Isabel walked alongside the stream towards its source, and was 
awed. 


In the center of the cave, there was a pool of water, fed by a spring, 
and a great stone column that reached up to the shadowed dome of 
the ceiling. A face of the column had been cut to provide a flat face, 
and upon it, Isabel saw an image of herself, standing there, legs 
akimbo, fists on hips, grinning goofily. Emma stood next to her, 
unflappable as always, and Jeremy sat at her feet, chewing ona 
squeaky toy. 


At the base of the pillar was a smaller stone, upon which was, in 
black and ochre, the figure of a man in furs, holding a spear in one 


hand, and a fire in the other, alongside a great grey wolf. 


“It's me...” Isabel murmured. “It’s all me...it’s always been me...” 
She whirled around. “It’s all me! Memories of you! You’re all me! All 
of this is me!” She no longer saw statues and paintings, but a vast 
multitude, their faces as familiar as her own. She knew them. She 
knew their names, their histories, the twined and bundled paths of 
their lives. Each facet of their souls was a face of her own. 


She knew each and every wonder they had made. She knew them 
all, the greying bishop with a sack full of toys and his fat, red-coated 
brother. The girl with deep orange hair and purple thigh-high boots, 
obscured by a cloud of moths. The dusty woman with a bonnet, 
sitting atop her medicine wagon. The smirking man with waves of 
hair and an accordion. The dark woman with a headscarf, who 
smelled of ink and paper. The serious, pale woman with a worn 
guitar and a weathered soul. The ancient tinkerer with his clockwork 
animals. The entrepreneur from the north in her flamboyant blue 
sealskins. The lanky man in a tacky purple suit, with top hat and 
cane. The girl with braces and glow in the dark sweater, sitting atop 
a wild boar. The old man and his wolf, and on and on down through 
the thousands. 


And her father. Jeremy sat at his feet. The corgi waddled over, to 
Isabel, barked, and she picked him up. 


“Don’t you ever do that again, young man,” she said with mock 
sternness. She looked over to where she saw the image of her 
father — herself — standing. He gave her a nod. 


And that was that. 


Isabel stood there in the presence of all her other selves, her spirit 
now unified with theirs, and knew precisely who she was, what she 
was doing, and where she was going. 


She was Isabel Wonder-Maker, and she was going to find her friend. 


« Part 3: Adventuring Interlude | Hub | Part 5: Absolute » 


Alternate Character Interpretations 


New York City 


"Hey, Sal, got a cig | can have?" Mary-Ann Lewitt looked between 
her husband and her latest creation, sprayed on the wall of a vacant 
warehouse, and it was sprayed on the entire wall, at least 20 feet 
high. It was a bright red vulva with a hand, flipping off the audience, 
sticking out between the lips. It was painted entirely in menstrual 
blood, which had taken her months to collect; she called it "Period 
Piece: The Modern Age." 


The Pakistani man frowned at Mary-Ann upon hearing her request, 
looking at her pregnant belly. "You're with child. It's generally not a 
good idea to smoke-" 


"It's not for me, ya dimwit." She pointed up at her piece, wiping her 
bandana-covered brow with one hand. "| need a proper way to 
express how women are destroying their bodies with drugs and pills 
and plastics and lord knows what else." She dug in her pocket, 
taking out several dildos that, by all means, should not have fit in 
there. "| won't smoke it, | just need it to tie the piece together." 


"| think it's fine as is!" He waved a hand at the Period Piece, smiling 
at her. "It's just saying that a period is the way a woman's body says 
"fuck you" to itself once every month. Maybe you could put a mirror 
over there-" He pointed to a warehouse opposite the wall- "or a 
sculpture of Eve or something, but really, it's fine!" 


Mary-Ann elbowed him in the side. "You say that about all my work, 
Sal. It's getting old. | at least have the balls to criticize your shit." 


"...did you really think that my Bacon Treaty piece was disgusting?" 


"| thought it was disgustingly simplistic. But | did appreciate you 


trying to be 'Cool' in the sense that 'we agree’." Mary-Ann patted her 
stomach and sighed. "I'm hungry. Let's get some pizza or 


something." 


"How about we go to the old place? You know..." Salah smiled, 
pulling a map of New York City out of his pocket and pulling Mary- 
Ann close so that she could see the map, too. "It was right... here." 
He pointed to a spot on 32nd and smiled as the warehouse district 
faded away to be replaced by the urban sprawl of Manhattan. Mary- 
Ann rolled her eyes and bapped him in the gut. 


"You're gonna get fat if you keep on relying on the Cartographer's 
stuff," she muttered, walking up to the pizza parlor as Salah put 
away the map. "A bit of exercise is good for you. You can't just rely 
on those candles forever." 


"The City of New York says I'm not allowed on the subway anymore, 
remember? Gimme a break, honey." He walked up to the pizza 
place as well, and looked at the menu. "Veggie-lovers pizza sounds 
good." 


An hour later, the pair of them stood in front of the entrance to the 
BackDoor. Mary-Ann had taken the map from Salah and had forced 
him to walk; he was visibly winded, while Mary-Ann had barely 
broken a sweat. "Now that's pathetic. I'm three months pregnant, 
and you can't even keep up with me." She looked around the alley 
and frowned. "Where the fuck is Chuck?" 


Charlie came out of the wall, his pink hair done in a mullet today. He 
frowned at the both of them, toying with a nose ring. "Now is nota 
good day to be in the BackDoor. Just warning you." 


"Why?" asked Salah, still panting for breath. "Did Gilligans get in 
again? Just give them to one of the Baileys; they know what to do 
with Gilligans." 


"Not the Skippers," said Charlie. "The Critic's in town. She's looking 
over the Cartographer's new thing. You know, the Korea one?" 


"The one that shows every person in the country who wants to 
dissent?" 


"That's the one," he said, holding out a hand for their token. "You 
sure you wanna go in? It's gonna be Bedlam in there." 


Mary-Ann handed Charlie her token and nodded. "We'll just avoid 
the Cartographer's place for now. We're probably going to head 
home, anyway, unless something comes up." 


"Something wil/ come up," muttered Salah. "It has the last five times 
the Critic's come into BackDoorSoHo. Why should it change now?" 


"Point," said Mary-Ann, looking at Charlie. "You know where to 
contact us if shit goes down, right?" 


"Yeah, yeah..." and with that, Charlie vanished into the brickwork. 
Soon after, Mary-Ann and Salah vanished into there, too. 


Agent Ruiz Duchamp was not having a good day. His non- 
Newtonian shock armor was starting to rip at the seams, his gun 
jammed on the firing range this morning, he was getting cold sores 
again, his arch-nemesis was in town, and the barista at Starbucks 
put cream in his coffee this morning. He was lactose-intolerant. 


Then again, as everyone in the MTF knew, Ruiz Duchamp never 
had good days. He hadn't had one since Milwaukee. He hadn't had 
a good day since his brother had defected to the Chaos Insurgency. 
He hadn't had a good day since he had met Nobody. 


Ruiz was one of the few survivors of the Milwaukee incident, and 
ever since then, he had been ruthlessly chasing the shadow that 
was known as Nobody. He had almost caught up to her, once, in 
Dubai, before the scarf-wearing bitch had literally frozen him on top 
of one of the tallest buildings in the world. He survived, even though 
it took three days to thaw him out. 


And today, the stupid motherfucker was here. In New York City. He 
knew exactly where she was, too, and he was going to take his 
entire platoon and kill that fucker dead this time. And there was 
nothing- not a fucking thing- Pico could do to stop it this time. 


The van pulled up to an alleyway, and the task force stormed out, 


surrounding a large spot of graffiti that was located in the Alley. With 
an audible sigh, Charlie emerged from the brickwork, arms crossed. 
"I'm not gonna let you in." 


"We have tokens," Ruiz said, taking out a pouch and opening it onto 
the concrete. Several tokens with the words "ARS GRATIA ARTIS" 
stamped on them, some still stained with blood. "You kind of fucking 
have to." 


"| ain't gotta do shit, Gilligan. Piss off." Charlie reached into the 
brickwork, and pulled out a detonator from a red piece of graffiti. The 
cord went back into the wall, merging seamlessly with the entrance 
to the BackDoor. "Or | blow this whole alley to the Oort Cloud, and 
then your friends can have a hell of a time explaining to the NYPD 
why an alleyway blew up for no reason.” 


The entire MTF raised their rifles at him, with Duchamp sneering. 
"Go ahead and try, Aussie." 


Charlie shrugged. "Eh. | can just be painted again. But since pink 
spray paint is so damn hard to find..." He sighed. "I'm going to give 
my guys warning first." 


"Of course." 

"The Critic probably already knows you're here." 
"Naturally." 

"You won't kill her." 


"Fuck you, paint huffer." Ruiz spat in Charlie's direction, but by then, 
he had gone back into the brickwork to raise the alarm. A 
subordinate of Duchamp's looked at him. 


"Sir? How will we get in without him?" 
"We wait.” Ruiz grinned with a grim satisfaction. "We wait." 


The Cartographer paced around his apartment, wondering where 
the hell she could be. She said 6:15 promptly, and it was almost 


6:30... just where the fuck was she? Did she not think his 
masterpiece was worth critiquing? He had spent the last year 
working on it, and now she wasn't even going to show up? 


"Son of a bitch!" York, the Cartographer, felt like flipping his 
cartography table. Didn't she think that maps would be considered 
art?! That little- 


"Hello there, Mr. The Cartographer." He spun around, seeing a 
woman in a cloche hat, gray dress suit, and a red scarf standing in 
his display gallery. "| apologize for my sudden entrance. | take it | 
am not too late to see your piece?" 


"O-of course not, ma'am." The Cartographer looked at his watch, 
and saw that it was exactly 6:15. "Come here, come here. The piece 
is right this way." York walked into the display room, and directed 
her at a map of North Korea. Once every second, blue dots 
appeared and dissipated in it. A countdown clock was in the upper- 
left hand corner, ticking down despite being made entirely out of ink, 
while another clock ticked upwards; the count on the second one 
started on December 17th, 2011. "I call it 'The Map of Dissent'." 


"A rather uncreative name," commented the Critic, looking over the 
map. "| do admire the technique, however. It mirrors the 
cartographic techniques used in the Gojoseon period. | assume all 
these dots are dissenters?" 


The Cartographer nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Each one 
represents a single dissenter that can be found in North Korea, or at 
least, someone with dissenting thoughts. You can even zoom it in to 
a certain degree; I'm still working on the magnification." 


"This clock," said the Critic, pointing towards the top. "It detracts 
from the work, somewhat, but it also serves as a nice juxtaposition; 
a pseudo-digital appliance in an otherwise medieval piece. What is 
its purpose?" 


"The one counting down indicates how much time is left in the life of 
Kim Jong-un, down to the second. Once that clock runs out, he dies. 
The other one is how long it has been since Kim Jong-il died." 


"Check your calculations," snapped the Critic. "Kim Jong-il's been 
dead for far longer than that — although nobody but the North 
Korean government knows, so | suppose | can't blame you too 
much." She reached into her pocket and took out a smartphone. 
"Apologies. | have to answer this mail." 


The Cartographer frowned, and was about to comment on how rude 
it was to do that, when suddenly, chaos broke out outside of his 
window. 


wow 
much shibe 
so cool 


"For the love of-" Mary-Ann rubbed her eyes to clear away the 
Comic Sans as she stared at their dog, calling to Salah. "Honey, | 
think Gerry got his hands on Amaterasu again!" 


"Is that font appearing around her?" He called back, chopping up 
carrots in the kitchen. 


"Yeah! Tell him that if he touches our dog again, I'm gonna kick his-" 
Mary-Ann's phone suddenly rang, and she took it out of her jean 
pocket, sighing into the receiver. "What." 


"M-A, it's C." Charlie was on the other end of the line, and he began 
to sing. "Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip..." 


"Shit! | understand." She clicked off the phone, and called to Salah. 
"Dinner's cancelled. We got Gilligans." 


Salah stopped chopping veggies and stepped out of the kitchen, 
grabbing a pen off of his writing desk. Mary-Ann took up a metal 
slingshot, and looked around the living room of their apartment 
briefly. "Crap, where is it?" 


"Where is what?" 


"The cricket bat we got from Marshall, Blackwood and Dark! We're 
gonna need it if they're packing heat!" 


"One: ‘if’? Two: We loaned it to Dickens, remember?" Salah picked 
up his own slingshot and made for the door. "Now, c'mon, we got 
some Gilligans to kill, again!" 


"Let's do this." Mary-Ann grinned as she rushed out the door and up 
the stairs of their building. 


The Critic looked through her purse for a very particular item, her 
attention now completely distracted from the Cartographer's work. "I 
do apologize, Mr. York, but | need to take my leave." 


"Wha-who? Do we have the Gilligans on our back again?" He 
peered at the Critic as he covered his map with a tarp."They're after 
you, aren't they?" 


"Such insistent terminology!" muttered the Critic as she took out an 
aerosol can. "Just call them the Foundation. | know you think that 
dignifies them, but really, the fact that you even know about them is 
humiliating." She went to the window, looking below her; a large 
crowd of anartists was armed with slingshots, bullets that shot guns, 
cream pies filled with something that was both acidic and vulgar, 
copies of The DaVinci Code, swords made out of newspaper, and 
pens. They were ready in case the Foundation Agents came this 
way. "You all down there!" The entire crowd turned in the direction of 
the Critic's voice as she threw down several aerosol cans. "Have a 
party for me, will you?" 


The crowd took up the cans, and handed them to the unarmed 
members among them. Nobody smiled, and everybody grinned at 
the new gift. With that, the Critic made her way for the door. 
"Perhaps we can pick this up some other time, Mr. York." 


"Perhaps," said York, looking over a map of the BackDoor that he 
had drawn years ago. "Perhaps." 


Nobody walked out the door, and nobody was in the hallway a few 
seconds later. 


Ruiz Duchamp broke the neck of some no-name anartist who had 


tried spraying his visor with paint. It was ruined now, so he took off 
his headgear and started firing into the crowd. Around him, 
members of his Task Force died as their chests were penetrated by 
miniature guns flying at supersonic speeds, or their arms were 
chopped off by claymores made out of back issues of the New York 
Times. Ruiz still stood though. He scanned the crowd of bright, 
vibrant colors for any sign of grey- 


There. Coming out of the apartment building in the back. That scarf 
gave her away immediately. Ruiz ran through the crowd, firing in 
front of him and gunning down innocent anartists in pursuit of his 
mark. Said mark saw him, and smirked in his direction before 
making her way down an alley. Agent Duchamp ran after her as fast 
as he could, not noticing the Pakistani man and the American 
woman on the roof above him.