no future?

  She was so drowsy and dreamy. She was easy to abandon.

  Nina awakened, again.

  (She sang 'illa surrexit, stage directions, exit—')

  She rose, humming half an old cheer squad song. Under her breath so nobody could hear her embarrass herself. No girl with perfect pitch could say Nina sang off-key if Nina was never ever heard.

  Nina hadn't been left behind while everyone else explored Milton Keynes. Everyone remained on the bus. The bus remained in motion.

  That was strange. Nina had quite a good sense for time. It had been long enough, had it not? They should be there.

  It wasn't even her own impatience that made her fret. She was apprehensive about apprehension. All sorts of mean and inconvenient and painful things happened when the other girls on a trip got bored and needed to vent their frustrations. It'd be best if that didn't happen.

  Everyone else was discussing something? Without her? Around her. She had slept through half of it.

  It sounded like a trial? They were in a courtroom but they didn't have a court or a room, just the coach and its seats.

  There were two factions. Aine stood at the centre of one. Tabitha-Danielle stood at the centre of the other.

  "Okay, English city expert. Since Watford is a city tell us all about it," Tabitha said.

  "If Watford isn't a city, then we couldn't be stuck in its orbit. That would be very nice, but we are stuck in its orbit," Aine said.

  "We're stuck in London's orbit," Tabitha said. "Since London is a city and Watford is a constituent town? Constituent towns hardly have any weight of their own."

  "That's a cool theory, but London has an orbit—the M25? Are we on the M25? No. We're on the M1. Are we travelling around London? No. We're stuck on some homocline about Watford's environs! Use your observation skills, Tabitha…"

  "That doesn't mean that Watford is a city. The War of the Generals was literally fought over this."

  "Oversimplification, much?"

  "I'm almost scared of why she'll say the War of the Generals was fought," Sarai Maleficarum said.

  It was four v. four on opposite sides of the aisle. Tabitha, Sarai, Judecca, Leuce on that side. Aine, Sophia, Emi and Aria on this side. They had given Nina a little space, maybe so the noise wouldn't wake her up? She was so drowsy and dreamy, though. It hardly mattered. She would stay asleep.

  "I'm on the standard line of history!" Aine said.

  "All thanks to Haze House, I'm sure. What were you doing before?" Sarai said.

  "That's what I'm asking," Aria on Aine's side said.

  Sarai sat. She had a camo rain jacket over her. A guitar case took up two seats, black box enmity. That was to say that either music was a hateful art for her, or that Sarai concealed a weapon. It would be spellstaff or sniper rifle, almost surely.

  "Normal things? For normal girls?" Aine said.

  "Aine, explain the War of the Generals. If you can," Sarai said. She was chirpy and fluttery. Her camo jacket concealed her.

  "Nina can do it," Aine said.

  What an awful April-like trait. Why did Aine want to hear her awful voice so badly, anyway? For April it had been this desire to show that her faults weren't her fault, they were Nina's. Nina had stolen April's entire future; couldn't everyone understand? Everyone, watch this erring thing insert errors into everything.

  April did it so much. She embarrassed Nina so much.

  "Can't you do it yourself?" Tabitha said.

  "I can, but..."

  "We should... shouldn't we decide on a course of action?" Emi asked.

  Emi was absolutely right, and prudent! What was even happening here?

  "It's not like you lasses are getting any closer to seeing each other's points of views," the driver said. He'd been listening to this? "I could do this for hours. I'm paid by the day, see?"

  "We have a leader," Nina said.

  "Your leader likes democracy. Like the Coalition did, or so they said! Enjoy yer freedom and yer choice lass."

  Freedom? Choice?

  Perhaps the exalted Lady Haze could decide for them?

  Actually nevermind Nina all of a sudden really really loved voting lots and lots. She loved opinion polls and exit polls and consultation and representation and voting especially when the votes were two v. one or five v. one and someone in the majority faction was weighted against her, pretty, so charismatic, clueless crowds attracted, accreted, amassed into the Schwarzschild radius of a girl.

  Unfair! Really unfair! Why did Nina always lose? Every time. Did her choices even matter? Up to this? Even this. Even this…

  "You don't seem to be enjoying yer freedom and yer choice lass," the driver said. He did not look back. His eyes remained on the road. Why shouldn't they? It sounded like they had all been caught in a loop.

  "I just woke up," Nina said. These magic words explained every little confusion Nina had.

  "You do know what's going on, right?" the driver asked.

  "We're trapped?"

  "Quick on the uptake. Young-hoon over there took maybe five minutes after the conversation started to catch on."

  "I see," Nina said. She reserved her judgment.

  "When are we getting the Nina War of the Generals explanation?" Aine asked.

  "Is that necessary?" Sophia asked.

  "Sarai and Tabitha want one," Aine said.

  "Actually we asked for an Aine explanation," Sarai said.

  "She's on our side," Aine said. "She's always been there. She didn't even have to move. It'll be the same explanation."

  Aine was so confident. Was the standard line of history something reliable? Did girls like them fit neatly into it?

  "I'll do it if you explain why we haven't united on a single course of action," Nina said.

  "Um. Uh. Because..." Aine said.

  "We want to ride out into the heart of darkness and destroy the enemy," Tabitha said.

  "Who is the enemy?" Sophia asked.

  The four girls on the other side stopped to think.

  "There exist very many enemies," Leuce offered.

  "Not helping," Tabitha said.

  "Yeah. See. Don't you see why this is a bad course of action, Nina?" Aine said.

  "It always takes time to ascertain the enemy," Nina said. June and July had a 'kill everything that moved' policy regarding anomalies, but this had been far more trouble than it was worth, even if the All-Acacia Government thought June and July had greater prospects as purifiers than the more cautious Nina and August.

  "Yeah so we should stay on the bus and ascertain the enemy," Aine said.

  "It's like you want us to lose the Red Eyes to Society's Therapists," Sarai said.

  "Red Eyes is an insufficiently precise appellation," Leuce said. "There are many lesser artifacts known as the 'red eyes', and many creatures with red eyes. Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands is required to reduce ambiguity to zero."

  "Lucy..." Sarai said.

  "The driver and Kaninchen said that the intel team said that we had time!" Aine said.

  "Did the intel team predict the knight?" Tabitha said.

  "No, but—"

  "No buts. If you desire something in this world, you need to seize it yourself."

  "We're all doing that!" Aine said. "I'm not a fool, though."

  "And I am?" Tabitha said.

  "I bet Maxine would be mad at you. A girl who wishes to be a knight, who wields the standard sword magic..." Aine said.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "Wants to complain about fools, fools around with our self-serious witch," Sarai said.

  "Don't call Nina a witch?" Emi said.

  "She sort of is," Aria said.

  Nina was used to all of the mean names.

  "Fools around with..." Nina said.

  "She really enjoys your company, Nina!" Sarai said.

  "Yeah," Tabitha said. She and Sarai snickered. Even Leuce choked down a giggle.

  Only Judecca remained frosty. She was taller than Nina, and Haio Elspeth. She had coily hair, bronze with blue tips. Blue stockings slipped out of a petticoat under a silver dress. She wore bangles, and a few rings that were magical but lacked any magic as of yet. She remained apathetic to it all. Did she even agree with Tabitha? Perhaps it was just that she didn't agree with Aine? But why show up? The teacher and the other girls and Kaninchen weren't taking part in this argument, or maybe they had a third course of action?

  Who knew.

  "Don't say it like that," Aine said. "I only intend to treat her well."

  "We're not chiding you," Tabitha said.

  "I feel as though ascertaining the enemy requires using scrying spells instead of arguing with each other," Nina said.

  "I wanna get everyone on board with the plan so we're prepared to deal with any backlash," Aine said.

  "I understand. Fair," Nina said. Horizontal decision-making structures were so strange: April Kauzaki listened impatiently and then made them do as she wished.

  "Oh no, Aine. We won't be on board unless Nina explains the War of the Generals to us. Whatever will we do..." Tabitha said.

  "Are we actually..." Sophia said.

  "I'm not against listening to Nina speak," Emi said.

  "Maybe it's worth it. We want to be sure we agree on what standard reality is, to make our way back to it," Sophia said.

  "Yeah. That's totally it," Sarai said. "Totally."

  Aine Hunlun was a mysterious girl with mysterious needs. What could Nina say?

  Whatever. She'd obey.

  "The War of the Generals was fought for country and reality, was it not? But the countryside became the modern chora, which now traps and tries to kill humans, like right now. Reality hasn't been lost, I guess, but it's not unitary. That's why it was fought," Nina said.

  "So it wasn't fought to make Watford an independent city?" Tabitha said.

  "Watford isn't an independent city," Nina said.

  Sarai cheered. "Betrayal!"

  "...it's not like Nina has to agree with me on everything!" Aine said.

  "This is not an especially concrete explanation," Leuce said.

  "Is this high school," Aria asked.

  It was, was it not? It was high school or college and it was all for the purpose of teaching them the true knowledge the holy Haze House was custodian of.

  "I think wars are fought for ideals," Tabitha said.

  "Have you ever fought in one, lass?" the driver said.

  "I'm fighting one right now," Tabitha said.

  "How right ya are."

  "If you want contingent reasons, then the War of the Generals was the irrepressible result of the the need for the national states of the Coalition—in 1998, I believe that the Coalition was a force subordinate to the requirements of its constituent states and not a self-sustaining and independent institution—to quell the severe levels of insubordination caused by their soldiers hoarding occulted knowledge for their own gain. But you all know this," Nina said.

  "Aine, you never said she was a history dork," Tabitha said.

  "I, um, didn't know she'd—I mean very good explanation, Nina!" Aine said.

  "I'm not a history dork," Nina said. April was. Nina was stupid. April cared about history. But Nina had to care about what April cared about because Nina had stolen her entire future, right? April was so devoted to the study of the past of this awful world that had no future due to enmity and abominations like her, and so Nina was devoted, too.

  Nina had tried her best to follow for many years though April was ceaseless-ruthless. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for following, though. No reward. It was drown for a girl who hated you or burn away for a girl who loved you or loop-de-loop about Watford.

  They were going in circles! Nina recognised the signs!

  Green. White text. North. First second and third exit. Six lanes and A codes and E codes. What were the E codes for? There used to be this unitary system of European roads. Now there was no unitary system anyway at all. The roads were strange; anomalies laid on them like wild blocking beasts. There were lane closures and flashing signs but Nina did not watch too closely. The symbols were not for humans to read. Turn in here. Turn out there. Pull back here, find yourself embedded into the wrong manifold. What was known was driven out by what was possible. Many things were possible! There were negative probabilities, and probabilities greater than one. Pray to the god of random numbers to acquire the ability to attain it.

  "If you say so!" Sarai said.

  "Why do you think Watford isn't a city, Nina? Like, show your working," Aria said.

  Nina's actual answer was rather silly. The quiz site June Sakuraba used was based in San Francisco. Since the American-Chinese Abyss Colonisation-Incursion Association had been based there, it was possible to relay to San Francisco's intranet from anywhere in the Acacia. It was the only city on the surface of the Earth that could be reliably accessed in Shin Kumamoto. Since the town was so fraught, so unreal, San Francisco banned them from relay-hopping.

  Had Nina not been born like that, the ritual would have anchored them. They would be able to get Fukuoka, old Kumamoto and probably Shanghai directly, even before all of the data relay-hopping would have given them. Alas.

  San Francisco was a neutral city that had a favourable relationship with London. San Francisco and London were around the same size and shared many governance problems for this reason. They were secular cities: in the modern sense which meant that their citizens by and large worshipped the Nobility—rulers of the present Century and manifest divinities—but also in the old sense which meant that they did not enforce any particular confession onto their citizens. They were neutral, and not allied with the secular East and Midwest or the secular August soviet republics.

  (Both of those were secular only in the modern sense, to be clear.)

  This meant that San Francisco and London supported each other's foreign policies and territorial claims, and it meant that they made sure to adhere to each other's history books, which meant that Watford was not a city. It had no sovereignty, and no event horizon. Without London's weight it would be lost to humanity.

  They were not looping some ring-road strewn about Watford, they were looping some straight stretch. Seventy miles per hour, ten minutes to loop. Twelve mile straight stretch of asphalt, signage, farmers' fields.

  "The expansion of humanity past the former London Green Belt made Watford and London territorially contiguous; Watford has few concessions in governance made for it that have not been afforded to Harrow, Hillingdon, Reading and Slough."

  "Harrow is certainly part of London, I think. It only has those concessions because of the school," Sophia said.

  "Huh. Fine," Aine said.

  Defeat. She looked defeated.

  April wouldn't…

  "I don't think I disagree with you, strategically," Nina said.

  "Huh? You don't?" Aine said.

  Aine made the argument in the first place: why was she surprised?

  "I'm sorry, Tabitha, Sarai, Leuce. You probably don't want to risk 'making contact', right?"

  "That's right," Sarai said.

  "I understand," Nina said. She didn't, since everyone treated her as unclean and corrupted anyway, but she pretended to. "I think... throwing yourself at enmity causes it to sparkle," Nina said.

  "Sparkle," Aria repeated. "What a verb."

  "If we want to break out, we want to drive a stake through a single point of failure," Nina said. "Attacking it makes it acephalous."

  "Polycephalous?" Tabitha said.

  "Acephalous. It splits but its claws come alive. It comes at you wyrm-like. I don't really have the words," Nina said. All she had was ten years of experience. "It's called enmity for a reason. People say to just destroy it, but to me that's paradoxical. Fighting against anomalies is itself always contact, any interaction is. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think we should fear scrying..."

  "Well, I think..." Sarai said.

  "Shut up, Sara. Sure. We'll try it," Tabitha said.

  Shouldn't she argue back?

  "You didn't believe me," Aine said.

  "Of course I didn't believe you. You're scared to throw yourself at your enemies and the enemies of humanity. Hey, hey! Stop the bus, drive," Tabitha said.

  The bus began to brake.

  "We haven't voted," Nina said.

  "Four plus five is nine, I believe. Don't need to," the driver said. "In any case, I'd have to stop, no matter what you decided."

  "You didn't stop before," Sophia said.

  "I didn't. Driving clears the old noggin, see?" the driver said.

  "Fine," Aine said. "Fine, fine."

  The others noticed, of course. The teacher and Kaninchen and Maxine first.

  "I'm glad you girls resolved your argument," the teacher said to Aine and Tabitha and nobody else.

  "I'm glad, too. Group cohesion is important," Sophia said.

  "I concur," Leuce said.

  Then Haio Elspeth came through the aisle. She was about Nina's height. She shrunk in an oversized beige sweater and shirt.

  "If we flew..." she said to nobody in particular.

  Maybe? Heaven belonged to the outside and the abyss, but distortion needed a few people there to perceive it. Too many would create weight and consensus reality, but 'too many' meant hundreds of thousands or millions. It would take time for the illicit concepts to be able to interface with humans, so a hypersonic jet would beat the clock. There would still be voices, though. From whose throats and radios? Even at the Horn of Africa, birthplace of humanity, Hargeisa said to land, Mogadishu told you to hold. Mogadiscio maniacal trained their 8.8cm flaks on all air traffic.

  Haio grabbed Emi's sleeve, fingers bundled in her own shirt sleeve.

  "Thanks," Haio said.

  Emi seemed a little surprised. "Ah! Any time."

  Marzena showed up behind her. Haio shrank further.

  She was scared of Marzena's weapon. It was a pistol, though Marzena held some of its parts in her hands, screws and nails and bullets and panels and smeared soot.

  It felt normal. No curses, no malediction, except the petty little hatred all weapons had before they had even been used to kill once.

  Nobody else seemed fazed, though. Had they all gotten used to it? Everyone except little Haio?

  "Marzena... what is that?"

  "I understand—your ability to identify weaponry is limited—Elspeth—but this is the VIS 150. It was made five years ago in the Thirteen's workshops—though perhaps you would call 2068 next year. The VIS 100 served the Third World War well—we needed better. Bandits. Holdouts. Zombies from Russia and Germany."

  "FB Radom never... it looks wrong. The Vis never became that. In cooperation with Magdeburg, against the August Union... you won't listen," Haio said.

  "I'm listening," Marzena said.

  Haio did not say anything else.

  They were unarmed, weren't they?

  "Emi, there's an axe under the sink in the kitchenette," Nina said.

  "There is?"

  "Yes."

  "Ah... I'll get it for you," Emi said.

  "Get it for your own sake," Nina said. "I'll be alright."

  "Okay," Emi said. She went to the back.

  "I'll scry," Tabitha said.

  When Emi returned it was fourteen people. So many. So cramped. So overwhelming. The heater kept the coach warm, too warm.

  "Will you?" Judecca said.

  "Can you do better?" Tabitha said.

  "...I can," Judecca said.

  Nina could scry, though her nature would risk luring things in that it was better not to lure.

  "You'd think the orbit of such a large city would be safer," Maxine whispered or said to the teacher.

  "Yeah. I don't know," the teacher said.

  "Some people just don't do their job!" Kaninchen said.

  Judecca stood. She stepped towards the stairs and asked the driver to unlock the door. He obliged.

  Tabitha followed her down. Sarai did not.

  "Don't you believe in me?" Tabitha said.

  "Don't you believe in me?" Judecca said.

  "Just because I'm not talented, it doesn't mean... I know you're sensitive, you're naturally sensitive. You're just better, aren't you?"

  Couple's argument? Had Nina missed something while she was sleeping?

  "I wouldn't say so," Judecca said.

  "It's an issue that you won't say so. You should be more confident; you hardly said anything against Aine."

  "But I'm not, am I?"

  "But you don't believe in me and you won't just fucking say that."

  "Meh," Judecca said.

  "I'm not pathetic. I can't stand it when you—"

  Magic circle. The inscriptions were garbled. Judecca had let so much of the warped space in without a thought. There were green and teal flashes and flushes of cold and flakes of seething heat.

  The first layer swirled into a second, into a third. Circles and circuits and cycles became an orrery about Judecca. They were in an illusory world; she sampled a small portion of it. Judecca's eyes glowed and then she got it.

  She got it.

  "We'll have to physically travel to disperse the space, Tabby," she said. "Like you wanted."

  "Okay," Tabitha said.

  "It'll be an adventure. We'll all have fun together." Her head craned. "Equally, right? All on the same level. Each girl equally able to fit the desired model."

  "Don't stress," Tabitha said. "Or you'll... you're looking at it too hard. In an ideal world you could destroy evil without looking at it and it looking back at you and it making you crazier."

  "I'm not stressing," Judecca said. "Um, everyone, this way!"

  Judecca pointed towards heaven. Blue light emerged from her finger. A pathway to the 'centre' of the space was traced over fences and briar and bushes. That would be the best area to make contact with the anomaly that kept them trapped. From there, it could be forced back outside, and they would be returned to reality. Easy, right?

  Right, teacher?

  He did not lead; Tabitha did. He and Maxine and Kaninchen formed but another group.