Where the Predators Prowl [78, 79, 80]

78. The Way Home

“You FUCKING WHAT?!" Kristi snarled, rounding on Candace. "I fucking knew something like this would happen because you can't keep your Binder paws to yourself!"

Candace's ears flicked back. "I got the sword's location out of her, so there's that. Our Slayer needs his sword!"

The building shook again, more violently this time. A metallic shriek pierced our ears as steel shutters rolled down from above, sealing off the broken windows.

Dragons fluttered around in panic, screeching and breathing fire at the shutters to no effect.

The building groaned again.

"We need to get the fuck out of here," Kristi muttered, pulling the Decimator rifle off her shoulder. She took aim at the nearest shutter and fired.

The blast tore through the steel and chunks of wall behind it. The explosion revealed not blue sky and lake Eerie like I expected, but a thick concrete wall.

She fired again. Another layer of concrete.

And again. 

More concrete.

“FUCK MY LIFE, WHAT THE FUCK!” Kristi barked, eyes wild with panic.

"Stop wasting bullets," Candace said. "Denver twisted space to trap us inside. That's why there's no more dragons teleporting in."

Kristi grabbed the fox by her shoulders, shaking her. "Then what do we do?! This is all your fucking fault you dumb fox!"

"I don't know!" Candace yelped, eyes flashing silver. “Gimme a moment, I’m trying to See a way out!”

“One day!” Kristi yelled. “You can’t go one day without fucking everything sideways! Why are you like this?!”

"Let’s get on the Nemesis and head upward," Nessy suggested. "Break through the roof!"

The building groaned once more, the sound deeper and longer than before. The floor tilted slightly.

"Shit! We're sinking down!" Candace said, eyes wide. 

“WHAT?! To the bottom of Lake Eerie?!” Kristi choked.

"Nope. Worse,” the fox’s ears tilted back. “If the lack of windows is anything to go by, we’re in another dimension, one belonging entirely to her. Denver's pulling us deep into her embrace. I irritated her too much with my lawsuit. Up might not be up anymore."

“Das’ not optimal,” Adelle commented, grabbing onto me to keep me from falling over as the floor tilted even more.

Water began pouring down the stairwells and holes in the ceiling, flooding into the office rapidly.

"The glider!" Kristi barked, splashing around and pulling off her dimensional backpack. "Now!"

As the raptor pulled out the glider, the steps had disappeared under a cascade of murky lake water. The flow pushed against our legs, making remaining upright against the current a struggle.

"Argh water," Adelle growled. She grabbed me, Candace and Nessy. “Shadowstep!”

Darkness.

We reappeared atop a wide shelf, high above the water.

Kristi finally got the glider out and pulled her back back on. In seconds she was atop it, roaring the engines.

“Which way is freaking out?!” Kristi yelled over the roar of rushing water as the glider flew to our level.

“No idea!” Candace yelled back. “She wants to drag us to her main court by force! I can’t see far enough, the dimensional structure keeps changing. We need… more… skills, more combined power. All of us in one body! Everyone except for Kris and Alec, get into the bag!”

Nessy eyes shot up to the dozens of panicked dragons fluttering in circles around the flooding room.

"We have to save these dragons too!" she cried. "We can't leave them behind! They’ll die outside of Cascade!"

She opened her dimensional bag wide, singing a high, clear melody.

The dragons responded immediately, starting with Sparkles. The little dragon flashed into her back with a dimensional fiery pop. Smaller crimson ones followed, then emerald and azure ones teleported from the air. Larger dragons followed, tucking their wings as they dove into the bag's mouth.

“Help out!” Nessy barked. “We might need them!”

Candace and Adelle copied Nessy, opening their bags. Dragons streamed into all three pouches until the last one vanished through the opening.

Adelle slung her dragon-filled bag over her shoulder and climbed into Kristi’s bag. Nessy followed, climbing in behind the cheetah. Candace got inside last, one hand reaching out to grab at the raptor’s head.

"Kristi!" Candace called. "You're our best pilot! I need to go into your body, all three of us!"

"What?!" Kristi yelled back over the roar of rushing water.

"We need maximum speed! I can navigate the dimensions as they shift! Four in one, pilot on the outside!"

Kristi hesitated, then nodded sharply. "Fine. Do it!"

"Bind souls!" Candace roared.

A blast of rainbow light erupted from their contact point. 

Candace’s eyes closed and she slumped into the bag. Kristi straightened. Her eyes flashed open, the amber drowned by other colors. She shook her head, then grabbed me and pulled me onto the glider. "Front seat, tree boy. I need to concentrate."

I settled in front of her, gripping the front section of the wheel. The glider's engines hummed beneath us as Kristi sniffed the air, looking left and right, slowly moving up as more water filled the room.

"Which way?" I asked.

"Unclear." Kristi frowned. "Denver keeps shifting the space around us, trying to bring me closer to her central hub of Law-ness. Right then. Let's see where… this goes!"

She raised the Decimator rifle and fired at the nearest doorway. The blast tore through metal and concrete, revealing a corridor beyond.

"Hold tight, Alec," she murmured.

The Nemesis surged forward, engines screaming as we shot through the opening. More corridors twisted ahead. Kristi navigated the gloomy space with ease, her four-times enhanced soul blessing her with superior manoeuvrability. 

Her claws pressed on the Decimator’s trigger.

We burst through another wall into a stairwell that spiraled both up and down endlessly. Kristi banked hard, following what looked like an upward path.

"Hell," she growled. "We're going deeper, not out. Whatever. Maybe if I understand things deeper in, I can find a way out."

The building's structure changed around us. Office spaces gave way to concrete hallways lined with metal doors. Numbers flashed on signs and doors as we passed.

She fired the Decimator again, blasting through another door. The corridor beyond stretched endlessly as we flew through it.

Suddenly, Kristi turned again and obliterated another door. The narrow metal-wall passage opened into a vast interior space so large I couldn't see its boundaries. Towering buildings rose from below, each one a megastructure in itself. Massive concrete and steel forms shaped like upright, sideways and upside-down wedding cakes and squares loomed all over, their surfaces punctuated by countless windows glowing with blue light.

“What is this place?” I let out. “Where are we?”

"Eureka," Kristi said grimly, eyes flashing. “This place is defined as ‘Eureka’ in the Astral.”

Thousands of flying vehicles launched from landing pads atop the structures. Sleek, angular, plus-star shaped cruisers with flashing lights seemed to be heading for us across the vast, gloomy space without an end. 

Trying to look past the rows upon rows of megastructures wrapped in gray clouds gave me a migraine. It was as if I was staring at endlessness itself and my linear, meaty brain simply refused to process the view.

"How do we get out of here ?" I asked, blinking at the surreal cityscape stretching in every direction.

"I…" Kristi replied, banking the glider sharply to avoid detection by the cruiser searchlights. "I see it now in the Astral, understand… more. Denver is just a dead shell, an echo of this place seeping into our reality! What we know as Denver is just an offshoot of Eureka. A… another fucking Number! Fuck my life."

“A Number… like the G-Supercenter?”

"Yes. The Omnids tried to stop it with Lake Eerie, but they didn't have enough power to properly contain or destroy the infestation," she continued, weaving between structures. "They just applied a bandaid to a festering wound. And now this damned thing wants me physically in her court since I successfully sued her."

A spotlight swept past us, missing narrowly.

"Can you out-lawyer her in court?" I asked.

"No," Kristi said flatly. "As clever as I am with all four of our souls combined, I'll definitely lose if I'm dragged to her court. From what the Astral Ocean tells me, Eureka is… a higher-order conceptual entity, Number Four, also known as The Law. She regards herself as the ultimate arbiter of her ever-expanding reality, the word of Goodness. She’s pure Order, the Conceptual idea of a liminal city infesting countless universes.”

"Where do we go?" I glanced back at the patrol cruisers closing in from all sides.

"We need to shake her Agents," Kristi frowned. "Get to a place where Entropy rules supreme. Oh, I know! Think about your doomed Earth, the one devoured by Systemfall. Focus on it. Every detail you can remember. Help me find our way there!"

I closed my eyes, picturing the empty streets of my university campus after Systemfall. The abandoned stores. The shambling Conceptoids. The nameless city where we'd met Calvin and Nessy. The room in the Mini-Mart Domain where Nessy and I had stayed before the Magnetic Lynx chased us to Nessy’s Ferguson.

Kristi's claws pressed against my temples. Her rainbow eyes glowed brighter.

"Got it!” she said.

The Nemesis accelerated, diving between two massive structures. Patrol cruisers converged on our position, spotlights sweeping. Kristi yanked the wheel, sending us into a steep dive. We plummeted toward the blurry ground, wind screaming past us.

We obliterated a window and dove inside one of the buildings, the glider rushing past rows upon rows of endless doors.

Kristi banked the Nemesis sharply around a corner, colorful eyes scanning the liminal labyrinth of doors and hallways. 

"This damned place," Kristi muttered, "Eureka isn't just another dimension. It's a hub, the central node connecting a patchwork of infinite realities to one another. Every door here leads somewhere different. Gateways to worlds beyond the stars."

“Why don’t we head back to Prad Earth?” I asked her.

“Denver is there,” Kristi shook her head. “Even if somewhat drowned, Eureka will find me there. I need to drop the lawsuit, lose her trail in a really Entropic place and time. Unbind Eureka! Unbind Denver! Unbind lawsuit,” She growled, grabbing her own head.

“Ugh,” she let out. “I don’t know if I got it all out. Calvin’s helped us before. He might help again.”

"Could you really find the way to my Earth?" I asked.

"Yes," Kristi nodded. "I can smell the vile, choking taste of Systemfall, the place where I found you. It's faint, but..."

She inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. "That way!"

The Nemesis surged forward, engines screaming as we hurtled down a corridor without an end. Kristi raised the Decimator and fired, the blast tearing through a door number 36-23-11. We plunged through the smoking hole into another corridor beyond.

"They're still following us," I said, the sound of sirens and metal boots resonating from far behind us.

"Not for long," Kristi growled.

She spun the glider hard, diving down a narrower passage, then fired again. Another door shattered. The Nemesis shot through the gap, sparks flying as the edges of the glider scraped against the frame.

The corridors twisted and changed as we flew deeper. The pristine, angular, metallic architecture of Eureka gradually gave way to… decay and wrongness. The walls darkened, becoming stained with mold and rust. The lights flickered, casting creepy shadows.

Kristi flew the Nemesis forward at top speed for a few more minutes, then fired again, obliterating another door. The next section of hallway was twisted like a corkscrew, gravity shifting around us weirdly and wobbling the glider.

"We're getting closer," she muttered. "The dimensional fabric is getting hella thin here. All I wanted was a nice walk on the beach with Alec… but nooo… the foxy part of me just couldn’t resist breaking shit extra-hard with her grabby paws." She seemed to growl at herself.

79. Calvin’s Farm

The sounds of pursuit grew fainter behind us. Numbers on the doors no longer made sense, gradually becoming incomprehensible gibberish that sorta resembled text, reminding me of the early machine learning experiments at understanding text.

Another blast from the Decimator. Another door, this one covered in blue, fractal-shaped moss. 

The hallway beyond this one sagged inward, the walls buckling as if under tremendous pressure. Pipes had burst from the ceiling, spewing black fluid that seemed to be frozen in the air as liquid bubbles overgrown in the same blue mold.

"Almost there," Kristi said.

The final corridor stretched ahead, so warped and decayed it hardly resembled a structure at all. The doors hung crooked, some half-melted into their frame, others gaping into unnerving darkness.

The lights ended as we flew deeper, the Nemesis’ frontal beams igniting brughter to reveal more and more bizarre architecture of fucked up things fused into things. 

Silver text suddenly wove itself from the air, floating in my eyes.

[Welcome back home, Mr. Foster. Your bathtub awaits. The hot water's running, and we've scheduled you for another drowning at your earliest convenience.]

“The fuck?” I asked.

[Although, it’s rather hard to kill you, nowadays, ain’t it? You can blame me for this exciting development. So, you’re welcome. Have 1 Experience Point for being a good boy and finding your way back home. Welcome to Earth numberSystem Error. Enjoy your stay and don’t forget to like and subscribe to the local flora and fauna, otherwise you might find yourself being digested for all eternity!]

My stomach lurched at the extra-snarky and absurd Systemfall message.

Kristi aimed the Decimator and fired one last time. The blast tore through the concrete-wood-rubber patchwork door door, then through a rotting wall.

We burst into open air, the Nemesis shooting out of a half-rotting building, into a world I never thought I'd see again.

Kristi pulled up.

A dead city sprawled all around and below, gray fog rolling across the street. Buildings were scattered all around in various states of decay, many overtaken by bizarre, unnatural growths of trees shaped from random things like cars or mailboxes or street lamps. 

The streets lay empty. The sky above hung low, covered in a gray shawl.

My world. The Earth devoured by Systemfall. The place where I died in a bathtub, courtesy of the cartel.

"We made it," I breathed and regretted it immediately. The air tasted stale, dead and wrong.

Kristi sniffed and the glider growled beneath us, accelerating. Dead, fallen skyscrapers flew by.

I leaned back into her, my heart pounding. 

What if Calvin died? What if the Nemesis runs out of power? Would we end up trapped in this horrid, dead world. At least I had my pack by my side. I tried to mentally assure myself. 

. . .

Kristi brought the Nemesis down on what once had been a highway exit. The asphalt had buckled and cracked, forming ridges and valleys where plant-forms bloomed made from parking tickets and dollar bills. We touched down in a relatively clear patch, the glider's landing gear scraping against broken concrete.

“Slayer,” Kristi commented. “Bleh. This place is even more fucked than I remember. Unbind, drop, disconnect Lawsuit!” 

Her clawed hands flashed silver. 

"Think that worked?" I asked.

"Better have," she muttered. "I absolutely do not want to be dragged to Eureka's court. That was… possibly even more terrifying than the damned Lynx."

"Let's find Calvin," I suggested. "If he's still around. Can you smell where the Mini-Mart is?”

“No,” Kristi sighed. “I'm running out of mana. Going to snap apart in a…”

The colors faded from her eyes as she heaved, wobbling. 

"Ugh," Candace groaned as she climbed out of Kristi’s backpack. "Too much raptor-ness. My paws taste like scales.”

"Never doin' that again," Adelle muttered, stretching her orange-furred limbs.

Kristi slumped forward, rubbing her temples. 

“Thanks for flying us,” Nessy climbed out of the bag last, hugging the raptor girl. “You’re da best, Kristi.”

"You're welcome," the raptor grumbled.

We gathered our bearings. The dragons inside our bags made chirping noises, disturbed by the dimensional transit.

“Poor babies want to go home,” Nessy commented, reaching into her bag and offering the dragon flock inside pets.

From a nearby alley came a soft, mechanical skittering. Dozens of small objects rolled into view, moving with purposeful coordination.

Computer mice. Dozens of them, their balls rolling independently, propelling them across the ground. They had sprouted tiny legs made of wire and keyboard keys, clicking softly as they moved. Small red lights blinked where their buttons should be, giving the impression of electronic eyes.

“That’s some fucked up sheeet,” Adelle commented, perking up. “Can I smash ‘em?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Candace commented. “This place might take experience away from you if you kill the wrong thing. The rewards System here smells fake as fuck. I suspect that it gave Alec Nessy not because it was a logically sensible reward, but because the System thought that it would be hilarious.”

“Blah,” the cheetah deflated slightly.

The mechanical mice paused, their red lights blinking in unison as they regarded us. Then, as if responding to some unheard signal, they scurried in formation toward a nearby department store.

A dozen mannequins suddenly emerged from the gray fog. Each had a computer monitor duct-taped to its head, flickering screens facing outward displaying static. Their plastic bodies moved with uncanny twitches as if they were puppeted by an invisible sky spider.

Kristi tensed beside me, lifting the Decimator. "I don't like this."

I touched her arm, pointing to the mannequins' chests. Yellow sticky notes covered them, each bearing simple sketches of eyes, ears, or mouths.

"Hold your fire," I said. "These are Calvin's."

As if on cue, the nearest monitor flickered, the fuzzy grain resolving into a slightly pixelated image of a bearded face.

"Ah!" Calvin's voice emanated from the mannequin’s sticky note with the drawing of a mouth. "Would ya look at that! Alec and Nessy, back to visit me! And you brought... more animal friends with ya?"

“Yes,” I smiled. 

“Hi Calvin,” Nessy stepped forward, tail wagging. “How have you been?”

“Decent, all things considered,” Canvin replied. “Did you manage to get away from that Magnetic Lynx?”

The other monitors activated one by one, each displaying the same bearded face from slightly different angles.

“Sort of,” I said. “We’re… doing a Quest for her now.”

“Lovely,” Calvin nodded from the monitors. “See, everyone needs a bit of understanding! Come, come, follow my drones, they’ll take you to my domain.”

. . .

The gray fog rolled back, revealing rows of bizarre trees stretching into the distance. Each trunk twisted in freaky, odd angles, their fruit being office supplies, plastic toys, or electronic components. A patch of blue sky suddenly broke through the gray canopy above.

The Mini-Mart had changed. It was no longer the small, grimy convenience store I remembered. The building now stood three times larger, its walls freshly painted in bright colors featuring Calvin planting receipt trees, watering gold grass or talking to a monitor-faced female mannequin. 

Gardens surrounded the shop on all sides, blooming with flowers made from coffee filters, paper clips, flash drives or other random objects. 

Mannequins moved methodically between the rows, tending to the odd crops with robotic, twitchy motions.

"Welcome back to my humble domain, friends!" Calvin called, striding toward us from the direction of the store. He still wore his tinfoil-enhanced cap, but his beard had grown longer, now reaching the middle of his chest and featuring more silver. A necklace of computer mice dangled around his neck, their red sensor lights blinking in unison. A violet cape covered in drawn eyes decorated his back.

"Calvin," I greeted him. "Good to see you surviving! You've... expanded."

"Yep," he said proudly, gesturing to his domain. "Cultivating concepts as a concept-farmer! Quite sustainable in the long run."

"How long has it been since we last saw each other?" I asked.

Calvin scratched his beard. "Hard to say. Time is kind of wonky and wobbly here. Excessive entropy and all that. Might have been a million years." He paused, considering. "Or maybe just a few weeks. Calendar tracking became rather pointless after the third or fourth time quake."

"This place must be difficult to maintain," Candace commented. "Especially in such an unstable Entropy-filled zone."

"Oh, absolutely," Calvin nodded with a smile. "About as fulfilling as building a sandcastle right next to an ocean wave. The tide always comes in, washes everything away. Then you start again."

"Why not relocate then?" I asked.

Calvin's eyes crinkled. "Fun, mostly. Life needs purpose, even after Systemfall. Besides, each rebuild gets a bit better, more fun. I learn something new each time everything falls apart."

He gestured toward the store. "Come on in! Got air conditioning now. Bound a temperature concept to the walls last month."

We followed him across a path paved with laptop keyboards, their keys lighting up as our feet touched them. The Mini-Mart's doors slid open automatically, releasing a cool breeze scented with coffee and cinnamon.

Inside, the store had transformed too. Gone were the cramped aisles and empty, dusty shelves. The space stretched out, cavernous and bright, filled with food, furniture, and other supplies. Sticky notes covered every surface, creating intricate murals of animated eyes, ears, and mouths that followed our movements.

"I like the improvements!" Nessy said, black and white head spinning left and right. "This place smells warm and homely."

Calvin beamed at her praise. "Thanks! Took three entropy waves to get it right." He opened his arms wide. "Hugs? Been a while since I've had visitors who weren't trying to become part of my wall fixtures."

Nessy immediately bounded forward, embracing him. I followed and Calvin pulled me into a strong hug.

"And who are these fine ladies?" Calvin asked, releasing me and turning his attention to the others.

"My pack," I said. "This is Kristi," I gestured to the raptor, who nodded stiffly. "Candace," the fox waved cheerfully. "And Adelle," the cheetah grunted in acknowledgment looking slightly skittish.

"Wonderful. I see that you have been cultivating femme animal-archetype, linear beings! And such variety! And yet… you are all somehow dimensionally entwined, yes? How did you find your way back to me?”

"We escaped a dungeon that was trying to sue me," Candace explained. "Ended up here by following your scent from Alec’s memories."

"She successfully sued a conceptual infestation," I added. "Things got weird."

"Of course," Calvin laughed. "Nothing is simple anymore, is it?" He clapped his hands together. "Well, you've arrived just in time for dinner! I've cultivated some rather excellent potatoes that taste exactly like cheeseballs."

Kristi leaned close to me, her voice low. "You're sure we can trust this man? He has tinfoil on his hat."

"That's his Foresight amplifier," Nessy corrected before I could respond. "Very practical. You were me less than an hour ago, surely you remember Calvin?”

“Your memories of this place is a terrifying lucid dream,” Kristi hissed. “Seeing all this ‘effy shit in reality does little to alleviate my concerns.”

"Very practical indeed, lassie," Calvin echoed, tapping his foil hat proudly. "Saved my life seventeen times this week alone!"

He led us deeper into the store, past shelves stocked with canned goods and quirky artifacts. Dragons chirped from our bags, disturbed by the constant surveillance of Calvin's sticky note eyes.

"Oh! You've brought pets too!" Calvin exclaimed, peering into Nessy's bag where several tiny dragons peered back at him. "How delightful! Ah. They’re location bound. They won’t last longer than a few days here."

"Yes. Can you help us get back to Prad Earth?" I asked. "We sort of got... sidetracked."

80. Ownership Memetic

Calvin rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Prad Earth, you say? Hmm." He walked to a wall covered in sticky note diagrams and calendar pages. "Yes, yes... I can. But first, you must sample my tatoes! Can't navigate dimensional crossroads on an empty stomach, now can we?"

He bustled toward a kitchen area, the mannequins moving aside to let him pass. "Make yourselves at home! The couch over there only tries to absorb visitors on Tuesdays, and today's definitely not Tuesday. Probably."

The couch Calvin indicated consisted of three refrigerators laid sideways, their doors removed and replaced with cushions made from stuffed backpacks. Nessy plopped down on it immediately, her tail wagging.

"Comfy!" she commented.

Kristi remained standing, her claws gripping the Decimator rifle. "This place smells so wrong," she muttered.

"It does," Adelle agreed, slumping beside Nessy. "But the dog trusts him so we might as well enjoy the hospitality. Candy, gimme a beer."

Candace handed Adelle a beer can and circled the room, examining Calvin's sticky note arrangements with professional interest. "Heh, that’s really cool to see in person," she commented. "Calvin created a sensory web across his entire domain. Minions too. I’m taking notes."

Calvin returned from the kitchen area, carrying a tray loaded with steaming dishes. "Hope everyone likes un-expired potatoes! They're my specialty."

The "potatoes" glowed faintly blue. Calvin distributed plates and utensils, then sat on a barrel chair across from us.

"So," he began, "you want to return to Prad Earth? I can draw you another door.”

“We kind of landed in a lake last time,” I said.

“The trick to easier dimensional travel is finding a stronger anchor point. A connection that resonates across the dimensional divide," the Mini-Mart Archmage said. 

"Like what?" Nessy asked.

"Objects, people, concepts," Calvin explained. "The stronger the connection, the easier the crossing."

Candace perked up. "Could you… maybe lend me a piece of your chalk? That way we could… visit you more often. I’m a Binder so I’m pretty sure that I could use it too.”

"Sure!" Calvin clapped his hands. "And I have something that might assist as well." He stood and walked to a cabinet, pulling out a device that resembled a television remote duct-taped to a colander. "My reality scanner. Picks up resonance frequencies from nearby dimensional rifts."

Kristi shot me a skeptical look. I shrugged in response. 

"Before we begin," Calvin said, setting the scanner on a table, "I should warn you: Eureka is still most likely tracking you through the dimensional fabric. My domain offers some protection, but if we start poking holes between realities..."

"Eureka could find us," I finished.

"Precisely," Calvin nodded. "And this devious entity doesn't take kindly to being sued."

"I unbound myself from the lawsuit," Candace protested.

"Did you?" Calvin raised an eyebrow. "Completely? Lawsuits are tricky things, conceptually speaking. They linger in the fine print."

Candace's ears flattened. "I... think so? I dropped the lawsuit, lost her trail in this Entropic place."

Calvin frowned. "Let me check." He approached Candace, his scanner beeping softly as he waved it around her. The beeping intensified near her left ear.

"Ah," he said grimly. "Nope. You've got a paper trail. Small but persistent. An extradimensional conceptual thread connecting you to her court system."

"Can you remove it?" I asked.

"Yes, but not without consequences," Calvin replied. "Cutting a legal connection without proper dismissal can trigger accelerated enforcement protocols. In layman's terms, they'll send the bailiffs after you."

"Bailiffs?" Nessy asked.

"Enforcers," Calvin clarified. "Special Agents tasked with bringing defendants to court. Nasty business. Could be another Number if Eureka is pissed enough. Perhaps Number Three or one of her Bobby Wizards."

Candace groaned. "So I'm still tied to Denver?"

"For now," Calvin nodded. "But I might know a way to redirect that connection. Make it someone else's problem, so to speak."

"How?" I asked.

Calvin tapped his tinfoil hat. "Let’s go see my secretary! She handles all of my legal matters!"

Calvin led us through a side door of the Mini-Mart onto a winding path through his conceptual garden. More mannequins tended the strange plants.

"Don't mind the drones," Calvin called over his shoulder. "They're mostly harmless, though they do get a tad pissy if you disturb their routines."

We followed him down the path, past rows of plants growing from old cash registers, their leaves formed from receipt paper. The sky above had darkened to a deep purple.

"Here we are," Calvin announced, stopping before a shed-like structure at the edge of his domain. “My legal department.”

"Charming," Adelle muttered.

He approached the door and knocked three times. The door swung inward silently.

"After you," Calvin gestured.

We stepped through the doorway. The interior of the ramshackle shed differed sharply with the exterior, a clean, modern office, almost sterile, official-looking. The windows definitely didn’t match the shed. Random office furniture was arranged in neat rows filled the space, each desk occupied by a mannequin. Some sat completely still, staring at nothing, while others moved papers around or typed on keyboards with click-clack sounds, text flashing across their head screens.

At the far end of the room, behind an imposing mahogany desk, sat a female mannequin different from the others. This one wore a tailored dress suit and tie, its movements more fluid. As we approached, it stood, extending a hand in greeting.

"Calvin!" it spoke, a slightly robotic female voice emanating from a speaker embedded in its chest. "We have guests? How delightful."

"Yes dear," Calvin nodded. "Manny here is pretty good at lawyerage, unlike me. Manny, we need your expertise on a matter of interdimensional law."

Manny turned her monitor face toward us, head tilting slightly. "Of course. Please, have a seat." She gestured to a bunch of chairs in front of her desk.

We sat down on the offered plastic chairs. Nessy's tail wagged slightly. Kristi still gripped her rifle, feathers puffing out. Candace studied the mannequin with intense curiosity. Adelle merely looked bored.

"So," Manny began, her plastic fingers tapping together. "Who sued whom across dimensional boundaries?"

"From what I can see, our fox friend here," Calvin gestured to Candace, "sued the conceptual entity known as Denver, aka a shell of number Four while physically present in her domain. She then attempted to unbind herself from the lawsuit and escaped to our reality through dimensional cracks."

Manny’s head monitor displayed a sad text emoji. "Oh dear. Most unfortunate. Number Four’s legal framework operates on conceptual omnipotence rather than necessarily procedural fairness. Once a lawsuit enters the overall system, it remains active until formally resolved."

"So I'm still bound to be dragged into her court?" Candace pursed her lips.

"I'm afraid so," Manny nodded. "The thread connecting you to her court will continue to strengthen until either judgment is rendered or a formal dismissal is processed."

"Can you help us sever it?" I asked.

Manny's blank face turned toward me. "Sever? No. That would merely accelerate enforcement protocols, unless the severing is made with a really high level Fractalizer. Do you have one of those?”

“We know where one might be located,” Nessy said. 

“I got a location from one of her Lawyers,” Candace nodded. “An all-cutting sword!”

“It is possible that the location was already changed,” Manny stated. “Eureka doesn’t like sharing her toys.”

“Wah,” the fox girl slumped. “So my awesome lawsuit was for nothing?”

Kristi glared at Candace, clearly desiring to smack the fox.

“Not for nothing,” Nessy patted the fox on the back. “Eureka pulled us into her extradimensional domain and from there we were able to make it here! That’s progress, of sorts. We did want to visit Calvin.”

“I guess,” Candace chewed on her bottom lip. “What should I do about the Denver lawsuit?”

“Possibly a transfer,” Manny offered.

"Transfer to whom?" Kristi asked.

"To an entity already engaged in litigation with Denver," Manny explained. "Someone with sufficient legal standing to absorb additional claims without increasing their overall liability. Someone that’s hard to entangle."

“Whom?” I wondered.

Manny opened a drawer in her desk, withdrawing a thick folder that should not have fit inside. "Let me see... Denver's current docket includes approximately 1647.8 trillion active cases across the multiversal spectrum. Most defendants have already been processed and lost horribly, but a few outstanding matters remain unresolved."

The mannequin flipped through pages far too rapidly for my eyes to track her motions. "Ah! Here we are. The case of Omnid Superstate Administrative Authority vs. D&D&D Incorporated, regarding jurisdictional boundaries and existential rights. Ongoing for approximately 31 years, linear local time."

"The Omnids are suing Denver?" I chortled.

"Yes. More accurately, they're conceptually countersuing," Manny clarified. "With some kind of a living superweapon. Denver initiated proceedings after Lake Eerie expanded and submerged significant portions of its territory. The Omnids claimed sovereign defense of their territory as justification and brought in a Judge-type construct of some kind to constantly sue and pummel Denver so that it cannot propagate any further."

“Ah,” Candace’s eyes lit up. “Colossus Dreadmaw?”

“Yes,” Manny looked into the folder. “Justice Dreadmaw the name of the Omnid-summoned Legal entity entangled in a perpetual battle with Denver.”

"How does this help Candace?" Nessy asked.

"We can file for consolidation from here," Manny explained. "Merge her claim with the Omnid countersuit, effectively transferring liability to their legal team. Given the existing unresolved hostilities between the parties, one additional claim will hardly be noticed."

"Would that work?" Candace asked.

"In theory, yes," Manny nodded. "The transfer requires formalities, of course. Paperwork, signatures, a small exchange of conceptual value."

"What kind of exchange?" I asked.

"Nothing onerous," Manny assured me. "A promise of general service to the Omnid Administrative Authority.”

“Ughhhh,” Candace huffed. “I don’t want to bind myself to those damned cryptids forevahhh.”

"A linear, finite service," Manny clarified. "Nothing infinite.”

“Nuuu,” the fox shook her silver mane. “I’d rather find another fractalizer than sign up to work for one of those damned man-stealin’ cryptid Omnicorp beerches.”

“Ah,” Manny tapped her monitor chin. “Curious.”

“What?” Candace asked.

“You’re technically already their property,” Manny revealed. “That word? Beerch? That’s an Omnid memetic infecting your backend psyche. An invisible tag that marks you as children or cattle of one of the Omnid Omnicorps.”

“Eh?” Candace blinked.

“Go on, say it after me,” a smiling face appeared on Manny’s monitor. “Bitch.”

“Beerch,” Candace fretted. “Ah fucking hell, what? Beerch! BEERCH! Fuck! I can’t do it!”

“Try this one,” Manny added with a bigger digital emoji grin on the monitor. “Fuckwit.”

“Knob,” Candace said. “Noooo! This is bullshit!” She bit her tongue. “Damn it. How did I not notice this?! I’m trained to see shit in the Astral!”

“Living memetics are hard to spot,” Manny shrugged. “Especially if you don’t pay attention to them.”

“Feh,” the fox let out. “What do? Who even owns me?”

Manny reached out, tapping Candace’s hand with a plastic finger. Sticky note violet eyes flickered around the office. Something pressed at us from above. I looked up. A massive eye formed from sticky notes was on the ceiling, staring down at us unnervingly.

“You’re property of… Stratos Omnicorp,” the mannequin secretary said, pulling out another folder from the desk. “As such you can bind yourself to Colossus Dreadmaw… in person. That ought to keep agents of Denver from harassing you in your local dimension. Does that resolve your problem?”

“I guess,” Candace slumped against her plastic chair, clearly dissatisfied with this development.