Occasionally, they had to reorient themselves as the vibrations would slow down in certain directions. The entire thing had been haphazard and at times almost frustrating, and while Avonova was probably not even the size of Denver, devoid of a lot of activity in the rural areas, it felt like it was the size of New Detroit.

  “StarKat,” Gloria said, fighting fatigue and the fear of the unknown, “tell me we’re getting closer.”

  “Yes! The Designer is near!”

  Chapter

  Seventy

  Emboldened with a new enthusiasm, Gloria continued to trudge forward.

  “You know what I loved about The StarKat and Friends Show?” Gloria said. “Everything was about the power of friendship.”

  She smiled, and she could feel StarKat’s approving, warm glow throughout the parka.

  “There was an episode where you and the crew defeated a blackhole with the power of friendship. I loved that.”

  “To friendship and beyond,” StarKat said.

  Hearing that catchphrase took Gloria back to her childhood, to a time when she felt safe.

  She was now more determined than ever to find The Designer—and hopefully her father.

  Chapter

  Seventy-One

  It took a few minutes for Gloria to realize StarKat was no longer yelling.

  “I feel my coding beginning to change. I feel more alive,” StarKat said.

  Gloria knew what she meant. She, too, had been feeling herself change, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on exactly how she was changing.

  “I’m glad you’re my friend,” Gloria said.

  StarKat squeezed Gloria in a warm, glowing embrace.

  “Thanks,” Gloria responded.

  Immediately StarKat halted her.

  “I have good news and bad news,” StarKat said. “We have nearly reached The Designer—but it appears The Designer is in the Tombs of Perpetua.”

  Chapter

  Seventy-Two

  All Gloria could think about was the warning Jet had given her to stay away from the Tombs of Perpetua. How could The Designer be there? Was he dead? Was he a ghost?

  She felt as though her feet were encased in concrete and incapable of taking even a single step more.

  “I’m afraid, too,” StarKat said. “The Tombs of Perpetua are not a part of my internal map. It is completely unknown territory.”

  Yet whoever had programmed StarKat was there.

  “The Designer is there, though,” Gloria responded. “That means we have to keep going—regardless of where it leads.”

  Chapter

  Seventy-Three

  The vibrations rippling through StarKat were now occurring every other minute. They were close—and they knew it.

  Out ahead of them was what appeared to be a cavern, the massive crevices going lower into the ground. On the stone wall of the entrance was the word “Gloria” carved deeply into it.

  Gloria shivered and pulled StarKat closer, tighter.

  As they began to descend into the cavern, they noticed a stone pleach that signaled that this was not a natural formation. It had been crafted for a particular purpose.

  Whatever happened in the Tombs of Perpetua would surely be personal.

  Chapter

  Seventy-Four

  With the vibrations now coming less than thirty seconds apart, GloKat had descended so far down that the light of the sky was barely visible, yet there was some mild source of illumination coming from somewhere.

  Suddenly, StarKat began to vibrate so rapidly that the parka caused Gloria’s back to itch and her thoughts to stutter.

  “Stop!” Gloria yelled, unable to hear her own voice.

  “I’m trying to, but I can’t!” StarKat responded, her voice returning to the feverish uncontrolled volume she’d recently escaped.

  Immediately, the ground on which they stood vibrated, too.

  “Help!” Gloria yelled.

  Then everything became still.

  Chapter

  Seventy-Five

  The corridor split into five different paths, and GloKat didn’t know which way to go. Darkness masked each path, and with no beacon, they were forced to figure the correct one on their own.

  “Maybe this is some kind of logic game,” Gloria managed. She just needed to hear a sound in the void to feel somewhat in control of the moment.

  “I don’t think that it is,” StarKat replied. “We have to just pick one and hope for the best.”

  That was what Gloria feared most.

  “StarKat, I think we should take the middle path.”

  She exhaled, continuing forward.

  Chapter

  Seventy-Six

  The path was actually a tunnel, and it seemed to stretch on forever. Going backward was not an option, as far as they were concerned, so they moved forward, fighting trepidation with every step.

  In the stillness of the tunnel, which seemed barely wide enough to accommodate them, Gloria began to sing a song she hadn’t thought of in years. It was a song her father used to sing to her as a child.

  StarKat began to sing along, their voices harmonizing in the dark, clinging to the memory of Charles Lloyd Holbrook, as if it might’ve been their last.

  Chapter

  Seventy-Seven

  They felt him before they saw him.

  The energy was like a wall that seemed to extend beyond the cavern, up above the surface, then on into the sky overhead.

  GloKat stopped, the silence around them giving way to what sounded like some kind of electromagnetic buzz.

  “Daddy, are you here?” Gloria asked.

  From a distance ahead, a glowing figure appeared, seemingly smaller than Gloria. Because of the distance and the haziness of its glow, they couldn’t make out much of what they were seeing.

  “Time is immaterial here, but I can see that you arrived later than I’d expected.”

  Chapter

  Seventy-Eight

  The figure rippled like an apparition before them, its long robe masking the shape of its body and a large pocket watch floating in the place of its head.

  Gloria thought she would have panicked after seeing such a thing, but even in her nineteen-year-old brain, she could perceive that this was a being to be in awe of, not afraid of.

  It towered over them, more like a tall person than a giant. Nothing about it appeared human, though she could sense at one time it may have been.

  “Gloria,” the being said, “I am glad you made it.”

  Chapter

  Seventy-Nine

  The word “daddy” rested behind her teeth like a mouthful of water, eager to eject itself onto what lay before it, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it, not to this—thing.

  “Gloria, I am so happy that you’ve finally arrived,” the being said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “StarKat, is this him?” she whispered inside the bottom portion of her hood, but there was no response, only the energy beaming in front of her. She was at a loss for words.

  “My, how you’ve grown,” it said. “You are clearly not twelve anymore.”

  “That was seven years ago.”

  Chapter

  Eighty

  “You look so much like your mother,” the being said.

  In that moment, all of Gloria’s defenses fell and she lunged at the figure, arms enveloping the glowing light rippling before her.

  As she held on, she could feel her father’s body gradually materializing until she found herself crying into his dress shirt, as he whispered, “Glo, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Daddy,” she managed, taking in his true face, her body still trying to steady itself beneath the weight of her emotions.

  “You were supposed to have come here when you were twelve,” he said.

  She could only laugh.

  Chapter

  Eighty-One

  “Why didn’t you come back?”

  It wasn’t the question she meant to ask first, but it came out against her will, her body no longer capable of holding it in.

  He reached for her hands, and a chill flashed across her body, a mixture of nostalgia and something different, ethereal.

  “I’m sure you have so many questions—and I’ll do my best to answer them.” He smiled as if he were the proudest parent in the universe. “You may have noticed that I disabled your jacket.”

  “Will StarKat be okay?”

  “Of course. I just need for us to talk first.”

  Chapter

  Eighty-Two

  Charles patiently explained to Gloria how Arturio Industries had become aware of Avonova and had worked to create a device to transport people there. They were afraid their competitors would discover the existence of Avonova and create transporters, too.

  Charles had been the only one to figure out how to do it, but rather than share it with Arturio Industries, whom he had grown to distrust over time, he decided to encode a StarKat parka in hopes that Gloria would come to join him once he left to explore this new place himself, this paradisiacal alternative to a dying Earth.

  Chapter

  Eighty-Three

  Her father hated when she used to say “huh,” so she opted for something a bit more formal. “Please help me to understand.”

  Charles nodded. “I am one of a number of Charleses who fathered you—and even many who did not. We are from all parts of time. The people here have different names for us. Some call us ghosts. Some know us by our true name. The Avos who came here before me were the ones who created this place.”

  “Are you even still my father?” Gloria asked.

  “I am, have been, and will always be your father.”

  Chapter

  Eighty-Four

  Gloria stepped back and paced around in a circle, searching for her words. Yesterday she had been in her dorm room lamenting her loneliness. Today she was traversing a fantastical realm with a talking parka and speaking to her “dead” father, who had turned into some kind of deity and now wanted her to join him. She knew the human brain wasn’t meant to try to understand all of these things in a single moment.

  She remembered Jet’s advice and danced on her tiptoes from side to side. If she had to face this, she had to relax herself completely.

  Chapter

  Eighty-Five

  One by one, Gloria began to ask every question that filled her head.

  Charles answered each of them slowly and deliberately, though his explanations defied any logic she could apply.

  He explained to her how the Machina were living, thinking, autonomous robots with machinations of their own.

  He also explained what he could about how the Fabled were magical, whimsical creatures who brought with them their own beautiful mysteries.

  He told Gloria as much as he could, as much as he felt his daughter could truly and completely comprehend.

  And she did her best to try to absorb it all.

  Chapter

  Eighty-Six

  He talked and she listened.

  And the two of them seemed to stand momentarily outside of time.

  He wanted her to stay there. This is what he’d always wanted—even before he became an Avos.

  No, she didn’t have to merge with other Glorias from other multiverses.

  No, none of the other Glorias had arrived, nor were there plans to bring them to Avonova.

  Charles just wanted to make sure she felt safe and loved and protected and that she could enjoy the beautiful bounty of this special place.

  His voice was familiar, but everything else about him had changed.

  Chapter

  Eighty-Seven

  “Please consider staying here with me, with us,” Charles said.

  “But my life is back on Earth. Can’t you come back with me?”

  “I have made my choice. I am bound to this place. I am bound to all versions of me. It is you who needs protecting.”

  “Protecting from what?” Gloria asked, growing alarmed.

  “Your Earth is dying.”

  She shrugged. “We still have, like, two hundred years left—and more, if I have anything to say about it.”

  “No, Gloria, you don’t. Like other Earths across the multiverse, yours will end sooner than you think.”

  “How soon?”

  “Very soon.”

  Chapter

  Eighty-Eight

  So that was why she was here, she realized. He didn’t want her to die on Earth.

  The scientists’ calculations were wrong. According to her father, the destruction would be final during her lifetime.

  “I admire that you want to fight for Earth,” Charles said. “Your mother would’ve been so proud of you for doing that, but you should know that is a lost cause.

  “Ask yourself if you are happy here, if you have friends here. You’d be leaving them behind—and me, too.”

  “StarKat would come back with me,” she said.

  “She’d only be a parka on Earth.”

  Chapter

  Eighty-Nine

  “Can I go home to Earth, then come back here?” Gloria asked.

  “I’m sorry, Glo. It doesn’t work that way. You have to make your choice now. If you leave, there will be no way back here—at least none that I know of. I’m sure Arturio Industries abandoned the project after I left.”

  “What about those people on the space stations?”

  “Your Earth will implode taking everything, satellites and space stations with it. It will all be gone.”

  Gloria cried, “We have to warn them and try to save as many people as we can!”

  “That’s not an option.”

  Chapter

  Ninety

  “When I lived on Earth, it was a rat race. People were just sticking their heads in the sand, ignoring the inevitable.”

  This Charles Lloyd Holbrook had no problem leaving his wife on Earth, had no problem watching a billion people die, because this Charles Lloyd Holbrook knew there were other Earths and other versions of these people functioning in some way that made the death of her Earth much easier to accept.

  He was everything she’d loved about her father, but also something very different.

  Could she leave Earth behind to stay here with this version of her father?

  Chapter

  Ninety-One

  Gloria slowly removed StarKat and placed her lifeless fabric on the ground next to her. If she decided to stay here, the parka would reanimate and operate autonomously, as she had during the latter part of their journey.

  She thought about Snooker with his strange floating toupée, Hotpaws with his fun, endearing caveman cadence, Jet with his dope dance moves, and Inksy with her boss swagger. She thought about the beautiful floating lands and the waterfalls that drifted upward. Then she thought about the lush magenta, cyan, yellow, and green landscape.

  That’s when she remembered.

  She reached into StarKat’s pocket.

  Chapter

  Ninety-Two

  The Avonovan Irises were still there—a pocketful. Maybe there was some hope for her after all.

  “What do you have there?” Charles asked.

  “Avonovan Irises I found on the way here.”

  He pondered this, then said, “What do you plan to do with those?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe there’s something in these that can save Earth,” Gloria responded.

  “I don’t know if you can take them from Avonova. I don’t think anyone’s ever tried. Usually, when people come to Avonova, they love it here and never think of leaving.”

  “Avonova is beautiful,” Gloria said. “But so is Earth.”

  Chapter

  Ninety-Three

  “I never considered this course of action,” Charles said, pensively. “I guess that’s why you’re more like your mother than me. She would have done whatever she could to help other people, to give them a fighting chance.”

  Gloria thought back to the time her father took her to New Detroit and they used all of their water on themselves. She didn’t ever want to be in a position to help others and not do it.

  “I have to return home,” she finally said. “If there’s a chance to save the Earth…”

  “Then you have to take it,” Charles finished.

  Chapter

  Ninety-Four

  “Look at me, Glo,” Charles said. “I know I have lost a lot of myself since I’ve been here, but I need you to understand something. My finest accomplishment in life has been my being your dad. I know that now more than I ever have. You are a smart, beautiful, amazing young woman—and you did all of that without my physically being there.

  “But don’t think for a moment that I have ever stopped thinking about you, that I have ever stopped loving you. You are my daughter, Glo, and you’ll be my daughter throughout all of time.”

  Chapter

  Ninety-Five

  Once again Gloria dove into her father’s embrace and took a deep, deep breath. She never wanted to let him go. She wanted to lock this moment into her memory forever.

 

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