The writer gives life to a story, the reader keeps it alive.
Alexand is nervous to reveal what she learnt about her father’s death to Inajda, especially in front of Anesidor Sumian, but she takes courage in the fact they are both senior members of the resistance.
The Guild Master’s General has had the audacity to take Katherine with him on the very same cart ride that Alexand’s father is on. Neither of them is phased out of focus and are corporeal. The Guild Masters General has replaced his balaclava with a Stetson hat, and his sunglasses have clear lenses, so they look like ordinary glasses. They are both a few seats behind Eric Mehmed. Thankfully Eric doesn’t recognise Katherine as they had never met, although Alexand told her father a lot about the woman she fell in love with, so Katherine has insisted that the Guild Master’s General call her by her middle name, Anastasia.
Helga Ritter returns to the Floating Asylum to give news to Lord Anderson about the death of Eric Mehmed.
Lord Anderson has instructed that in order to compensate for Katherine’s Bullet, and the failure of the virus to eradicate degenerates and rebels, more asylum ships have been commissioned, and set to sea. They are being filled with those previously infected by the virus, homosexuals, the mentally ill, the disabled and military rebels. He materialises on board his maiden ship, to consort with Helga Ritter.
It has been over a month since future Alexand returned Katherine to the Kyuunansen, and disappeared seconds later, without saying goodbye. Katherine is missing her version of Alex, and sits with the machine she used to send recordings to her parents. This time the recording is for Alex.
Katherine returned to her apartment to attempt to digest all the events of the past few hours on board the Kyuunansen. She is alone, with her cat, getting acquainted with him, contemplating her future on the ship, and the prospect of a drug, which reverses the ageing process.
Katherine is lead into a great chamber, with a gigantic circular table at the back. There are robed officials around the table, and they are flanked by thousands of warriors in similar battle dress to Samira Ganesh.
Katherine woke up the day after her birthday, and made her way down to her laboratory to continue with her analysis of Juba Apfvarzian’s blood. When she arrived there, all of the samples had gone. There was no trace of her findings, and her research over the past few weeks has vanished.
As a boy Anum Anzeti encountered a man who claimed he was a future version of himself. See issue 19: Anum Anzeti. The man seemed mad, and Anum dismissed him as a local lunatic. By the age of twenty five, Anum enrolled as a curator in Cairo Museum. He never married, his work was so consuming, and he grew older, until at the age of eighty he was approached by a young man called Georges De Somme. CLICK HERE for next chronological story.
