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Alia Zephyr is aware of her abilities in all possible realities that she has access to. That means something theoretical and maybe hard to grasp. If the Alia of this story exists in a reality that we will call the Prime Reality, and she has access to what she calls possible futures through visions that she accesses by staring into the sun, then it stands to reason that those realities must contain some contact point that she uses as an anchor to the reality of that possible future – a body, her own body, that she inhabits as the consciousness – which is why she is able to experience sensations in these visions as vivid as she experiences in the prime reality. An implication of this assumption is that even if Alia glimpses a future that does not come to pass, she still experienced this future in her vision as though it were real, as though the possible futures are the actual futures of different realities that will never come to pass in the prime reality. Maybe Alia has access to the future in every alternate reality where she is aware of her abilities.
But Alia also claims to be able to change the course of the future in the prime reality, that she is sometimes able to manipulate people into various situations that allows her to engineer a future better than the ones she saw. That undercuts my theories. I would challenge this claim from Alia, though, because if it is true, then the Alia is a monster.
Take her recent history into consideration. Yes, Alia Zephyr has lived the tragic life of an orphan in America who was poked and prodded by doctors, then used by the government, but it was while in government custody at the IBF that she seemingly used her abilities in such a way that resulted in the death of one of her doctors, the imprisonment of another, and one woman named Maria seems to be the captive of a murderous alien. Alia did her part to bring Maria to the IBF basement, but it must be said that Maria would have found it without Alia’s influence. But would Maria have been allowed access as she was without Alia’s subtle hand? And if she wanted Maria in the IBF basement, surely she saw the future where Dr. Moss was slaughtered and Dr. Cousins was taken prisoner. Why didn’t she work to avoid that?
Alia doesn’t seem to be a monster though, she sees Dr. Thomas Eakran, the undercover Druinte on Earth, as the monster she must out maneuver to avoid the possible future where aliens like him come to Earth and many people die as a result. That is her greatest fear. Maybe that fear outweighed the life of Dr. Moss. Maybe that fear is greater than the possible future she sees with Kevin where she drives him crazy and makes him question what’s real. And if that fear is her greatest driving factor, then maybe she would do or cause monstrous things to avoid it.
Currently, in her backyard where she lives with Kevin in Wilmington, NC, Alia sees the two of them in a future where they have a large house in Waxhaw, NC and Kevin is the principal of the local school. Alia is pregnant with their fifth child, she has bad heartburn when she eats dairy, she teaches art at the local retirement home, and she drives a minivan to take the children to and from practices after school. Kevin’s name isn’t Kevin in that future and she is not Alia. They are Gavin and Eve. Gavin is mean and he is almost abusive when Eve mentions something about possible futures. He grabs her arm firmly out of the sight of the guests at their cookout and says sternly into her ear, “You know what happened the last time you did this. You ripped my heart out my chest. Don’t do it again.” Eve felt so bad that she wished he would hit her.
Then, Alia sees herself back with Dr. Eakran in the IBF basement. Maria is there, but Kevin is not. The Druinte device that is the source of his preternatural ability is there, finally untangled from his brain, and Kevin is long dead.
Then, Alia sees herself running and exhausted through a city that is largely abandoned. She has to stop because her lungs are burning from the smoke in the air. And then she senses him, the Remarkable Kevin as they call him in that future, and she is filled with terror. But before she can run, he appears in a chaos of smoke and sparks. And then he seizes her, knocks her unconscious…
Alia startles out of her vision. The sun becomes a burning ball again and as her vision adjusts to the scene of her backyard, she sees Kevin faking a smile at her. She knows that her sun gazing concerns him, but there is no amount of concern that will make her stop and he knows this.
“Can we start now?” Kevin asks cautiously. He is always wary of disturbing the Alia.
“We should talk about that image from your flier.” Alia says earnestly. Her eyes are closed now. “I can’t shake the feeling that it is significant. I’ve never felt the sensations that looking at it makes me feel.”
“How can it be significant if I made it by accident? It doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it just reminds you of something.” Kevin is trying not to sound condescending, but he is eager for Alia to stop harping on the image from the flier he created to advertise their upcoming show. It had worked to drum up interest and the man he’d tapped at his first preview show to oversee ticketing, gave him the impression that they would make thousands of dollars on the fifteen or so people they had given a password that would allow them to purchase a ticket.
“It doesn’t remind me of anything.” Alia opens her eyes and looks angry at Kevin. “Do you listen to me? I said I’d never seen it before. That should concern you.”
“Why? Isn’t this a good thing? Maybe we’re not on course to fulfill any future you’ve seen and you can stop stressing about it. You’re just like everyone else now, living with no idea of what comes next. But, I need you to be remarkable in a couple weeks when we do this show. Let’s go over your mind reading set.”
Remarkable. The word sends shivers down Alia’s spine. Much like the image from the flier. She couldn’t see what future it belonged to, but she could feel something sinister and evil associated with it. And that made her think that whatever it was would rear it’s evil face at the magic show. She hoped that she and Kevin would be able to handle it.
Alia’s mind reading set involved Kevin creating a large deck of cards out of thin air. It should be mentioned that Kevin’s time with the CIA helped him to fully realize the scope of his powers, and even though his ability only allows him to bring his imagination into reality temporarily, he discovered that with concentration he could hold things in reality for longer than the fifteen minutes or so that he was used to. The length of time that he is able to sustain the large deck of cards is important for the verisimilitude of Alia’s set. Kevin creates the deck floating midair, then does an impressive swipe through the deck to allow the audience to see that it is a full deck of fifty two cards. Once that is established, Alia will take center stage and call up various participants from the audience who will be asked to select cards in various ways. Alia will then look into their minds to ‘guess’ their cards or the locations where they hide cards. It is a traditional magic show card trick that is amplified by the actual magic that the audience will be unaware of and it is impressive, though Kevin hopes that it is mind blowing enough as he and Alia run through it.
When Kevin is satisfied, Alia sighs and goes inside to start dinner. Kevin doesn’t stop her. He knows that all of his preparation is annoying her, they never worked so hard at the shows they did as they drove to NC, it was always fun and carefree, but Kevin can’t help but worry about money and the promises that he made to Alia. The only way that he felt the two could put the CIA and the alien doctor, and all their other stresses behind them, was to make enough money to freely travel as they might need to in the future.
Kevin decides to give her time alone and he calls the man in charge of ticketing; his name is Conner and he is a teaching assistant at the local university. He is a painter with aspirations of teaching at the collegiate level, but as he explained to Kevin, “My family isn’t very excited about my choices.” Kevin meets Conner at the beach just as Conner tears his attention away from the painting.
“The Amazing Elroy!” He says excitedly, stashing his brush behind his ear. He is smiling now in stark contrast to his facial expression when Kevin arrived; he looked grave and very focused.
“How we looking?” Kevin asks nervously.
Conner shakes his head and smiles. “I told you, man, I got you. I just wish you let me take video, it would be so much easier to sell this. Not that I had a hard time or anything, but more people need to see you first before we can charge at the price you want. You’re still gonna do about 5 to 10 thousand just on tickets.”
Kevin is stunned at the estimate. “You’re guessing high right? What’s the minimum we should expect?”
Conner laughs and throws an arm over Kevin’s shoulder. “I’m Conner Worthington, I know people who know people who know of people. Five thousand is the minimum you should expect. I’m gonna make you a star,” he corrects himself fast, “an underground star.”
“Like you and your artwork?” Kevin asks, legitimately curious. He wanders over to Conner’s canvas and Conner drags his feet to follow.
“Are you clowning me because I haven’t sold anything?” Conner asks jokingly. He is a well respected artist on his campus, but he is cautious about selling or displaying his work because he is afraid that people only show interest in him because of his last name. His family, the Worthingtons, are a very prominent family in Durham, NC where his father is an impressive biologist, epidemiologist, and immunologist at Duke University. Conner left Durham to escape the influence of his name, hoping to find validation on his own in a world his father, Dr. Roy Worthington, had no respect for.
When Kevin sees the painting, he is instantly frustrated. “What is this?” Kevin asks staring at the image that looked like the flier he had used for the preview show.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Conner says. “I liked the background on the flier so much I wanted to use it as the background for a portrait I’m doing.”
“The background?” Kevin asks. He can’t imagine the image serving as a complementary background to anything.
“Yeah, something about it reminds me of my father. I wanted to paint him over it.” Conner explains. “Is that fine?”
“Of course,” Kevin says. “I’m gonna go, but I’ll talk to you soon.” Kevin leaves with a heavy feeling of dread at Alia’s worries.
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