(End of Book 2) Chapter 105: Epilogue

Tyr: Oooh, boy. Another book finished. But do not worry! We're posting an Author's Note tomorrow and starting Book 3 on Wednesday~

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“It’s a bad idea to sleep on the bus, kid.” A familiar voice boomed near Sean’s ear. “The bus people will have their way with you. You don’t want the kinds of things they want. Trust me on that.”

Sean bolted upright in his seat, finding that he was indeed on a bus of sorts. Sure, it was in space, whizzing by nebulas and stars like they were standing still. But all the other elements were there. The seats were hard, uncomfortable plastic. Everything was facing forward in the direction the craft was traveling. All the surfaces and most of the people on the bus looked slightly sticky in an unhealthy way, and it smelled like someone had tried to make it smell faintly of detergent without actually trying that hard to clean it.

And, like a lot of busses Sean had personally seen in his life, this one had Jeff on it.

“I swear if this is the System pretending to be you again, Jeff, I’m going to be pretty pissed.”

“The System pretended to be me? Why?” Jeff asked, scratching his stomach. “Did it not feel handsome enough?”

“Fuck, it is you, you old shit. How in the hell are you here?”

Jeff shrugged.

“It’s a shame I couldn’t get into the Apocalypse space worth a shit once you were awake from that time stuff. I always imagined you thinking this was much weirder, kid. You’re too jaded now.” Jeff took a puff off an absurdly large cigarette, still drawing hard enough to blaze up a half inch of the thing despite its hammer-shaft thickness. “You’re ruining it for me.”

“Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“I’m pretty sure I could kill the bus driver if he tried to stop me. You’ll find that’s what makes an awful lot of stuff legal, out here, no matter what the laws are.”

Sean thought on that for a bit. It was a whole different universe. He’d have to learn what that meant pretty quick.

“So how long do you have? Last time you said you’d explain some things, later. It feels like later, Jeff.”

“Ah. Yeah. I have about an hour. I’m surprised you figured out how that works.”

“I think I understand, at least. How long have you been awake? In your own personal time, I mean.”

“About four years,” Jeff said. “I can control where I land, sometimes. I try to steer it back to you when I can, but it’s like turning a 747. You have to get some distance before you try to circle back to a particular target.”

“That’s why I only saw you the once?”

“That and you churn up time around you like a dog kicking up mud in a puddle. And that you jumped into a damned Apocalypse crack about ten minutes after I found you. How’d you survive that, anyway?”

“I met a guy who knew how to build some stuff, and burned some shit down. He reminded me of you, a little.”

Jeff nodded, pulling down his t-shirt in an ineffective attempt to cover his beer belly. The System changed a lot of stuff, but it hadn’t managed to change that, at least. Somehow, Sean was able to find the constancy of Jeff’s paunch comforting.

“Well, good. Glad you scored one for the team. I’m sure you have some surprises for me. And we’ve got some planning to do, before I get yanked out of your timeline.”

“No rest for the wicked, I guess.”

“Never,” Jeff grinned, stubbing out his cigarette on the window and pulling out a paper pad and construction pencil from his pockets. “And, kid? You know what?”

“What?”

“I missed you.”

“Yeah. I missed you too.”