Having never been in a zero G collision in outer space or any other environment with no atmosphere, Alicia wasn’t sure what to expect. Still, she found herself thinking as she skipped across the debris field at what she realized were breakneck speeds, she hadn’t thought it’d be quite like this. The impact had come on more suddenly than she’d expected, which told her that they were going a bit faster than she had assumed, but that admittedly spectacular sign was not the end of it.

The weirdest part of it all, Alicia thought as she flew away from the mess of newly pulverized rock dust clouds that billowed from where the vessel had finally met a fragment too large to bat aside by sheer mass alone, was how she and Lia had just kept going. The sheer inevitability of their continued flight seemed preordained, but Alicia thought it was more the case that not enough had happened to make them stop moving than that.

For the first couple of “skips,” where Alicia hit a fragment and tried to brake, she kept track of where Lia was going, but it only took a missed skip and the desperate correction to not fall face, and arm-first into what essentially was a high speed treadmill, or a somewhat uneven belt sander, before she had no idea where Lia was going relative to her. She had entirely too much to do to keep on her feet, as she kicked off the fragment into another skip. The slight gravity of the debris belt was, thankfully, enough to keep her coming down again, but she was not willing to gamble on for how long that would remain true.

Alicia had no idea how many “skips” it had taken, but once she got the general impression she could stop herself without causing irreparable damage to her joints and ligaments, Alicia stopped herself by driving her legs into the “ground” of a convenient fragment. It was only once the action was so well in movement it was too late to stop that Alicia even considered the integrity of the fragment. In a word, the thing was porous. In two, it was very porous. With a series of crinkly cracking sounds, Alicia’s feet pierced the surface of the world fragment.

If nothing else, Alicia thought as she grasped for nearby fragments, spinning around as the porous fragment she had landed on rotated in the void, dispersing the impact into rotational energy rather than in one set direction was considerably more possible and easier on the joints than her planned manuever had been. It was now just the small issue of ceasing the rotation and not getting terrible vertigo from the whole thing. After what felt like hours of extricating herself from the least fun carnival ride imaginable, Alicia found herself standing on what she was decently certain was the “right” side of the debris belt. The only price she’d paid was getting pretty dizzy, as well as a general unmooring from her understanding of the world around her, as Alicia assumed was natural when spending time outside the gravity well and atmosphere one was used to.

Now, the only problem that remained was finding Lia again, and resuming their impossibly long trek towards Thereafter. It was a simple plan, but perhaps not an easy one, much like running ten miles, a hundred situps and a hundred pushups was a simplistic but by no means easy training plan. The void, as she believed had been thoroughly demonstrated, was enormous, and without any mentionable landmarks, and precious little “land” for that matter, finding her way, much less Lia’s way, was going to be a challenge. It wasn’t hopeless, or Alicia would have given up, but the hope was of that annoying sort that required you to chase it to get anywhere of note.

She had no idea where Lia was, but fortunately, she knew this, and she knew that Lia, similarly, had no idea where she was. Assuming that Lia had not bounced all the way to Thereafter, into some strange land of milk and honey, and that she wasn’t dead, she’d want to find back to Alicia about as much as Alicia wanted to find her. So, they were both looking for each other, which meant that going to the most logical place for either of them to go was the winning strategy for achieving such a goal. Alicia knew which direction the gap was, and while she had seriously lost track of the direction she’d been going, she had noticed knocking a couple of debris chunks into one kind of spin or another, so if she could locate a couple of those it wouldn’t be so impossible to track a way back to where they had “landed,” the point of impact. It was leaning on a number of assumptions, but Alicia couldn’t come up with a plan that didn’t, and seeing as the alternative, at least so it seemed to her, was laying down and dying alone out here in the void, it was a-backtracking she went.

Alicia had the idea that eventually, she’d be able to hear Lia through her voidpearl. She had no memory where she had picked up this piece of trivia, so worst case scenario she had imagined it. It did make some sense though, the pearls clearly enabled communication between wearers at a certain range, after all sound would not carry past the air bubble around them, and Lia and Alicia, or Alicia and any of her fellow scavengers, didn’t share any air. On the other hand, she had not heard the other teams on her first scavenging trip, so some sort of range limitation clearly existed or was imposed by limitations of the magical technology so to speak.

For not the first time on this impossibly long, impossibly perilous day, Alicia wished Lex was here to do something she hadn’t even thought about to wring some extra utility out of the void pearl and then tell some sort of sex joke. Lex was predictable like that, comfortable in a way. It could be that Alicia and Lex were the only ones left, with Michael having left and Felipe staying distant enough to make it arguable whether he was “in” at all, but she found that she missed Lex a lot. Lex was abrasive, weird, too, and antisocial in her own ways, but Alicia felt she could discern when it was an act and when it was a genuine signal to be left alone. She had no such luck with Lia, who seemed very much to operate in similar ways. Or, Alicia thought, maybe she was just seeing what she was comfortable with seeing, and Lia was just difficult for this or that reason.

A buzz in the air made Alicia snap out of her rumination. She wasn’t quite sure what the sound was, but something made her wary of it. It could be any number of things interfering with the pearl. Seeing as there was nothing in her proximity that could make the hiss, she was forced to assume it was the pearl. Now whether it was a weak signal from Lia’s pearl or some other form of interference, Alicia could not tell and frankly had no idea how she would go about finding out. Assuming her earlier assumptions about Lia were correct, Alicia decided to make her way back towards the gap to hopefully find the impact site, or at least the cloud of fine rock dust where the impact had happened.

For the first couple of jumps, Alicia felt fairly neutral. Sure, the situation was scary and had pretty much only grown more perilous as it went on after the brief spike of The Incident, but she had a plan, and an inkling of how to get it done. If it didn’t work, well, she’d have to work that problem if it came to that, it was, in essence, not that much different from any other situation. Granted, the stakes were higher. As her journey continued, though, Alicia couldn’t help but feel paranoid. She couldn’t see anything in the weak light from her pearl, but the gap had proved that things very much could exist outside of ones range of view. It was a simple conclusion, of course, but that didn’t make it less of an uncanny thing to think about. Alicia was not in a place she could fight at 100%, even if she hadn’t damaged her right hand, and it was hard to not think about that as the buzzing hiss appeared at various angles and amplitudes around her. It couldn’t be Lia unless she moved very very fast and irregularly. It could, however, be a group of things having a similar interference source with them. Alicia tried to not think about it, but like most things she tried not to think about, the thought quickly found itself pushed to the surface by the sheer pressure of its severity. Alicia had not seen any evidence of void dwellers, even the concept boggled the mind, but then again, if there were such a thing, one almost would have to assume they were indifferent or even hostile to Thereafterian concerns. Hell, you couldn’t live out here without spotting the city in the distance, which meant, at least to Alicia’s mind, that remaining out in the black was a choice made rather than a consequence weathered.

“Hey Lia, you out there?” Alicia asked out into the void, just in case she’d gotten entirely too lucky with the semirandomness of her flight. No reply, only more hissing. Alicia started moving faster, she couldn’t help it, even if she could only speculate that whatever made the noise was moving towards her, it was an intensely present and intimidating speculation.

There could be any number of reasons why these void dwellers chose to stay away from Thereafter. Alicia didn’t want to dwell on this question, yet it felt unavoidable. The question was the gravity well her brain revolved around. Why would someone chose to live out here? Were there too many of them to house in Thereafter? That seemed unlikely, scavenging wasn’t that good even if you lived in the middle of it, and then there were the challenges involved with keeping a cohesive society without gravity, and how they’d solved the water problem Alicia had no idea.

Alicia was thirsty, but she decided to grin and bear it for now. For one, she didn’t want to stop her trek on the off chance that someone, or something, really was pursuing her, for the other, it wasn’t like she had a lot of water left. The sooner she started rationing, the better, although she did not cherish the thought of it. Truth was, though, she was entirely too spooked to stop moving.

It was also possible that there was a question of taste that kept the void dwellers out here. Living in a city wasn’t for everyone. So far, Alicia had assumed this was one of those preferences that practical concern would ultimately ride, but what if it wasn’t? What if there were people who were so opposed to living in a city they’d rather make do in the cold darkness of the Void? Alicia was pretty sure that modern ideas of civilization vs barbarism were deeply flawed, but what if they weren’t? What if there were barbarians out in these wilds? The thought was intimidating. One would have to be made of sterner stuff to survive out here, Alicia figured, so it wasn’t so weird to think that these “barbarians” would be both stronger and wilder than your average Thereafterian. Then again, this place was unwelcoming to her, could be there lived people out here who were quite used to the emptiness of the void

Alicia was pretty sure that the buzzing didn’t come any closer. It wasn’t as much of a relief as Alicia wished it was. In truth, it was quite possible that either the buzz was dependent on proximity and whatever pursued her kept a steady distance, which implied a high level of predator intelligence. The other option was that the buzzing did not change in proportion with distance, which meant she couldn’t use it as a sense-like capacity in the way that she did. She wasn’t quite sure which option she liked least, but neither of them, she would argue, were ideal.

The gap was visible to Alicia now, which meant it was time to start looking for the impact point. Alicia didn’t like slowing down, but she’d need to if she were to have any chance to find it. Besides, it wasn’t like she was sure that she was being followed. Part of her just happened to remember that despite all of man’s great achievement and complex philosophy, we ultimately are small scared mammals in a big scary world, and the number of things out there that wouldn’t mind eating us given half a chance were entirely too high. Circle Of Life or no, Alicia could take or leave being eaten, but all things being equal, getting killed was one of those things that she’d rather avoid

“Lia, I still have no idea if you can hear me,” Alicia said, she managed to avoid whispering, but it took conscious effort. The ‘scared little mammal thing’ part of her brain was simply too activated. “But I’m closing in on the gap. Assuming you’ve done the same. If you’ve instead decided to move on towards Thereafter this problem has officially evolved into a whoopsie-fucko.”

“You have such a way with words, Mountain Wind,” Lia’s dry tone sounded somewhat disrupted by noise, and kind of like it came from a bunch of places at once. So, while Alicia’s heart skipped a beat out of pure relief and probably some other feelings she REALLY didn’t have the time to unpack right now, she also couldn’t help but be a little disappointed the pearl communication wasn’t more directional. “I’m approaching the gap myself. Can’t see you though.”

“Lia, god am I glad to hear your voice,” Alicia said before she really had the chance to think her message through. “We need to find some way to figure out some kind of way to find each other. What I wouldn’t give for a flashlight right now.”

“I’m assuming that’s somewhat similar to a torch?” Lia asked.

“More or less yeah. Anything producing light would be immensely helpful.”
“Hold on, I may actually have something that can help. Keep an eye out.”
“An eye out for what?” Alicia asked, but by the time she finished the question, the truth made itself quite evident.

For the lack of a better word, it looked an awful lot like something in an anime was powering up. A column of light bright enough to hurt looking directly at shot from somewhere further ahead of Alicia, leaving a strong afterimage after it faded. As far as signals went, it wasn’t ideal in that it was entirely too bright, but in their currently dire straits, it very much was a welcome one.

“Holy shit,” Alicia found herself saying.
“It’s not a very complicated trick, I’ll show you one day.” Lia’s voice sounded strained. Even if the trick wasn’t very complex, it certainly had taken a lot out of her. “Very limited utility, but when you need it, you need it.”
“Alright Lia, stay put, I’m going to head your direction, ok?”
“I’m fine don’t worry about…”
“I didn’t say you weren’t fine,” Alicia interrupted her. “I have a decent fix on your location, it’s easier if I come to you.
“If… you say so.”

Alicia found herself moving faster now. It wasn’t just that she was worried for Lia, although she had to concede the point that she was, there was also that what followed Alicia, if anything indeed did and she had not invented a barbarous tribe of void dwellers whole cloth, also must’ve seen the flare. If they existed and if they were pursuing Alicia, there was no guaranteeing they wouldn’t go for the easier prey. In fairness, being able to glow at that intensity wasn’t traditionally viewed as a sign of weakness, but everything came at a cost, and there was no telling if these hypothetical void dwellers were conscious of that. It was, as usual, better to err on the side of caution and prepare for disaster and tragedy. It was a hell of a way to live one’s life, but it also was hard to argue against in a difficult and scary situation such as this.

It would be a gross misstatement to say that Alicia had lived her life to prepare for a disaster such as this, but the part of her brain that worried about every little thing could not, or did not, help but feel vindicated by the whole thing. If there were a worse case scenario to end up in than this, Alicia wasn’t sure she wanted to know it. It would be worse if she was alone out here, but other than that, it’d take active interfering malice to make the situation much worse. Then again, weren’t the most common interpretations of The Calamity describing it as an actively interfering act of malice? This wasn’t the Calamity’s MO or anything, but then again, there was no saying that a sentient megadestructive event couldn’t work on a smaller scale. Maybe that was a Devil Of The Gaps type theory though, if the Calamity could be as subtle and passive-aggressive about its evil as what happened here, it, it already was a thing too flexible to be categorized in any meaningful way, and one could easily attribute some sort of omniscience to it, which just wasn’t practically useful. No, there were no reason to transplant ideas about luck and fate to the Calamity, the thing was hard enough to comprehend as it was.

Alicia snapped out of her contemplation when she spotted the small but insistently sharp light on a fragment a small handful of jumps ahead. That had to be Lia! Alicia thought as she headed that way, silently praying that this would be a turning point for the better.

Author’s Note: This chapter felt like it emerged rather naturally from the previous one, which was a nice change from my “I must think about this chapter for roughly one million years” approach. I will also take this opportunity to blame any obvious spelling errors on my new laptop, whose keyboard I’m not quite used to yet. My particular brand of touch typing continues to have the drawback that it turns into an unintentional cipher if the keys aren’t where my brain expects them to be.