Felix Lynn brushes his hand against the steel filaments draped across the theater’s entrance. The nanomachines coating his fingers go to work, dissolving the razor wires like cotton candy beneath drops of rain.

“C’mon!” Macintosh Crate hisses, frantically waving you into the Delphic Nickelodeon. “Move!”

You and the others file into the theater. Once inside, Macintosh slams the door shut and frantically kicks the security bolts into place. Once done with that, they turn to Fausta.

“Whatever you do,” Mac says, “don’t go into the main theater!”

“…Pardon?” Fausta says..

“Also,” Mac continues, “don’t split up from the rest of the group. Don’t put your arm in a sling. And whatever you do,” they add, “don’t pick up Diesel’s sword!”

“What?” You glance down at the dented bronze blade in your hand. “Why would Fausta have my sword?”

The felt dinosaur puppet on Mac’s hand wiggles back and forth.

“I don’t know, Theo!” Mac says to their puppet. “The film was vague, with too many unknown variables!” They start hyperventilating again: “I’ve got to do something—”

You hold up your hand. “Mac! Pause for a moment. Breathe in!”

Mac stops talking and inhales hoarsely.

“Breathe out,” you say.

Mac exhales with a loud whoosh.

“Now,” you say, gesturing to your companions, “why don’t you explain what you saw to Fausta, Fortuna, and Mr. Lynn? Give them some context?”

“Hello,” Lynn says awkwardly, waving to Mac with one of his chrome hands. “You’ve got a lovely theater.”

“Long time no see, Mac,” Sarah says, leaning her riot shield against the wall and giving them a tired-looking smile.

“Sarah!” Macintosh exclaims, raising a hand to point at the copper bands and colorful braids woven around Sarah’s fuzzy antlers. “I like your horn rings! Or are they horn bracelets? I don’t know the proper terms...”

Theo rears up and bonks them on the cheek.

“Ow!” Macintosh groans, looking down at Theo. “Rude!”

Theo waves his felt arms up and down.

Macintosh closes their eyes and groan. “I know,” they say to Theo. “I know the prophecy could come true any moment. But I need to explain things right so I don’t sound like a crazy person!”

Theo covers his beady plastic eyes with his mitten-like hands.

Fortuna’s eyes widen. “Mom,” she whispers in a half-nervous, half-excited tone. “He’s got a magic puppet.”

Macintosh flinches at Fortuna’s mislabeling.

“I see that, honey,” Fortuna says, fishing a bandage from her battered purse and starting to wrap it around her mangled arm. Her eyes focus on Macintosh. “Explain,” she demands.

Macintosh’s head snaps up. “Oh yes. Um. Well. Put simply, my movie theater has a huge archive of silent film reels that display various real-world events independent of their position in space and time…”

“Macintosh can show you films that can predict the future,” Sarah explains to Fausta and Fortuna. "They must have seen something in your future that they want to prevent."

“A simple explanation, but not inaccurate,” Macintosh says with a sigh. They chew their lips for a moment. “It’ll go quicker if I show you,” they tell us.

#

The film is short. Twenty seconds at best.

First, a title card pops up on screen:

[THE FRAYED FAUSTA OROBAS SHEDS HER MORTALITY]

The following film reel is scratchy and poorly lit, but the events that transpire are depressingly clear to see.

[The Delphic Nickelodeon, nighttime. The velvet seats in the main theater are still dented and shredded from yesterday’s hail of bullets.

Fausta Orobas stands alone in the darkened theater, weary and bloodied. She holds a dented bronze blade in her right hand. Her wounded hand is bound in a simple cloth sling.]

Why is Fausta holding your sword, you wonder? Your heart pounds in your chest as you start to worry. Do you die in the future? Does Fausta pry your sword free from your charred corpse?

[A cone of light pours from the film projector in the back of the theater, illuminating Fausta’s tangled hair with a gauzy halo.

Fausta looks up at the theater screen, mouth moving silently.]

“Is it done yet?” Fortuna asks her mom, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Hush,” Fausta tells Fortuna, eyes narrowed as she stares closely at the moving lisp of her film counterpart.

[Mandrake Kayne rises up behind Fausta. He raises his trench knife and stabs her in the back.

Fausta rears her head back and screams. Fire erupts from her heart and consumes her entire body. The screen goes white.]

A second, simple title card pops up on the screen.

[FIN.]

The film projector shuts down with an audible clunk.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Fausta says loudly, looking strangely thoughtful. “You can look now.”

Fortuna immediately lowers her hands from her eyes. “Good,” she says quietly. “I don’t like seeing you get stabbed.”

Your heart breaks a little at the resignation in Fortuna’s voice.

“Out, out!” Mac shouts, stepping away from the projector and making shooing gestures with their hands. “Everyone get away before the prophecy sucks you in!”

Fausta, Fortuna, and you are herded out of the damaged theater and back into the main lobbylike cattle.

“Any sign of Kayne?” you ask Felix and Sarah.

“Not a peep,” Felix replies, peeking through a gap in the theater blinds. “Cookie’s hearing something outside, though.”

Cookie, currently the size of a half-grown puppy, is seated on top of one of the plush theater benches, growling softly at the nearest window.

Sarah leans down and ruffles Cookie’s floppy ears with her pinky. “Something’s watching us,” she says with complete confidence. “It’s that feeling you get when the pigs have put hidden cameras in your bedroom or snuck a stooge into your organizing committee.” She flicks the side of her antlers with a manicured finger. “A tingle, running right through your horns.”

Lynn coughs into his closed hand. “I, uh, don’t have horns,” he says, “but I get what you mean.”

Fausta grunts and turns to Macintosh. “How immutable are these prophecies?” She asks. “How hard are they to change?”

“Very hard.” Mac locks eyes with Fausta as they talk. “Breaking a prophecy’s like filming an outtake in a movie. You have to flub your lines, miss your cues and…” Mac’s voice catches for a moment. “…Break character.”

“Break…character?” Fausta repeats.

Mac nods. “You need to do something outside your comfort zone, make decisions that go against all your familiar habits and beliefs and experience. You have to do things that aren’t, well, you.” Mac shrugs helplessly. “And that’s hard. Really hard…”

As Mac and Fausta talk, you stumble over to the nearest armchair, half sitting, half falling into its velvet depths . You lean forward to avoid pressuring your festering back wound.

You take a deep breath and try to think.

Thanks to the zombie enchantment, you feel no pain…and that’s extremely bad for your body. Even though you’re using magic instead of muscle to move your body, you can feel the sweat pouring off of your skin every time you swing your legs back and forth.

You can’t go on like this forever, Diesel. How long can you endure, I wonder, before the zombie enchantment fails? How long before you drop like a puppet with its strings cut, whimpering within the prison of your own battered flesh?

I’ll give you this information for free, weak little human; Mandrake Kayne hasn’t given up. He’s drawing closer as we speak, steel and fire in his hands.

He also knows I exist. How long, you think, before he grows desperate enough to call upon my power and free me from your hat?

How long before he grows desperate enough to unleash my fury upon you?

I would love nothing more, Diesel, than to listen to the merry melody of your screams as I flay you apart into lumps of quivering meat...but I wouldn’t want to traumatize my new guardian too much the first time he summons me. Your, death, regrettably, will have to be swift.

Take comfort in that, at least.

Oh! What is Kayne doing now? My, my, my: where does he get all these wonderful toys…?

“We’re running out of time,” you say.

Everyone turns toward you.

“Kayne’s on the move.” You press your fingers against your temple and pretend to call upon some vague psychic talent you don’t actually possess. “If you’ve got something you need to say, Mac, say it.”

Fausta narrows her eyes. “In your opinion,” she says slowly, “what should I do to avert this prophecy?”

“Don’t go into the theater,” Macintosh says, ticking off suggestions on their fingers. “Don’t put your arm in a sling.” Mac glances down at Fausta’s arm, already cradled in a sling. “Water under the bridge, I suppose…don’t pick up Diesel’s sword,” they say, glancing at the long bronze blade leaning against your shoulder. “Above all, don’t split up from the group.”

Fausta nods. “Just to be clear,” she says to Macintosh. “If I hold Diesel’s sword and stand in the theater by myself with my arm in a sling, Kayne will show up to stab me?”

“Right in the back,” Macintosh Crate replies. “Fate would guide you both to that exact moment.”

Fausta rubs her chin and frowns in thought.

Cookie the Pit Bull growls again and presses his nose against the window drapes. You see Sarah Mankiller shiver slightly, flicking the cap of her e-cigarette on and off in a nervous tic. Felix Lynn cups his chrome hands together under his nose and takes a breath to settle his nerves.

Fortuna bites down on the loose skin of her hand, looking up at her mother with wide, worried eyes.

Fausta’s next words are sudden: “If I follow the prophecy in your silent film to the letter,” she muses, “Fate will force Kayne to appear behind me.” 

A weary but relieved smile spreads across her face: “We can finally pin that slippery bastard down.”

You gasp softly.

Macintosh Crate blinks several times. “Yes,” they say slowly. “But you’ll also get stabbed in the heart.”

“Details,” Fausta says idly.

Details?

This makes no sense. Is Fausta really considering sacrificing herself to stop Kayne? Doesn’t she care about what will happen to Fortuna after she’s gone…?

Unless…

You look down and stare at Fausta’s bloody arm, a limb riddled with shrapnel from that antipersonnel mine. She should be screaming, whimpering, barely able to function. That arm should be a useless lump of flesh.

She’s curling her fingers into a tight, trembling fist.

Oh, you think. Oh, you think. You should have realized it sooner.

What in all the Hells are you thinking about, Diesel? Are you thinking about Fausta? Are you surprised at how easily she’s enduring her pain?

That’s not surprising at all, foolish human! She’s obviously much more than just a simple…

…no.

No.

I can see what’s in your thoughts. But what you’re thinking is impossible!

That could never…

She would never…!

…they would have hailed her as a savior! A true patriot! A war hero whose deeds would be sung in glory for as long as stars burned in the sky!

But instead she turned her back on everything she’d known—her cause, her mission, her Legion?

All for the sake of a single, pathetic, half-breed girl?

…why are you smiling? Why are you feeling so smug?

Wipe that grin off your face, Dieselnoi Worawoot, or I’ll—

—fine. I don’t care if I frighten my new guardian. When Mandrake Kayne summons me from your fancy little hat, I will take my time killing you slowly.

“Fausta!” Lynn shouts. “You don’t have to do this!” He steps forward and points at himself. “I can go in your place!” He suggests. “I’m bulletproof. Sarah can cast a spell that’ll make me look like you!”

“Felix has a good idea,” Sarah points out, “Sure, Kayne might be watching for my illusions, but it’s a better plan than letting him walk up and stab you in the back—!”

“It’s okay,” Fortuna says, calmly but loudly.

Everyone falls silent. The questions on your lips die as well.

Fortuna looks up at her mother. She tucks her-pink-cased phone into her jacket pocket and pulls the zipper up.

“Is this okay, mom?” She asks. “I though you wanted it to be secret.”

“I want us to be safe and free,” Fausta replies, rubbing her temples. “Nobody ever wants to hide who they are if they can help it.”

She glances at Felix Lynn, pale and tense and covered with lines of chrome. She looks toward Macintosh Crate, puff-haired and jittery. She looks down toward the spine-ridged puppet on Mac’s hand.

Theo inclines his felt head. Somehow, you see a glimmer of approval in his black bead eyes.

Fausta looks toward you: wounded, weary, your hair a tangled mess without your hat to keep it in check.

You give the slightest of nods and touch your fingers to an imaginary brim.

Finally, Fausta turns to Sarah Mankiller. “Sarah,” she says conversationally. “What do you have to do to become a citizen of Cryptatown?”

Sarah’s mouth opens and closes a few times. “Most aspiring citizens go talk to the Alder,” she says at last. “If she doesn’t decide to eat you, you become a full-fledged citizen.” Sarah’s expression hardens. “Don’t think you have to submit to her fascist reign, chum. You and Fortuna will always be safe and welcome at the Commune…”

“Thank you, Sarah,” Fausta says, cutting the Deer-woman off with a gentle smile.

She trades glances with her daughter. Fortuna…looks relieved.

“This is a lovely neighborhood,” Fausta says, resting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “A bit rough around the edges…but I think we can finally be ourselves here.”

Next Chapter: Episode Twenty-Four: a Night Owl and a Wise Bird Too (Revised)