Well...
This is awkward.
I usually enjoy the anonymity of this job. I like being the voice in the void, the invisible observer describing the tension in the room or the way the starlight hits the hull. I am the ghost in the machine.
I am the fourth wall.
I am not supposed to be… perceived.
But now?
I felt naked.
Tonix was staring at the empty space next to Ragia's head. Her eyes were wide, calculating, and filled with a very specific kind of terrified confusion.
She looked like a cat that had just realized the red dot on the wall was being controlled by a higher power.
"You hear him," Ragia stated.
It was not a question.
Then, Ragia burst out laughing.
He slapped his knee, the sound echoing in the silent command center. It was a loud, genuine laugh that seemed completely out of place given the existential crisis currently unfolding at the helm.
"Look at your face, Navi," Ragia crowed, wiping a tear from his eye. "And yours too, Narrator. I can practically feel your anxiety spiking through the prose."
"It is impossible," Tonix whispered, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair. "He... the voice. He is describing my fear right now. He is talking about me like I am a character in a book."
"Technically, you are," Ragia grinned. "But let us not get into metaphysics just yet."
"Why?" Tonix demanded. "Why can I hear him? Chef can't hear him. Vice can't hear him. Why me?"
Ragia leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head.
"It is simple, Navi," Ragia said. "You are the Navigator. You are tuned to frequencies. You listen to the hum of the universe to guide the ship.
"It makes sense that you can hear the guy describing the hum."
I sighed…
That is the laziest explanation I have ever heard, Ragia.
Ragia rolled his eyes at the empty air.
"Don't start with me," Ragia said to me.
It is a plot hole, Ragia.
It is a massive, gaping crater in narrative logic. The readers are going to riot. They want hard sci-fi. They want explanations about quantum entanglement or neural link degradation.
They do not want 'she hears voices because she reads maps'!
"Nobody reads the lore for the logic, Narrator," Ragia countered, waving his hand dismissively. "They read it for the vibes. They read it for the chaos. Just roll with it."
I groaned.
This is exactly why I hate working with you. You think confidence is a substitute for coherent storytelling.
"How?" Tonix asked again. Her voice was trembling. "Capt... stop talking to the air. Tell me how this is happening. Who is he?"
Ragia looked at me. He raised an eyebrow.
"Well?" Ragia asked. "Do you want to tell her? Or should I?"
I paused.
This was irregular. This was breaking every rule in the handbook.
But…
Then again, Ragia had shot the author of this book, so maybe the rules were more like guidelines now.
May I?
Ragia nodded. "Go ahead. Give her the recap. But keep it brief. We have a traitor to catch."
I focused my attention on Tonix.
Listen closely, Navi. This is going to sound crazy. Crazier than the time you tried to freeze a volcano.
"I am listening," Tonix whispered, looking around nervously.
It started two years ago.
Not the two years you remember, but the real two years ago. The timeline that never happened.
"The timeline that never happened?" Tonix frowned.
Ragia died, Navi.
Tonix flinched. She looked at Ragia, who was sitting there, alive and breathing and annoying.
He died on the floor of the Quarso Estate. His heart stopped. The Krall poison and the strain of the Queen Form killed him.
"But... he is right here," Tonix argued.
Because Iya saved him, Tonix.
Remember she used the Tickling Clock?
She stopped time at the exact moment of his death, but the cost was high. It broke reality. It trapped her and Ragia in a place called the White Room.
"The White Room?" Tonix repeated.
A void between chapters.
A blank space where stories go to die. They met a man there. He called himself The Writer. He was the god of this universe. He was the one who decided Ragia should die. He was the one who planned to turn Ragia into a full Krall Queen and have him eat the crew.
Tonix paled. She looked sick.
But Ragia... being Ragia... did not accept that ending. He shot The Writer.
"With what?" Tonix asked.
With a raygun he wrote into existence.
"He wrote a gun?" Tonix looked at Ragia. "You can write?"
"I have hidden talents," Ragia winked.
He took the book of our lives, and he rewrote the ending.
He skipped the tragedy. He wrote a sequel where he lived. Where you lived. Where he married Iya on the moon and everyone was happy.
"So..." Tonix rubbed her temples. "The last two years. The wedding? The patrols? The peace?"
It was a fabrication.
A reality pasted over the old one. That is why Mira felt like she was remembering a dream. That is why you feel like there are gaps in your memory.
Because there are.
"We are living in a draft," Tonix whispered. The realization hit her hard. "We are living in a story that Ragia wrote to save us."
"Basically," Ragia agreed. "I am a pretty good author, right? I gave you guys a raise."
"But the power," Tonix looked at him. "To change reality. To write things into existence. Where does it come from?"
Ragia sat up straight. His expression darkened.
"The book," Ragia said. "The manuscript I found in the White Room. It had the power to alter the narrative."
"Where is it?" Tonix asked. "If we have that book, we can find the traitor! We can write him out of existence!"
It is gone, Tonix.
"Gone?" Tonix looked at the air again.
Iya burned it.
"Vice burned it?"
"Yes," Ragia said softly. "When we came back... when we woke up in this new timeline... I showed her the book. She was terrified of it. She said no one should have that kind of power. She made me throw it into the ship's incinerator. She watched it turn to ash."
"So we are stuck?" Tonix asked. "We are back to normal?"
"Not exactly," Ragia grinned.
He reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket.
He pulled out an object.
It was a pen.
A cheap, white plastic ballpoint pen. The kind you buy in a pack of ten for a dollar. It looked chewed on the end.
"She burned the book," Ragia whispered, spinning the pen between his fingers. "But she forgot about this pen."
Tonix stared at the pen. It looked so ordinary. So mundane.
"That thing?" Tonix asked skeptically. "That is the source of your power?"
"The ink is special," Ragia said mysteriously. "Or maybe it is the hand holding it. I kept it, Navi. I carry it everywhere. Just in case."
"And the Narrator?" Tonix pointed at me again. "Did you write him too?"
"I got bored," Ragia admitted. "Last week. I was in the mess hall. It was late. I grabbed a napkin. I just wanted to see if it still worked. So I wrote one word."
Yeah… he wrote 'Narrator'.
"And suddenly," Ragia laughed. "I had this voice in my head. Describing the texture of the table. Criticizing my posture. It was annoying, but it was company."
I am not just company, Ragia. I am a literary device essential for structural integrity.
"You are a glorified diary," Ragia corrected.
Tonix looked from the pen to Ragia. She looked terrified.
"Does Vice know?" Tonix asked.
"No," Ragia said instantly. "And she can never know. She thinks the power is gone. She thinks we are safe because the magic book is ash. If she knew I still had the pen... if she knew I could still change things..."
"She would kill you," Tonix finished.
"Exactly," Ragia said. "So this stays between us, Navi. You, me, and the Narrator."
"Aye, Capt," Tonix whispered.
Just then, the sound of boots echoed in the corridor.
The door to the command center hissed open.
Iya walked in. She looked sharp, her red uniform immaculate, her face a mask of determination. Raya followed her, still looking at her datapad.
Ragia moved faster than I have ever seen him move.
He shoved the pen back into his pocket. He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the console. He put on his best 'I am a lazy Captain' smile.
"Welcome back, ladies," Ragia said smoothly. "Find anything interesting?"
Iya looked at him. She looked at Tonix.
"Navi?" Iya asked. "Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?"
Tonix jumped. She turned to her console, her fingers tapping blindly on the keys.
"Just... running diagnostics, Vice," Tonix lied. Her voice was a little too high. "The sensors are... twitchy today."
"The sensors are fine," Raya muttered, not looking up. "It is the bio-readings that are concerning."
Ragia looked at Tonix. He put a finger to his lips. Then he looked at me.
"And you," Ragia thought, projecting his voice straight to me. "Shut up! Not a word about the pen. Not a word about the rewrite."
I will be silent as the grave, Capt.
But remember...
Chekhov's Gun states that if you show a gun in the first act, it must go off in the third.
You just showed a pen that can rewrite reality. I wonder when that is going to go off.
"Navi," Ragia said aloud. "Set a course. We are patrolling the perimeter. I want to be ready."
"Aye, Capt," Tonix said.
She didn't look at the empty space anymore.
She looked at the stars, but I knew she was listening.
And…
I knew that this Chaotic Fanfare was just beginning.