Chapter Sixteen – Not Exhausted, but Close

Emily found a seat in the kitchen, sat down, then just closed her eyes for a moment. The day had been… not exhausting, but definitely tiring. The stress of doing… all of this was a lot, then there was the actual doing as well.

She had never thought of herself as particularly fit, though she had been going to the gym… on occasion lately. Having so many sisters was kind of like having a constant exercise routine going all day every day. It was a lot of work, but it was also helping her build up a bit of stamina.

Not enough stamina to handle a three hour trek through some old, scraggly woods without clear tracks and a lot of hills.

She opened her eyes, then bent to the side and undid the laces on her walking shoes. When she tipped one of them over a small rain of dust and tiny rocks came pouring out. Her calves were burning too, but she figured a few minutes just sitting down would help with that.

The place they’d found was alright. A cute little home that wasn’t occupied, far enough from the road that she hoped that the HRF patrols wouldn’t notice anything.

But it wasn’t what she wanted for a base.

Emily finished emptying the rocks and stuff out of her shoes, then pulled the map she had been using out from her pocket and laid it out on the table. She searched through one of the side pockets of her pack, found a pen, and after licking the tip to get it working, she started to make small notations on the map.

The patrol van they’d seen had crossed along one of the bigger roads through this part of the cottage area next to Saint Arie. She made note of it, and the time. Then she squinted at the map and finally circled the home they were in.

If someone got their hands on this map, that might be bad, but she had it in her pocket, so if someone got to it, she’d have bigger problems on her hands.

Sliding a finger along the map, she traced a path down to Saint Arie. From the outside of the forest they’d walked through all the way to the edge of the town. They were almost exactly halfway there.

“Need help?”

Emily jumped a little, then smiled as she found Athena and Aurora stepping into the little kitchen. “I think I’m okay,” she said. “The others?”

“Teddy fell asleep on the couch,” Athena said. “The lazy bear.”

“And Trinity is searching the house for anything useful,” Aurora said. “I told her to be sneaky about it.”

Emily was a little concerned, but if Trinity was one thing, it was sneaky. She had a good sense for not being caught. “Alright,” Emily said. “We probably won’t be staying here for too long. We’re too far outside of Saint Aire to make this any sort of base.”

Aurora just nodded, but Athena came closer and eyed the map. “If the Endgame started in the middle of the town, then we’re probably not too far from where it’s going to reach.”

“They spread, right?” Emily asked. She knew they did, it was common knowledge, but her sisters just knew more about things like this than normal people.

There hadn’t exactly been classes on powers and Endgames and dangers like that when she went to school. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. There were new courses in the elementary schools now, but she’d missed them a bit.

They had had some assemblies and some school days were interrupted for safety lessons. What to do if someone gained a power on Power Day was a yearly thing (she’d failed to do any of the things she was supposed to do) and there had been some things about how to safely evacuate out of an Endgame, but those were mostly about common sense stuff.

She knew more about them from scrolling Eddit and other social media sites.

Endgames grew. Sometimes it was constant and slow, sometimes it was in quick bursts. Sometimes they expanded as a growing circle, and other times new areas would appear near the edge of the current Endgame, sometimes without even a connection to the original Endgame.

The issue was mostly about containment. Evacuating an entire town was expensive and complicated. A place like Saint Arie wasn’t as bad as one of the larger cities, but it was still probably tough to manage.

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Saint Arie wasn’t too close to any other city. The Endgame was probably not going to reach them unless it remained unfinished for a long time. Probably.

Athena stared at the map, then shrugged. “We’re probably okay for a bit, maybe. Do you know where the Endgame starts?”

Emily shook her head. “I have no way of knowing.”

“We could send Trinity to run into it then let us know where it starts,” Aurora said. “She’ll probably be safe.”

“No, that sounds dangerous. And how will she know when she reaches the interior?”

“It’s pretty obvious,” Athena said. She didn’t elaborate, though.

“Okay,” Emily said. “Anyway, I think it should reach at least to the edge of Saint Arie proper. Probably up to here?” She touched the edge of the town. “That’s the part that was evacuated first. And I think the Endgame started around here.” She tapped the northern end of the town.

“Neat!” Athena said. “So, are we going to stay here and wait for it to reach over us?”

“No, let’s move out in… a bit,” she said. Her feet were only just starting to ache a little less. “Snacks?”

Speaking the magic word got all of her sisters properly excited. Obviously, her bag was the one with the snacks in it. She couldn’t trust any of the others with that kind of power. Emily reluctantly found some plates and silverware in the strange kitchen, feeling rather bad about it.

It was one thing to break into a person’s house and use their chairs and sofa for a quick sit, but it felt somehow far more violating to use their plates. And even though she felt bad about it, she knew she wasn’t about to do the dishes when they were done.

The snacks were portioned out to all of the girls. She’d made a lot of PB&J sandwiches that morning. They were squished now, but still very edible. That, along with some dried fruit, nuts, and a brick of cheese that she cut into slices served as a pretty filling lunch. It was only a few hours since they’d had fast food, but the sandwiches wouldn’t last until the next day anyway.

Teddy woke up, and Trinity showed up in double to eat her share as well.

It took a solid hour for them to eat up. By then, her feet were fine and she felt just a little bit tired from the long trek.

“Alright,” Emily said once she placed a dirty plate in the sink. She was surprised to find that the water still worked. The lights were out, though she wasn’t sure if that was for every house on the street or just this one. Shutting the breakers was probably a smart idea if someone knew they wouldn’t be back for a bit.

Athena kept looking at the map on the table, even as she munched on the last of her sandwich. “We should find a second place to stay,” she said.

“Oh?” Emily asked.

Athena nodded. “Closer to the Endgame, or even inside it, but on the edges. Usually the changes on the edges aren’t so bad, and it’s not like you can’t teleport us back to you, right?”

“I… suppose,” Emily said. “I heard that the best way to tackle an Endgame is to go in for a few hours, try to beat it, then back out.”

“That makes sense to me,” Athena said. “When we play games and stuff, it’s usually just for a bit. Then it’s snack time, or time for sleep. You don’t play while sleeping.”

“Right,” Emily said. She kept hitting this weird disconnect. Everything the media had told her about Endgames painted them as these horrid, dangerous events that could lead to someone dying, and could destroy an entire city.

Her sisters, on the other hand, treated it as… a game.

Maybe wondered if her sisters were maybe more right about them than most others.

Then again, she’d once had to spend ten minutes explaining to Trinity that urinal cakes were not food, no matter what they were called or how yummy they smelled, and that was before she discovered where Trinity had found one. She wasn’t quite ready to blindly trust her sister’s opinions on what was or wasn’t dangerous or what might be considered ‘fun.’

Well, we’ll never get anywhere if all we do is stand here,” Emily said. She folded up the map, then gave Athena’s head a well-deserved pat. “Come on, let’s head out.”

***

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