While Junior did his best to catch up with the battle, he knew he’d be too late. He didn’t waste time to rise higher than necessary, so it wasn’t possible for him to see past the mountain he had to cross.

The boys exchanged their Intel. Aron would create a tunnel in the cave for Jason to hide safely. It was too late to escape via helicopter. The eldritch device was too big to move and resisted Aron’s powers.

In the plus side, the Shadow had no weapons other than the super strength instilled by his suit.

After a minute of flying at top speed, the hiding place came into sight. Since the boy had seen the place in his vision of the area when his random sense had shown it to him, he knew that things were not as they should be. Despite that, at first he was convinced his memory was failing him. Junior could hardly believe what he saw.

Aron had moved a mountain.

One. Hundred. Billion. Tons.

“Why did you do that?” the precog sent.

Aron chuckled – so chuckling did transport through the link. “Guess who’s under there?”

“You buried the Shadow?”

“He didn’t see it coming. With no heat ray he can’t burn himself through the rock like he’d be able to do before. He’ll claw himself free eventually, though. Honestly, the most impressive part is that I managed to avoid a major earthquake.”

***

It was as ugly as every other eldritch object.

The alien machine was crammed into the cave that hadn’t been spacious to begin with. Perhaps the Shadow’s attack had been less organized than it seemed. To think it could have been successful…

“Any ideas?” Aron said. He stood at the entrance, keeping an eye on ‘his’ mountain and waiting until it failed to be the prison he had turned it into.

Jason was leaning against the cave wall. “It’s heavy. It must have taken some effort to bring here.”

“Good thinking,” Junior said. “Why would they carry it into the mountains and drop it in here if they could have left it somewhere else? Answer: it needs to be close enough to work. If we can attach it to the helicopter we might be able to haul it out of range and free Baekho this way. Are there any cables on board of-”

Something slithered across Junior’s consciousness. Another link.

The precog reached out and pulled the fleeting mental tentacle into his network. There was a feedback loop as the networks joined, vibrating his skull uncomfortably. As the ringing in his ears subsided he was met with Minhyun’s disembodied voice.

“Junior? Is that your link? How?”

“It’s a long story. Are you okay? Is Ren awake, too?”

“I’m here,” the empath sent. “We woke up a minute or so ago. Where is everybody?”

Junior sped through the latest events – sparing them the gruesome details of how he had found his way into Lady Luck’s chamber again – and finished with the displaced mountain. “I know the Shadow is still there because I can sense his mind. I could link with him but why should I?”

“Wait a second,” Minhyun sent. “It would be too difficult to get to you in time but with a network of two link-sources I think… Would the force field block something immaterial, too?”

“What do you…” Junior was struck by the same revelation as the dream-walker. “Ren, can you do it?”

“Never tried across this massive distance, but it’s the source that needs to be close. The Conmote itself, not sure about that.”

The plan was for Minhyun to break the link, which would be kept up by Junior. Ren would turn Minhyun’s emotion into a Conmote at Junior’s position. It was made from focus, created by Minhyun’s meditation. Minutes later their attempts finally succeeded.

Soft yellow, barely opaque and hip high – the Conmote was wimpy, but it had steady hands.

Junior directed Ren on how to move Focus. It passed through the barrier and was able to touch the device. They had won.

“Open the hatch on top of the leftmost blob,” Junior sent. “Good, now push all those pipe things aside so you can get to the green glowing cylinder. Pull it- No, wait, screw it clockwise. Now pull.”

More minutes passed while Focus made its way deeper into the belly of the alien machine. In the end, the Conmote was nearly buried to the ankles inside the metallic and fleshy protrusions. Junior knelt on the ground, trying to see what was ahead of Focus’s path.

“We made it,” he sent. “Huh, it’s literally a switch. That wasn’t obvious from the schematics. Anyway, the moment you flip it, the circuit will be interrupted and Baekho should come back to us.”

Ren jumped in. “The landscape has changed from the battle. If he’s outside in Twi as it was when he vanished and he reappears in reality as it is now-“

“He could end up inside a wall or something,” Junior sent, finishing the ugly thought. “But now that we can turn it off at any time I should be able to tell where he would pop at any given moment. I’d just have to be there… Or not. I might be able to see through Minhyun if he acts as a second network source.”

“And how am I supposed to keep Focus up?” Ren send back. “Tell Minhyun to go into meditation again after finding Baekho? That could take a while. It’s a miracle he’s holding up so well.”

Junior pondered their options. “Wang should still be around, if she survived. Some of her men, too. Open the gate and go look. I’ll link with Minhyun in the meantime.”

***

Due to the dream-walker’s exhaustion it took surprisingly long. Eventually, Junior combined his link web with Minhyun’s and they let their immaterial tendrils flutter along the ruins of the base, in hopes that Baekho hadn’t wandered off completely.

In the meantime Ren had found the remainder of their forces. Wang was alive but unable to stay conscious for more than a few seconds at a time. Her injuries were severe. A mostly functional truck was used to transport her and the other hurt soldiers to the city with only two men staying behind.

Ren’s empathy seeped through the link and a tiny, jittery Conmote of apprehension formed next to the eldritch device.

As Junior readied himself to give the command he searched for the missing boy’s probable point of return.

“Found him. He’s flying over the- No wait, he’s standing on the roof of tract G. It still had a roof when this Twi was created.”

“We can’t risk it then,” Minhyun sent.

The leader considered the case. “Even if he pops back automatically, he should have time to shift again and land properly. Deactivating the machine doesn’t disturb his ability. Actually, it might even take a while for him to realize he can come back.”

They agreed on bringing about the white tiger’s swift return.

“Alright,” Junior sent to his boyfriend, “flip the switch.”

With wobbly steps the ugly Conmote crawled into the device and did as commanded. Right away the alien object reacted with sizzling. Various outgrowths hissed as if they were letting off steam but nothing was ejected.

“Baekho!” Minhyun and Junior yelled into the link at the same time the second their network was able to incorporate the boy. As expected he shifted again to fly down gently instead of crashing to his death. As he was finally fully returned, they directed him back to the bunker. On the way there he was briefed on the situation.

“There’s one thing left to do,” Junior told everybody. “We can reconfigure the device to act as kill switch for all Void tech. Ren, are you up to the task?”

“Sure. Tell me what screws to turn.”

“First, get back into the- On no, this is bad. Eighty-seven-point-four-three percent chance the Shadow digs himself free in a few seconds. Ninety-one-point-four now. Okay Aron, you need to take care of him. I’ll assist.”

The leader positioned himself where he could see what Apprehension was doing to the machine and simultaneously look outside to warn the American of incoming attacks.

A sound like fireworks echoed from the surrounding mountains as the Shadow burst forth from the rock. Junior would have liked to link with him even if just to distract him, but the boy had his hands – or mind – full at the moment.

It turned out Aron didn’t even need help to vaporize every incoming projectile. The attacks were slow and small. Even the Shadow did not have infinite stamina.

Then they ceased entirely. The deformed shape of the villain simply hovered high above the cave entrance.

“What’s he planning,” Junior mumbled. “Is he fiddling with his suit? I think he is. But what can he do?”

The device in the cave made noises. Then the Shadow flew away at top speed.

“What did he do?” Aron asked.

Junior consulted his random information sense which seemed to supply amazingly useful information today and was rewarded with a reason to panic. “He’s crippled the device. I think he has activated a radius limit. Even if we turn it into a kill switch it would only affect the range it originally had to trap Baekho. He’s escaping.”

“We’ll see about that,” Baekho sent before dropping out of the network.

Ren kept following instructions from afar, Minhyun kept the link stable, Aron and Jason made the helicopter ready for launch. But all of it would not be enough.

Junior could tell with certainty that the kill switch would be completed after the Shadow had left its range. He pressed on anyway. There was still time to come up with something.

Luckily, the enemies’ trajectory led him close to the base, perhaps back to his first vehicle. Baekho popped directly on top of the fleeing Shadow and fell onto him. It must have taken several in-flight shifts to figure out the Shadow’s path and intercept it properly.

The leader observed everything through the network of Nuest’s minds. The muscled boy held on tight and dragged the villain into Twi. The suit failed inside the strange realm and both of them dropped down. But Junior knew the probabilities didn’t add up to victory.

Baekho couldn’t hold on for long since the Shadow’s punches were enough to free him from the grip even without super strength. It was trivial to predict all their moves but Junior couldn’t link with his friend inside Twi where most of the struggle took place.

It wouldn’t be enough.

Why couldn’t Junior influence the probability with which Void technology malfunctioned?

…Yeah, why couldn’t he? There should be a chance, after all, no matter how minor.

He looked harder. And harder and harder.

The timelines diverged at last. Zero point zero zero zero… it was too ‘small’ to see but it was there. He looked harder still. All links snapped from his mind. His nose began to bleed. A ringing in his ears drowned out Aron’s voice. His vision blurred. But his future-sight sharpened in turn.

He could do it.

The eldritch device switched into universal kill mode ahead of schedule and activated.

Junior turned his head to look outside. He could barely register shapes, but he saw all timelines with perfect clarity. In every one of them, the Shadow plummeted to his death from a mountain’s height.

As the enemy hit the granite at terminal velocity, Junior’s legs gave in. Falling into Aron’s arms the boy smiled weakly.

Victory.

***

“We did it,” Aron said, his voice sounding like he was underwater, his face blurry.

Somewhere on earth the Shadow’s last failsafe was activated by the expiration of the villain’s heartbeat.

All timelines truncated, heralding the end of humanity.

Junior lost consciousness.