“Mr. Fulgen, can you tell me about a time you failed, and what you learned from the experience?”

  “Ooh. Hmm. Well, once I said something very hurtful to someone I cared very much about.”

  “And… what did you learn?”

  “That some words can’t be taken back.”

  Two days later, I sat across from Castillo the PR agent.

  She regarded me across her desk, arms crossed. “You sure you want to do this now, Mr. Fulgen?”

  “Not even a little! But I feel like I have to.”

  “This does not feel like a good time. You are already fired up.”

  “It’s kind of my thing.”

  “?Ya madura, chamaco!”

  I reflexively sat up straighter. I don’t know why, but I had an odd momentary vision of a shoe striking my head. I glanced over at Wally, who shrugged.

  “Okay.” Castillo got out her tablet and stylus. “If we are going to do this, first let me tell you how I operate. What comes to mind when you think about public relations?”

  I tried to formulate a tactful answer, but my face must have said enough.

  “That is what I thought. Unlike some PR agents, Mr. Fulgen, I am committed to truth. My goal is not to tell people what they want to hear, it is to tell them the truth in a way they will accept. Too many people don’t think about that. They think, ‘I am saying what is true and what is right! The truth should speak for itself!’ Then they lose their audience. The pretty lies take them instead. They say to themselves, ‘I did not fail! I tried! It is the people who failed me!’

  “I see too many people feeling righteous as they get trampled and as nothing changes. So, I study the enemy. I learn their tactics. I find out what makes the lies so pretty, and then I bring those back and apply them to the truth.

  “The result? Well, you can’t always make the truth pretty. Not when the truth is ‘Something is very wrong, and fixing it will be painful.’ But you can use tact. You can make them sympathize. You can get inside their defenses before they become defensive.”

  “Ok,” I said slowly. “I like it. But coming back to me, I’m not really trying to rally anyone to a cause. Am I?”

  “Mr. Fulgen, you are the cause. Why are we doing this? To advocate for you. Pointed questions. False accusations. Speculation and rumors. We want them to stop.” She sighed. “Also there are a dozen other optics I need to juggle. The reputation of the company, so on and so forth. But you are my first priority in this, and I want you to believe that.”

  “Ok. As for the interview itself, what are we looking at?”

  “Lys Corwin is still available and willing. We are lucky. But she is not the only option. Would you like to examine the others?”

  I waved my hand. “Odds are I won’t know half the names. I’ll trust your judgment.”

  “Ah! The world would be so much better if I heard that sentence more often!” She gave me a sly smile, then turned more serious. “So, let us start with the unfiltered story. Is Mr. Donner supposed to be here for this?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I promised Wally he could listen in. I’ve told him this story before but… less of it than I think we’re going to today.”

  “Okay then. Shut my door if you please, Mr. Donner.”

  As Wally got up, Castillo continued. “Start out in your own words. I will ask questions along the way. We might pause to discuss leaving out or reducing details. Later we will have another session, where I will anticipate followup questions and start coaching you away from traps. Finally a mock interview where I will press you—hopefully harder than the host will. Then the real deal, okay?”

  I was already loathing the idea of having to rehash this at least four times.

  “Sure, let’s do it.”

  She nodded and held her stylus at the ready. “Begin.”

  “I was about twelve and a half. My dad worked for the West District of the Global Peace Alliance, and that’s where my family lived at the time. He did a lot of research on Anteschismatic artifacts, what they did and how they functioned. But he also studied aether theory in general. He came up with something he thought would solve a very old mystery…”

  “Jett!” Hawk hissed. “Sit up!”

  I might have given my older brother more heed had I known this would be one of the last times I saw him. Then again, maybe not.

  We were at a lecture hall, tagging along for one of Dad’s many family vacations that piggybacked on a business trip. Hawk and I sat in the back. Mom had stepped out to use the bathroom, and I’d long since succumbed to boredom to the point of dissociation. I was currently lying across two chairs under the back table, imagining I was in the sleeping pod of a spaceship. Yes, I found pretending to sleep more entertaining than anything going on around me.

  There were two loud thumps next: Hawk’s foot hitting my butt, and my head hitting the underside of the table. I pushed off the table supports and slid out just far enough to stare daggers at Hawk as I rubbed the spot where I’d hit.

  “Sit up,” said Mom, and I immediately did. She looked to me, then to Hawk, then rolled her eyes and focused up front, where Dad was speaking.

  “The Dark Vortex,” Dad said grandly. I can still remember his face so clearly. He wore glasses and had brown hair with a few speckles of grey. Like all the Fulgen men, he had an almost cursedly youthful-looking face that he tried to conceal with a chinstrap beard. He was the man I knew best in all the world, and he was an enigma.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The thing he was speaking of was a thing of legend. Something that had once been used to scare children and campers. A strange black tornado that could appear without a cloud in the sky. It appeared about once a month, it always seemed to appear in a remote area, and it always seemed to “claim” at least one person, sucking them away and not leaving a trace behind. It was, perhaps, one of the reasons why the people of Tergai were enamored of single cities that could house hundreds of millions of people.

  The Dark Vortex had almost been relegated to the status of myth during industrialization, until cameras and finally satellites had made the truth all too apparent. It was real, and aside from the strange rules it seemed to follow, it was completely unpredictable.

  Aether, clearly. No one questioned that. But no artifact known could produce a similar effect. Not even a coordinated network of artifacts. There were cases of ambience stones and so-called “wild” aether, but never on that scale. So where did it come from, and why were its patterns so consistent?

  Dad thought he had found the answer, and it all lay within a cluster of equations, diagrams, and terms like “aeroaetheric pulse” and “population detection matrix” that some people probably found fascinating. People like my brother, apparently. He studied the slides and handdrawn equations with his dark eyes, as if there were truths he could discover just by staring hard enough. From what little I could glean, the gist of it was—

  “It thinks,” Dad intoned. There were murmurs among the gathered big-brains he’d assembled, and even a few open scoffs. “Either the Vortex thinks, or it has a mind guiding it. It also has a virtually unlimited supply of aether, allowing it to materialize all around the world, and on different continents. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just some ancient nanotechnology. This shows that the Aetherverse theory is true, and I intend to prove it.”

  More scoffs at that. This was a point of contention among aetherologists. At least, I think that’s what they’re called. Whether aether worked because of a “sufficiently advanced technology” and lecti were little software programs, or whether there was truly another mystical plane of existence inhabited by spirits.

  I personally didn’t give a crap. I had no inkling, at twelve, that any of this would ever be relevant to me.

  Dad called on a raised hand. A very nasally voice asked, “How do you intend to prove it, Mr. Fulgen?”

  My dad smiled his trademark mysterious smile. “I’m going to predict where the Dark Vortex will appear next. It will happen soon. It will happen nearby. And I intend to be there when it happens.”

  “Dramatic much?” I said during the ride back to the hotel. It was pouring rain outside. I was engrossed in my handheld gaming system, and Hawk, the weirdo, was reading a book.

  Dad chuckled. “They’re dreary old farts, Jett. They need a wake up call now and then. Keeps them alive.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “I think you overdid it, dear,” Mom said quietly. “I think you gave too much away.”

  “It’s all right, Serafina,” said Dad. “I know what I’m doing, and Chris is standing by. If this works it will undermine their entire narrative. More importantly, I’ll finally have my solution, and we’ll be ready for the next phase. This has been my whole life’s work. Ever since… well, you know.”

  “You know we can hear you, right?” I said.

  “They know, Jett,” groused Hawk. “Can you not be obnoxious for once?”

  “Only once? I guess that’s reasonable, but it’ll cost ya.”

  “Oh Shones, are we being followed?” Mom suddenly asked. There was a pause, and then, “No, they turned. Oh, I’ll be so glad once this trip is over!”

  The rain had picked up even further by the time we got to the hotel, a cold and biting late fall rain that took the last leaves off the trees and overflowed the gutters. After hot early showers we mostly lazed around the hotel room. Except for Dad, of course, who was busy on his laptop.

  I looked out into the night, where the rain still came down in sheets.

  “This trip sucks,” I announced. “Are we going to do anything fun?”

  “I’m going with Dad on the helicopter tomorrow,” said Hawk without looking up from his book.

  “What? That’s not fair!”

  “Sorry son,” said Dad. “They have age restrictions.”

  “They’ll need to be up really early,” said Mom. “We’ll get to sleep in.”

  I thought about that. “I do like sleeping in.”

  “You and your mother can check out the town,” Dad offered. “Maybe find an arcade or take in a movie. Don’t worry. If everything goes well tomorrow I have a little surprise planned.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Jett, chill,” said Hawk.

  Mom went over and whispered something to Dad. Then she walked over to where I was lounging on the kids’ bed.

  “Listen,” she said. “I know these trips are long and boring. Your father is doing important work, and we’re hoping you kids will get to be there when he makes an amazing, world-changing discovery. But I know, we haven’t hit any beaches or roller coasters this time around. So your father and I are making you boys a promise. Next trip? It’ll be all about the family. No meetings, no lectures, no double booking.”

  “No staying over at the Faxtons and calling their pool a ‘water park’ just because it has two slides?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No. It’ll be a real vacation, okay?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

  “Ok. So, we want to give you both something to mark that promise.”

  Dad stood, and with a little too much ceremony, they both removed something from their necks.

  Dad presented Hawk with his charm necklace. It was what appeared to be a clear marble on a chain. Hawk put it around his own neck. After some experimenting he got it to glow. “Oh, it’s this? Wow, thanks Dad.”

  My jaw dropped. “What? I never knew that thing was an artifact! Is that a standalone? What do I get?”

  Mom smirked sheepishly, looked down at her hand, and sighed. Then she reverently handed me her favorite heart locket.

  “What the hell?” I whined.

  “Language,” Dad said.

  “We’re giving you things important to us, dear,” Mom said. “Believe me, part of me… doesn’t like to part with this old thing. But I’m doing it because I love you. Think of it as collateral.”

  I pinched the chain between two fingers, holding the locket like a dead rat. “But it’s something a girl would wear.”

  “It’s something a boy who loves his mother would wear.”

  I sighed, starting to look for a latch. As I touched the heart itself I felt a strange warmth spread through my body. For a split second I dared to hope this might be an artifact after all. Then the warmth subsided. “Well, I’m not wearing it to school. Does this even open?”

  “It will, when you need it to.”

  I looked up at my mother. Her long red hair was almost my exact shade. Her eyes weren’t red like mine, but a brilliant golden color. I saw something in those eyes, in her face. Love, fear, fatigue. All nearly overwhelming, all fighting for control. It would make a lot more sense to me later, why all of those feelings were practically radiating off of her in that moment, but that wasn't all of it. I think all mothers have that look.

  I fastened the locket around my neck. I still gave her a begrudging look, because I had my pride. “Thanks,” I muttered.

  She gave me a kiss on the forehead. “All right boys, I think it’s time to get some sleep.”

  We settled in and turned the lights out. Hawk complained when he had to put his book down. Dad complained when he finally had to close his laptop. Mom doted and kissed both of us boys, and I waited until she wasn’t looking to wipe mine off. Soon we were slowly drifting off to the sound of the buffeting wind and rain. I stared at the drips on the window in the darkness, feeling a strange sense of foreboding.

  The storm seemed so angry somehow, so cold. It didn’t feel like something that would pass; it felt eternal, like it would always howl and gnash and try to get to me. The warmth and quiet of the room, on the other hand, felt strangely fragile. Not like we were inside a sturdy building, but like we were in a temporary and all too fragile shelter. And that the storm, relentless, would get in eventually, no matter what.

  I hated to admit it, but clutching mom’s stupid girly locket was what finally calmed those thoughts and let me fall asleep.