He was almost certain about this purchase. All the numbers added up. Everything about it made sense. Really, all there was left was to actually see the place and make sure that it lived up to the descriptions and the photos in the advertisements.

The unicorn man folded up his papers again and returned them to his breast pocket. He leaned back slightly in his seat and commenced watching the buildings go by outside the window.

Yes!

Kaitlyn allowed herself a triumphant smirk. Picture taken! When she got home today, Lisa could help her figure out what all this graphy numbery money stuff meant. If the picture was any good, and if they could still take it off the phone and onto a computer.

Then the invisible girl started talking to her. What happened? What happened to what? Was she asking about why Kaitlyn was taking pictures of the unicorn-guy's stuff? Was the invisible girl in cahoots with the unicorn? Was she some kind of invisible bodyguard? Maybe she was spying on Sebastian too? Or maybe she was working for Sebastian, and spying on her! Or maybe...

A wide-eyed Kaitlyn stared at the space where she thought the invisible girl was sitting, terrible possibilities flying through her mind. Until she realized that every single one of those possibilities was completely stupid. She was probably just a mutant who couldn't turn her invisibility off. Or maybe she was just hiding to avoid having to pay for bus fare. Or something completely unrelated to evil unicorns. Because who ever heard of an evil unicorn, right? Nobody. That's just silly.

"Nothing! I was just... texting. I mean, what happened to what?"

The way Kaitlyn answered that totally didn't betray any guilt. Because there was nothing for her to be guilty about. She was clearly just texting somebody. Clearly.

Now Sebastian was putting away whatever those documents of his were, so Kaitlyn turned off her phone and sat down. Though the two things were completely unrelated, because she was just texting with her phone, and not taking pictures. And now she was done texting.

Katrina tried to take advantage of being invisible by craning her neck to see the little cracked screen, because texting consisted of more typing and calling consisted of more talking, and the girl hadn't done either of those. Unfortunately she couldn't see; the angle was all wrong and the screen was cracked besides. Ah well.

She settled back into her seat, wondering what the girl was really up to, but wondering even more where they were going. They were pulling into a part of town that looked vaguely familiar for some reason. She didn't often go over here, so why did it look so...

The bus rounded the corner and Katrina instantly realized where they were. She realized that before she realized that she had stood up rather suddenly, and might possibly have knocked the girl's backpack next to her.

They were at an old church. It had once had “Church of Humanity” letters over the door, but they were gone now, leaving only the letter shaped dirt stains. Next to the church was a large building, equally abandoned looking, that could have been a library, or a school, or a community center, or anything really. Someone, or several someones, had decorated the community message board out front like some kind of memorial with a giant peace sign. All around it were messages in multiple languages, most prominently:

“Salaamu Alaykum,”

“Shalom,”

“Pax vobiscum,” and

“Peace be with you.”

Up close were written hundred of personal notes; notes about the future, notes about the past, remembrances of a time long gone, never to be repeated, only to be remembered.

“This is my stop.” Katrina knew she had to get off here, even before the unicorn man stood up and started making his way to the front of the bus.

Invisible as the mutant next to her was, Kaitlyn could tell that she had jumped out of her seat. And who could blame her? They both just arrived in a really bad part of town.

This was the old Church of Humanity. Kaitlyn had heard a lot about it. Especially after the place was abandoned, and a small group of Sanctuary residents made plans to get drunk there and trash the place overnight. That was when the older mutants told her why the protesters were such huge jerks, and why they wouldn't care if Kaitlyn blasted them all across the street. That was when she first heard the horror stories about what some human parents did to their mutant kids, just because they were mutants. Most of those protesters, and those parents, came from this place.

Was this where her own parents went to church, back then? She shuddered at the thought.

The bus's brakes whined as they came to a stop. This was where invisible girl was getting off. And so was Sebastian. So, so would she. The little redhead pushed her way through the ever-shifting forest of people on the sidewalk, backpack and all, doing her best to keep the unicorn-man's white tail in sight.

Sebastian left the crowded sidewalk, and turned to walk through the churchyard up to the triple doors that formed the entrance to the building. A woman was waiting there, with a folder full of papers.

“Ah, Mr. Csendes, I presume?”

The unicorn man bowed his head in affirmation, “Melanie White of Alternate Realty? I am pleased to meet you in person.” The unicorn man took the hand she wasn't using to hold her papers and bowed to kiss it.

“Oh, well,” she blushed, taking her hand back, “Would you like to see the inside?” She bent to type the code into the lock box hanging from the door knob.

“Very much so, thank you.”

Katrina impatiently bounced on her feet, careful not to bump anyone as she exited the bus.

Visiting this place was like visiting a childhood home after being away for years. Everything was the same as she remembered, yet different in a way, too.

This would have been Pax Church and the building next door would have been Pax Community Center. This would have been where she taught music lessons and helped found a secret society with an information network that literally spanned the globe. She would have tried to use that information network to prevent World War III. She would have failed.

She walked on the grass to avoid bumping into anyone.

None of those things were going to happen now, because the virus that caused the worldwide pandemic had been destroyed. No more out of control mutants that knocked the gulf stream off kilter, no more famines in Europe and Asia, no more mass graves of mutants killed as a preventative measure in China, no more emergency shelters and clinics in New York City for the many, many sick.

There were some good parts of the future dreams that she would be okay with keeping, but there were a lot of parts that she was glad they got a chance to re-do.

There was no Pax Church and Community Center, but she didn't have to lose Calley. She wasn't a music teacher, but she was a pilot. She could be with Slate without being off her rocker. The real future definitely looked brighter than the dream one. Maybe that was why she didn't want to spoil it by letting anyone spy on it.

The board with all the memorials was in front of her now. There were so many messages on it, it was hard to distinguish one from the next. The little illusionist scanned for her own name, but none jumped out at her right away.

And then Sebastian was disappearing through the doorway into the church: without her!

Katrina scampered back across the grass to the door, but it had already closed behind the realtor and the unicorn. That meant she'd have to get fancy and open the door while illusioning it to still look like it was closed.

Except... that red head girl was still here. Why would she be going to the exact same place as both her and Sebastian? Too many things weren't adding up now. She could have thought of an excuse to explain any of the coincidences, but not all of them, not all together.

She stepped up beside the girl and reappeared so they could actually have an eye to eye conversation.

“So... what are you doing here any way?”

The unicorn-man's tail disappeared into the old Church of Humanity building, along with a pair of lady-legs. Kaitlyn could only make out about half of their conversation from where she was. Or, at least she managed to catch something about an "alternate reality." Her mind swam with possibilities. Had a gateway to another universe opened up inside the old Church of Humanity? Why would Sebastian be messing with alternate realities? Maybe...

Maybe this was a Sebastian from another universe, and the real one was gone! That would explain everything!

Right now, Kaitlyn knew, she was getting into some serious stuff. She couldn't let alternate reality Sebastian kidnap her and replace her with alternate reality Kaitlyn. Or whatever alternate reality Sebastian would do, if he caught her spying on him. So, she needed to make sure Sebastian wouldn't notice her. But she also needed to hear what Sebastian and that lady were talking about! And if there was a portal to another universe, she needed to see it, so she could tell Lori about it!

What was she gonna do!?

Kaitlyn needed to calm down, and think about it. She needed to get in there. But she couldn't let anyone notice her, because then something horrible might happen to her. The door had just been unlocked, so she might be able to sneak in that way... but that was too risky. Sebastian would probably catch her. Maybe there was a back door, or a window, or

>>“So... what are you doing here any way?”

Someone just appeared out of thin air and started talking to her!

THOOMP[/i]

People standing on the sidewalk started landing on their butts. Windows broke. Ears rang.

Kaitlyn's ears were ringing. But she needed to think quickly. That was the worst thing she could have possibly done, and now Sebastian was probably going to walk out of that door and kill her. Or replace her with the Kaitlyn from another universe, or... something bad. Something that the Orderling didn't want to have happening to her.

She pieced together that the person who just startled her was the invisible girl. Maybe she could help her hide from Sebastian with her invisibility powers. It was the best chance Kait had to avoid a terrible fate. She dived towards the formerly invisible girl.

"Quick, we need to hide!" she whispered urgently, "Or someone's gonna come out of that door and kill us!"

THOOMP

Ms. White of Alternate Realty's eyes widened. Her clipboard skittered across the floor in alarm.

“Was that an explosion?” Sebastian asked. His voice was, for the most part, calm, but his hand was on the hilt of his sword. “It sounded like it was right outside.”

Katrina did not know what had hit her. It felt kind of like a sledgehammer, but upon further inspection (once she sat up on the grass and looked around) there weren't any sledgehammers anywhere close by.

Ow.

She felt her chest, then her legs. There was a very sore spot on her ribs, and kind of all over, really, but she wasn't bleeding anywhere.

Other people were just getting back to their feet, too, over by the bus stop, and someone was trying to help their friend to their feet. What on earth happened?

The red head came diving towards her, hurriedly whispering about their impending doom and urgent need to hide. Katrina wasn't about to ask for clarification on why in a situation like this. Someone had just tried to explode them: she was very ready to run and hide even without the red head's urgings.

“Hold my hand,” Katrina didn't wait for permission. She took the slender little slyph's hand in her own and pulled her toward a partial wall they could take cover behind. In case of explosions. They were already invisible, so the cover wasn't to hide them.

It would be kind of a curious sensation for the red head, in all likelihood. She wouldn't be able to see either Katrina or herself. The little illusionist gave her little hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I think we'll be safe over here,” she whispered. “Are you alright? You weren't hurt were you, in the explosion? And how do you know something is going to try to kill us? Are you a psychic?”

Ms. White seemed inclined to run deeper into the abandoned church building to take cover when she heard explosions.

Mr. Csendes was inclined to go investigate. Explosions could mean injuries, and he was a healer after all.

The unicorn man threw open the front door of the church in dramatic fashion and stepped out upon its front steps. A network of spiderweb cracks had appeared in the middle of the sidewalk leading up to the church. That was new.

At the bus stop, someone started yelling.

“He hit his head! He's bleeding! Someone help, please!”

Sebastian felt compelled to go help. Not, in case anyone was keeping tallies, that he wouldn't have done it anyway. Miracles, after all, could be very convincing. It would seem that this neighborhood was in need of some miracles.

The unicorn man trotted over to where a young man lay on the sidewalk. The gash on his forehead looked like it matched the edge of the metal bus stop sign. When he was standing upright, the man would be exactly the right height for some kind of high powered push to send him into the sign.

But he wasn't here to deduce what had happened, “I'm here to help.”

“Are you a doctor?” The young man's friend asked with concern in his voice.

“Not exactly,” Sebastian responded, reaching down toward the young man's forehead. When his fingers made contact with the boy's skin, the wound knit itself closed in one instant. In the next, the young man was blinking awake again.

Being invisible was tricky. It's hard to have any hand-eye coordination when your eyes can't see your hands. Kaitlyn tripped over herself more than once before invisibility girl pulled her behind the wall.

All around them was chaos. Some people ran away, fearing for their lives. Others stayed to help out the injured. While the invisible girl was asking all of those questions, a man with a suit and a briefcase was also hiding behind the same partial wall, calling 911 on a fancy cellphone, shouting something about terrorists.

Kaitlyn knew that explosions weren't what she needed to be worrying about. Well-armed unicorn men were a more clear and present danger to her than her own mutation. Her grip tightened on an invisible hand when Sebastian walked out the door, then right past them. She noticed that the front door to the abandoned church was still open after he walked out.

The redhead knew that she couldn't answer invisible girl's questions with the truth. If she knew the real cause of those explosions, then she might run away, leaving Kaitlyn there for Sebastian to see. And while the unicorn-man might be acting nice right now with all his healing and helping, the Orderling knew what he was really capable of, and she knew how unsafe her life might become if he noticed she was following him. Right now, Sebastian was just a few meters away from them, with nothing between them, yet he didn't even know they were there! Invisibility, the redhead realized, would have really come in handy when she was spying on him earlier.

Inspiration struck.

"I... am a psychic. You're right," she whispered. "It isn't safe here. We need to be in there." She pointed at the door to the abandoned church, though she quickly realized that she couldn't see her own hand. "Follow me." Kaitlyn tugged her new friend's hand towards the door, keeping her eyes and ears on Sebastian.

“It's a miracle!”

The two young men looked up at him in amazement.

Was this perhaps a good time to convert a few people to his newly formed church? Sebastian decided to take a stab at it.

Katrina could actually see where the redhead was pointing, even if the younger girl couldn't, and if she wanted to go in the church where they would be safe from explosions Katrina was perfectly happy with that.

They invisibled themselves right past a cowering real estate agent who was trying to calm herself down by putting all her papers back in order. Half of her really wanted to run away, while the other half still hoped against all odds that she could still interest the unicorn man in purchasing the building. If only he would come back inside where it was safer.

When they were out of ear shot, Katrina squeezed the girl's hand gently before asking, “So, if you are a psychic, you must already know why I'm spying on Sebastian. Are you going to join us in stopping the apocalypse?”

Kaitlyn took a few seconds to process that question. Invisibility girl was in on this too, but they were both on the same side. Probably. She couldn't ask any questions of her own, because she was pretending to be a psychic, and she was supposed to know everything already. There was only one answer she could give without getting called on her lie.

"...Yes."

This would be a tricky lie to keep covering up. But now that she knew they were both supposed to be spying on him, Kaitlyn wouldn't have to strain her creativity too much to keep the invisible mutant by her side. "...I hafta look at her papers," Kaitlyn pulled her new friend towards the alternate reality lady. If those papers were from another universe, they had to be interesting.

This converting people business was harder than Sebastian thought.

“Any old healing mutation could have done the same thing,” someone protested.

Curse modern day science.