Chapter 23: Roberto's Return, the Gleam on the Horizon, and the Navigator's Arrival
In Joey's house, the tension was palpable after the call from the police station. Roberto took what felt like an eternity to return.
When he finally entered, his face was heavy, a mixture of irritation and a perplexity he rarely showed.
"So, Dad? What happened?" Léo asked immediately, his curiosity overriding any apprehension. Clara approached, her hands clasped, waiting.
Roberto dropped his keys on the entryway table with a thud. "Waste of time, that's what it was," he grumbled, loosening his shirt collar. "Some kind of vandalism at the substation in the Industrial District. They cut some wires, took some old batteries, and left behind some... junk that nobody knows what it is. Looked like a madman's watchmaking tools."
Joey's stomach turned to ice. Pip. His analytical mind immediately connected the dots: the "strange tools" were undoubtedly the energy siphoning probes she'd had to discard. The fact that they only mentioned "old batteries" and not a significant power drain might be a good sign; perhaps she hadn't been directly detected. Even so, his father being involved, the police investigating... the web of danger seemed to be tightening, threatening his already fragile sense of security.
"But why did they call you, Roberto?" Clara asked, her voice soft.
"Because I'm the chief engineer responsible for security there!" he exploded, his irritation surfacing. "They wanted to know if the alarm system worked properly, if the cameras caught anything. They caught shadows, figures. A blur. Incompetence, that's what it is. And now I have a pile of reports to fill out on a Sunday morning!"
He threw himself into the armchair, huffing. "This city is getting weirder and weirder. First that 'thing' that fell from the sky, then people in costumes scaring others in the park, now this. Pretty soon they'll be saying it was the work of ETs."
Joey felt a chill at his father's casual mention. If only he knew how close to the truth he was... The weight of his secret knowledge, which he preferred to keep to himself, and the concern for Pip – and Lyra, and the others – were an overwhelming burden, making him feel even more like an outsider in his own home. The previous night, the shared silence with Lyra in the abandoned cinema, seemed like a distant dream, a bubble of peace that the harsh reality of the morning threatened to shatter. But the memory of that moment, of that profound, unspoken connection, was also an anchor for his wandering soul. He couldn't just shrink back into his fear.
Léo, on the other hand, seemed electrified by the events. "Strange tools? Do you think it's related to the other mysteries, Dad? Like, an alien invasion in stages?"
"Don't talk nonsense, Leonardo!" Roberto snapped. "It's just vandalism. Kids with nothing better to do." But there was a wrinkle of doubt on his forehead that hadn't escaped Joey's notice.
While the family processed the news, a few kilometers away, Pip, in her refuge in the industrial area, was exhausted, but her small camouflage device now emitted a steady hum, and her portal locator showed a faint but legible three-dimensional map of nearby dimensional fluctuations. The energy she had collected was sufficient. She now needed to find a safe place with minimal interference to try and calibrate an escape route.
Lyra, in the abandoned cinema, had eaten the cereal bars Joey had left. The kindness of this unknown human was as great a mystery as her presence in this hostile world. She felt a little stronger, but the loneliness and uncertainty remained. She looked at the torn old movie posters on the walls, images of strange faces and worlds, trying to find some meaning, some clue.
Kael, the Tracker, from his elevated observation point, had noted the police activity in the industrial area during the early hours and the subsequent summons of what he identified as a "senior local technician" – Joey's father. He was also aware of Zylar's brief absence from his makeshift cell the previous night, followed by intensified security. The space engineer was resourceful. The situation was becoming increasingly volatile, with multiple agents from different realities acting and reacting. Joey, somehow, seemed to be at the nexus of several of these interactions.
It was then, around ten-thirty that Saturday morning, that something new happened.
Joey was in his room, trying to process the information about the substation and his father's involvement. He looked out the window, the clear blue sky stretching to the horizon. Suddenly, a point of light appeared in the distance, to the east. It wasn't an airplane. It was too bright, almost like a fragment of a star visible in daylight. The point seemed to grow in intensity for an instant, emitting a subtle prismatic glow, before diminishing and disappearing, as if it had been a mirage caused by the heat.
Joey frowned, his mind trying to find a factual explanation. Had it been his imagination? Another effect of stress and sleep deprivation? He often doubted his own perceptions when they couldn't be immediately verified. He rubbed his eyes.
But he wasn't the only one to notice. Kael, with his advanced optical sensors, registered the luminous anomaly. It wasn't a conventional portal entry, nor a warp drive signature like Zylar's. It was something different, more controlled, almost elegant. An unknown but stable energy reading briefly appeared on his instruments before normalizing.
A few kilometers from the city center, in a more isolated pasture area where the glow seemed to extinguish, the air shimmered like hot asphalt. Slowly, a shape began to materialize. It wasn't an abrupt fall or a tear in the fabric of reality, but a smooth condensation, as if unfolding from an adjacent dimension. When the shape solidified, it revealed itself to be something resembling a small exploration probe, metallic and with aerodynamic lines, but with an aesthetic that belonged to no known terrestrial technology. It was perhaps three meters long and landed with an almost inaudible hiss on the dry grass, without raising any dust.
A small side hatch opened, not with a creak, but with a fluid, silent movement. And from it, emerged a woman. She was tall, with an elegant and confident posture. Her long hair was a vibrant red, like autumnal fire, and her equally expressive eyes seemed to analyze the surroundings with a mixture of scientific curiosity and thoughtful composure. She wore an outfit that was both practical and sophisticated, in shades of dark red with gold details, suggesting a uniform, but with a cut that spoke of adventure and exploration. In her hands, she held a device that looked like an advanced tablet, its screen already displaying environmental readings.
It was Himeko, navigator of the Astral Express.
She took a few steps out of the probe, her gaze sweeping the city landscape – the distant hills, the blue sky, the vegetation atypical for the worlds she usually visited. A slight smile of appreciation and curiosity touched her lips.
"Interesting," she murmured to herself, her voice calm and melodious. "The spatial fluctuation readings were correct. There's an unusual concentration of dimensional distortions at this coordinate. And the biological signature... remarkably human, but with some intriguing anomalous energy signatures nearby." She consulted her tablet. "The Express is awaiting in a stable orbit. This exploratory probe should be sufficient for an initial assessment." Her gaze fixed in one direction, towards the general area of the city. "Let's see what this little world has to offer us."
Himeko didn't seem scared or lost, but rather like a scientist embarking on new and exciting fieldwork. Her motivation was exploration and discovery. She was the personification of the adventurous spirit, ready to unravel the mysteries of this new location.
Back in his house, Joey, still looking out the window, felt a strange restlessness, his tendency to worry now latching onto this new, unexplained visual. It was as if the brief point of light in the sky were an omen. He couldn't know it, but a new piece had just entered the complex puzzle of your city, a piece that could bring answers or, perhaps, even more questions.
Himeko's arrival, with her scientific calm and exploratory spirit, would add a new layer to the already intricate tapestry of destinies intertwining in that small town in the interior.
Saturday had barely begun, and it already carried the weight of the night's revelations and the promise of new and unknown encounters. For Joey, who dreamed of a world without wars or evil, the arrival of each of these beings from other universes was a profound test of his own fears and a call to the empathy he so valued, a call to actively try and understand them, even if he didn't yet know how to express it fully or what role he could possibly play.
Himeko's presence, a figure who exuded competence and an almost maternal curiosity about the universe, might eventually offer a different kind of interaction, perhaps even a path to some understanding. But for now, she was just another mystery under the bright of that city sun, another factor in the growing chaos that Joey was trying to navigate from the quiet solitude of his room.
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