Our sun, the Staar of the Staarus system, rippled as its rays stretched across the atmosphere. It was strange to see it here, from this vantage point on a planet I never imagined I would ever visit. It was even stranger how familiar it was, regardless of the fact that I was unfathomably far from the hill beside my parents' house on Flauraan, where it usually found me. The size was somewhat different and the firmament it shone in duller than the purple of Flauraan or the pinkish blue of Halapatov, though of course the brain plays a lot of tricks to make a yellow dwarf star, burning hydrogen and helium and which was essential to life as we know it, a comforting and normal presence in the sky above us, no matter the planet. It feels somehow essential to survival, to view it as such.
I watched the skyline for longer than I perhaps should have. My whole body felt stiff as I anxiously clung to the teleport watch on my wrist. Honestly, I'd been at a bit of a loss ever since we'd arrived on Werayne. I couldn't deny the fact that I felt more scared and in danger than I had been the entire war. It was different; going from a heavily defended space station to a secluded research station in a world that was filled with smoke and rubble from relentless bombardment. The most real and immediate danger I'd been in thus far - when Sophie was taken on Werayne and then our infiltration of the prison where they'd held Jayken - had been accompanied by adrenaline that carried me through feeling slightly invincible. Now the adrenaline had well and truly faded, and was being replaced with nothing but a growing dread that Everything Must End. Soon.
I felt nauseous, as I often did, with the sure knowledge I'd held in my brain ever since we'd left Halapatov, that my people were planning a genocide, had been planning it for as long as the force field had been in place around Werayne, feeding signals to Pecayen minds. It had been more than enough to be sick with worry about Jayken, and focussed on saving him, and to have the moment of his rescue be the setting for all of the pieces of this puzzle of a role we'd played in the war come together in a horrifying new light.
Nobody appeared to blame us. I supposed we'd somewhat redeemed ourselves with our moments of rebellion. And I'd watched Pecayen scientists pore over the schematics of the force field generators and remark on the intricacies of their design; surely we were forgiven for missing something so huge and horrible about them. Even if the activists we'd met have known for years that the force field was part of a more insidious plan, it appeared the main failing we'd all had was underestimating Staarus cruelty. I thought of Jayken strapped to that machine in the Weraynian prison; I thought of the hours working on his battered body as he barely held onto life, damaged more in the mind than anywhere else, of that continual voice inching in on me as I fought off exhaustion and fear and horror telling me that he was gone he was gone he was gone and it was all hopeless. Perhaps I should have had some hope for our chances of defeating the Staarus plot, given Jayken's recovery. But I kept remembering that Ray had let us go...
I forced myself to stand, as if physical movement could repel my spiralling thoughts of doom. As my eyeline dropped from the sky I caught sight of movement in the distance, and realised it was children rummaging through rubble in the devastation of what used to be a grove of some sort of fruit bearing tree. The sight made me feel sick again and more thoughts spilled forth without permission. What was my people's plan for when they won this war? What were they going to do with this planet once it's inhabitants were annihilated? Did they realise that this was their legacy? Did they even care? Was Werayne disposable to them? An unsalvagable species?
I wondered if they saw what I had seen, would it make a difference? It was always the smallest stuff that sent me spiralling, ordinary people, Weraynians just living in wartime, the innocence of it all. Jayken, of course. He'd hoped he would be able to reunite with his mother after so many years separated from her, and had been anxious to learn if she was even alive, though I could tell he couldn't truly bring himself to entertain any other possibility. We'd found out prior to our arrival here that the area where he'd grown up had been evacuated; Lexie and I had sat by as he stared at images of the beach near his home, empty and dirty and haunting. It wasn't one of the areas of Werayne most targeted by Staarus forces, but there had clearly been attempts to drive Weraynians out of sparse areas into more dense locations. More heavily defended but cramped.
After multiple days passed with no news, he was able to get in contact with someone in one of those locations who recognised his mother's name and set themselves to the task of tracking her down, to Jayken's gratitude. And before too long we got to witness one of the nicer moments of the war; Jayken talking to his mother again for the first time in almost five years. They discussed the options and decided it wasn't safe for either of them to travel to see each other... they would have to wait until the war was over for that. But just to talk to her, to see her face again through a screen, it nearly drove me to tears to see the sheer relief on his face.
I tried to hold onto that feeling as the doom knell continued to sound in my head, day after day after day. Even if this all ended. Even if we failed and were forced to bear witness to horrific tragedies as yet unheard of - at least Jayken got to talk to his mum again. I knew it was near callous to try to compare my situation to his, but it filled me with the intense longing to call my mother, to hear her voice and tell her everything that I'd been through, to cry like a child and receive comfort. It wasn't safe however; once again, it would have to wait until the war was over, one way or another.
An interesting development occurred within the first week following Jayken's rescue. Reeina had apparently been successful with the work she'd been doing putting pressure on the local government, as an investigation into the Weraynian prison was undergone and a big news story broke about the conditions therein. There was an eerie radio silence thereafter, and then it was announced that a large number of workers stationed at the facility were being accused of war crimes and detained to be put on trial before the Halapatovian High Court. To my surprise, the big, prominent face of these arrests was Ray.
I hadn't expected such a swift outcome following our visit there, but though I felt some relief I remained ultimately unconvinced that this meant any meaningful change to the Staarus Plan to neutralise the Weraynians. The Staarus forces at Headquarters had been able to plead ignorance of Weraynian conditions in the prison, and had put forth statements about Justice and Peace and assurances that the war would continue swiftly and decisively, with the best interests of the Staarus System in mind. It was such obvious drivel that I was astounded that anyone could be swayed by it, but of course things were allowed to continue as they were, in spite of horrific and damning evidence. It felt impossible, and yet that appeared to be the state of the world we lived in.
With Ray's arrest becoming a prominent scandal in systemwide news, I found myself indulging that urge that I'd been repressing; imagining what things were like back on Flauraan. My town would most likely be reeling with the information and our council leaders going to great lengths to manage the fallout of such an association, though perhaps Reeina's involvement in exposing it would factor in some absolvement of culpability for them. Between this and the village being the site of the Weraynian Scare all those years ago, we would be acquiring quite a disastrous reputation. I supposed I needed to add my own exploits to that list of scandals. I wasn't quite sure how public my association with Staarus HQ and subsequent defection was; coverage of the attack on the Weraynian prison had centred on the Protector as instigator, and footage had shown her and Alexa - Sophie and I might as well have never been there, in the eyes of the public. Really, my parents had no way of knowing anything of me since the last time I spoke to them from HQ, and even then my calls were monitored and no information of any value passed on, merely that I was alive and well occupied. Them not hearing from me most likely would raise no alarm with either of them. I wondered if my father was still out there in some workshop on a space station or a tiny ship, still contributing to the war effort. I wondered if my mother was still working overtime in the fields for her part in all this. I was sure the town would have held countless meetings and discussions. I wondered if my brother had checked in at all, if he even cared. Maybe I should have tried harder with him...
Home didn't feel real anymore. Flauraan might as well have been lightyears away. All I could focus on now each day was whatever small step was needed for the war effort. This facility had plenty to occupy us.
Sophie was inhabiting a world of machines far greater than I could have envisioned. On our arrival we had been given a harried tour of some of the incredible technologies at Weraynian disposal; larger and more refined stealth wave devices than the ones we'd trifled with, a room filled with bulky yet delicate equipment used to monitor Staarus forces and in particular the force field satellites, a few stolen Staarus ships in various states of disrepair, with the gel matrixes exposed and analysed. Experienced Weraynian technicians went over it all with Sophie, who I knew felt a little out of her depth, but I believed in her technological skill, had been saved by it countless times. Surprising myself, I was able to contribute somewhat to the technical discussions, show off the teleport watch, give some insight into the gel matrix and how it had been designed for Halapatovian powers, demonstrate that functionality with my own powers, thankfully feeling less like a lab rat than I'd been made to feel in Staarus Headquarters.
One fateful day we learnt there was to be an attack on one of the force field generators, all of which were pretty tightly defended by what was remaining of the blockade. We were monitoring the signal output from all of the places the Staarus machines had been inserted, and multiple of the more poorly defended ones had been chosen for a military strike with Weraynian missiles fitted with stealth wave capabilities. This was more of an experimental attack than a decisive one, as the aim was to track what, if any, changes occurred in the mind altering signals being generated by the whole conglomerate. It was a vain hope for sure, but if we could take out enough of the force field generators to effectively nullify that signal, it could change the outcome of the war.
Most of the population of the base crammed into the monitor room, and the tension was palpable as we each craned to see the output on the screens. Lexie, Jayken and I clumped together anxiously. The walls and desks were covered in diagrams and data and weapons information. I thought about Rojjel still on Halapatov with all the evidence we'd gathered; hopefully having met up with Reeina and combined their skills for another case against the Staarus forces. It still felt wrong that he wasn't here with us.
I watched Sophie manning one of the screens, pensive as the blinking lights tracked the mission. I had this sickening feeling of dread, though not entirely sure why. The worst case scenario was the attack was completely ineffective. Best case scenario was we were able to destroy all of the stations and one tiny part of the malignant signal was removed from the mix. Either way the stakes and the expected outcome were minimal.
In what felt like an agonisingly painful length of time, feedback trickled in from the array of Weraynian craft as they approached the targets. I found myself staring, fixated on the blinks of light that represented the force field generators. We'd been to one of them, rooted around in the machinery inside, helped install the very technology we were now trying to eradicate. It had been very early on and so much had happened since then - my normally eidetic memory struggled with the recall of it. That was back when the suits we needed to wear for protection had felt suffocating and galvanic instead of mundane. When I still entertained the frightening desire to serve the Staarus cause as much as I could, and worried whether I was making enough of a difference. I didn't even recognise that Abigail anymore, and seeing her in my mind's eye standing in that space station, the ultimate monument to Weraynian attrition, I longed to see it engulfed in flames, obliterated and reduced to detritus; and her with it.
The message trickled back that the Weraynian craft were firing, devastating weapons unleashed, my vision taking on actuality. I tensed, knew Alexa and Jayken were tensing too as if their anticipation was my own, felt Lexie's hand grip my arm from behind, and found my focus landing on Sophie's creased brow. The room held its breath.
A flurry of signals bombarded me. My brain worked overtime to construe all the data from the screens and sounds and sources, rippling at me, attempting to confound me. Was anyone else feeling this? The bombardment - to the space stations and my senses - ceased, and the electrical signals settled to something more legible. Or at least that was the idea.
For a moment I couldn't process what I was seeing. The output on the screens didn't make any sense. On each map of the various angles of force field infrastructure around Werayne, the stations we had targeted no longer existed. Detritus, as predicted. A grainy image loaded in from one of the space craft and we could make out the debris. Completely blown apart.
However, the machines measuring the signals from those space stations, from the no-longer-existent force field generators, told a different story. Everything spun and shifted as I digested the implications.
The signals were still there. The space stations had been obliterated, but the signals were still there. Changed, but strong nonetheless.
Unfortunately I recognised the changes. Horrible memories swam to the forefront of my mind; memories I'd long tried to repress. Those last moments we'd spent on Halapatov with our friend Riowyn, before we lost her, before the course of our lives changed forever - all of us, I reminded myself, as it has been the inciting incident for Lexie's powers and the phenomena that brought Jayken to Halapatov, leading us to here, now - we'd found a machine that was able to maintain a signal in spite of damage and lack of power, which was somehow able to continue running on the power of staar matter alone, the substance that Halapatovians channeled with their powers, operating through connections to another dimension. Sophie had been using her scanner that ran on similar frequencies; and the output had been the same then as what I was seeing right now.
"Staar matter..." Sophie muttered in a daze, and I wasn't sure if anyone else heard her but we looked right at each other and I realised that we were reliving the same memory. I felt the instinct to reach out to her, to shelter her.
For a second her eyes unfocused and I found myself thrown even deeper into those unpleasant memories and silently begged for Sophie not to disappear again.
Then she refocused, and I could see a spark in her eyes that I recognised. Relief flooded through me; she'd figured something out, and I knew there was a gadget or machine of some sort that she was mentally preparing to build. Something that could save us.
Meanwhile the rest of the room was amutter as our peers assessed the data and reached the same conclusions as Sophie and I. The panic in this small space was palpable as one person after another grasped everything that had just occurred. My brain buzzed as more messages filtered in from the craft.
"Abigail," Lexie hissed in my ear and I felt her nails digging into my flesh. I turned to see her eyes frantic, and Jayken frowning as he conversed with another Weraynian, but I focused on Alexa. As my brain hurried to interpret her expression I found myself wondering, as I often did, what she'd seen, what scenes had already played out for her, was she making sense of things in reverse? Maybe that was something we had in common, a distinctly nonlinear interpretation of the world around us, both of us plagued by visions. I was still reeling at the fact that our traumas had the same source, and it took me a moment to notice the disturbing distance behind Lexie's eyes. She was witnessing something right now. I glanced around me, unsure how to react. Everyone else was engrossed in discussion or something technical, right now it was just me and Lexie, the past and future swirling around us. I took both of her hands, hoping I could be of some comfort. She was shaking violently, and her skin was warm. I pushed aside hair that clung to her forehead, and my hand lingered on her cheek. What a terrifying condition to see a friend in, and to be powerless to help. She wasn't gone for that long, merely the length of a few heartbeats. Nonetheless, I felt immense relief as her breathing normalised and her eyes focussed on me again. Her grip loosened for a moment before returning, agonisingly painful. "Abigail." she breathed hoarsely. "It's Jayken. He's- they're going to hurt him, I saw it again."
I gripped her shoulder, "Lexie, it's okay. We rescued Jayken remember? They did hurt him but he's okay now."
She shook her head, tears tracking down her face. "No, I was wrong. Now that I've seen it again I know that wasn't it. It hasn't happened yet."
Her words thudded dully into me. Hasn't happened yet. I whipped around to stare at Sophie, but she wasn't paying attention. The signal, stronger than ever, but she had a way to stop it. This wasn't over. I glanced back at Lexie, and then Jayken, who was here and whole and who I'd hoped would remain that way forever. I shook the creeping dread off me; I couldn't let a vision stop us from focussing on the here and the now.
Now Sophie was in motion, inserting herself into the discussion between her fellow engineers, speaking rapidly with accompanying hand gestures, scrawling some calculations and barebones designs on her digifile, nodding animatedly as she listened to queries from the others, face contorting in excited frenzy as she amended her designs with suggestions from the others. It was astounding to observe it all in action.
Someone adjacent to their group called out that the meeting was adjourned, and as everyone began to file out, the majority crestfallen in the wake of the mission failure, few had noticed the change in energy in the engineering discussions, and those that had surely assuming it was panic rather than fervor. Lexie and Jayken, however, were level with me now, and they had noticed, had known Sophie long enough to recognise the distinction between a fanciful idea and one of actual genius and potential. How many long days had we sat together in her and Rojjel's workroom, recovering from our training sessions in the company of people we trusted? I wonder if Rojjel had been tuned into this attack as well... If he had theories that he would be reaching out with. Despite myself, I began to feel hopeful.
"Sophie's figured something out." Jayken said, calm and confident. I glanced at him, took in his wholeness. He'd survived the doom of one of Lexie's visions already, and so help me if he didn't survive another.
"Yes," I said, and a foolish grin worked its way onto my face. "Yes, she has."
To my surprise, Sophie made a beeline for me, grabbed my hand, dragged me along with her. I reached back for Lexie and Jayken and we proceeded in a chain through the corridors.
"Don't you have to get right to work?" I asked, frowning just a little.
"Well, yes," she said. "We have an idea, but we need you too. I mean, you're the one who explained how it works."
"You've lost me."
She laughed, "Well that's a change! I mean, I know you already worked out that the force field generators work similarly to... well, you know. The ghosts. And- and we do know what stopped them."
I wrapped my head around what she was saying, a task made more difficult by the coded language we'd always used to avoid discussing the circumstances of Riowyn's death. I nodded. "Staar matter, yes. But that was an entirely different situation, localised to one machine, one location, even if an influx of Staar matter was capable of being generated in the vicinity of all the force field generators, it likely wouldn't be effective enough."
"It's being directed in traceable patterns, we should be able to counter it, disrupt the signal at least." Sophie insisted.
"With what?" We were approaching the workshop, I noticed with my keen observational skills. "My powers definitely aren't enough, and I doubt we have enough Halapatovians on our side."
"Come on Abi, you explained it yourself the other day." Sometimes I envied the way her brain was able to make connections that were beyond my understanding. As it was doing right now. "The gel matrix!"
What. My thoughts and Sophie's explanations were cut short as we entered Sophie's world of machines and were promptly exposed to the hustle and bustle of an operation already proceeding. Equipment was being moved into the large room, and I followed the lines of development to find it converging on one of the Staarus ships, which was already beginning to have parts stripped off of it, revealing its innards.
I looked at Sophie, realisation dawning on me. "You're going to use the gel matrix to amplify Staar matter, to interfere with the signal."
"And we're going to use you to test it." she wriggled her eyebrows at me. I raised mine at her in return. "If that's okay with you, of course."
How stupid and cyclical life could be. So often in my life I'd felt a strong sense of deja vu, of being haunted by events, retreading them without meaning to. Of course I hadn't had the most normal life. Today more than any I'd been feeling the pull of the past, the pressure of the future, the weight of the current moment, all at once. I reminded myself I shouldn't be dwelling on these things, especially with Lexie being literally haunted by recurrent visions. I glanced over at her; she looked defeated, her gaze roving languidly over the operation before us. It was heartbreaking, especially with Jayken looking on next to her with a gleam in his eyes, full of defiant hope.
I didn't know what to think or feel, after everything we'd been through. But we had to try, right? I couldn't let myself believe that her vision spelt doom, and give up accordingly. I took a deep breath, not really wanting to entertain the idea of being used as a guinea pig with my powers, again. Sophie was watching me carefully, trying to read me as she often does.
I took her hand and squeezed it. "Let's build this machine then. How can we help?"
Jayken and I ventured into the fray and helped take down the non-essential framework of the ship, exposing the core which Sophie and a few other engineers had already crawled into and started tinkering around with. Alexa helped briefly before excusing herself to go lie down, with a pained expression, brushing off Jayken when he asked if she needed anything. I quietly explained to him that her visions were affecting her more strongly today, without specifying the exact problem - Jayken certainly didn't need that hanging over him. He was easily distracted by the work we were doing, and was drawn into conversations with the mostly Weraynian workers helping us. I kept mostly silent myself and tried to focus on the methodical work, removing piece by piece and finding a place for it under direction from the engineers. I was distracted by the surprise arrival into the workshop of the Protector, who gave a general awkward wave to the room and then headed over to her girlfriend Terra, who was helping with the work. I tried not to stare at them too much, or eavesdrop on their conversation, but I was incredibly curious. The Protector had been on one of the Weraynian ships during the mission as backup. I wondered what her perspective on this all was.
Sophie appeared at my side, staring at them a bit obviously. Her belt was full of random tools, and she was dual wielding her scanner and friction stabiliser - though I'm not sure how much use the latter would be. She turned to eye the gel matrix, and then back to me. "Do you think the Protector has tried to use her powers with the gel matrix?" she asked casually.
I turned to her and couldn't help smirking a little. "She's not Halapatovian, her powers don't really interact with Staar matter in any particular way. It probably wouldn't make too much of a difference."
Sophie tapped me on the nose with her friction stabiliser. "You're not Halapatovian, but you're still able to use it." Her tone changed to be more serious, "I've been trying not to think about, well, you know, Halapatov and the ghosts. But I do wonder how the Protector's teleportation powers work, how distinct they are from the teleport watch, which did intercept the Halapatovian signals and interfere with the ghosts."
I frowned and glanced away thoughtfully. "Maybe you should talk to Anise about our plan then, though I imagine Terra's filled her in somewhat."
"Hmm." Sophie said, "Yeah, she might have some insight into how we can make this work."
I watched Sophie wander over to have that conversation with the Protector, and realised I had no desire to go along myself. I tried to convince myself that I should be more involved, but I was so tired. My brain had been working overtime all day, alongside the physical labour, and it was all exhausting. I looked around me and realised I wasn't the only one feeling this way. Most people were taking this opportunity to take a break, as most of the heavy work had been done, and now it was the more intricate building and rewiring to be completed.
I especially noticed Jayken, sitting tensely and looking gaunt. I felt like a complete fool; he still hadn't properly recovered and I'd let him push himself too hard. I was doing a really bad job protecting both him and Lexie, as I'd promised myself I would.
I went over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey," I said gently. "Let's go back to the room and you can have a proper rest."
"No it's okay," he said unconvincingly. "I want to help."
"No, come on." I helped him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed. "We can check on Lexie." He agreed, though he really wasn't in much of a state to argue anyway, and we moved to our quarters. Lexie was curled up on her bunk, facing away from us, but she looked around when we entered the room. She quickly jumped down and helped me manoeuvre Jayken onto the bunk below hers.
We glanced at each other, and I must've looked as thin-lipped and somber as she did. Once Jayken was settled, she crossed over to my bunk and sat against the wall. I followed her lead and slid in next to her. We sat in silence for a minute, watching Jayken slowly breathing in and out with his eyes closed.
"You know better than I do," Lexie said eventually, and I listened, tense. "Do we think Sophie's plan will work? I can't pretend I understand any of it."
I hesitated, unsure of the answer, and wanting to choose my words as carefully as possible so as to not make Lexie feel any worse. "Sophie thinks she understands the way the Staarus plan works, we believe it's using technology we've seen before. If we can weaponise it and it works the way she thinks it does, we should have another shot at disrupting the signal."
"I heard Sophie say something about ghosts, when she was explaining the plan to you earlier. Those are the ghosts from five years ago right? When you and Sophie found the source of them from near our house, and there was an explosion, and then all the deaths stopped." Lexie said, and my heart sunk; I had hoped I wouldn't have to elaborate on those events. It was at least a little easier with Sophie not here. "That we think is where I got my powers from? And might be connected to the rift that brought Jayken to Halapatov?"
I nodded flatly. She pursed her lips and exhaled sharply. "That's really disturbing, kind of ominous really, to think this goes back to that."
"Yeah." I said, and I wasn't sure if it was comforting or not, that we were all being haunted in the same way.
We talked a little bit more, about more trivial things, and sat in silence a little as well, and then Jayken's communicator started buzzing, and he half sat up and glanced at it. "It's Rojjel." he said simply and answered. I could hear Rojjel speaking quickly and firmly from my vantage point across from him, but couldn't make out specific words. After half a minute, Jayken held out the communicator. "Here, Abigail, he wants to speak to you,"
"Rojjel?" I said into the microphone.
"Abigail, I've received the plans Sophie helped draw up for this machine she thinks will help us nullify the Staarus genocide wave. I'm assuming it would be helpful to build one here on Halapatov as well?"
Countless thoughts jumbled in my head. I wasn't the right person to be asking about this. "I'm not sure. Do you want me to ask Sophie?"
Rojjel sighed. "I was hoping to avoid that but that might be best."
I smiled to myself and crossed to the door, gesturing a brief egress to Lexie and Jayken, before making my way back to the workshop, where the gel matrix Sophie and co were working on was practically unrecognisable. The Protector and Terra were nowhere to be seen.
"Sophie!" I called out and she extricated herself from the work and made a beeline for me.
"Abigail!" she said hurriedly. "I talked to the Protector and she thinks if we can get this device working, it would be best to have multiple of them in key locations, especially Lexie and Jayken's neighbourhood on Halapatov, cos I explained everything to her and since Jayken's brain patterns were altered by whatever took him there, and we think that was because of the ghosts, and the ghost machine seems to work similarly to the technology they're using-"
"Sophie!" I interrupted her, and could hear Rojjel tutting impatiently through the communicator. "Rojjel called me because you sent plans to him and he wanted to know why, but I think you've answered his question."
"Oh, yeah, right." She grabbed the communicator from me and started speaking into it. "Rojjel, hi, those plans are obviously not 100% yet with all the specs, we're still tweaking the details, but obviously if you start working on it there, you can help us iron out any issues, maybe see if there's any unique properties depending on gravitational forces and such? Do you guys have access to a Staarus ship with a gel matrix? Uh huh. Uh huh. I don't know. Yeah, no, maybe? Mmm... Okay. Okay. Reeina should be able to help you test it, her powers are sort of similar to Abi's. Yeah, I know. Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Forgot about the Staar matter aspect. Okay, okay, okay. Anyway do you think this will work? Alright, make those alterations and we'll pass it all around. Do you want me to- Okay, bye." She passed the communicator back to me.
"That sounds... promising?" I asked her, wincing a little at my own lack of certainty. "If Rojjel's on board with it then maybe what you're building can- well, you know, stop the worst from happening."
Sophie smiled at me for a second and then her expression grew a little more somber. "Yeah," she said, in a small voice. "I hope so."
I took her hand, and watched tears start to form in her eyes, a dazzling rarity. We stood together and surveyed the device. I hoped all of my anxieties were simply that, and the horrors we were struggling to prevent would not come to pass. If we couldn't find a way to shut this signal down, even if it wasn't activated soon, it would hang over Werayne as a threat forever.
We needed this to work...