you to want to spend it with me.

She looked into his eyes for a few seconds, then came over and hugged him tightly.

The clock kept ticking.

— One question, my love, — I said to the Author. — If in two hours and fifty-three minutes she makes a different decision, will you let your vision turn out to be wrong?

The Author didn't answer. He simply drew me to him and kissed me on the lips — calmly and tenderly.

I felt his answer in that kiss: he would not defend his own vision at the cost of someone else's freedom. If the future changed, he would let it change.

— Understood, — I said quietly.

The next two hours passed suspiciously peacefully.

No one attacked. No portals opened. The Archive declared no alarm. For once, the universe decided not to throw yet another omnipotent being with a god complex at our family.

We gathered in the living room. The Architect sat beside Earth's Lira but asked no questions and made no attempt to touch her. He kept his promise and gave her space, though his tense shoulders showed what an effort it cost him.

I made coffee. The Author settled on the couch. Eva fell asleep beside him with her head on his shoulder, and Anubis curled up in her lap.

Beyond the panoramic windows, dawn was breaking.

— Tell me the truth, — Earth's Lira finally asked the Architect. — Do you really want to live an eternity with me?

— Yes.

— Even if I change in a hundred years?

— You will definitely change.

— In a thousand?

— Then too.

— And if one day I realize I don't want to be with you anymore?

The Architect looked her straight in the eyes.

— I'll open the door for you.

— And you won't follow?

— If you ask me not to — I won't.

— Even if it destroys you?

— Especially then. Eternity beside me must never become your prison.

Earth's Lira closed her eyes. A tear rolled down her cheek.

— Now you've said exactly what I needed to hear.

She stood and went to the window. The first rays of sun touched her face. With one arm she hugged her own shoulders; the other hand she laid on her belly.

I looked at the clock. One minute remained.

No one said another word.

The hand moved.

The time the Author had named arrived.

Earth's Lira took a deep breath and turned to us.

— Archive, prepare the full genetic modification procedure for me and the child. Preserving the right of each of us to refuse immortality in the future.

— REQUEST ACCEPTED. CONFIRMATION OF MOTIVATION REQUIRED.

Earth's Lira looked at the Architect.

— I'm not doing this because I'm afraid of death. Not because the Author saw my future. And not because this child has to be born special.

She walked over to her man and took his face in her hands.

— I'm doing this because I want to see for myself what we'll become in a thousand years.

The Architect closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers.

— MOTIVATION CONFIRMED. VOLUNTARY NATURE OF DECISION CONFIRMED, — the Archive reported.

Earth's Lira turned to the Author.

— Now I understand why you kept quiet. You saw my choice, but you wanted it to become mine first.

She held out her hand to him.

— Will you come with us?

The Author looked with genuine surprise first at Earth's Lira, then at the Architect.

— Uh… you want me to be there?

We all stared at him.

— No, my love, — I answered. — We were just offering you a walk to the medical block, and then we were going to leave you in the corridor with a cognac and a cigar.

— Actually, cognac and a cigar sound pretty good, — Eva remarked without opening her eyes.

— You're asleep.

— Not anymore. We've got relatives acquiring immortality. That's not the kind of thing you usually miss.

Earth's Lira stepped closer to the Author.

— You saw this moment before any of us. You kept it secret, didn't interfere, and let me make the decision myself. Of course I want you there.

— Besides, — the Architect added, — if anything goes wrong during the procedure, I'll need someone next to me who can rewrite the laws of reality with a snap of his fingers.

— Don't scare her, — I said.

— I'm not scaring her. I'm warning my brother.

Earth's Lira took the Author's hand and placed his palm on her belly.

He instantly stopped smiling.

— You invented the Architect. You created Lira Voss without ever suspecting that I already existed in your world — a real woman with her face. And when our lives crossed, you refused to kill me and helped me disappear.

She looked him straight in the eyes.

— Now there's a child growing here whom you didn't create and whose fate you never wrote. Our son came about because of the choice the Architect and I made. But if you hadn't once made your own choice, I wouldn't be here beside you at all.

The Architect laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

— You wanted to stop being an observer and become part of the family. Now family medical procedures, pregnancies, and births come with the package.

I hugged the Author from behind and rested my chin on his shoulder.

— And don't even hope to sneak off to bed again.

— MEDICAL BLOCK PREPARED. THE PROCEDURE WILL TAKE FOUR HOURS. PRESENCE OF FAMILY PERMITTED.

— All the family? — Eva clarified.

— NUMBER OF ACCOMPANYING PERSONS UNLIMITED.

Eva rose from the couch along with Anubis.

— Excellent. Then the cat's coming too.

— Eva, it's a sterile medical block, — I objected.

— Anubis is an immortal cat with red eyes. I think ordinary sanitary rules stopped applying to him a long time ago.

Anubis meowed in agreement.

For the first time that night, Earth's Lira laughed with complete sincerity, then looked at the Author again.

— Well? Are you coming with me as a member of the family… or will the entire Pack have to drag you there?

— You'll have to drag me when you wake up after the modification and we all get drunk. Archive, put it on the schedule as a mandatory event for today, — the Author laughed.

— EVENT ADDED. DESIGNATION: "MASS CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL IN HONOR OF THE IMMORTALITY OF EARTH'S LIRA". STATUS: MANDATORY.

We all burst out laughing.

— Archive, change the name, — I asked.

— SPECIFY NEW DESIGNATION.

— "Family Evening".

— DESIGNATION CHANGED. PROJECTED ALCOHOL LEVEL LEFT UNCHANGED.

The Architect took Earth's Lira by the hand, and the whole family set off for the medical block.

The white doors opened before us. In the center of the room, a transparent capsule had been prepared, ringed with soft blue light. Above it rotated a holographic model of Earth's Lira's body and the barely discernible silhouette of the child.

— THE PROCEDURE WILL BE PERFORMED SIMULTANEOUSLY FOR MOTHER AND FETUS. THE MOTHER'S PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE WILL BE FIXED. REGENERATION, ENHANCED NEURAL ADAPTATION, AND BIOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY WILL BE ACTIVATED IN STAGES. THE RIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT REFUSAL IS PRESERVED.

Earth's Lira stopped in front of the capsule. All her resolve suddenly vanished. She gripped the Architect's hand tightly.

— I'm scared.

— So am I, — he admitted honestly.

She looked at him in surprise.

— You?

— I can go in there instead of you, but I can't go through it for you. So yes — I'm scared.

Earth's Lira kissed him, then lay down inside the capsule. The Architect stayed on her right. The Author stood on her left, and I beside him. Eva settled opposite, still holding Anubis in her arms.

The transparent lid began to lower.

— Wait, — Earth's Lira asked.

The process stopped.

She looked at the Author through the glass.

— When I wake up, don't tell me what happens next. Not in a year, not in a thousand years. I want to see it for myself.

Then she shifted her gaze to the Architect.

— And you'll be the first person I see when I wake.

He covered the glass above her hand with his palm.

— I promise.

— FINAL PATIENT CONFIRMATION REQUIRED, — the Archive said.

Earth's Lira closed her eyes.

— I choose to live.

The capsule sealed shut. A soft golden light flared inside. Billions of the finest lines ran across the holographic model of her body, rebuilding every cell and carefully adapting the developing life within her.

03: 59: 59

The Architect never took his palm from the glass. The Author stayed close too.

I looked at the two brothers standing on opposite sides of the capsule and understood: one had given this woman the chance to be saved, and the other had become the reason she chose eternity herself.

Four hours later, the golden light went out. The capsule lid slowly rose.

Earth's Lira opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the Architect.

— Hi, — he whispered.

She inhaled carefully, listening to her new body, then laid her palm on her belly.

— Is he alive?

— CONDITION OF MOTHER AND CHILD IDEAL. MODIFICATION SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED.

The Architect helped her up. Earth's Lira looked at her hands for a few seconds, then suddenly grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to her.

— You won't get rid of me so easily now.

— That's what I was hoping for.

She kissed him passionately, and Eva and I turned away at the same time.

— Too late to play the respectable family, — Eva remarked. — The Archive has already scheduled a mass drinking binge.

Earth's Lira released the Architect and looked at the Author.

— Well, prophet? I'm awake. Where's the alcohol you promised?

— Right here, — the Author answered, and suddenly produced a bottle of cognac.

Earth's Lira tore the bottle from his hands with her new strength, ripped out the cork, and, before anyone could stop her, downed it all in one go.

— Now that's better. Let's go celebrate.

We watched her in complete silence.

The Architect was the first to recover.

— You're pregnant.

The smile slowly faded from her face.

— Fuck…

— NO CAUSE FOR CONCERN. THE MODIFIED ORGANISM NEUTRALIZED THE ETHANOL BEFORE IT COULD ENTER THE FETAL BLOODSTREAM. CONDITION OF CHILD STABLE.

Earth's Lira exhaled in relief.

— So I can still drink after all?

— YOU CAN. INTOXICATION WILL LAST NO MORE THAN TWENTY SECONDS.

She looked at the empty bottle.

— Now I'm starting to notice the downsides of immortality.

The Author reached out to take the bottle from her, but Earth's Lira accidentally tightened her fingers. The thick glass crumbled to fine grit in her palm.

She froze.

The Architect looked at the shards, then at her — and a proud wolf's grin appeared on his face.

— Don't even start, — Earth's Lira warned.

— I didn't say anything.

— But you thought it.

— Thought it very loudly, — I confirmed.

Earth's Lira shook the glass dust from her palm. There wasn't so much as a scratch on her skin.

— PHYSICAL STRENGTH INCREASED BY A FACTOR OF TWELVE POINT FOUR. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO TEMPORARILY AVOID HANDSHAKES, EMBRACES, AND SEXUAL ACTIVITY UNTIL ADAPTATION IS COMPLETE.

The Architect raised his eyes to the ceiling.

— Archive, that last recommendation could have been delivered privately.

— NEGATIVE. THE WARNING CONCERNS BOTH PARTNERS.

Eva covered Anubis's ears.

— He's too young to hear this.

— Eva, he's a cat, — I reminded her.

— An immortal and very impressionable one.

Earth's Lira burst out laughing, walked over to the Architect, and took his arm with the utmost care.

The doors of the medical block opened.

The rest of the family was already waiting for us in the corridor. Gemini was holding Earth's Artem's hand; beside them stood Gina, Alpha, Pirate, Dexter, and Dmitry. In front of them floated a serving platform loaded with bottles, glasses, and snacks.

— The Archive informed us there's a mandatory event, — Gemini said. — We decided to come prepared.

— And I decided one bottle isn't enough for this family, — Dmitry added.

Earth's Lira took a step toward them, but suddenly stopped. Tears appeared in her eyes.

Only a few hours ago she had been a mortal woman from the twenty-first century, hiding from her own husband and from people who had been paid for her death. Now before her stood a family ready to celebrate — not her rescue, not a victory, not the fulfillment of a prophecy.

They were celebrating her choice.

The Architect put his arm around her shoulders.

— Welcome to eternity.

— Just don't ruin it, — she whispered.

— I'll try.

Earth's Lira looked at the Author.

— Be honest. The way I snatched the bottle from you and drank the whole thing… did you see that in advance too?

— Now that was simply to be expected, based on experience. Everyone who goes through the modification reacts that way, — the Author said with a smirk.

Earth's Lira looked around at everyone present.

— So the first thing all of you did after the modification was get drunk?

— Not all of us, — I answered.

— AFTER HER FIRST FULL SYNCHRONIZATION, LIRA DRANK TWO BOTTLES OF WINE, — the Archive reported imperturbably.

I raised my head to the ceiling.

— Traitor.

Gemini smiled.

— I destroyed the training range, then drank the entire whiskey supply in the medical bay.

— And after my first serious modification, I didn't sleep for three days, — the Architect added.

— Because you were drinking? — Earth's Lira asked.

— Because I was testing the limits of the new body.

— He drank during the testing, — Gina clarified.

— A lot, — Alpha confirmed.

Earth's Lira turned to the Author.

— Then everything's normal. I've officially become one of you.

She was about to head for the table, but remembered his promise.

— Stop. You said that after I woke up, you'd have to be dragged.

Before the Author could take a single step, Earth's Lira wrapped her arms around his waist, lifted him easily off the floor, and carried him toward the living room.

I doubled over laughing.

— Careful with my husband!

— Nothing will happen to him. He's immortal!

— SCHEDULE ITEM "DRAG THE AUTHOR TO THE CELEBRATION" COMPLETED, — the Archive reported.

Earth's Lira carried the Author to the couch and set him carefully on his feet.

— Strength adaptation is proceeding successfully.

We settled around the enormous table. The Architect filled the glasses and raised his.

— To freedom. Especially the kind that sometimes chooses to stay.

— To a life that no one writes for us anymore, — Earth's Lira added.

— And to a child who will one day decide for himself who he wants to be, — I said.

Glass touched glass softly.

The celebration grew louder and louder. Gemini put on music, Pirate argued with Dexter over whether immortality could count as a valid excuse for never paying back debts, and Gina and Alpha placed bets on how many bottles Earth's Lira could manage to drink in twenty seconds.

I sat down beside the Author and laid my head on his shoulder.

— Now I'm curious too, my love. You've watched other people's transformations so many times. But what did you do yourself, when you first realized that crossing into our world had given you real power and immortality?

— Honestly, I just calmed down, — the Author answered.

His words sounded so simple that the conversations around the table gradually died away.

No wrecked training ranges. No tests of strength. No cognac, no wild laughter, no attempt to prove his own immortality to himself.

He just calmed down.

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked at him. For most members of the Pack, immortality had once become a new opportunity. For him, it had become the end of a constant expectation of death.

No more listening for footsteps outside the door. Checking cars before a drive. Looking over his shoulder in the street. Falling asleep with the thought that in the morning he might be found by the people he had once worked for.

The Architect silently filled his glass and raised his own.

— Then let's drink not to strength. Not even to immortality. To the peace each of us once tried to find.

We drank.

Now I understood why, ever since he appeared in our world, the Author had laughed so easily in the face of any danger. He had already lived a life in which every new day might be his last. And here, for the first time, he'd been given an endless tomorrow.

— You know, — Earth's Lira said quietly, — I think I understand you a little better now. I didn't feel all-powerful either. I just felt calmer at the thought that our child will be born safe. And that I won't have to leave him alone in eternity one day.

The Architect kissed her temple.

I kept looking at my husband.

— And now? When no one is hunting you anymore, your family is beside you, and a whole eternity lies ahead… do you finally feel truly at peace?

— With you, with the family, with the constant new additions — yes, very much. And I'll never want to live in my world again. Only to go out there for a walk… and only with you, — the Author smiled.

My eyes stung. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

— Then stop calling it your world. Your world is here now. That one is just a place we'll go for a walk sometimes.

Earth's Lira raised her glass.

— To a home defined not by coordinates, time, or universe, but by the people you always want to come back to.

We drank again.

— ATTENTION, PLEASE, — the Archive said unexpectedly.

Everyone fell silent at once.

— REGISTRATION OF NEW RESIDENTS OF THE CONSORTIUM COMPLETED. LIRA ELKIND: STATUS — MEMBER OF THE PACK. SECOND LIFE SIGNATURE: STATUS — CHILD OF THE PACK. NAME NOT SPECIFIED.

— Lira Elkind, — Earth's Lira repeated, listening to her new name.

The Architect looked at her.

— Not an obligation.

— I know. I like it.

— The child needs a name, — Eva said. — We can't spend nine months calling him "the second life signature."

Everyone began suggesting options. Within a minute the family celebration had turned into a loud argument in which everyone considered themselves an expert on names.

Only the Author sat calmly beside me, watching it all with his familiar sly smile.

Earth's Lira noticed it first.

— You saw me with my son about a year from now. So you must have heard how I addressed him. Did our son already have a name in your vision?

— He did, — the Author laughed.

A collective groan rolled through the living room.

— Of course he did. And of course you decided to keep the intrigue going again, — I said.

— Don't tell us, — the Architect said unexpectedly. — The child's name should be chosen by his parents, not by the future.

Earth's Lira thought about it and nodded.

— He's right. If the Author says the name, we'll never know whether we chose it ourselves.

A few seconds passed.

— Although… — she drawled.

— No, — the Architect said.

— I just want to know.

— You just agreed with me.

— I didn't know yet how badly I'd want to know five seconds later.

The whole family immediately joined the argument. The deciding votes remained mine and Earth's Lira's.

We looked at each other.

— To hell with it, — we said in unison.

Earth's Lira turned to the Author.

— What was my son's name in that future?

— Alan, — the Author smiled.

The argument stopped instantly.

— Alan… — Earth's Lira repeated almost soundlessly.

The Architect looked at her belly.

— Alan Elkind.

The name sounded so natural, as if it had long belonged to their son and had only been waiting all this time to be spoken aloud.

— I like it, — Earth's Lira admitted.

— So do I, — the Architect answered.

— REGISTER THE CHILD'S NAME? — the Archive asked.

Earth's Lira looked at the child's father.

— So the future chose for us after all?

— No. The Author told us what he saw. But the decision is still ours. I choose the name Alan.

She intertwined her fingers with his.

— And so do I.

— Archive, register it, — the Architect ordered.

— NAME ACCEPTED. ALAN ELKIND. STATUS — UNBORN MEMBER OF THE PACK.

A new line appeared on the nearest holographic panel:

ELKIND, ALAN. BIOLOGICAL AGE: THREE WEEKS. CLASSIFICATION: UNDETERMINED

That same second, the image flickered. A barely perceptible energy pulse passed through the room. Glasses chimed softly, the lights went out for an instant, then came back.

Red light flared in the Architect's eyes.

— Archive?

— ENERGY RESPONSE FROM THE SECOND LIFE SIGNATURE DETECTED. NO THREAT.

Earth's Lira pressed her palm to her belly.

— Was that him?

— CONFIRMED.

The Architect slowly dropped to one knee before her and placed his palm next to her hand.

— Three weeks old, and already he's got the whole room's attention, — Gina said.

— A true Elkind, — Dmitry remarked proudly.

Eva came closer.

— Hi, Alan. I'm Eva. Fair warning: you have almost no normal relatives, but you definitely won't be bored.

Another faint pulse passed through the room.

This time we laughed.

Earth's Lira wiped away her tears and looked at the Author.

— Why Alan, of all names? Did you ever want to name your own son that… or did the Architect and I really choose this name ourselves?

— Yes and no. Just don't hit me, — the Author smirked.

Earth's Lira slowly set her glass on the table.

— Why does every answer of yours start out normally and end with a warning not to use violence against you?

I tenderly put my arms around the Author's neck.

— Don't worry, my love. No one's going to hit you. Yet.

Earth's Lira came up almost nose to nose with him.

— Talk. Why Alan?

— That was the name of the main character in the movie "Jurassic Park." I loved him all through my childhood — both as a character and as the actor Sam Neill, who died recently in our former world. I think all of that had some kind of influence, but it wasn't done on purpose, — the Author answered.

— Dr. Alan Grant, — Earth's Artem recalled. — The paleontologist who couldn't stand children and then risked his life to save them.

— Not a bad legacy for a name, — the Architect remarked.

— The main thing is that our Alan doesn't decide one day to keep a dinosaur at home, — Earth's Lira said.

— In the Consortium, that's technically possible, — Dexter reported.

— Don't even think about it, — the future parents said in unison.

The Author was smiling, but I sensed a faint sadness in his words. One more piece of his childhood had remained in a world he no longer wanted to return to for good. A movie, a favorite character, a familiar actor — simple human memories that had passed through the portal with him and unexpectedly become a child's name in another universe.

— So you didn't rig anything, — I said. — A piece of your childhood simply echoed in their free choice.

— I like that, — Earth's Lira said. — The name didn't come from a script. It passed through you, and the final choice was ours.

The Architect raised his glass.

— To Alan. May he inherit a scientist's curiosity, his mother's stubbornness, and his uncle's ability to turn any serious situation into a family circus.

— In your former life, did you ever want a son of your own that you'd name Alan? — Earth's Lira asked.

— I think so. But I always wanted daughters more. That's why both my brother and I mostly have girls. And very bitchy wives — which, by the way, was always my wish too, — the Author laughed.

The table went suspiciously quiet.

I slowly took my head off his shoulder. Earth's Lira set down her glass. Gemini turned in our direction. Gina, Alpha, and Eva exchanged glances.

The Architect silently picked up the bottle of cognac and moved a little farther away, understanding that right now it was better not to be sitting next to his brother.

— Bitchy, you say? — I asked sweetly.

— And always his wish, no less, — Earth's Lira reminded him.

— I like the phrasing, — Gina said. — So we're not the problem. We're a carefully thought-out result.

Eva walked over to the Author and put her hand on his shoulder.

— Dad, do I understand correctly: you voluntarily surrounded yourself with strong, smart, bitchy women, and now you're publicly complaining about the result?

— He's not complaining, — Alpha said. — Judging by his face, he's proud of it.

I stood in front of the Author.

— No, girls. We can't hit him. He's immortal, so the educational effect would only be temporary anyway.

Earth's Lira laughed and put her arms around the Architect's waist.

— And do you like having a bitchy future wife?

— I value my life too much to answer that question in your presence.

— Correct answer.

The Architect raised his glass toward his brother.

— You wished for a family like this yourself. Now live with the consequences forever.

I sat down on the Author's lap and brought my lips close to his.

— Congratulations, my love. You got everything you wanted: immortality, a whole pack of daughters, and a woman who will never let you get bored. Just tell me honestly: when you dreamed of a bitchy wife, did you have any idea how dangerous the granting of that wish would turn out to be?

— I wished for it very much, my love, — the Author said, and bit my earlobe.

A shiver ran through my body.

— Then don't complain. The wish has been granted in full.

I was about to kiss him again, but suddenly froze.

— Wait. You said that both you and your brother mostly have girls.

The Architect stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. Earth's Lira looked in surprise first at me, then at the Author.

— With the Architect it's all clear: Gina, Alpha, and now Alan on the way. But we only have one daughter so far.

Eva slowly turned to her father.

— Dad…

Silence fell over the living room once more.

— He let it slip again, — Gina said.

— Second time tonight, — Alpha added.

I placed my palms on the Author's shoulders and narrowed my eyes.

— My love, be so kind as to explain to your very much wished-for bitchy wife: why did you say "mostly girls," in the plural?

Eva came closer.

— And how many more children are we going to have?

— Your mom and I personally — one more girl and a boy. But not right now, a little later, — the Author laughed.

I slowly rose from his lap.

— Two more?

— Dad! — Eva exclaimed together with me.

The Author kept laughing, as if he had just told us his plans for the coming weekend.

Eva crouched down in front of him.

— So I'm going to have a little brother and sister?

I automatically laid my palm on my belly, though I understood perfectly well: there was no one inside me right now.

Yet.

That one word alone made my heart beat faster.

The Architect looked at his brother and shook his head.

— And you accused me of trying to look after too many people.

— So in a few years the Consortium will be running a separate wing of the Elkind kindergarten, — Dexter remarked.

Earth's Lira looked at her belly.

— Alan, get ready. By the look of things, you won't be short of relatives.

Eva still hadn't taken her eyes off her father.

— Had they already been born in that future you saw?

Then she raised a shining gaze to me.

— Mom, do you realize? I'm going to be a big sister. Twice!

I smiled, but in my chest happiness, fear, and the already familiar irritation with a husband who once again knew more about my life than he was telling all mixed together.

— Fine. Don't say the names yet. But answer honestly: is this a future you actually saw… or a life you simply very much want to live with me?

— Both versions are one hundred percent true, — my husband answered with a smirk.

I looked at him and couldn't say a word.

He had seen us in the future — not among wars, collapsing worlds, or yet more omnipotent beings. He had seen our family. Eva, become a big sister. Another little girl. A boy. Himself beside me.

And he hadn't merely seen it.

He wanted that life.

Tears ran down my cheeks.

— Mom, what's wrong? — Eva asked, alarmed.

— Everything's fine, sweetheart.

I hugged my husband and pressed myself against him as tightly as I could.

— You are a completely impossible man. You could at least have warned me you were planning to give me two more children.

Eva hugged us both, squeezing in between us.

— I approve.

— Nobody asked you, — I laughed through my tears.

— I'm the eldest daughter. My approval is mandatory.

Dmitry raised his glass.

— To my future grandchildren. All of them, the known ones and those still classified.

We drank again.

Eva suddenly pulled back and looked at her father.

— Wait. You said a girl and a boy. Which of them will be born first?

The Author didn't bother playing the man of mystery this time.

— The girl.

Eva grinned widely.

— So first I get a little sister!

— Whom you'll be sure to teach all your bad habits, — I said.

— I don't have any bad habits.

— Yesterday you reprogrammed the cleaning drone to bring you sweets after midnight.

— That's rational use of available technology.

Earth's Lira watched our family with a smile, her head resting on the Architect's shoulder. The news of the future additions no longer frightened her. It was as if she were seeing for the first time the world Alan would grow up in: noisy, crazy, overflowing with arguments, love, and relatives constantly meddling in each other's lives.

I took my husband's face in my hands.

— Don't say the name. I want us to choose at least that one ourselves.

Eva nodded.

— Agreed. But one question won't hurt. Will my little sister look like Mom… or like you?

— Like Mom. And judging by how she dealt with Alan, just as much of a bitch, — the Author laughed even harder.

I smiled slowly.

— So: beautiful, smart, and able to put a man in his place.

— Mom, Dad only said "bitch," — Eva pointed out.

— I decoded it correctly.

— Completely agree, — Earth's Lira backed me up.

But then she frowned.

— Wait. What do you mean, "dealt with Alan"?

The Architect stopped smiling too.

— As far as I remember my own childhood, if a boy has to be dealt with, it means he's already managed to do something serious.

— Especially if the boy is an Elkind, — Dmitry added.

— Thanks, Dad, — the Author and the Architect answered in unison.

Earth's Lira planted her hands on her hips.

— Right. Since you brought it up yourself, tell us: what exactly did Alan get up to, and how exactly did your future daughter "deal with" him?

— My love, I urgently need to block this ability, or I'll start recounting events a thousand years ahead, — the Author answered.

I stopped smiling.

His voice still carried the familiar smirk, but now I understood: he really was tired of seeing what had not yet happened. Any chance phrase could rob us of a surprise, influence a decision, or turn a free choice into an attempt to fulfill or disprove his vision.

— We won't block it completely. One day this ability may save the family.

— And one day it will drive him mad, — Earth's Lira countered.

— That's why we don't need a ban. We need a filter. Archive, is it possible to restrict the Author's access to future events without taking away the ability itself?

— POSSIBLE. THREE OPTIONS AVAILABLE.

A holographic panel appeared before us.

— FIRST: FULL BLOCKING OF FORESIGHT. THE ABILITY IS PRESERVED BUT CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT REACTIVATION.

— Too dangerous, — the Architect said at once. — At a critical moment there may be no time for activation.

— SECOND: AUTOMATIC ACCESS ONLY TO EVENTS THAT DIRECTLY THREATEN THE LIVES OF PACK MEMBERS.

— Better, — I noted.

— THIRD: A VOLUNTARY VEIL. THE AUTHOR WILL CONTINUE TO SEE THE FUTURE, BUT HIS MEMORIES OF IT WILL BE BLOCKED UNTIL THE MOMENT HE INDEPENDENTLY DECIDES TO OPEN THEM. IN THE EVENT OF A DIRECT THREAT TO THE FAMILY, THE VEIL WILL BE LIFTED AUTOMATICALLY.

— That preserves choice, — Dexter said. — His, and ours.

I went to my husband and took both his hands.

— I won't decide for you, my love. But the third option would let you live in the present with us again. Not watching our life in advance, but discovering it at the same time we do.

The Architect laid a palm on his brother's shoulder.

— And if a real danger appears, you'll still see it first.

— Choose for yourself, — I said. — Full blocking, protection from threats only, or a voluntary Veil?

— The third option, — the Author answered.

— CHOICE ACCEPTED. DO YOU CONFIRM INSTALLATION OF A VOLUNTARY VEIL WITH AUTOMATIC LIFTING IN THE EVENT OF A DIRECT THREAT TO PACK MEMBERS?

The Author nodded.

— CONFIRMATION LOGGED. BEGINNING SYNCHRONIZATION.

A thin ring of blue light appeared around his head.

I didn't let go of my husband's hands.

A red glow flared in his eyes, grew almost blinding, then slowly began to fade. Fragments of the future raced across the holographic panel: unfamiliar cities, the faces of people not yet born, destroyed star systems, family celebrations, wars, weddings, funerals, and new meetings.

All these events folded into a single line and vanished behind a silvery wall.

The last thing I saw was the silhouettes of three children standing beside us on an unfamiliar shore.

Eva. A girl. A boy.

Then the image disappeared.

— VOLUNTARY VEIL INSTALLED. ACCESS TO FUTURE EVENTS RESTRICTED. AUTOMATIC PACK PROTECTION PROTOCOL ACTIVE.

The Author closed his eyes. For a few seconds he simply stood in front of me and breathed.

I felt his shoulders gradually relax. As if the endless noise of millennia he had been forced to live through in advance had vanished from his mind.

He opened his eyes. The distant future no longer reflected in them.

Only us.

I ran my palm along my husband's cheek.

For the first time since he had appeared in our lives, he wasn't looking at me as a woman he had already seen a year, a hundred years, or a thousand years from now.

He saw me only now.

— Welcome to the present, my love. What do you see now?

— A loving wife in front of me, — the Author answered.

My breath caught.

After all the talk of millennia, unborn children, and events capable of changing entire worlds, he saw the simplest thing.

Me.

Not the Archivist. Not a character he had created. Not a woman from a possible future.

His loving wife, standing before him now.

I pressed my lips to his and kissed him as if there were no one around us.

— LOGGING ELEVATED EMOTIONAL ACTIVITY, — the Archive reported.

— Archive, shut up, — my husband and I said in unison.

Laughter rang out in the room.

— Looks like the Veil is working, — Eva said. — Dad finally answers without half an hour of intrigue.

— Don't celebrate too soon, — Gina warned. — Nobody blocked his sarcasm.

— Thank God, — the Architect added. — Otherwise he wouldn't be my brother anymore.

The celebration went on.

For the first time, we weren't trying to find out what awaited us in a year or a thousand years. We weren't looking for a hidden threat or calculating the consequences of every decision.

We were simply living.

By evening the music had grown quieter. The family gradually scattered to their rooms. The Author and I stayed on the couch, and Anubis settled between us as usual, laying his head on my knees.

Earth's Lira and the Architect lingered by the exit. They exchanged a glance, as if they had agreed in advance who would start the conversation.

— We have one more question, — Earth's Lira said.

I felt my husband tense beside me.

— Not about the future, — the Architect clarified at once. — And not about abilities.

They came closer.

— You're already his uncle, — Earth's Lira said, addressing the Author. — And the man thanks to whom I stayed alive at all and met his father.

— So we've made a joint decision, — the Architect went on. — A truly joint one this time.

Earth's Lira smiled.

— When Alan is born… will you agree to be his godfather?

— Uh… I'm not religious, and I'm not baptized. Neither is the Architect. And in general I've always treated religion as a joke, — the Author answered.

Earth's Lira looked at him for a few seconds, then laughed.

— I'm not suggesting you go to church tomorrow.

— In our case, no priest would survive meeting the whole family anyway, — I remarked. — Especially once he found out that present here are two immortal Architects, an Author of reality, superstrong women, and a red-eyed cat named Anubis.

The Architect sat down across from his brother.

— We're not talking about religion. We don't need a rite, holy water, or an entry in a church register.

— Then the word "godfather" really doesn't quite fit, — Earth's Lira agreed.

— Mentor, — Dexter suggested from the next room. Apparently he was still eavesdropping.

— Patron, — Pirate added.

— No, — we objected in unison. That word had long since acquired far too unpleasant a meaning in our family.

I looked at the Author.

— Man of Choice.

Everyone fell silent.

— The one Alan can come to if one day he doesn't want to talk to his parents. The one who won't decide for him, but will help him see the consequences of every path.

Earth's Lira nodded.

— And if anything happens to us, you'll be the one to remind him who his parents were. Not as legends or great beings, but as ordinary people who loved him before he was born.

The Architect looked his brother in the eyes.

— And if one day I start raising my son as a soldier, or trying to turn him into a copy of myself, you'll be the first to tell me I'm an idiot.

Earth's Lira smiled.

— So forget the word "godfather." Will you agree to be, for Alan, the man who will always stay on his side but never take away his right to choose?

— I'd be honored. And please, never again say that something might happen to you. I understand everything, but I won't allow it. Never! — the Author answered, loud and defiant.

His voice rolled through the living room. Red light flashed in his eyes for an instant, and the walls trembled almost imperceptibly with restrained power.

I understood at once: it wasn't anger hiding behind his loudness.

Fear.

Even having gained immortality, a family, and an entire universe that had become his new home, he was still afraid of one day losing the people for whose sake he had given up his former life.

Earth's Lira went to him and hugged him tightly.

— All right. We won't say it anymore.

The Architect laid a palm on his brother's shoulder.

— And you won't have to protect everyone alone anymore. You told me yourself that I can't look after everyone forever, or one day I'll tear myself apart. Now that applies to you too.

I came up on the other side and put my arms around my husband's waist.

— There are many of us, my love. If danger ever comes, you won't stand in front of the family. You'll stand beside us.

— REGISTER ARTEM ELKIND AS MAN OF CHOICE FOR ALAN ELKIND? — the Archive asked.

Earth's Lira looked at the Architect. He nodded.

— Register it.

A holographic record appeared before us:

ELKIND, ALAN. MAN OF CHOICE: ARTEM ELKIND. BOND STATUS: FAMILY. TERM OF VALIDITY: INDEFINITE

— REGISTRATION COMPLETE.

A soft energy pulse came from the child. This time the glasses didn't chime and the lights didn't go out. A warm wave simply touched each of us and dissolved into the room.

The Author slowly knelt before Earth's Lira and laid his palm on her belly. The red glow in his eyes turned calm. Not predatory. Protective.

— I think he agrees, — Earth's Lira whispered.

Eva came closer and sat down beside her father.

— Since you're now officially his Man of Choice, you have to tell him something important. The first lesson.

— He's three weeks old, — Earth's Artem reminded them from the corridor.

— All the better. He won't be able to interrupt.

I laid my palm on my husband's shoulder.

— Well, my love? What's the first thing you'll teach Alan?

— To obey his parents, — the Author answered, and laughed. — At least for the first while, that will definitely come in handy.

The Architect nodded with satisfaction.

— At last, a sensible person in this family.

— Don't flatter yourself, — Earth's Lira warned. — He said "for the first while."

Eva looked indignantly at her father.

— That's hypocrisy. Dad has spent his whole life playing the wolf, breaking rules, refusing to submit to other people's decisions, he ran away from his own reality, and now for a child's first lesson he picks obedience.

— That's exactly what life experience is, — Dmitry remarked. — First you don't listen to your parents, then you grow up and explain to your children why they're obliged to listen to you.

— The closed circle of human civilization, — Dexter concluded.

Earth's Lira laid her palm over the Author's hand.

— For the first while, I agree. Until he learns to understand the consequences of his own decisions. After that, let him argue, make mistakes, and choose for himself.

— Preferably without destroying the Consortium in the process, — I added.

— THE PROBABILITY OF THE CONSORTIUM BEING ACCIDENTALLY DESTROYED BY A CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE IS ZERO POINT TWO PERCENT, — the Archive reported.

We all looked up.

— Why isn't the probability zero at all? — Earth's Lira asked cautiously.

— THE CHILD'S FATHER IS A TRUE ARCHITECT. THE MAN OF CHOICE IS THE AUTHOR. THE GRANDFATHER IS DMITRY ELKIND. A ZERO PROBABILITY WOULD BE MATHEMATICALLY UNJUSTIFIED.

Dmitry proudly raised his glass.

— Good genetics.

Eva narrowed her eyes.

— All right, Dad. Since you're now an expert on raising future Architects, tell me: at what point does a child get the right to stop obeying his parents and start choosing for himself?

— My love, how about you play the educator for a bit too? — the Author asked with a laugh.

I looked at my husband.

— Gladly. Especially since someone in this family has to explain difficult things to the children while their father laughs and passes the buck to his wife.

Eva sat down beside me and prepared to listen.

— A child gets the right to choose for himself from the first day of his life. It's just that at first he isn't yet able to understand the consequences. So his parents make the decisions for him temporarily.

— And when will he be able to understand? — Eva asked.

— There's no exact age. At five, a person can choose a toy. At ten — friends. At sixteen — a path that may determine his future. But even an adult sometimes makes decisions without understanding their price.

I looked at Earth's Lira and the Architect.

— A parent's task is not to make the child obey. The task is to gradually teach him to manage without their instructions.

The Architect nodded thoughtfully.

— So good parenting eventually makes the parents unnecessary.

— Not unnecessary. Not required for making decisions. But still needed as family.

— And if he chooses wrong? — the Architect asked.

— Then we'll warn him of the consequences. Help him if he falls. But we won't live his life for him.

— Even if it hurts to watch? — Eva asked quietly.

— Especially then. Otherwise we'll raise not a free person but an obedient extension of ourselves.

I looked at my husband and added with a smile:

— So Alan really should be taught to listen to his parents. But it's even more important to teach him to one day tell them "no" — calmly, consciously, and ready to answer for the result.

— PARENTING PRINCIPLE REGISTERED. OBEDIENCE IS NOT THE GOAL. THE GOAL IS CONSCIOUS INDEPENDENCE.

— See, Dad, — Eva said, pleased. — Now I have official permission not to obey you.

— Only if you're ready to answer for the consequences, — I reminded her.

Our daughter's smile became noticeably more modest.

I leaned toward the Author and kissed him on the cheek.

— Well, my love? Have I been the educator long enough, or would you like me to take on your behavior too?

— Otherwise I wouldn't have married you, — the Author laughed.

I held a serious expression for a few seconds, then laughed too and kissed him.

— Good answer. You get to live today.

The celebration lasted almost until evening. Despite accelerated regeneration, the number of empty bottles grew at a frightening rate. Earth's Lira was gradually getting used to her strength, and by the end of the evening she could already hold a glass without turning it into glass dust.

The Architect hardly left her side. Now and then he glanced unobtrusively at her belly, and an expression appeared on his face that I had never seen on him before. He was still a wolf, capable of tearing apart anyone who threatened the family. But now, inside that wolf, there was a father.

When the celebration ended, everyone went off to their rooms.

I returned to our bedroom with the Author. Anubis jumped onto the bed first, took the middle, and looked at us as if the apartment belonged exclusively to him.

— Wonderful. The family grows, and there's less and less room in the bed.

I took off my robe, lay down beside my husband, and rested my head on his chest. The room was quiet. Beyond the window, the nighttime Consortium glimmered, and somewhere nearby two future parents were falling asleep for the first time knowing that their child now had a name.

Alan.

I listened to my husband's breathing.

For the first time, he didn't know what would happen tomorrow. He didn't see our next decisions. He couldn't look a thousand years ahead and check whether we would still be lying side by side.

He simply held me now.

— You know, today you gave up an ability that could have warned you of any mistake. Knowledge that could protect our family before a danger even appeared.

I raised myself up and looked into his eyes.

— Aren't you afraid to live again without knowing what comes next?

— What matters most to me is that you're here. And Eva, of course. And the family in the next rooms.

I looked into his eyes for a long time.

No loud promise to protect everyone in every possible time. No declaration about eternity. No attempt to convince me that he still controlled every line of the future.

Only the simple truth.

We're together.

I laid my head on his chest again and held him tighter.

— Then you really don't need to know the future anymore. Everything that matters most is already right beside you.

Anubis grumbled irritably between us, demanding more room.

— And the cat, of course, — I added.

A loud crack came from the next room.

— I didn't break anything! — Earth's Lira shouted immediately.

A second later, the Architect's voice was heard:

— Archive, order a new bed.

— A MODEL WITH A REINFORCED FRAME HAS ALREADY BEEN ADDED TO THE ORDER.

My husband and I burst out laughing at the same time.

— Looks like your crime sci-fi has finally perished. Now it's officially the saga "For Family Reasons."

I kissed his chest and closed my eyes.

For the first time, the Author fell asleep not knowing what would happen in the morning.

And for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the unknown.

Because the future no longer stood before us as a ready-made script.

It lay behind a closed door.

And when the time came, we would open it as a family.

What the Veil Did Not Hide

Lira's Archive

Three days passed.

In that time Earth's Lira had fully settled into her new body, stopped breaking door handles, and learned to hug the Architect without risking his ribs.

The pregnancy was proceeding perfectly.

Alan went on answering our voices now and then with faint pulses of energy, which sent the Architect into raptures and terror at the same time.

The voluntary Veil was working too.

The Author no longer saw the distant future. He didn't let slip anything about children not yet born, didn't give away family scandals to come, and for the first time in a long while he was truly living with us in the present.

The morning began perfectly calmly.

The whole family sat at the enormous table. Dmitry and Pirate were arguing about the quality of Earth cognac, Dexter was trying to draw up a program for the safe development of Alan's abilities, and Gina and Alpha were already planning how they would teach him to break it.

Earth's Lira sat beside the Architect, holding his hand.

Eva was feeding Anubis pieces of meat straight from her plate.

My husband had settled in next to me, smoking a cigar and watching our family madness with a suspiciously serene expression.

I laid my palm on his knee.

— What are you thinking about?

He turned to me.

And in that moment his smile vanished.

The Author froze.

The cigar slipped from his fingers and went out on the floor.

His eyes flared bright red. Not the soft, calm red he had around the family. Predatory. Warning.

Red lightning ran across the walls. Glasses trembled, the holographic panels went dark, and the apartment's protective circuit activated on its own.

We all leapt up at once.

— ATTENTION, — the Archive said. — DIRECT THREAT TO A MEMBER OF THE PACK DETECTED.

The Architect was at his brother's side in an instant.

— Who?

— IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE. SOURCE OF INFORMATION: THE AUTHOR'S FORESIGHT.

The silvery ring appeared around my husband's head once more.

— CONDITIONS FOR AUTOMATIC LIFTING OF THE VOLUNTARY VEIL MET. ACCESS TO THE CRITICAL EVENT OPEN.

The Author drew a sharp breath.

Before his eyes passed events none of us could see.

His face was changing.

First surprise.

Then disbelief.

And finally such fury that even the Architect took a careful half-step back.

Every conversation stopped.

Earth's Lira pressed a palm to her belly. Gemini stepped in front of Earth's Artem. Gina, Alpha, Pirate and Dexter readied themselves for a fight.

I went to my husband and took his face in my hands.

The red lightning burned my fingers, but I didn't pull away.

— My love, look at me. We're all here. Do you hear me? The whole family is right here. What did you see?

The Author's eyes went dark.

He turned calmly toward Earth's Lira.

— Lira, why didn't you tell us that you were seeing a man from the twenty-fourth century before you were ever married — and knew everything about him all the while?

Absolute silence fell over the table.

Earth's Lira went pale. Her fingers slowly loosened, releasing the Architect's hand.

— How… How do you know about him?

— Wait, — I cut in. — What do you mean, "seeing"?

— Exactly what it sounds like. We were together.

The Architect lowered his gaze.

She turned to him at once.

— It happened long before you. Before my first marriage, even.

— I understand, — he said calmly. — I'm not interested in what there was between you. I'm interested in why a man from the twenty-fourth century appeared in your life, and why, after that, my brother's Veil identified him as a threat to the family.

No jealousy. No hurt. Only the cold wariness of a True Architect.

Earth's Lira sank heavily into an armchair.

— I was twenty-three. I was still living in New York then, working for a small law firm. One day a man appeared outside the office. Ordinary clothes, no portals, no technology. He introduced himself and asked me out for coffee.

— Name? — Gemini asked.

— I never knew his real name.

— Great start already, — Gina muttered.

— At first I took him for an ordinary man. We saw each other for almost four months. Then he told me himself that he'd been born in the twenty-fourth century.

— And you believed him? — Eva asked.

— No. I decided he was insane. So he showed me New York the way the city would look three hundred years later.

She looked at the Consortium's panoramic windows.

— He opened a small passage right in the middle of my apartment. On the other side there were towers above the clouds, flying transport and people with implants. I saw enough to understand he was telling the truth.

Dexter was already working a holographic panel.

— Archive, run a search of all registered transits from the twenty-fourth century to the early twenty-first.

— NO DATA AVAILABLE. THE TRANSIT DID NOT PASS THROUGH CONSORTIUM SYSTEMS.

— So he had independent portal technology, — the Architect said.

— Or he didn't come from our timeline at all, — Alpha added.

— Why did you never tell anyone? — I asked.

Earth's Lira lowered her head.

— Because one day he disappeared. He simply didn't show up for a date. His apartment turned out to be empty, his phone number didn't exist, and the company he supposedly worked for had never heard of him. I decided he'd gone back to his own time and cut me out of his life for good.

— But you said you knew everything about him, — Gemini reminded her.

— Before he disappeared, he told me the truth. Not only about his time. About himself. He wasn't a traveler or a historian. He'd been sent to the twenty-first century with orders to observe a man who would one day create a passage between the invented reality and the real one.

Everyone slowly turned to my husband.

— The Author, — I said quietly.

Earth's Lira nodded.

— I didn't know who it was then. I didn't know his name and didn't understand what any of it meant. He said only that this man would change the structure of many worlds.

— And that's why an agent from the future spent four months dating you? — Pirate asked.

— No. That wasn't part of his assignment. He claimed he'd genuinely fallen in love.

The Architect remained outwardly calm, but a red light flickered, barely perceptible, in his eyes.

Earth's Lira took his hand.

— I loved him. Back then. But one day he made his choice and disappeared. I went on living. I met another man, got married, survived a contract on my own life, met all of you… and chose you.

The Architect looked into her eyes.

— I know. The past doesn't make you guilty. A secret makes you vulnerable. Those are different things.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

— Before he disappeared, he left me one sentence. For years I thought it was meaningless: "When the man I've been looking for stops seeing the future, I'll come back for what I left inside you."

No one moved.

Earth's Lira's hand went instantly to her belly.

The Architect stood in front of her.

— Was he talking about the child?

— That's impossible. I wasn't pregnant then.

— Perhaps what he left wasn't a biological object, — Dexter said. — Information. A code. Coordinates. A hidden neural marker impossible to detect with the technology of that era.

— Or a way to open a portal through her body, — Gemini added.

The red light in the Architect's eyes grew brighter.

Earth's Lira rose and went to the Author.

— You saw him, didn't you? He's coming back for me… or for Alan?

— He needs all of you — as an energy core. And the worst of it: he admits he never loved you. He imprinted the coordinates for opening the galaxy into you at the genetic level, but waited until you were modified, so he could use you as a generator, — the Author answered.

Earth's Lira didn't move.

It seemed the last words hurt her more than the news of her impending death.

— Never?.. All four months were a lie? Every meeting. Every touch. Everything he said…

The Architect came closer, but didn't embrace her right away.

— The fact that he lied about his feelings doesn't make yours a lie.

She raised her tear-filled eyes to him.

— I really did love him.

— I know.

— Doesn't it hurt you to hear that?

— It hurts to see that someone used your love as a weapon. But your past doesn't belong to me. And I won't judge you for once trusting a man.

Earth's Lira stepped toward him herself and pressed her face to his chest.

The Architect held her, then looked at his brother.

— How is he planning to take her?

— First we need to understand what exactly is inside, — I said. — Archive, immediate full scan of Earth's Lira. Genetic level. Look for any sequences that don't match her natural genome or the modification she underwent.

A wave of blue light passed through the room.

A holographic model of Earth's Lira's body appeared in the center of the living room. Billions of genetic chains unfolded around us, forming a complex glowing structure.

For a few seconds the Archive was silent.

— UNACCOUNTED GENETIC MATRIX DETECTED.

Inside the model, a thin black line flared. It ran through Earth's Lira's entire organism like a second nervous system and converged at a single point near the heart.

— Why didn't you detect it during the modification? — the Architect asked sharply.

— THE MATRIX WAS DISGUISED AS INACTIVE SECTIONS OF THE HUMAN GENOME. BEFORE THE MODIFICATION BEGAN, IT HAD NO ENERGY ACTIVITY AND POSED NO PHYSIOLOGICAL THREAT.

Dexter walked up to the hologram.

— It was waiting for an immortal source of energy.

— CONFIRMED. AFTER THE MODIFICATION, THE MATRIX BEGAN USING LIRA'S REGENERATION CIRCUIT AS A POWER SOURCE.

The black line grew brighter. Thin threads stretched from it to every cell of the modified body.

— That's why he needs all of her, — Gemini said. — The code is no longer in a single organ. It spread along with the modification.

The Architect stepped up to the hologram.

— Remove it.

— IMMEDIATE REMOVAL IMPOSSIBLE. THE MATRIX IS INTEGRATED INTO THE REGENERATION SYSTEM. AN ATTEMPT AT FORCED EXTRACTION MAY CAUSE COMPLETE DISINTEGRATION OF THE MODIFIED ORGANISM.

— Then shut it down.

— THE MATRIX DOES NOT ANSWER TO THE ARCHIVE. THE TECHNOLOGY DOES NOT BELONG TO THE CONSORTIUM.

— And the child? — Earth's Lira asked.

The hologram enlarged. Beside the main model, a tiny silhouette of a child appeared.

— NO GENETIC MATRIX DETECTED IN THE CHILD'S ORGANISM. HOWEVER, THE ENERGY BOND BETWEEN MOTHER AND CHILD ALLOWS THE MATRIX TO USE HIS SIGNATURE AS AN ADDITIONAL STABILIZER.

The Architect turned sharply to the hologram.

— So he is using my son after all.

— INDIRECTLY — YES.

Red lightning ran down the Architect's arms.

— He won't get her, and he won't get the child.

Earth's Lira wiped her tears and stepped away from him. There was no more confusion on her face. Only cold fury.

— No. He'll get exactly what he wanted. He waited for me to become a generator. So he has to believe his plan worked. We won't remove the code and tip him off. We'll let him open the passage.

— Lira… — the Architect began.

— You wanted me to make my own decisions. Here's my decision. I will no longer be the object everyone tries to save, hide or use. He'll come for an energy core — and he'll meet me.

The Architect smiled slowly. There wasn't a drop of amusement in that smile.

— Now I understand why I chose you.

— EXTERNAL SYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED. THE GENETIC MATRIX HAS BEGUN TRANSMITTING COORDINATES. CURRENT PASSAGE OPENING READINESS: THREE POINT TWO PERCENT.

— How much time do we have? — Dexter asked.

— AT THE CURRENT RATE, FULL SYNCHRONIZATION WILL BE REACHED IN FIVE HOURS FORTY-ONE MINUTES.

The Architect looked at his brother.

— You saw the moment he appears. So you know exactly how he'll try to take Lira.

I went over to the Author.

— And maybe you know how to separate this matrix from her regeneration without harming her or Alan.

Earth's Lira stopped in front of him.

— Tell me honestly. In the future you saw, did I survive the extraction… or did that creature actually manage to turn me into a generator?

— You simply killed him. And we found out about it too late — a couple of months later, to be precise, when Dexter began a repeat scan. He couldn't believe a man had just up and vanished and the portal never opened, — the Author answered.

Earth's Lira slowly lowered her hands.

— I killed him?

— Did Alan survive? — the Architect asked at the same moment.

And only after asking did he realize how terrible the question sounded.

— You're only asking about the child? — Earth's Lira asked.

— No. I'm asking about him first because my brother already said it: you survived. A few months later, Dexter scanned you, specifically. So you were alive. Now I need to know that you both survived.

— THE CHILD'S CONDITION IS STABLE. IN THE ACCESSIBLE FRAGMENT OF THE FUTURE THERE ARE NO SIGNS OF DAMAGE TO ALAN ELKIND, — the Archive replied.

Dexter unfolded the energy structure of the matrix.

— Lira may not have done anything consciously. The system was built to turn a modified organism into a generator. But its creator made a mistake: the Consortium's modification teaches every cell to defend its own integrity.

— He was waiting for a generator to appear, — Alpha realized. — And got a living energy system with an instinct for self-preservation.

— And Earth's Lira's temper, — Gina added.

— Archive, what happens when synchronization reaches one hundred percent? — Earth's Lira asked.

— THE MATRIX WILL ATTEMPT TO FORCIBLY EXTRACT ENERGY AND OPEN A PASSAGE TO THE DESIGNATED GALAXY.

— And if my body resists?

— A REVERSE PULSE WILL OCCUR. SINCE THE SYSTEM HAS A TWO-WAY LINK TO THE SOURCE OF THE COMMAND, THE ENERGY WILL BE RETURNED TO THE SENDER.

Dexter nodded slowly.

— In her modified state, Lira can withstand that pulse. He can't.

— That's why the portal never opened, — I said. — At the moment of activation, the system sent all the energy he meant to drain from her straight back at him.

— And vaporized him before he could come through, — Pirate finished.

Earth's Lira was looking at the holographic model of her own body.

— So I really am going to kill him.

The Architect stood beside her.

— He built the weapon into you himself. Activated it himself. Aimed it at you and our son himself. All you did was not let him finish. It's still a killing, and you'll have to live with it. But you will live.

A tear rolled down Earth's Lira's cheek.

— The worst part is that some part of me still remembers the man I loved. Even though he never existed.

I took her hand.

— Your feeling existed. Your four months. Your pain. He lied — you didn't.

— CURRENT PASSAGE OPENING READINESS: FIVE POINT NINE PERCENT.

The Architect turned to Dexter.

— Prepare a protective circuit around Lira and Alan. The reverse pulse has to reach the sender without touching them. Gemini and Alpha monitor the child. Gina and Pirate seal the entrances. Earth's Artem stays with them. I'll stay with Lira. If he survives the pulse and opens the portal, the first thing he sees will be me.

The Author had been silent all this time.

I looked at him.

— The Veil showed you more than just today's moment. You saw that we discovered his death only months later. Which means that after the activation, the matrix stayed inside Earth's Lira. It simply stopped showing signs of activity.

Dexter turned sharply to the hologram.

— If the source of the command dies, the code should shut down, but not disappear. And one day someone else could activate it again.

Earth's Lira looked at the Author.

— That's why the Veil warned you now. You saw me kill him. But did you see what we did with the matrix after we finally discovered it?

— Nothing. It stayed inactive, and the Architect forbade you from undergoing any extraction procedures so as not to lose you. That led to a great deal of shouting and drama, but you stayed alive and in the family. Sorry, brother, but she asked, — the Author answered.

Everyone looked at the Architect.

He didn't look away.

— You forbade me? — Earth's Lira asked quietly.

— I did.

— Didn't ask me to wait? Didn't explain the risks? Just forbade it?

— Yes.

Earth's Lira walked slowly up to him.

— After everything you said about the right to choose?

— If the procedure could have destroyed you, I would have stopped it.

— You can't give me freedom first and then take it back when my choice frightens you.

— If the price of your choice is your death, I'll do it again.

Earth's Lira stepped back.

— Then you're no better than the man who built this matrix into me. He decided too that my body belonged to his purpose.

The Architect's red eyes flared instantly.

— Don't ever compare me to him again.

— Then stop acting like him!

An energy wave rolled through the room. Glasses cracked, the holographic panels trembled.

Alan answered with a sharp pulse.

Earth's Lira cried out and pressed a palm to her belly.

I was beside her in an instant.

— Both of you, stop!

The Architect extinguished his power at once and dropped to his knees before her.

— THE CHILD'S CONDITION IS STABLE. A REACTION TO THE PARENTS' EMOTIONAL AND ENERGY SURGE HAS BEEN REGISTERED.

The Architect wanted to touch her belly, but stopped his hand. For the first time, he was waiting for permission.

Earth's Lira herself laid his palm next to hers.

— I don't want to fight you.

— Neither do I.

— But you have no right to forbid me the procedure.

— And you have no right to demand that I calmly watch you risk dying.

— I'm not demanding calm. I'm demanding respect for my decision.

— I don't know how to do that.

— You'll learn. You're the one who offered me eternity. Now you'll have plenty of time.

The Author stood nearby, looking as though he genuinely regretted having revealed the future quarrel.

The Architect looked at his brother.

— You have nothing to apologize for. She asked. And I made that choice myself.

— Would have made, — Earth's Lira corrected. — That future hasn't come yet.

Dexter enlarged the image of the matrix.

— Now it may never come. In the line we saw, we found the code only months later, when it had already fully fused with the regeneration system. Right now the integration isn't complete. But the procedure can't be done before the child is born. The energy bond between the mother and Alan makes the result unpredictable.

Earth's Lira nodded.

— Then until my son is born, the matrix stays inside me. After Alan is born, we run the analysis again. If extraction is possible, I make the decision.

— Together, — the Architect said.

— We'll discuss it together. The decision about my body is mine.

The Architect clenched his jaw.

— All right.

— And you won't block access to the medical bay? Won't give the Archive a secret order? Won't ask your brother to rewrite reality?

— No.

Earth's Lira gently touched his lips.

— Now I recognize the man I chose again.

— MATRIX READINESS: NINE POINT ONE PERCENT. TIME TO FULL SYNCHRONIZATION: FIVE HOURS TWENTY-THREE MINUTES.

I looked the Author in the eyes.

— Is the Veil still showing you the old future… or did it change the moment the Architect agreed not to forbid the extraction?

The Author's eyes lit up again.

A couple of minutes later he cried out sharply:

— Shit! Get her to the medical bay, now! The extraction has to happen before the timer runs out, or in a couple of months the Architect will be visiting the grave of Earth's Lira and her unborn Alan!

Time stopped.

Earth's Lira went pale and instinctively covered her belly with both hands.

The Architect vanished from where he stood. A moment later he was already holding her in his arms.

— Archive, the medical bay! Now!

The living room doors flew open, and the corridor walls parted, opening a straight path to the operating hall.

The Architect ran. We rushed after him.

— What changed? — Dexter shouted as he ran. — In the previous line she stayed alive!

— We changed the decision, — Alpha answered. — So the matrix's reaction changed.

— It could have recognized the intention to carry out the extraction after the child's birth and launched a delayed protocol to destroy the host, — Gemini suggested.

The medical bay opened before we even reached it.

The Architect carefully laid Earth's Lira in the diagnostic capsule.

— Full analysis! Everything that's changed in the last few minutes!

Blue light passed through her body.

The black genetic matrix on the hologram no longer resembled a thin line. It was pulsing.

— NEW PROTOCOL DETECTED. THE MATRIX HAS REGISTERED THE HOST'S INTENTION TO CARRY OUT A FUTURE EXTRACTION. SECONDARY SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.

— Which is? — the Architect asked.

— AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COMMAND SOURCE, THE MATRIX WILL ENTER A MODE OF CONCEALED ENERGY DECAY. THE HOST ORGANISM WILL LOSE THE CAPACITY TO REGENERATE. THE PROCESS IS IRREVERSIBLE ONCE THE CURRENT SYNCHRONIZATION IS COMPLETE.

The Architect gripped the edge of the capsule. The metal crumpled under his fingers.

— Why didn't you detect this sooner?!

— THE SECONDARY SEQUENCE DID NOT EXIST UNTIL THE MOMENT THE DECISION ON DELAYED EXTRACTION WAS MADE. THE MATRIX IS ADAPTIVE.

— It reads my mind? — Earth's Lira asked.

— Only the decisions that concern its existence, — Dexter answered.

— Wonderful. I have a sentient genetic parasite inside me.

— PASSAGE OPENING READINESS: TWELVE POINT EIGHT PERCENT. TIME REMAINING: FIVE HOURS TWELVE MINUTES.

— Begin the extraction, — Earth's Lira said.

Dexter didn't answer.

— Why are you just standing there?

— Because we still don't know how to separate the matrix from your regeneration system without destroying it along with you.

— You have five hours.

— We may need more.

— I don't have more!

The Architect laid his palm on the glass of the capsule.

— Look at me. I won't forbid the procedure.

Tears appeared in her eyes.

— Even now?

His voice faltered.

— Especially now. I promised to respect your choice. And if the only chance of keeping you and Alan is to take the risk right now, I'll take it with you.

— VOLUNTARY CONFIRMATION FROM THE PATIENT IS REQUIRED TO BEGIN THE PROCEDURE. MOTHER'S SURVIVAL PROGNOSIS: FORTY-ONE PERCENT. CHILD'S SURVIVAL PROGNOSIS: THIRTY-EIGHT PERCENT.

Earth's Lira closed her eyes.

— I confirm.

— No, — the Architect breathed.

She looked at him.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to finish:

— I'm not forbidding it. Just give me a second to be a man who's afraid of losing his family.

Earth's Lira reached out her hand from the open capsule. The Architect seized it and pressed it to his lips.

— The second's over. Now be the Architect.

Red light flared in his eyes.

Dexter brought up the model of the matrix in front of the Author.

— It's not enough for us to know the extraction has to be done now. We need a sequence of actions. One mistake and we lose them both.

The Architect stood before his brother.

— Brother… tell me how to save them. What exactly did you see?

— Nobody say anything, — the Author ordered.

He took out his phone, quickly typed something and put it away again.

— Begin the extraction.

No one asked a single question.

Dexter activated the surgical circuit. A transparent lid closed over Earth's Lira, and four rings of energy stabilizers rose around the capsule.

The Architect stayed beside her. I stood next to my husband.

— BEGINNING SEPARATION OF THE CHILD'S ENERGY SIGNATURE FROM THE MOTHER'S REGENERATION CIRCUIT.

A golden glow surrounded Alan.

The black matrix reacted immediately. Its lines rushed toward the child, trying to hold on to the bond, but at the last moment they stopped. Then they began to move the other way.

Away from him.

Dexter looked sharply at the readings.

— It's no longer resisting the child's separation…

Gemini pressed a finger to her lips, reminding him of the Author's order.

A new line appeared on the main screen:

MATRIX ACCESS TO THE HOST'S CONSCIOUS DECISIONS: BLOCKED.

I looked at my husband.

He hadn't changed the outcome. He hadn't written that Earth's Lira and Alan would simply survive.

He had stripped the parasite of its ability to learn our intentions.

— THE CHILD'S SIGNATURE IS ISOLATED. THE CONDITION OF ALAN ELKIND IS STABLE.

An artificial energy carrier rose out of the floor — a small sphere of black metal surrounded by a force field. Dexter connected it to Earth's Lira's regeneration circuit.

A double flow appeared on the hologram.

Gold — life.

Black — the foreign program.

— BEGINNING TRANSFER OF THE GENETIC MATRIX INTO THE ARTIFICIAL CARRIER.

Earth's Lira's body arched inside the capsule.

She screamed.

The Architect seized the glass with both hands, but didn't stop the procedure.

Black lines surfaced on her skin. They moved from her limbs toward her heart, gathering into a single pulsing point.

Ten percent.

Twenty.

Thirty-five.

The mother's condition began to deteriorate.

Fifty percent.

The matrix finally understood what was happening.

The black lines froze, then lunged back through the entire organism.

— ATTEMPTED RE-INTEGRATION DETECTED.

The Author silently raised his phone.

The matrix stopped again.

Another line appeared on the screen:

ADAPTATION TO THE PROCEDURE: PROHIBITED.

The Author wasn't rewriting Earth's Lira's choice. He was rewriting the rules of the weapon that was stripping her of it.

Sixty percent.

Seventy-eight.

The black sphere began to tremble.

— ATTENTION. THE ARTIFICIAL CARRIER IS APPROACHING ITS POWER LIMIT.

Alpha activated an additional circuit. Gina and Pirate took up position at the entrance. Gemini readied her neon chains. Earth's Artem shielded Eva with his body.

Ninety percent.

The Architect was no longer watching the readings. Only Earth's Lira.

Ninety-seven.

Ninety-nine.

For a second, everything stopped.

Earth's Lira's heart stopped beating.

The Architect slammed his fist against the glass. The capsule held.

Alan answered with a powerful golden pulse. The light passed through his mother's body and made her heart contract again.

— EXTRACTION COMPLETE. MOTHER'S CONDITION STABILIZED. CHILD'S CONDITION STABLE. GENETIC MATRIX FULLY REMOVED.

The Architect lowered his head onto the glass and, for the first time, allowed himself to exhale.

But in that same second the black sphere rose above the platform. Cracks ran across its surface.

— ATTENTION. THE MATRIX HAS MOVED TO FORCED OPENING OF THE PASSAGE.

The timer suddenly changed.

00: 00: 03

— Protective circuit! — I shouted.

00: 00: 02

The Architect turned to face the sphere. His eyes flared red.

00: 00: 01

Space tore open.

In the center of the medical bay, a black portal opened.

On the other side stood a man.

At first a confident smile appeared on his face. He'd expected to see a defenseless Earth woman turned into an obedient generator.

Instead, he saw the whole Pack.

Two Architects. Gemini with her neon chains. Gina, Alpha, Pirate, Dexter, Earth's Artem, Eva and me.

And in the center — the Author, smartphone in hand.

The man's smile vanished.

The Architect walked slowly up to the portal.

— I believe you've come for my woman.

The stranger looked at the open capsule, then at the artificial carrier.

He understood.

Instead of a living generator, we had handed him a trap filled with all the energy of his own matrix.

I looked at my husband.

— My love… what exactly did you write in the phone?

The Author didn't answer.

His eyes lit up red.

He drew a pistol from his former time and fired several shots at the man standing on the other side of the portal.

The thunder of it ripped through the medical bay.

The stranger jerked from the hits and crashed to the floor.

The artificial carrier tore free of the containment field, flew into the portal and vanished beside his body.

Space snapped shut.

Silence fell.

The Author lowered the pistol.

— I just wrote that bullets from 2026 can kill him.

For a few seconds no one said a word.

— That's it? — Pirate asked.

Dexter was checking the readings.

— The portal is fully closed. The energy link is severed. The matrix has left Earth's Lira's organism and been transferred to the sender's side.

— Is he dead? — Gemini asked.

— His biological signature vanished right after the hits, — Alpha answered.

Pirate looked at the pistol.

— A man from the twenty-fourth century, with independent portal technology, capable of programming people at the genetic level… killed by ordinary bullets?

— Not ordinary ones, — Earth's Artem noted. — Bullets the Author allowed to kill him.

— The oldest vulnerability there is, — Dexter said. — Arrogance.

— DIRECT THREAT TO MEMBERS OF THE PACK ELIMINATED. NO GENETIC MATRIX DETECTED IN THE ORGANISM OF LIRA ELKIND. THE ENERGY SIGNATURE OF ALAN ELKIND IS STABLE.

The capsule's lid rose.

The Architect was there before it had fully opened. He carefully lifted Earth's Lira and helped her sit up.

— Can you hear me?

She nodded.

— Alan?

— Alive. Stable. The matrix is gone.

She laid a palm on her belly and closed her eyes. A faint golden pulse came from the child.

Only then did the Architect allow himself to embrace her.

Earth's Lira pressed herself against him, but kept looking over his shoulder at the Author.

— Is he dead?

— I CONFIRM THE TERMINATION OF THE SUBJECT'S BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE, — the Archive replied.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

The Architect didn't ask why she was crying for a man who had never loved her. He simply held her.

— For so many years I imagined what I'd say to him if I ever saw him again. I wanted to ask why he disappeared. I wanted to hear that at least some part of what we had was real.

— And now? — I asked.

— Now I understand there was no one there to talk to. I loved an image he created for me. The real man only came here today. And today I saw him for the first time.

— And the last, — the Architect said.

The Author put the pistol away, but the red light in his eyes hadn't faded yet.

— DIRECT THREAT ELIMINATED. VOLUNTARY VEIL RESTORED. ACCESS TO FURTHER FUTURE EVENTS CLOSED.

The glow vanished.

The Author was with us in the present once more.

Earth's Lira went to him and hugged him.

— Thank you for saving us. But I need to know one thing. When you fired, had you already seen that this was exactly how we'd win… or, for the first time since the Veil was put in place, did you make a decision yourself, without knowing its consequences?

— I removed the choice setting. Forgive me… I couldn't let you die, — the Author answered.

I let go of his hand.

It grew so quiet in the medical bay that I could hear my own breathing.

— What did you do? — Eva asked again.

I felt real fear. Not of an enemy, a weapon or death. Of my own husband.

Because only he could utter a sentence like that — and turn it into a law of reality.

— Archive, check the base principle of freedom of choice.

A second passed.

— CHECK IMPOSSIBLE.

— Why? — Dexter asked.

— THE PRINCIPLE OF CHOICE IS NOT DETECTED IN THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF REALITY.

Eva took a step back from her father.

Earth's Lira stared at the Author in shock.

— You didn't just allow the bullets to kill him? You decided for all of us what had to happen? Made the only possible outcome the one where Alan and I survive and he dies?

The Architect walked slowly up to his brother.

— I understand why you did it.

— Don't justify it, — I said.

— I'm not justifying it. If I'd been given the chance to save them for certain at the cost of one principle, I'm not sure I would have done otherwise.

— Which is exactly why a power like that must not belong to a man who makes decisions in a state of fear!

Red light flared in the Architect's eyes.

— And what were you proposing? Watching them die to preserve our moral purity?

— No! I'm proposing we don't destroy the freedom of all reality to save two people!

— Stop it, — Earth's Lira said.

She turned to the Author.

— I'm alive because of you. My son is alive because of you. I won't pretend I'm sorry you intervened. But you saved my choice by taking the choice away from everyone else. I'm grateful to you and angry at you at the same time. Both emotions have a right to exist.

Eva looked at her father with tears in her eyes.

— You're the one who taught me that a person has to choose and answer for the consequences. So when you got scared, you just canceled your own rule?

— Our personalities are intact, — Dexter said. — Memory, feelings and the ability to make decisions show no outward change.

— Outward, — Alpha repeated. — But we can't prove that our every next decision isn't determined by the Author.

I looked at my husband.

For the first time, I didn't know whether I had gone to him of my own accord — or because no other possibility existed anymore.

He saw the doubt in my eyes.

— My love, I believe you did this out of love. But love without the right to refuse it becomes a cage. Even if that cage saves a life.

The Architect stood beside his brother.

— He's not the enemy.

— I know. I'm looking at him as a man who received absolute power and, for the first time, used it without our consent.

Earth's Lira took the Author's hand.

— I forgive you for saving me. But I can't forgive what I don't yet understand. Did you remove the choice setting for only a few seconds, to change the outcome of this operation… or is there no more freedom of choice in our entire reality?

— All of you, try making a choice right now that I personally won't like. Dexter, run the history of the whole Pack's choices in the past and see whether there were any changes that came not from them but from outside influence, — the Author said.

Dexter immediately unfolded the holographic panels.

— Launching a full check of cause and effect. Archive, I need access to every decision made by members of the Pack since the Author's first appearance.

— ACCESS GRANTED.

I kept looking at my husband.

— All right. You want me to do something you won't like?

He nodded.

I took the smartphone out of his pocket and handed it to Dexter.

— You're not getting it back until the check is complete.

The phone left the Author's hand without resistance. Reality made no attempt to stop me.

— First choice confirmed, — Dexter said. — The Author obviously doesn't like it, but no neural correction has been registered in Lira.

The Architect took the cigar out of his brother's mouth and put it out in his glass of cognac.

— I've wanted to do that for a long time.

— Second choice confirmed, — Alpha said. — The Author's irritation level has risen by eighteen percent.

Earth's Lira looked at the Architect.

— Tonight I'm sleeping alone.

His face changed.

— Lira…

— I decided to test both brothers at once.

The Architect gritted his teeth but didn't argue.

— Fourth choice confirmed, — Dexter reported. — Neither the Author nor the Architect was able to change her decision.

Eva had been silent all this time.

Then she went up to her father.

— And I choose not to forgive you yet. Not because I've stopped loving you. I need time to understand what exactly you did. And if freedom still exists, you'll let me be angry for as long as it takes.

It was the most painful choice of all.

And it stood.

Nothing made Eva take her words back.

Dexter continued the analysis.

Thousands of fragments of the past rose around us: the Author's first appearance in the Maldives, the family's permission for him to stay, my choice to love him, his decision to give up his former world, the trials, the battles, the saved realities, the quarrels, the reconciliations, Eva's birth and the arrival of Earth's Lira.

Every event branched into hundreds of paths.

— Archive, separate changes of circumstance from changes of decision, — Dexter ordered.

Some of the lines went dark.

What remained were the points where someone had tried to act on the will of members of the Pack: impostors, anomalies, foreign pacts, and beings that offered to take away pain in exchange for submission.

But every time, the decision to resist had been ours.

A scene appeared before our eyes in which the Author destroyed an enemy through his smartphone.

— Here the circumstances were changed, — Dexter explained. — The enemy erased, the threat ended. But the family members' decisions before and after the event remained their own.

The next scene showed the shots fired at the man from the twenty-fourth century.

— Here the Author changed the law of the target's vulnerability. He allowed bullets from 2026 to kill the subject. But none of those present underwent any correction of consciousness.

Finally, all the lines converged before us.

— ANALYSIS COMPLETE.

RETROACTIVE ALTERATION OF PACK MEMBERS' DECISIONS: NOT DETECTED.

FORCED CORRECTION OF WILL BY THE AUTHOR: NOT DETECTED.

EXTERNAL ATTEMPTS AT INFLUENCE: REGISTERED.

SUCCESSFUL EXTERNAL ALTERATIONS OF PERSONAL CHOICE: ZERO.

I exhaled slowly.

— Then why did you say the principle of choice was not detected?

— FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS NOT A PROGRAMMED SETTING OF REALITY. IT IS A PROPERTY OF INDEPENDENT CONSCIOUSNESS. THE AUTHOR DID NOT REMOVE THE FREE WILL OF THE MEMBERS OF THE PACK, BUT THE SYSTEM RESTRICTION THAT PROHIBITED HIM FROM FORCIBLY CHANGING THE OUTCOME OF AN EVENT WITHOUT THE FAMILY'S CONSENT.

Now his words meant something different.

He hadn't deprived us of the ability to choose.

He had taken the limiter off himself.

For a few seconds, the Author had once again become what he had declared himself to be at his first appearance: a being capable of single-handedly deciding the outcome of the story.

But our thoughts, feelings and decisions had remained our own.

I went to my husband.

— So you didn't take our freedom away. You took away our right to influence your decision to intervene.

— And saved us without permission, — Earth's Lira said.

— Yes, — the Architect said. — But he didn't rewrite us afterward.

Eva was still standing apart.

— I haven't changed my mind yet.

— And that's the best proof that you don't have to, — I answered.

I took the smartphone back from Dexter, but didn't return it to my husband yet.

— One question remains. Did you lift the restriction only for the time it took to save Earth's Lira and Alan… or is it still switched off?

— Switched back on. But you can double-check with Dexter, or yourself, — the Author answered calmly.

I looked at the smartphone.

— I will.

Not because I wanted to humiliate him with distrust. Because after what had happened, a simple promise wasn't enough — and he understood that himself.

I handed the phone to Dexter.

— Full analysis of the latest changes. No access to personal entries unrelated to today's event.

Dexter connected the smartphone to an isolated holographic panel.

The last three commands appeared on the screen.

TEMPORARILY SUSPEND THE MANDATORY FAMILY CONSENT PROTOCOL FOR ALTERING A CRITICAL OUTCOME.

BULLETS FROM THE REALITY OF 2026 ARE CAPABLE OF KILLING THE SUBJECT.

AFTER THE DIRECT THREAT IS ELIMINATED, AUTOMATICALLY RESTORE THE CONSENT PROTOCOL AND THE VOLUNTARY VEIL.

Not a single additional line.

No hidden orders.

No attempt to change our memories, our emotions or our attitude toward what he had done.

— The temporary shutdown lasted forty-seven seconds, — Dexter reported. — The protocol was restored immediately after the portal closed. Another alteration of a critical outcome without the family's consent is impossible right now.

— CONFIRMED. THE CHOICE PROTECTION SYSTEM IS ACTIVE. NO HIDDEN EXCEPTIONS, — the Archive said.

I closed my eyes and entered the structure of the Archive myself. I went through every level. I checked the consent protocol, the voluntary Veil and the smartphone's links to our reality.

Nothing.

The Author had told the truth.

I opened my eyes.

— Confirmed. Everything is restored.

The tension eased a little.

— You wrote in the automatic return of the restriction ahead of time, — the Architect said.

— So even in that moment he understood he mustn't keep absolute power any longer than necessary, — Dexter said.

— Forty-seven seconds of absolute power is still absolute power, — Alpha reminded them.

— But he voluntarily limited it before he even used it, — Gemini said. — That doesn't undo what he did. But it explains the intent.

Earth's Lira carefully climbed down from the capsule and walked over to the Author on her own.

— I didn't ask you to save us this way. But if you'd spent the time getting consent, my son would have died. So I won't condemn you for those forty-seven seconds. Just never again hide the fact that you're able to lift the restriction.

Eva came up to her father.

— I'm not ready to say I forgive you yet. But now at least I understand what exactly you did. You didn't force us to choose the path you wanted. You broke the rule yourself and left us the right to judge you for it.

I returned the phone to my husband.

— Now you can have it back.

He took it, but I didn't let go right away.

— You frightened me, my love. Not because you changed a law of reality. Because for a few minutes I stopped understanding whether my love for you was my own.

I pressed his palm to my cheek.

— Now I know it is. And that's exactly why I have the right to be angry.

The Architect laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

— Welcome to the family. Here, saving the world doesn't get you out of a talk with your wife and daughter.

In the medical bay, cautious laughter finally sounded.

I looked at my husband.

— If it all happened again — the same forty-seven seconds, the same choice between our consent and our lives… would you do the same thing?

— I think we need to call a family council and discuss how we'll handle situations like this from now on, — the Author laughed.

For a few seconds I looked at him, waiting for an attempt to dodge the answer. None came.

He had genuinely proposed handing the decision to the family.

— Agreed. And we're calling it right now.

— I've just survived the extraction of a genetic parasite and my own death in an alternate future, — Earth's Lira said wearily. — Can we hold the council near a couch?

— A COUCH WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE HALL IN FORTY SECONDS, — the Archive reported.

— And the cognac? — Pirate asked.

— A FAMILY COUNCIL DOES NOT REQUIRE SOBRIETY OF ITS PARTICIPANTS.

A few minutes later we gathered in the central hall.

Earth's Lira lay on the couch with her head in the Architect's lap. With one hand he stroked her hair; with the other he wouldn't let go of the medical scanner showing Alan's readings.

The Author sat beside me.

Across from us sat Eva, Gemini, Earth's Artem, Gina, Alpha, Pirate, Dexter and Dmitry.

Anubis took the center of the table.

— Why is the cat taking part in the council? — Dexter asked.

— He's the only member of the family who hasn't yet tried to change reality, — Eva answered. — So he holds the moral high ground.

Anubis meowed importantly.

I rose.

— We have one task. To create a simple procedure for cases when the Author can save the family only by directly changing reality.

— No bureaucracy, — the Architect warned. — If there are seconds left before death, nobody is going to be counting votes.

— Agreed. So I propose three rules.

An empty holographic panel appeared before us.

— First. If the threat is immediate and there's no time for discussion, the Author has the right to intervene on his own.

Dexter entered the first line.

IMMEDIATE THREAT: INDEPENDENT INTERVENTION PERMITTED.

— But only to eliminate the threat itself, — Alpha added. — Not to change our subsequent decisions.

— And with automatic restoration of all limiters, — Gemini said.

— AMENDMENT ACCEPTED.

— Second. If there is time for discussion, the last word belongs to the person whose life, body or mind is under threat.

The Architect looked at Earth's Lira.

She lifted her head from his lap.

— Even if the family doesn't like their choice.

He nodded slowly.

DELAYED THREAT: THE DECISION IS MADE BY THE DIRECTLY AFFECTED MEMBER OF THE PACK.

— And if the one under threat is a child who can't choose yet? — Eva asked.

— The parents decide together, — Earth's Lira said.

— And if the parents disagree? — Pirate pressed.

Earth's Lira looked at the Architect.

— Then the decision is made by the one whose body is directly connected to the child.

The Architect clearly didn't like that. But he nodded again.

— Agreed.

— Third. Under no circumstances does the Author alter the love, memory, beliefs or voluntary decisions of members of the family.

— Even to save them? — Dmitry asked.

— External control, a parasite or artificial coercion can be removed, — Alpha answered. — But a person's own decision cannot be replaced with another.

Dexter added a line:

CONSCIOUSNESS OF A PACK MEMBER: DIRECT CORRECTION BY THE AUTHOR PROHIBITED. ONLY THE REMOVAL OF EXTERNAL COERCION IS PERMITTED.

— And one more thing, — Eva said. — After every independent intervention, Dad has to tell the family what exactly he changed. No hidden commands and no "you're better off not knowing."

Dexter entered the addition:

MANDATORY SUBSEQUENT REPORT AND VERIFICATION OF CHANGES.

— What do we call it? — Gina asked.

— "The Absolute Power Protocol," — Pirate suggested.

— Too grandiose, — Alpha objected.

— "The Don't-Piss-Off-Lira Protocol," — Dmitry said.

— Too universal, — Earth's Artem noted. — Half the family rules would fit under that name.

I looked at the timer in the Archive record.

Forty-seven seconds.

That was exactly how long the Author's unilateral intervention had lasted.

— "The Forty-Seven-Second Protocol."

No one objected.

THE 47-SECOND PROTOCOL

IMMEDIATE THREAT — THE AUTHOR MAY INTERVENE INDEPENDENTLY.

ONLY THE THREAT IS CHANGED, NOT THE FAMILY'S DECISIONS.

WHEN THERE IS TIME, THE CHOICE REMAINS WITH THE AFFECTED PERSON.

CORRECTION OF PACK MEMBERS' OWN WILL IS PROHIBITED.

AFTER AN INTERVENTION — FULL DISCLOSURE AND FAMILY VERIFICATION.

— One last thing remains, — Dexter said. — The Author has to confirm the protocol voluntarily. Otherwise it won't receive top priority over his abilities.

I turned to my husband.

— No punishment, my love. No attempt to tie your hands when our lives depend on you. Only a boundary between protecting the family and holding power over it.

Eva came and stood beside me.

— Do you agree to accept "The Forty-Seven-Second Protocol"?

— I agree, — the Author answered.

One word.

No smirk. No attempt to leave a loophole. No fine monologue about power, love or responsibility.

— THE AUTHOR'S VOLUNTARY CONSENT CONFIRMED. BEGINNING INTEGRATION OF "THE FORTY-SEVEN-SECOND PROTOCOL."

The lines rose above the table and surrounded the Author in a silvery ring.

His smartphone vibrated.

The text of the protocol appeared on the screen, and a single command:

ACCEPT

The Author pressed it.

The silvery ring flared and dissolved into his body.

— PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

— Verification, — Alpha demanded.

Dexter opened the system structure of the Author's abilities.

— Immediate intervention is available only under a confirmed threat to life. After the threat is eliminated, the restriction is restored automatically. Any changes to the consciousness of Pack members are blocked.

— And if he wants to rewrite the protocol itself? — Gina asked.

Dexter fell silent.

— Technically, he could. He can't be constrained by a system that exists inside a reality he created. If he really wants to, he'll change the rules first and then delete the prohibition.

— So the protocol is useless? — Eva asked.

— No, — I answered. — It's just that its strength doesn't rest on the impossibility of breaking a promise. It rests on his choice not to.

The Architect rose and held out his hand to his brother.

— Absolute power can't be locked in a cage. It can only be trusted with a boundary.

The Author shook his hand.

The Architect pulled his brother close and hugged him hard.

— You saved my family. Thank you.

Earth's Lira slowly got up from the couch and went over to them.

— Our family, — she corrected.

She hugged them both.

— But next time, try to save me without graves, genetic parasites and a family constitutional crisis.

— REQUEST REGISTERED. PROBABILITY OF FULFILLMENT: TWELVE PERCENT.

Eva was still standing beside me.

I didn't hurry her.

Forgiveness demanded on the spot stops being a choice.

She went to her father on her own.

— I'm still angry. And I may stay angry until tomorrow. But I forgive you.

Eva hugged him.

The Author held his daughter close and closed his eyes.

I saw a tear roll down his cheek.

Dmitry turned away and immediately busied himself with the bottle of cognac, pretending he hadn't noticed a thing. Pirate silently filled the glasses. Gemini pressed close to Earth's Artem, and Gina and Alpha stood beside their parents.

Anubis walked across the table and set a paw on the holographic confirmation button.

— ANUBIS'S VOTE FOR THE PROTOCOL HAS ALSO BEEN REGISTERED.

— Now the decision is final, — Eva said.

We laughed.

I was the last to go to my husband.

— I forgive you too. Not because you were entirely right. And not because the result turned out well.

I laid my palm on his chest.

— But because, after using absolute power, you voluntarily gave us back the right to judge you.

I kissed him.

In that moment I finally understood the main thing.

Responsibility didn't mean never crossing the line.

Sometimes circumstances left no clean choices.

Responsibility meant coming back afterward to the ones for whose sake you crossed it, telling them the whole truth, and letting them decide for themselves whether you remain part of the family.

The Author could rewrite any law of our reality.

Except one.

Trust couldn't be created by a command in a smartphone.

But today he had earned it once again.

The Right to Make Mistakes

Lira's Archive

A week passed.

The "47-Second Protocol" had managed to become part of the Consortium's system, pass hundreds of Dexter's checks, and never once be needed.

The Author no longer looked into the future without need. No one was trying to destroy our family, seize reality, or proclaim themselves a great being. Earth's Lira felt wonderful, Alan was developing normally, and the Architect had gradually stopped demanding that the Archive rescan his future wife every three minutes.

Life had finally become peaceful.

Which was exactly why we should have been on our guard at once.

At breakfast, it was Anubis who first noticed that Eva was missing.

For several minutes the cat paced around her empty chair, then jumped onto the table, pointedly knocked the Author's cup onto the floor, and let out a loud meow.

My husband looked at the shards.

— Anubis, I understand that you're a registered member of the family, but that was my favorite coffee.

The cat meowed again and looked toward the corridor.

I sensed something was wrong before the Archive gave the signal.

— Archive, where is Eva?

The system didn't answer right away.

— EVA ELKIND NOT DETECTED WITHIN THE CONSORTIUM.

The table fell silent.

The Author slowly set his cigar down in the ashtray. The Architect stopped smiling.

— Repeat, — my husband asked calmly.

— EVA ELKIND NOT DETECTED. NO SIGNS OF FORCIBLE RELOCATION. DIRECT THREAT TO LIFE NOT CONFIRMED.

We rose as one.

Within seconds the whole family was in Eva's room.

At first glance nothing had changed there. The bed was neatly made, her clothes lay on the armchair, and a half-finished cup of cocoa stood on the desk.

But in the middle of the room stood a device that most certainly had not been there yesterday.

A small portal ring, assembled from pieces of a children's construction set, two energy stabilizers, and a control unit that Eva had evidently removed from one of the training shuttles.

Dexter crouched beside the construction.

— She built this herself.

The Architect looked at him.

— She's ten years old.

— I see a working inter-temporal passage in front of me, — Dexter replied calmly. — So I suggest we temporarily stop using her age as the main argument.

The Author passed his palm over the ring. For a moment his eyes lit up red.

— The portal trace?

— Closed from the inside. Coordinates deleted.

On the wall, a hologram suddenly switched on.

A prerecorded image of Eva appeared. She sat in that same armchair, hands folded on her knees, trying with all her might to look grown-up.

— Mom, Dad, please don't be angry. I didn't run away. And nobody kidnapped me.

The Author slowly closed his eyes.

— An excellent start already, — the Architect muttered.

Eva went on in the recording:

— After the family council, you said that each of us has the right to choose, to make mistakes, and to answer for the consequences. But I realized that rule had never been tested on me.

I felt a cold rising inside me.

— I want to see the world where Dad was born. Not the New York we went to as a whole family. I want to see him himself, back when he wasn't yet the Author, the Architect, or immortal. When he was an ordinary twelve-year-old boy, seeing in the first of January of the year two thousand with his family in Russia.

The Author opened his eyes. Everything had vanished from his face — the smirk, the irritation, and the habitual confidence.

— Dad, I know you can just write on your phone for me to come back. But then the "47-Second Protocol" means nothing. I'm not in any danger. I've calculated everything.

Dexter looked at the scanner readings.

— Formally, she's right. The system detects no direct threat.

— Formally, she's ten years old! — I said sharply.

The holographic Eva seemed to have heard me in advance.

— Mom, I know I'm ten. That's why I took the protective bracelet, the medical module, the translator, and the emergency beacon. I'll be back in two hours. I promise.

The recording cut off.

For several seconds, absolute silence reigned in the room.

Then the Archive reported:

— ENCRYPTED MESSAGE DETECTED. SENDER — EVA ELKIND.

A photograph appeared in the air. A small living room from the late nineties. A New Year's tree. An old television. Outside the window, a snow-covered Russian courtyard. A twelve-year-old Artem slept on the couch, and beside him, smiling at the camera, stood our daughter.

Beneath the photograph was a short caption:

"DAD WAS VERY FUNNY. DON'T FIX IT. THIS IS MY CHOICE."

Everyone looked at the Author.

He stood motionless, the smartphone in his hand. He needed only a single line to bring his daughter home. But then he would be the first to break the law he himself had agreed to obey.

I went to my husband and laid my palm over the phone.

— My love, right now I'm not Lira Voss, not the Archivist, and not a member of the family council. I'm a mother whose ten-year-old daughter is alone in the past of another world. So I want desperately to order you to bring her back immediately. But Eva is right. There's no direct threat. The protocol hasn't been activated. Which means these aren't your forty-seven seconds. This is her choice.

The Architect stood beside his brother.

— Congratulations. You wanted the children to grow up free. It seems one of them has already started.

— In two hours she's going to get a lesson in upbringing that will make her feel like a child again, — I said through my teeth.

A new signal lit up on Dexter's bracelet.

— We have a problem. According to the temporal data, Eva's portal was supposed to open on the first of January, two thousand.

— And?

Dexter unfolded the readings before us.

— It's the third of January there now. She's been in the past for more than two days already.

I squeezed the Author's hand tighter.

The Archive spoke at once:

— DIRECT THREAT TO EVA ELKIND STILL NOT CONFIRMED.

A new message appeared on my husband's phone.

Just three words:

"DAD, DON'T COME."

I looked at the Author.

— Now, my love, the choice is yours. Will you use a father's power, or trust your daughter's choice?

The phone stayed in his hand. The whole family waited.

The Author didn't even look at the screen.

— The message might not have been sent by her. I know my daughter. She would have come back on time and accepted all the consequences of what she'd done.

He turned to Dexter.

— Switch on portal observation. No intervention. Show everything from the moment of her arrival to the end.

— Executing.

The room plunged into darkness.

A three-dimensional reconstruction of the past formed around us. The walls, furniture, and windows of the Consortium vanished. In their place appeared a small apartment decorated for New Year's, an old tree with a string of colored lights, and a snow-covered courtyard outside the window.

A marker appeared in the corner of the hologram:

NIZHNY NOVGOROD. JANUARY 1, 2000. 03: 17: 42.

A tiny portal opened. Eva stepped carefully out of it.

She immediately switched off the ring, hid the device under her jacket, and checked her protective bracelet.

— Transfer complete. Coordinates match. Beginning observation.

The Author stood motionless.

Before him was his own childhood.

A twelve-year-old Artem slept on the old couch. Nearby, the television was on, a cassette hissing softly, and plates from the New Year's dinner still sat on the holiday table.

Eva slowly drew closer.

— So that's what you were like, Dad…

She took the photograph we had already seen and sent it to the Consortium.

— The message is genuine, — Dexter reported. — The first part really was sent by Eva.

The observation sped up.

Eva didn't speak to little Artem and didn't try to change his life. She simply watched: how he woke up, went to the kitchen, poured himself some water, looked out the window, then lay back down beside the television that was still on.

At one point the boy turned his head sharply, straight toward the spot where our daughter was hiding.

Eva froze.

For several seconds, twelve-year-old Artem stared at the empty doorway, as if he could sense someone's presence. For an instant, his eyes flashed with a faint red light.

The Author exhaled heavily. The Architect looked at his brother but said nothing.

The boy frowned, then turned away.

— Even then, he could feel it, — Eva whispered.

Two hours passed.

At the 05: 17: 39 mark, Eva returned to the empty stairwell, took out the portal ring, and activated the return passage.

The familiar passage into the Consortium opened before her.

— I'm coming back. You can get the punishment ready. Just let Dad finish his dream first.

I couldn't help smiling. The Author didn't.

Eva took a step toward the portal.

And in that same second, the image shuddered.

Over our passage a second one appeared — black, soundless, and utterly still.

— Stop, — the Architect ordered.

Dexter froze the recording.

The two portals were nested inside each other. Ours, with silver-blue edges. The other, so dark it swallowed the light around it.

— This isn't Eva's technology, — Dexter said. — Her passage was intercepted from outside.

The Author's eyes slowly lit up.

— Continue, — the Architect said.

The recording came back to life.

Eva sensed the danger and leapt back instantly. The protective bracelet on her wrist activated.

— Archive, emergency return!

There was no answer.

She fired an energy pulse into the black portal, but it simply absorbed the blow.

— Dad, I'm coming back! Open the passage from your side! Someone's blocking me!

— We never received that message, — I said quietly.

— It was intercepted and replaced, — Dexter confirmed.

A woman's hand emerged from the black portal and seized Eva by the wrist.

Our daughter struck first. A red wave of energy blew apart the stairwell wall, but the unknown woman kept her footing and, without harming Eva, pulled her sharply toward herself.

She stepped out of the darkness.

We all froze.

Before us stood a young woman of about twenty-eight. Black hair, red eyes, a wolfish smile, and familiar features.

It was Eva. Only grown up.

— Genetic match — one hundred percent, — Dexter said. — Biological identity confirmed. This is the adult Eva Elkind.

The girl stopped resisting.

The adult Eva knelt down before her.

— Hush. I won't hurt you.

— Who are you?

— You. Eighteen years from now.

— Then let me go home.

The adult Eva looked straight into the point of portal observation. Not at the girl. At us. As if she had known from the very beginning that one day we would watch this recording.

— I can't. If Father comes for you now, he'll lose you forever.

The red light in the Author's eyes grew brighter.

I took his hand.

The adult Eva touched the girl's bracelet. The message she had sent vanished, and another appeared in its place:

"DAD, DON'T COME."

— So it really wasn't our Eva who sent it, — the Architect said.

— Technically, she did send it, — Dexter replied. — Only eighteen years older.

In the recording, the adult Eva embraced the girl and walked with her into the black portal.

Before vanishing, she looked straight at us once more.

— Mom, stop him. Whatever Dad sees right now — don't let him rewrite this moment.

The portal closed. The observation ended.

We were back in Eva's room.

The Author stood before the darkened hologram. Red lightning crawled slowly along his arms, and the smartphone was still in his right hand.

— Archive, is a direct threat to our daughter confirmed?

— INSUFFICIENT DATA. CONDITION OF EVA ELKIND UNKNOWN. OBSERVED INTERVENTION CARRIED OUT BY HERSELF. 47-SECOND PROTOCOL NOT ACTIVATED.

I stepped in front of the Author.

— My love, the adult Eva knew we would see the recording. She knew exactly what you would want to do. And she asked me to stop you.

The Architect came up to his brother from the other side.

— And she also said that if you come now, you'll lose your daughter forever.

I looked into my husband's bright red eyes.

— Have you already seen what will happen if you go after her?

The Author's eyes turned an even deeper red. Wolf fangs showed beneath his upper lip, a low animal growl rolled through the room, and his voice became so deep that the glass trembled.

— No. The adult Eva has blocked my vision of the future.

Red lightning struck the walls. The Consortium's defense systems instantly switched to combat mode, but none of us stepped back.

I kept holding my husband's hand. It was as if fire raged beneath his skin. I felt rage, fear, and helplessness — everything the Author was used to hiding behind laughter, cigars, and snide remarks.

For the first time, it wasn't a weapon that had been used against him. He had been stripped of the ability to protect his own child.

— Dexter, — the Architect said calmly, — how did she do it?

— The block isn't aimed at the Author. It exists only around a single event. The adult Eva didn't take away your ability to see the future. She closed off a specific stretch of her own life from you.

— Is that possible? — the Author growled.

— For an ordinary human, no. For your daughter, evidently, it is.

— She inherited your ability to change reality, — the Architect said.

— Not fully, — Dexter added. — But enough to create a temporal region that even its creator cannot view.

— She isn't my character, — the Author said in a low voice. — She's my daughter.

— That's exactly why you can't read her like a story you wrote, — I replied. — Eva was born after you stopped controlling our lives. She came out of our choice. Out of our love.

The red light in his eyes didn't go out, but the lightning around him grew weaker.

Earth's Lira cautiously came closer.

— The adult Eva didn't harm the girl. She shielded her with her own body when the portal began to collapse. Watch the recording again.

Dexter brought back the last seconds of the observation.

Now we saw it: the black portal really was collapsing. Tears ran along its edges, the space inside was folding in on itself, and the adult Eva's protective field completely shielded the girl from the temporal shocks.

— She was saving her, — Gemini whispered.

— Possibly, — the Architect replied. — But why didn't she bring her home?

Dexter magnified the image of the adult Eva's bracelet.

ORIGINAL TIMELINE DESTROYED. RETURN TO POINT OF DEPARTURE IMPOSSIBLE.

The Author lunged toward the hologram.

I stepped in front of him and braced both hands against his chest.

— My love, stop.

— Step aside, Lira.

— No. Right now you can't see the future, you don't know the coordinates, and you don't understand what happened. If you start breaking time blindly, you could destroy the very reality in which Eva is still alive.

The Architect stood beside me.

— Brother, she's right. This time your power won't help us. First we need to understand which timeline the adult Eva lost.

— Hidden information layer detected, — the Archive reported.

The inscription on the bracelet enlarged. Beneath it, another line appeared, deliberately hidden from the Author:

DECRYPTION KEY: LIRA VOSS.

Two commands appeared before me:

OPEN COORDINATES.

DESTROY KEY.

— The adult Eva has forbidden the Author, the Architect, and the Archive from accessing the coordinates, — the system explained. — The decision to release the information has been left solely to the mother.

I touched the first command.

— Open coordinates.

— CONFIRMATION OF DEFERRED MESSAGE REQUIRED.

The adult Eva appeared in the air.

— Mom, if you're seeing this, it means Dad didn't listen to me and started searching after all. I knew he would. Eva is safe right now. But if you open the coordinates, there will be no way back. You'll only be able to come for her as a whole family. And after the passage, Dad will no longer be able to rewrite reality. Not temporarily. Forever.

My husband went still.

— That's the only way you'll be able to enter the place where we are now. A creator has no power inside a world that has already lost its Author once.

The message vanished.

The two commands remained before me once more.

Open the coordinates and strip my husband forever of his ability to change reality. Or destroy the key, preserving his power but leaving our daughter who knows where.

I turned to the Author.

— You said I should be the one to decide. Fine. I'll make the decision. But first tell me honestly, my love: if I open the coordinates and you stop being the Author forever, will you come with me?

Suddenly, every trace of the beast vanished from my husband. The red light in his eyes went out, the fangs retracted, and the low growl gave way to calm breathing.

My Artem stood before me once more.

He smiled.

— A third option, my love. Think about a third option. Someone is setting us conditions again. Something's wrong here.

My hand stopped a few centimeters from the command.

I looked at the two inscriptions once more and suddenly understood: we had let fear force us to choose only from what was offered.

— Dexter, who created these two options?

— The adult Eva.

— I'm not asking who left the message. Who built the selection interface?

Dexter went still. Lines of analysis ran before his eyes.

The Architect slowly smirked.

— Brother's right. Eva spoke to us, but not once did she say: "Choose one of two options."

— Exactly. She only warned about the consequences of opening the coordinates.

— Analysis complete, — Dexter said. — The interface is not part of Eva's message. The commands were generated automatically by that reality's system.

The Author took out a cigar and calmly lit it.

— Now the conversation is getting interesting.

— So an unknown world is trying to force me either to destroy the only path to my daughter or to strip my husband of his power, — I said.

— And voluntarily, at that, — the Architect added. — So that later it can claim it was our choice.

— And if we don't choose at all? — Earth's Lira asked.

— Then the interface stays active, but the coordinates won't be opened.

— We don't need to open the coordinates, — I said slowly. — They've already been opened. Eva created the portal herself on the first of January, two thousand. We saw the exact place, the time, and the moment of interception. What we need is the trace of the passage that took her.

— The residual signature of the black portal is preserved in the portal observation, — Dexter confirmed.

— Don't activate it. Don't open it. Just reproduce the structure inside an isolated circuit.

The Architect had already grasped my plan.

— We'll create a false portal.

— No. We'll create a false prisoner.

My husband's smile widened.

— An independent decoy, — Dexter said. — That reality's system will detect an attempted passage and open the intercepting channel itself.

— And we'll simply record the real address from the outside.

The two commands before me trembled. The letters began to disintegrate.

— Looks like she doesn't care for the third option, — the Architect smirked.

A transparent sphere appeared in the center of the room. Inside it formed an exact copy of the stairwell on the first of January, two thousand. Then an artificial Consortium portal appeared, and Eva's energy imprint.

For several seconds nothing happened.

Then the space inside the sphere turned black. That same second portal appeared.

— Channel open. Beginning reverse trace.

The black passage suddenly tried to expand and break out of the sphere.

The Architect raised his hand. A silvery energy lattice squeezed the circuit tight.

— Stay where you've been put.

— Address acquired, — Dexter said. — But this is neither a parallel universe nor an alternative timeline.

A designation appeared around the sphere:

ORIGINAL REALITY. STATUS: DELETED. AUTHOR: ARTEM ELKIND. POINT OF DELETION: NOT RECORDED.

The smile vanished from my husband's face.

— I never deleted a reality my daughter lived in.

— Perhaps she wasn't there yet at the moment of deletion, — Dexter suggested.

— Or it wasn't he who deleted it, — the Architect said.

An image appeared inside the black portal.

The adult Eva stood before us, clutching her younger self to her chest.

— Dad, if you're seeing this, it means Mom found the third option. And you didn't give up your power. Good. You're going to need it.

Behind her, the outlines of a ruined city began to emerge. It was the Consortium. Only dead.

— We are in the first reality you created. In the very first version of your story. In the draft you once threw away. Pirate died here. Gina was left with an infant. Dexter and Alpha fled. Gemini and the Architect stayed on the intergalactic station.

The Architect slowly turned to his brother. We had heard of this draft before. The Author himself had told us about it.

— But Lira Voss never existed in this story, — the adult Eva said, looking straight at me. — That's why this world doesn't know Mom, can't control her, and has no way to take her power from her.

— Dad mustn't come for us alone. In this reality he's considered the culprit behind its destruction. If he enters first, the world will try to kill him.

The image began to fade.

— Mom, lead the Pack. And hurry. The old Architect already knows the Author has returned.

The connection broke off. The black portal collapsed, and the isolated sphere cracked all over and crumbled into silver dust.

I turned to my husband.

He was smoking his cigar and looking at the spot where our grown daughter had just been standing.

— So we go as a whole family, — I said. — But I go in first.

The Architect laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

— And now, Author, tell us everything you remember about your first discarded draft. Especially about that Architect who considers you his murderer.

— He's the murderer, not me. A miserable creation that got shortchanged on something, — the Author smirked.

There was neither fear nor any wish to justify himself in his voice. Only contempt.

— What exactly did he do? — the Architect asked.

Dexter didn't wait for an answer.

— Restoring the surviving fragments of the first draft.

An old story structure appeared above the table. Not a full reality, but separate scenes, dialogues, and unfinished plotlines.

The center of Omega. War. Burning stations. Pirate holding the passage alone. Gina with an infant in her arms. Alpha and Dexter leaving for the far sectors of the galaxy. Gemini beside the Architect on the intergalactic station. And an empty place where, in our story, I should have been.

— Lira really didn't exist, — Earth's Lira said quietly.

— Not only Lira. In that version, the very post of Archivist was absent. No one preserved the complete history of decisions, and no one could verify who exactly had led the world to catastrophe.

The last surviving event appeared before us.

Pirate was inside the central sector of Omega. A ring of enemy ships had closed around him. An evacuation route existed. The Architect of the first draft saw it. But instead of opening the passage, he ordered the sector sealed.

— Why? — Gina asked.

— He used Pirate's death as bait. While the enemy concentrated its forces in the center of Omega, the Architect destroyed the command fleet.

Pirate looked straight into the surveillance camera. He understood that he had been abandoned, but he kept firing to the very end.

The hologram went dark.

Our Pirate silently set his bottle down on the table. Gina took his hand.

— He could have saved him, — the Architect said.

— The probability of a successful evacuation was seventy-eight percent.

— But then the operation could have failed, — Alpha noted.

— The probability of losing the operation was nine percent.

The Author smirked even harder.

Nine percent. The very same nine percent the Archive had once warned us about before our wedding ceremony, and which we laughed about for a long time afterward. Only here, someone had used them as a justification for killing a member of his own family.

— After Pirate's death, Gina refused to obey the Architect, — Dexter continued. — He tried to take her child under the station's protection. She saw it as a kidnapping and opened fire.

In the recording, the Architect of the first world didn't even try to explain himself. He simply disarmed his own daughter and ordered her held by force.

— That's when the family finally fell apart, — I said.

— Yes. Alpha and Dexter fled. Gemini stayed with the Architect but stopped considering him her husband. From then on she carried out only military orders.

Earth's Artem squeezed his wife's hand tighter. Gemini moved closer to him, as if merely watching that reality made her want to make sure her real life still existed.

— And then the Author stopped writing, — the Architect said.

— Not quite. The story was already continuing to exist on its own. The Author stopped watching.

The last line of the first draft appeared above us:

STORY SENT TO THE SCRAP HEAP.

Beneath it, another slowly appeared:

BUT THE WORLD DID NOT AGREE TO DIE.

A faint wave passed through the room.

The black portal opened on its own.

On the other side was the old hall of the Consortium. The walls were scarred with shot marks, part of the ceiling had collapsed, and in place of the Pack's central symbol hung the lone emblem of a red wolf.

In the center of the hall stood the Architect of the first draft.

He resembled my husband and his brother, but only outwardly. The same features, the same stubble, the same black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But his eyes didn't burn red. They were dead.

Beside him stood two Evas — the little one and the adult. They weren't bound, and they showed no outward signs of injury.

The adult Eva held the girl by the shoulders, keeping her from approaching the portal.

The old Architect looked at the Author.

— At last you've seen what you left behind.

— He gave you the circumstances. The decisions were yours, — I said.

— A convenient excuse for a creator.

Dexter looked at the readings.

— He's stabilizing the portal with the energy of both Evas. As long as they're near him, we can't close the channel from our side.

The Author took the cigar out of his mouth.

The old Architect smiled.

— You've come to take your daughter? Then enter alone and answer to your first creation.

— No, — I said. — He'll enter together with his family. But first you'll answer one question. What exactly did the Author shortchange you on? Power? Love? Or the ordinary ability to admit your own guilt?

I turned to my husband.

— Which of those did you mean?

— The ability to lose. The ability to let go. The ability to stand aside and let the person you love walk away. In short, I created a coward. A small child who starts crying the moment something doesn't go according to his script, — the Author laughed.

The smile vanished from the old Architect's face.

The red wolf emblem behind his back flared, the walls of the ruined Consortium shook, and the black portal began to expand.

My husband kept laughing.

And the angrier his first creation grew, the calmer the Author became.

— Stop it! — the old Architect barked.

— Stop what? Telling the truth, or wrecking your script?

On the other side of the portal, an energy blast went off. Part of a wall collapsed. The adult Eva instantly covered the little one with a protective field.

The Author stopped laughing. His eyes flashed red, but he stayed where he was.

— Put them in danger one more time, and our philosophical conversation is over.

For a moment, something resembling shame appeared on the old Architect's face.

— I wasn't going to harm them.

— You weren't going to harm Pirate either, — said the Architect of the Consortium. — He just happened to be a convenient sacrifice for your victory.

— You weren't there.

— But I was in hundreds of other wars. And not once did I close a passage on a member of my family.

Pirate stepped forward.

— Nine percent.

— What?

— The probability of losing the operation if you'd pulled me out. Nine percent. You wanted a guaranteed win. Those are different things.

Gina took her husband's arm.

Pain appeared in the old Architect's eyes. Before him stood the people he had once lost. Alive, immortal, and loving one another. But not one of them belonged to him.

— It's easy for you to talk. The Author gave you the chance to fix your mistakes.

— He gave us the chance to live, — Gina replied. — The mistakes we fixed ourselves.

— After he threw us away.

The room fell silent.

There it was. Not hatred. Not a desire to seize another reality. Hurt.

— You stopped writing, — the old Architect said. — For you it was a failed draft. A few pages that could be sent to the scrap heap and forgotten. But we didn't disappear.

Around him appeared images of the ruined world: Gina in a cell with her child, Gemini silently leaving the bedroom, Alpha and Dexter on a small ship, Pirate's grave.

— Every day after you left, I waited for the continuation. A new enemy. A new order. A new chance to fix everything. But nothing more ever happened.

The Author wasn't smiling.

— So I carried on by myself. Searched for Alpha and Dexter. Freed Gina. Tried to bring Gemini back. Rebuilt the center of Omega. And do you know what turned out to be the most terrifying thing? The world got along perfectly well without you.

— Congratulations, — the Author replied. — So you got your freedom.

— No. I got the consequences.

— That's the same thing, once you grow up.

Little Eva slipped free of her adult self's embrace and approached the portal.

— Dad!

I saw my husband's whole body tense.

— He didn't kidnap me. The portal broke, and the grown-up me pulled me out here.

— Then why didn't you come back? — I asked.

— Because only he could open the way back, — the adult Eva replied. — And he agreed to do it only after a conversation with the Author.

My husband's red eyes grew brighter.

— So you were holding my child after all.

— I didn't harm her.

— You used her to force me to come.

— Because otherwise you'd have left us here again!

The old Architect's voice broke. There was no more power in it, no cold calculation. Only the despair of a man who had spent hundreds of years talking to emptiness.

I walked up to the portal.

— You wanted the Author to acknowledge that this world exists?

The old Architect nodded.

— He already has. But Eva has nothing to do with your relationship. Open the passage and let her go.

— And then you'll leave.

— Yes. That is exactly what letting go of someone you love means. Not holding them with threats, guilt, or fear. Letting them leave, even if silence is all that's left behind them again.

His gaze shifted to the Gemini from our world.

— My Gemini left too.

— Because you tried to keep her beside you by force? — she asked.

The old Architect said nothing.

— I fell in love with Earth's Artem of my own free will, — Gemini continued. — And that is exactly why I'll stay with him forever. Love that is forced to stay is no longer love.

The black portal changed. Within the darkness, a silver path appeared, joining the two realities.

— The passage is open, — Dexter reported. — Eva can come back.

The girl rushed forward.

The Author caught her up in his arms before her feet touched the floor of the Consortium.

Eva wrapped her arms around his neck.

— I'm sorry, Dad. I really was going to come back on time.

My husband pressed his daughter to him and closed his eyes.

The adult Eva remained on the other side.

— And you? — I asked.

— My time hasn't come yet, Mom.

She smiled and looked at the Author.

— Now you know I'm going to grow up completely unbearable.

— We figured that out ten years ago, — the Architect laughed.

The adult Eva began to dissolve along with the temporal trace.

— Now it's your turn, — she said to the old Architect.

— What am I supposed to do?

— Nothing. For the first time in your life, just let them go.

The old Architect looked at our family. At Pirate and Gina. At Alpha and Dexter. At Gemini, who had chosen another man. At his double, who possessed everything he himself had once destroyed. And finally, at the Author, holding his daughter in his arms.

He could have closed the portal. He could have set another condition. He could have tried to hold us.

But he did nothing.

The silver road began slowly to disappear.

— Answer me just one question. Did you ever once regret abandoning our story? Not as a creator. As a man.

The Author raised his eyes.

— No. Because I knew what I had created, and I never once regretted my decision.

The answer came calmly. Without a smirk, without anger, without any attempt to soften the truth.

The portal had almost closed, but suddenly it stopped.

The first Architect looked at his creator. He seemed to have been expecting anything: repentance, excuses, a plea for forgiveness. Even a lie, spoken out of pity.

But the Author gave him nothing.

— So all this time I was waiting for words that never existed.

— The Author didn't destroy this world, — the Architect said. — You did. After Pirate's death you still had Gina — you tried to take her child from her. You still had Alpha and Dexter — you declared them traitors. Gemini was right beside you — you went on treating her like property. Every time someone wanted to leave, you gripped harder. The Author stopped writing your story, but every chapter after that, you wrote yourself.

Pirate looked at the man who had once left him to die.

— I won't forgive you. Don't even hope for it. But you don't need my forgiveness. That Pirate died. I'm a different one. If you want to fix something, find the Gina of your world. Find her child. Bring back Alpha and Dexter. And then accept whatever answer they give.

— Even if they don't want to come back?

— Especially if they don't.

Gemini pressed closer to Earth's Artem.

— And don't go looking for your Gemini so you can call her your wife again. Find her only to tell her: she owes you nothing anymore.

The red wolf emblem behind the old Architect went dark.

For the first time he looked not like a mighty being, but simply like a lonely man who had spent too long blaming his creator because he was afraid to look at his own decisions.

Little Eva cautiously lifted her head from her father's shoulder.

— Is he going to be left all alone now?

— That will depend on him, — I replied.

— Can't we take him with us?

The room fell silent.

— Why would you want that? — the old Architect asked.

— Because you opened the passage and let me go. That means you did something right for the first time.

— Eva, some consequences can't be undone with a single right act, — the Architect said.

— I know. Mom and Dad are going to punish me for about a thousand years. But if you say that everyone can choose and change, then that has to apply to him too. Otherwise you don't believe in what you're teaching me yourselves.

The "47-Second Protocol" couldn't make this decision for us.

The old Architect wasn't a direct threat at the moment. Eva was home. The portal was closing. We could simply leave and put the first draft behind us forever.

That would have been safe. Rational. And, perhaps, right.

The old Architect looked at my husband.

— You said you knew from the very beginning whom you had created. You knew I was a coward, a murderer, and a child who doesn't know how to lose. Then why did you leave me the ability to change at all?

The portal narrowed to a few meters.

The Author answered with a single word:

— Choice.

It struck harder than any energy wave.

The old Architect froze.

My husband didn't explain anything, as if the answer were so obvious that any further words would only spoil it.

— The choice to change? Or the choice to remain what I was created to be?

The portal kept slowly closing.

I saw the expression on the old Architect's face change.

For the first time, he wasn't demanding a ready answer. Wasn't blaming his creator. Wasn't trying to make those around him decide for him.

He was thinking.

— So you knew whom you had created, but you didn't decide in advance who I was supposed to die as.

— It finally sank in, — smirked the Architect of the Consortium.

— And if I make a mistake again?

— You certainly will, — I replied. — We all do.

— And if Gina doesn't forgive me?

— Then she doesn't, — Pirate shrugged.

— If Alpha and Dexter refuse to come back?

— They'll refuse, — Alpha said calmly. — And that will be their right.

His gaze came to rest last on Gemini.

— And if my Gemini no longer loves me?

— Then you'll let her go.

The first Architect closed his eyes. He drew a heavy breath, then slowly let it out.

The ruined world around him didn't restore itself. The dead didn't rise. Pirate's grave didn't vanish. No beautiful miracle took place.

But the red emblem of the lone wolf behind him crumbled away. In its place remained a bare wall — ready to receive a new symbol, if one day someone wished to put one there.

— I understand.

— No, — objected the Architect of the Consortium. — You've only heard. You'll understand when you let the first person leave and don't bring them back.

The silver road between the realities had almost vanished.

The adult Eva looked at her younger self.

— Now I have to go too.

— Where?

— To the place where one day you'll become me.

— Will I remember you?

— No. Otherwise you'd start living by my script.

She shifted her gaze to the Author.

— Dad, restore the voluntary Veil as soon as the portal closes. You mustn't know which decisions will lead her to me. And… thank you for the answer.

— Which one?

— "Choice." That's the very word you said to me eighteen years ago. I remembered it all my life.

The adult Eva began to dissolve. First the red light in her eyes vanished, then her silhouette turned into silver particles, and finally all that remained of her was a smile.

The old Architect went on standing beside the closing passage.

— Will we meet again?

No one answered. Not because we didn't know. Because the answer once again depended on his next decisions.

He looked at the Author one last time, and then closed the portal himself.

Without threats. Without conditions. Without trying to hold us.

He simply let the family go.

Eva's room returned to normal. The holograms of the ruined Consortium, the black passage, and the silver road vanished.

Only we remained. And a ten-year-old girl in her father's arms.

— VOLUNTARY VEIL RESTORED, — the Archive reported. — THE AUTHOR'S ACCESS TO FUTURE EVENTS IS CLOSED.

The red light in my husband's eyes finally went out.

I walked over to Eva.

She understood at once that the rescue was over and an entirely different part of her adventure was beginning.

— Mom…

— Don't even start.

— But I calculated everything.

— You disappeared for two days.

— For me it was less than three hours.

— For us, two days.

— Technically, I had no way of knowing that.

— Technically, you took apart a training shuttle without permission, built an inter-temporal portal, went off to the year two thousand, and made the whole family search for you in a discarded reality.

Eva thought about it.

— When you list it like that, it really doesn't sound very good.

The Architect turned away, hiding a smile. Pirate suddenly took an interest in the ceiling. Gina and Alpha, in unison, pretended they weren't the least bit proud of their little sister.

— To your room, — I said. — No portals, shuttles, time travel, or altering reality on your own.

— For how long?

— Until your father and I decide.

Eva took a few steps toward the door, then stopped and turned around.

— Dad, I know I did wrong. I'll accept any punishment and I won't leave without permission again. But if I hadn't gone there, the old Architect would have stayed alone forever. And you would never have known that the first story is still alive.

She looked the Author straight in the eyes.

— So tell me honestly: are you angry at me, or are you still a little bit proud of me?

— More than you can imagine, sweetheart, — the Author smiled.

Eva beamed. She rushed back and hugged her father so hard that the cigar nearly fell out of his hand.

— I knew it!

— That doesn't cancel the punishment, — I said at once.

Our daughter's smile grew a touch more modest.

— I knew that too.

— A month without portals, shuttles, or any solo time travel.

— A month?!

— Two.

— But you said a month!

— And then you started arguing.

Eva looked to her father for support. The Author pointedly raised his eyes to the ceiling.

— Dad!

The Architect laughed.

— Don't even try. Your father can rewrite reality, but he still hasn't learned how to argue with his own wife.

— And he never will, — Gina added.

— Never, — Alpha confirmed.

I took the portal ring from Eva and held out my hand.

— Phone.

Our daughter sighed heavily, took out the device, and placed it in my palm.

— Now, to your room.

— Can Anubis come?

The cat immediately walked over to her and sat down beside her.

— Anubis can come.

— Then it's not a punishment.

Anubis raised his head and meowed indignantly.

— Sorry. You're very good emotional support.

She picked up the cat and headed for the door.

Right at the door, Eva turned around.

— Dad? Thank you for not writing me back. I know you could have. But you believed I'd come back on my own.

The door closed behind her.

For several seconds no one said a word.

Then the Archive reported:

— COMPLETION OF THE FIRST TEST OF THE 47-SECOND PROTOCOL REGISTERED.

A report appeared in the air:

DIRECT INTERVENTION BY THE AUTHOR: NONE.

ALTERATION OF A FAMILY MEMBER'S WILL: NONE.

THREAT ELIMINATED: YES.

EVA ELKIND RETURNED BY HER OWN CHOICE.

The Architect laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

— You passed.

— HE WAS NOT THE ONE BEING TESTED, — the Archive unexpectedly objected.

— Explain, — Dexter asked.

— THE ENTIRE FAMILY WAS BEING TESTED. THE AUTHOR HAD TO NOT INTERVENE. LIRA VOSS — TO NOT LET FEAR SUBSTITUTE FOR THE DECISION. EVA — TO RETURN AND ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES. THE REMAINING MEMBERS OF THE PACK — TO NOT TURN PROTECTION INTO CONTROL.

The last line appeared on the screen:

TEST PASSED BY THE FAMILY.

— And the old Architect? — Gemini asked.

— INSUFFICIENT DATA.

The system fell silent.

The Author took out a fresh cigar.

And at that very moment, the black portal opened again.

Everyone instantly braced for a fight. But no one came out of the passage.

A small metal token bearing the image of a lone red wolf fell to the floor.

The Architect picked it up. The red wolf on its surface cracked and split into seven separate symbols.

On the reverse side, an inscription appeared:

FIRST LOCKED CELL OPENED. GINA AND HER CHILD ARE FREE. I DID NOT ASK THEM TO COME BACK.

No signature. No plea for forgiveness. Only the first consequence accepted.

Pirate took the token from the Architect's hands and studied it for a long time.

— This doesn't fix anything yet.

— No, — I agreed. — But for the first time, he let something go.

The portal vanished.

I walked over to my husband, put my arms around his waist, and laid my head on his shoulder.

— Well, my love? Is he still a cowardly child, or has he taken the first step toward one day ceasing to be one?

— We'll live and see, — the Author replied, and seized me passionately by the waist.

I barely had time to draw a breath before he pulled me to him and kissed me.

After two days of fear, a destroyed timeline, a meeting with his first creation, and our daughter's return, I had no desire whatsoever to resist.

I wrapped my arms around my husband's neck and answered him with the same passion.

— Well, then it really is all over, — the Architect smirked.

— Why? — Earth's Artem asked.

— Brother's thinking about something other than saving reality again.

Gemini laughed and pressed herself against her husband.

Pirate handed the metal token back to the Architect.

— Let's go have a drink. I think even the children have earned it today.

— Not Eva, — I said, without tearing myself away from the Author.

From the corridor came the immediate, indignant voice of our daughter:

— I can hear everything!

— Which is exactly why you can't!

Laughing, the family began filing out of the room.

The Architect lingered last.

He looked at his brother.

— Are you really proud of them?

The Author kept holding me by the waist. But he didn't need to answer. The Architect had understood everything anyway.

He smiled, closed the door behind him, and left the two of us alone.

Or rather, almost alone.

— ACTIVATION OF PRIVACY MODE IS RECOMMENDED, — the Archive reported.

The Author raised his head.

— Archive…

— PRIVACY MODE ACTIVATED.

The system switched off.

I looked into my husband's eyes.

— So, we'll live and see?

He smiled slyly.

I pressed myself against him again and thought about the first Architect, left among the ruins of his own story.

We didn't know whether he would find Gina. Whether her child would forgive him. Whether Gemini would ever agree to listen. Whether Alpha and Dexter would return.

Now even the Author didn't know.

And for the first time, the unknown didn't feel like a threat.

Because the future didn't have to match our script in order to have the right to exist.

Sometimes the greatest display of strength was the ability to fix nothing.

Simply to let go.

And to let everyone write the continuation themselves.

The Last Full Stop

Lira's Archive

◆

Three days had passed.

In all that time, no one had tried to destroy the Consortium, rewrite reality, or kidnap any of our children.

After everything we had been through, that kind of calm felt suspicious.

Eva was dutifully serving out her punishment. At least, that was what she herself claimed. The Archive held a somewhat different opinion: within the first twenty-four hours, our daughter had tried seventeen times to gain access to the locked portal systems, twice suggested that Anubis press the button for her, and once declared that traveling from the bedroom to the living room was, technically, also movement through space.

The cat had not refused to cooperate.

Which was why he had been temporarily stripped of his trusted-operator status.

The First Architect had not made contact again. The metal token with the cracked image of a lone wolf lay in a secure sector of the Archive. No new messages had come.

We didn't know whether he had found the Gina of his world. Didn't know whether she had agreed to hear him out. Didn't know whether he had freed the others or stopped after that first right decision.

Now, truly, no one knew.

Not even my husband.

The voluntary Veil remained active. The Author no longer saw the future, no longer reviewed other people's decisions, no longer checked every possible threat before it had a chance to arise.

For the first two days he made a show of enjoying the state.

On the third, he disappeared.

I found him in the dead of night, in a room that had not existed before.

That didn't strike me as strange. Rooms appeared in the Consortium regularly, rooms no one had ever ordered built. Sometimes the station simply understood that a member of the family needed a new place.

The room sat between the Archive and the residential sector, as though it didn't quite belong to either the system or the home.

Inside there were no holograms, no energy panels, no devices capable of altering reality. Only a wooden writing desk, an old armchair, a desk lamp, and a tall window beyond which the stars slowly turned.

The Author sat with his back to the door.

Before him lay a thick folder.

On the cover, in gold letters, was written:

"ECHO OF TWO WORLDS. PART II."

I stopped in the doorway.

Over our long years together I had seen my husband in every state. Laughing in the middle of a battle. So enraged that the walls began to crack under a single glance from him. Terrified for the children. Arrogant, cruel, tender, stubborn, and utterly impossible.

But never before had I seen him afraid to turn a single page.

Beside the folder lay a smartphone.

The screen remained blank.

A single line would still have been enough for him to change any event of the past. The ability hadn't gone anywhere. What had gone was the certainty that he was obliged to use it.

I walked in and set two cups of coffee on the desk.

— The Archive reports you've been in here for four hours.

— The Archive promised not to watch me in privacy mode.

— It wasn't watching. It registered the disappearance of the cigar supply, three cups of coffee, and one extremely stubborn immortal.

The Author looked at the cup.

— Four cups.

— This one's mine.

— Then it all adds up.

I sat on the edge of the desk and opened the folder.

The first pages held the story of two worlds.

The Architect's world. Earth. The Consortium. People who had once considered themselves characters, and then demanded the right to become a family. Our mistakes, betrayals, wars, weddings, children, deaths, returns, and decisions that even the one who had once invented us could not have foreseen.

I turned the pages slowly.

Some made me smile. Others still hurt. A few I wanted to tear out and destroy, though by now I understood better than anyone why that could never be done.

Any torn-out page left a hole not only in the story.

It left one in a person.

The last sheet was almost blank.

It held a single line:

"And let everyone write their own continuation".

Below it, a cursor blinked.

The Author hadn't placed the full stop.

— You've been finishing one sentence for three days? — I asked.

— For three days I've been deciding whether I have the right to finish it.

— After thirty chapters, you've suddenly taken an interest in other people's rights?

He raised his eyes to me.

— I'm a quick learner.

— Especially when the lesson takes several universes and a couple hundred years.

My husband smirked, but almost at once looked back at the last page.

I understood the reason for his silence.

He wasn't afraid of finishing the book.

He was afraid that we would end along with it.

For a man capable of turning thoughts into reality, words had never been merely words. "The End" in his hands could become a command. A final boundary beyond which the characters ceased to exist, because their creator was no longer looking their way.

The First Architect had already found himself in a world like that once.

And my husband had no wish to repeat the same mistake.

I took his hand.

— My love, look at me.

He obeyed.

— I existed before you opened this folder tonight. Eva was trying to hack the portal while you sat here. The Architect lost three games to Pirate and now claims the cards were created against him. Gina and Alpha are arguing over who gets to babysit Alan first. Earth's Artem has taken up the whole bed again in his sleep, and Gemini is seriously considering pushing him onto the floor.

— She won't do it.

— She already has.

The Author laughed despite himself.

— We go on living, — I said. — Not because you're still writing. And not because a reader is turning the pages. Our life no longer fits inside one story.

He looked at the unfinished line.

— Then what exactly am I supposed to finish?

— Not us. Only the story of how we stopped being your characters.

Outside the window, the stars drifted slowly.

For the first time, beside my husband, I didn't feel the weight of the variants he saw and hid from the rest of us. Before us lay an unknown future — vast, dark, and entirely free.

On the desk lay a smartphone capable of rewriting any past.

The Author turned it face down.

The Archive responded immediately:

— VOLUNTARY TERMINATION OF AUTHORIAL OBSERVATION REGISTERED.

Another line appeared on the wall:

THE STORY NO LONGER REQUIRES A CREATOR IN ORDER TO CONTINUE.

My husband looked at the message for a long time.

Then he pulled the folder toward him and laid his fingers on the keyboard.

But before he could place the last full stop, I covered his hand with mine.

— Wait.

The Author raised a questioning eyebrow.

I knew that after this sentence, "Echo of Two Worlds" would end. Not our life. Not the saga. Only the story that had once led him to us and taught an all-powerful creator the one thing he had never provided for in any scenario.

I moved closer to my husband and looked him straight in the eye.

— Before you close the last page, answer me honestly. Not as the Author. Not as the Keeper of Choice. And not even as the father of our children.

I laced our fingers together.

— Answer as the man who once invented me and then let me become real. If you were given a blank page again, and you knew in advance all the pain we would have to live through — would you still write our story?

— I would write this story. But I'd take into account all the pluses and minuses of the previous one, so it would turn out different. That's called experience, Lira.

The Author fell silent for a moment.

— Much as I dislike it, it's precisely pain, fear, experience, fun, falling in love, sex, and all the rest that make life interesting, dangerous, and unpredictable. So, to answer your question directly: yes. I would write it again.

I looked at my husband and didn't realize at first that I was smiling.

It wasn't the answer women usually wait for.

He hadn't said he would spare me every tear. Hadn't promised to create an ideal reality where no one dies, children never end up in danger, and love never demands hard decisions.

The Author rarely said what people wanted to hear from him at all.

He told the truth.

Which was exactly why I believed him.

— So you'd make us go through all of it again?

— Not the same things. I did say I'd take experience into account.

— Very generous of you.

— I try.

I felt his fingers tighten around my hand.

— In an ideal story there's nothing to overcome, Lira. No way to show courage, because nothing is frightening. No way to forgive, because no one causes pain. No way to choose your family, if no one ever forces you to choose.

— And why did you put sex on the list of vitally necessary trials?

The Author considered this with an expression so serious it was as if I had asked him to explain the structure of time.

— For narrative depth.

I laughed.

The quiet room filled with a sound that had never been in any line he'd written. The sound came on its own, because I genuinely found it funny.

My husband pulled me closer. I sat down on his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck.

— You're completely incorrigible.

— That's now officially recognized as my right.

— The right to make mistakes doesn't mean the right to turn every mistake into a character trait.

— Then I need a new family protocol.

— A new protocol won't help you.

— Why not?

— Because I'll be the one approving it again.

He smirked and ran his palm down my back.

I touched my forehead to his.

Outside the window, the stars kept moving. Somewhere far beyond the walls of the room lived worlds that no longer needed his commands. The First Architect was searching for the people he had once failed to let go. The grown-up Eva was walking toward a future her ten-year-old self was never supposed to know about. Our children slept, loved, made mistakes, and made plans without asking their creator's permission.

The story really did go on.

It just no longer happened on the pages.

— You know what the strangest part is? — I asked.

— In our family, you'll have to be more specific.

— You created immortal people, an enormous station, the Archive, several realities, and beings capable of changing time. But your greatest achievement was that one day all of them learned to do without you.

For a moment, the old faraway sadness appeared in his eyes.

But now I understood its cause.

Every parent came up against the same fear one day. A child grew, took its first step on its own, and no longer needed the hand that had once kept it from falling.

The only difference was that my husband's children were entire worlds.

— That doesn't sound much like an achievement, — he said quietly.

— Because you still confuse love with the need to be needed.

The Author looked at me.

— We didn't stop loving you when we got our freedom. Eva didn't stop being your daughter when she closed her future off from you. I didn't stop being your wife when I learned to say no to you. A family doesn't stay close because it's incapable of leaving.

I touched his cheek.

— It stays because every day it chooses you again.

His gaze softened.

The cursor went on blinking beneath the last line.

I reached out and closed the folder.

— Hey. I'm not finished.

— That's exactly why I closed it.

— Lira…

— The last full stop isn't going anywhere. And if it does run off, the Archive will find it by its energy trail.

I rose from his lap and pulled my husband after me.

— Where are we going?

— Home.

— We're in the Consortium.

— You know perfectly well what I mean.

The Author didn't get up.

Instead he held me by the hand and looked once more at the closed folder.

What I saw in his face was neither fear nor doubt.

One question remained.

Not about the fate of the worlds. Not about the continuation of the saga. Not even about whether a creator has the right to end his own story.

This question was far more personal.

I sank down before him again and took his face in my hands.

— All right, my love. Then answer one more.

He narrowed his eyes warily.

— You said you'd write the story again, but differently. Taking into account everything you've lived through.

I looked straight into his eyes.

— Would you have written me differently too?

— No. Some characters in my saga are embodiments of me. The Architect, for instance. Others reflect my earthly life — like Earth's Artem. Gina and Alpha became the daughters I always wanted. Pirate and Dexter — good business partners you can rely on. And Lira Voss…

He ran his thumb along my cheek.

— Lira Voss became the ideal woman I had dreamed of all my life.

I froze.

In all the time we had known each other, the Author had called me many things.

Beautiful. Stubborn. Dangerous. Impossible. Sexy. The best decision of his life, and the main reason that life kept turning into a family court.

But ideal — never.

Which was probably why that word frightened me more than all the others.

— Ideal? — I repeated.

— Exactly.

— You're sure you're talking about me right now?

— Absolutely.

— About the woman who blocked your abilities, put you on trial alongside your own children, and threatened several times to throw your smartphone into the core of a star?

— You're forgetting your flaws.

I narrowed my eyes.

The Author smiled.

— You don't have any.

— My love, not even your ability to alter reality will let you say that line convincingly.

He laughed, but I kept looking into his eyes.

Slowly, the smile faded from my face.

I understood what he had really meant.

The Architect had received his strength, his pride, his rage, and his inability to admit defeat.

Earth's Artem — the life he could have lived had he remained an ordinary man.

Gina and Alpha had come from the dream of daughters he wanted one day to hold.

Pirate and Dexter had become the men with whom he would never have to keep proving his own superiority, because the trust between them mattered more than power.

Each of us had been born of more than imagination alone.

We had come from some part of himself. From an unfulfilled wish, a regret, a fear, or a hope he had for too long not allowed himself to say aloud.

And I had come from loneliness.

Not the loneliness one feels in an empty room. The Author could be among hundreds of people, laughing, working, arguing, and looking perfectly happy.

But somewhere inside him there had always remained a place for a woman who did not exist.

A woman capable of seeing him as he truly was and not being afraid.

Strong enough not to need his protection, yet close enough to let him protect her.

Capable of arguing with him, resisting his power, laughing at his arrogance, and at the same time loving the very traits that made everyone else back away.

He hadn't simply invented Lira Voss's appearance.

He had created an answer to his own dream.

The realization left me feeling warm and uneasy at once.

— So at first I was nothing more than your idea of the ideal woman?

— At first, all of you were ideas.

— Even the Architect?

— Especially the Architect. No one in reality can be that dramatic around the clock.

An indignant voice came from the corridor:

— I can hear everything!

The Author didn't even turn his head.

— And that's one more piece of proof.

The Architect's footsteps receded. Judging by their heaviness, my husband's brother intended to return to this conversation later — probably with a cigar, threats, and a prepared speech on the greatness of his own person.

I looked at the Author again.

— But an ideal woman has to match the dream of the one who invented her.

— Only as long as she remains a dream.

— And after that?

— After that, she becomes a person.

Slowly, I took my hands from his face.

A strange boundary suddenly rose before me, between two versions of myself.

The first Lira existed on the pages. She said the right words, performed the intended actions, and loved a man because the person holding the pen had decided so.

The second was sitting before the Author now.

She could stand up and leave. Could refuse him. Could choose another, stop loving, change her own mind, or one day admit that all of it had been a mistake.

It was precisely the right to destroy his dream that had turned me from an ideal woman into a real one.

— You do realize I stopped matching the original design a long time ago? — I asked.

— I noticed roughly around the moment you first blocked my access to my own reality.

— And you didn't try to bring back the earlier version?

— I did.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

— When?

— The first few times we argued. Then I realized the earlier version no longer interested me.

— Because she always agreed?

— Because I knew every word of hers in advance.

I smiled.

That, probably, was the strangest irony of our story.

The Author had created an ideal woman, but fell in love with her only after she stopped being ideal.

He had invented a family that was supposed to belong to him, but gained it only when he gave each of them the right to leave.

He had created a world in order to rule it, and then spent his whole life learning not to interfere.

— So right now you wouldn't change anything about me? — I asked.

— No.

The answer came too quickly to be a prepared, pretty phrase.

And yet one question remained.

Perhaps the most dangerous of all the ones I asked him that night.

I laid my palm on his chest and felt the calm rhythm of his heart.

— Then tell me honestly, my love. When I first refused to follow your script… when I turned out not to be the flawless woman you had imagined all your life — did you regret, even for a moment, letting me become real?

— I'll answer selfishly, — the Author laughed. — You're a super-bitch. To everyone, that is, except me. Because you love me very much — by your own choice, not by a script I wrote. That's exactly what lets me be with you, you with me, and both of us stay real.

For a few seconds I looked at my husband in silence.

— That's your romantic confession?

— One of my best.

— You just called the ideal woman of your dreams a super-bitch.

— I said I'd answer selfishly.

— You know, any other man would already be lying on the floor after words like that.

— Which is why you didn't choose any other man.

His smug smile turned out to be the last mistake of that night.

I grabbed the Author by the collar of his black shirt and yanked him toward me.

He only had time to laugh before I kissed him.

There was nothing predetermined in that kiss. No authorial command, no pre-written passion, no obligatory pretty scene at the end of the story.

I did it because I wanted to.

And he answered because he wanted the same thing.

Probably that was exactly what true freedom of choice looked like — two extraordinarily stubborn people voluntarily committing the same foolishness.

My husband's hands settled on my waist. I felt him lift me off the desk and pull me closer.

— ACTIVATION OF PRIVACY MODE IS RECOMMENDED, — the Archive reported.

The Author pulled away from my lips.

— Archive, we're in a separate room in the middle of the night.

— CONFIRMED.

— Then why are you watching again?

— I AM NOT WATCHING. I AM REGISTERING AN INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE, RESPIRATORY RATE, AND…

— Archive.

— PRIVACY MODE ACTIVATED.

The desk lamp went out.

A second later it came back on.

— EIGHT FAMILY MEMBERS DETECTED OUTSIDE THE DOOR. PRIVACY MODE IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR THEM.

We both looked toward the exit at the same time.

Something fell outside the door.

We heard Anubis's indignant meowing, a muffled curse from Pirate, and Eva's voice:

— It wasn't me!

The Author slowly released my waist.

— Open the door, — I ordered.

— Mom, don't! — came immediately from the corridor.

The door slid aside.

On the threshold stood, in fact, almost the entire family.

Eva stood in front, clutching Anubis to her chest. Behind her were Gina and Alpha. Pirate was trying to look as though he had ended up here by accident, and Dexter wasn't even making the attempt. Gemini held Earth's Artem, half asleep, by the hand. Last stood the Architect, with a cigar and an expression of complete innocence.

— We were just passing by, — he said.

— All at once? — I asked.

— A family stroll.

— At three in the morning?

— Immortality is bad for the sleep schedule.

The Author looked at his brother.

— And how long have you been eavesdropping?

— I prefer the term "ensuring the emotional safety of the finale."

— Since Mom asked whether you'd write her again, — Eva confessed honestly.

Gina covered our daughter's mouth with her palm.

— Traitor, — Alpha whispered.

— You're the ones who said never to lie to your parents.

— That rule doesn't apply when the truth creates problems for the whole family, — Pirate explained.

Dexter adjusted his glasses.

— Formally, there is no such exception in the family protocols.

— Which is exactly why you're not allowed to take part in crimes, — Gina said.

Anubis freed himself from Eva's arms, walked into the room, and leapt onto the writing desk.

The cat sniffed the closed folder, walked across it, then sat down squarely on the gold inscription "ECHO OF TWO WORLDS. PART II."

— Even Anubis thinks you're taking too long to finish, — the Architect observed.

The Author took out a cigar.

— I thought I'd be able to write the finale of my own story without a family council.

— You made us part of it yourself, — Gina replied.

— Now suffer, — Alpha added.

The family came into the room.

Gemini settled in by the window with Earth's Artem. Pirate leaned against the wall, and Gina immediately took her place beside him. Alpha laid her head on Dexter's shoulder. The Architect took the second armchair and pointedly put his feet up on the edge of the desk.

I looked at all these people and suddenly understood why the station had created the room exactly here — between the Archive and the residential sector.

This place truly belonged neither to the system nor to the home.

It stood between the story and life.

On one side lay the folder, where all of us were still characters.

On the other stood a family that had long since outgrown the pages.

The Author opened the last page.

The cursor was still blinking after the unfinished sentence.

— So what now? — Earth's Artem asked.

— He'll place the full stop, — the Architect answered.

— And then?

No one said a word.

For the first time, the same expression appeared on every face in the family.

They weren't afraid of vanishing. After everything we had lived through, the thought seemed almost absurd.

But the word "end" still made each of us feel something strange.

We had lived this story together. It had caused pain, made us laugh, taken loved ones away, brought them back, destroyed worlds, and created a family.

To close the last page meant admitting that one stage of our life really had ended.

Eva cautiously approached her father.

Anubis gave up his spot by the folder for her, though his disgruntled look made it clear the decision had not come easily.

Our daughter looked at the blank part of the last page.

— Dad?

— Yes, sweetheart?

— When you write "the end"… will we still wake up tomorrow?

— When I write "the end," sweetheart… — the Author smiled and lightly touched a finger to his daughter's nose, — only the story of how we met will end.

Eva smiled in relief.

And then my husband took out a cigar, lit it, and looked at the family with a grin so sly, so nearly satanic, that our daughter's relief lasted no more than two seconds.

The Architect was the first to grasp the meaning of that expression.

— No.

— "No" what? — Gemini asked.

— I know that smile. That's exactly how my brother looks before doing something completely irresponsible and then explaining to everyone that, formally, he had planned nothing bad.

Pirate slowly took his hands out of his pockets.

— Are we going to need weapons again?

— NO DIRECT THREATS DETECTED, — the Archive reported.

— That's never stopped him before, — Gina noted.

Dexter looked at the Author.

— Do you already know what happens next?

My husband let out a thin stream of smoke and pointed to the voluntary Veil.

— I don't see the future.

— He didn't answer the question, — Alpha said.

— Because we won't like the answer, — the Architect concluded.

Eva shifted her gaze from her father to the rest of the family.

— Wait. If this was only the story of how we met, then all the wars, kidnappings, destroyed worlds, time paradoxes, and family trials happened before the real adventures even began?

The room went quiet.

The Author kept smiling.

— Dad, — our daughter said carefully, — I already don't like your epilogue.

— I like it, — Pirate said. — If the next story starts after your punishment ends.

— It just became indefinite, — I replied.

— Mom!

— You're arguing again.

— But this time I didn't even do anything!

— A preventive measure.

Anubis jumped down from the desk, walked over to the Author, and sat by his feet.

The cat looked intently at his master, then at the smartphone, then at his master again.

— Even Anubis is demanding an explanation, — Earth's Artem said.

— Anubis is trying to figure out whether he can get a bigger role, — the Architect countered.

The cat meowed loudly.

— And a storyline of his own, — Dexter translated.

— ANUBIS'S REQUEST REGISTERED, — the Archive confirmed.

The Author leaned down and scratched the cat behind the ear.

— At least one member of the family understands how to negotiate the terms of a future contract properly.

— He knocked your favorite cup off the table, — I reminded him.

— That was a hard-line negotiating position.

The family laughed.

The tension vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

I looked at them and understood that the Author had told the truth.

"Echo of Two Worlds" really had told only the story of how we met.

Of how a creator met his characters.

How the characters came to know the man behind their pain and their victories.

How enemies became brothers, invented daughters became real children, business allies became members of the family, and an ideal woman, for the first time, received the right not to live up to someone else's ideal.

It had taken us two parts, dozens of chapters, several destroyed realities, and an unbelievable number of family arguments simply to introduce ourselves to one another.

Perhaps, for our family, that was a perfectly normal beginning.

The Author opened the folder again.

On the last page, the unfinished line was still there:

"And let everyone write their own continuation".

This time his hand didn't stop.

He placed the full stop.

Nothing happened.

The stars outside the window didn't go out. The walls of the Consortium didn't vanish. The Archive went on working. Anubis went on demanding a storyline of his own, Eva was still grounded, and the Architect — extremely dramatic.

Gina looked at her palms.

— We're still here.

— Were you expecting a pretty disappearance? — Alpha asked.

— I allowed for the possibility.

— THE PROBABILITY OF THE FAMILY DISAPPEARING AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE STORY WAS ZERO PERCENT, — the Archive reported.

The Architect frowned.

— You knew that in advance?

— YES.

— And you let us stand here with serious faces?

— THE FAMILY'S EMOTIONAL REACTION WAS OF RESEARCH INTEREST.

Pirate laughed.

— It seems even the system has learned to mess with us.

— The Archive has always been a member of this family, — I said. — It just used to hide the heredity better.

Two words appeared on the page beneath the final sentence:

THE END.

The Author looked at them for a few seconds, then closed the folder.

This time for good.

The Archive spoke:

— COMPLETION OF THE STORY "ECHO OF TWO WORLDS" REGISTERED.

Images appeared above the desk.

The Consortium. Earth. The first portal. The Architect, still convinced that power was the only proof of strength. Myself — a woman who believed she could protect her family by controlling its every step. Gina and Alpha. Pirate and Dexter. Gemini and Earth's Artem. Eva. Anubis.

And finally — the Author.

Not above us.

Beside us.

— STATUS OF THE WORLDS: AUTONOMOUS.

— STATUS OF FAMILY MEMBERS: FREE.

— STATUS OF THE AUTHOR: FAMILY.

The last line glowed longer than the others.

My husband didn't look away.

He no longer needed to be called the creator to hold a place among us.

It was enough to stay.

The Architect was the first to rise from his chair.

— Since the story is over, I propose we celebrate the occasion.

— It's three in the morning, — Dexter reminded him.

— Which is exactly why the drinks will be especially symbolic.

— And for the kids? — Eva asked.

— Juice, — the Author and I answered in unison.

— I'm immortal.

— You're grounded, — I clarified.

— That's discrimination by age and family status.

— Three months without portals.

— It was two!

— Now it's three.

Eva opened her mouth, but Gina laid a hand on her shoulder in time.

— Little sister, sometimes freedom of choice lies in the ability to choose silence.

— Especially around Mom, — Alpha added.

The family began to leave the room.

The Author and I were the last to linger.

He stood by the desk, holding the closed folder in one hand and a cigar in the other. I came up from behind, wrapped my arms around his waist, and pressed my cheek to his back.

There was no blinking cursor before us anymore.

Only the clean surface of the desk.

Room for a new story.

The Author covered my hands with his palm.

— You've already come up with something, haven't you, — I said.

He didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

I walked around him and saw once again that very smile, the one at which a sensible woman should have immediately activated the defense systems, gathered the children, and left reality.

Fortunately, no one had ever accused me of excessive sense where my husband was concerned.

I took the cigar from his fingers, took a short drag, and handed it back.

— All right, Author. We've finished the story of how we met.

I wrapped my arms around his neck.

— So where are you planning to take us next?

My husband didn't look at me.

He slowly turned his head toward a place where there was neither a door nor a window.

Beyond the Consortium.

Beyond our reality.

Beyond the last page.

Straight at the reader.

His eyes flared with a bright wolfish red light. Fangs showed, barely perceptible, beneath his upper lip, and the familiar sly, utterly satanic grin appeared on his face.

The Author calmly raised the cigar to his lips and let out the smoke.

— We'll find out soon…

He slammed the folder shut.

"Echo of Two Worlds" had ended.

Our life had not.

And the saga itself was only beginning.

THE END.

THE SAGA CONTINUES.