Traveler by L.E. DeLano (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📗

replies smoothly. “I know why Jessa has been targeted.”

Finn reaches out for my hand and pulls me gently into my seat again. “Let’s listen,” he says. “If Mario knows the motivation, it’ll give us somewhere to look.”

“All right,” I say, taking my seat again. “What did one of me do to piss this person off?”

Mario steps back, and the whiteboard behind him lights up.

“We’re going to have a bit of a history lesson first,” he says. “We’re going back a few thousand years, before we began using Travelers.”

“You haven’t always had Travelers?”

“We didn’t need them early on,” Rudy says. “We used the dreamscape to communicate directly, through oracles, priests, and shamans. People were much simpler then, much more inclined to primitive beliefs. We directed the oracles, and they directed the people.”

“And then mankind began innovating,” Mario continues, as the whiteboard behind him lights up with civilizations and history progressing. “Science and industry ushered in higher levels of conscious thought and an endless curiosity about the world they lived in. People began moving away from their more primitive beliefs, and we needed to find a way to keep the reality streams in check.”

“So you created Travelers?” I ask.

Mario’s mouth tilts up at one corner. “No. You created yourself. We just realized your potential.”

“Travelers just suddenly began appearing?” Finn asks. “What started that?”

“There was only one, to begin with,” Mario says. “Think of her as a mutation of sorts. But she was born with the ability, and we learned a lot from her.”

“Eventually, other Travelers began spontaneously emerging, and we realized the full potential we could draw from them,” Rudy says.

“But the first Traveler was especially important. Her name was Viatrix,” Mario says, and a woman’s face appears behind him. She looks like she may be Greek or Roman from the hairstyle. “This is where you come in, Jessa, because you are her direct descendant, and the only living Traveler who can make that claim.”

“So … another Traveler wants me dead because of my heritage?” I’m confused. Is this some kind of weird Traveler racism?

“Viatrix was the only one of her kind for many years—decades, actually,” Mario continues.

“And in the course of our study of her phenomenon and its far-reaching repercussions, a prophecy was made,” Rudy adds.

“What sort of prophecy?” Finn asks—and he’s looking as uneasy about that word as I am.

“First, you have to understand that ‘prophecy’ is an archaic word,” Mario says, giving Rudy a stern look. “Think of it as more of a … forecast. We cannot absolutely predict the future, not while mankind has free will. There are too many variables.”

“And there’s a forecast involving a descendant of this … Viatrix?” Finn asks.

“A time was foretold when the multitude of realities would become too great and too complicated to control as we’ve been doing,” Rudy says. “When that occurs, a convergence can take place.”

“And a convergence would be catastrophic,” Mario says, “erasing all the reality streams, with the exception of the original stream.”

“Which, unfortunately, we’ve been unable to locate,” Rudy says. “The streams are too vast and variable. The time to trace it all back would be incalculable and take far more resources than we as Dreamers have to commit to it.”

I feel sick to my stomach. Thousands of realities—millions of them, all wiped out. It’s almost beyond comprehension.

“So where do I come into play?” I ask warily.

“You’re the only one who can stop it.” Mario walks back over to his desk and leans against it.

“Potentially,” Rudy amends. “The prophecy was made that a Traveler descendant of Viatrix prime would have the ability to defeat the convergence.”

“Viatrix prime?” Finn asks. “As in … she was in the original reality stream?”

“Exactly,” Mario said. “And once the forecast was made, I began researching back, to find the origin stream. It’s taken millennia, but I’ve put the final effort into it recently, in light of certain events. I now know that this Jessa is not only the descendant of Viatrix, but she’s the descendant of Viatrix prime.”

Rudy looks as startled as we are by the news.

“You’re certain of this?” he asks. “Jessa’s reality is the origin?”

“Absolutely.”

“What do you mean, ‘in light of certain events’?” I ask.

“The reality streams are beginning to splinter,” Rudy says. “You haven’t noticed the effect yet, and may not for some time if you are indeed within the origin. But in some of the later streams, the more recently created, we’ve seen fragmenting. Realities crossing or becoming skewed.”

“None of it is catastrophic,” Mario says. “We are able to contain it with some judiciously placed corrections. But it’s there all the same and it’s a constant battle to stay ahead of it.”

Finn looks up at Rudy. “What happens if that continues?”

Rudy makes a face. “If it goes unchecked, chaos. Widespread and potentially uncontained chaos.”

“Here’s my theory,” Mario says. “A Traveler—a very well-seasoned Traveler—has seen some of this splintering and reported it to their Dreamer, who would, of course, know the prophecy. Someone may be taking it upon themselves to make their job a little easier.”

Finn’s jaw drops. “You think there’s a Dreamer behind this? They’re trying to simplify by cutting out all the other reality streams?”

“But who?” Rudy asks. “I’ve been very thorough in my research regarding this rogue Traveler. My investigations haven’t turned up anything.”

“Yet,” Mario qualifies. “If there’s a Traveler, there has to be a Dreamer, which means someone is pulling the strings.”

“Or it means someone has cut the strings and is working without a tether,” Rudy says pointedly. “Either scenario is a disaster in the making.”

“So what happens if there’s a convergence?” I interrupt.

Mario gestures to the whiteboard, where thousands of intersecting lines begin to splinter, then morph together, condensing into one solid line. “If the convergence is allowed to occur, we reset. New reality streams would begin from the origin as before, but in a smaller and much more easily controlled fashion.”

“But millions of people—”

“Billions,” Mario interrupts me. “Billions upon billions. All gone. Vanished in an instant, as though they never existed at all.”

I turn to look at