Two people pass each other in the darkness of a stormy night, courses locked in for separate disasters. Fate intervenes . . . but is it for good?

Having just married both Nancys, she was the focal point of my dream the next night, though I kept seeing Nancy change between my Nancy and a version of Victoria’s Nancy who had the most outrageous of the tattoos and piercings of the guests at her wedding. On Sunday, December 3, it was my Nancy who I found in bed with me.

John was currently waist-deep in a cardboard box filled with crocheted doilies and yellowed newspapers from the seventies. The attic of his grandmother's house smelled like old cedar and dormant dust, a cramped space where the roof slanted low, forcing him to hunch his shoulders. He had spent the better part of the morning moving stacks of magazines and sorting through porcelain figurines that looked like they belonged in a museum of things nobody actually wanted.

Megan's painting her toenails when I get there, door propped because she heard me on the stairs, foam spacers wedged between her toes, and she doesn't look up right away. "There's beer in the fridge," she says. "Grab me one too if you're getting one."

For a while, Archie thought about Amy.

Deliberate thoughts had become difficult now. They needed somewhere steady to stand, and stumbled around in his mind as the ground crumbled away beneath them. Each thought came without asking, soft and immediate, gliding softly around the gaps. Instinctive thoughts settled much more easily, as they could simply float through the spaces as they pleased.

He remembered the first time she had rescued him.

I had a weird dream. I was Victoria, and we were back at the weddings of the previous week, but it was Victoria who got married to Nancy, to Mona, and to Aries in consecutive ceremonies. Of course, my parents weren’t there, like in all my dreams, but we went to what should have been their apartment afterward. Aries wanted to consummate our marriages, and her ovipositor was fully out, though I had no idea when she had had time to have sex with a man during the day. Then it turned out that Nancy and Mona were Pasthru emales, and I was worried that the group was going to impregnate me somehow. We got as far as the four of us nesting our organs when all of that evaporated and Victoria was there alone, and then I woke up.

At 5:30 the alarm doesn't go off, because I turned it off last night, but I wake up at 5:30 anyway.

I lie there in the dark with the spare blanket and the wrong quiet and the ceiling, and the body starts its inventory: breasts, the weight of them in the position I've been sleeping, the labia warm and in their soft continuous contact, the hip bones wider against the mattress. Eight seconds, maybe. Then I'm done with it and I'm just awake at 5:30 with nowhere to be.

The hallway's dark and I don't bother with the light.

Mail on the floor I haven't dealt with. The kitchen through the doorway. I stand on the rug in my coat for a moment — just standing, just the quiet — and then I kick my shoes off. I stand there in my socks on the rug and just breathe.

We verified that everyone’s clothes were ready, the sole exception being that Victoria’s wedding dress currently looked like Mona’s.

We confirmed with the catering staff that our Thanksgiving dinner for 119 was going to be ready at 3.

We confirmed Jeremy was ready as best man. He and Arturo were going to arrive early; the hall would already be set up then, and Arturo could just take a seat, but Jeremy needed to be ready to be part of the procession.

The bed is wrong on both sides now.

I wake at 5:31 and lie there in the gray light with the sheets and the wrong silence. Kate's side of the bed is just her side of the bed now, the impression her hip has made in the mattress over two years, the pillow she's taken, the whole absence of her breathing. She took the comforter, or I let her take it. I can't reconstruct that part of the conversation. What's left is the spare blanket from the hall closet, the one that smells like the cedar block I put in there two winters ago, and I've slept one night under it and woken up cold.

A NOTE ON BLACKWICK

Blackwick University sits in Harwick, Massachusetts, and has been there longer than most records account for. It offers the usual degrees. Its faculty are distinguished. Its architecture is older than it should be.

Things happen at Blackwick that its administration prefers not to document. Objects arrive in unusual ways and depart more unusually still. The university has learned to accommodate this with the particular discretion of an institution that has been doing so for a very long time.

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For the first few minutes, familiarity mixed with belief to make the room gentle and safe.

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They call it our Community Presentation Day on the banners and posters, but that’s really only half the story. Forgotten somewhere under the hood or between the lines, officially, it’s known as Assessment Day. We all call it The Sorting.

It’s not because they expect you to fail, or like they’re setting up a trap, or anything. You’re supposed to pass. It’s a free hit.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

“So, this is it,” I said, leaning down and staring at the flask on the lab bench. It looked so unassuming — a translucent liquid with just a tinge of blue. Powder blue. My hand automatically reached towards it.

“Careful,” Doctor Hartwell said, and I jumped a little, drawing my hand back. “I don’t want you touching that without gloves.”

Modern Day Miracle

by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2026

The integration runs through the morning.

I'm at my desk, the cuff on, Seo-yeon at her desk running the verification sequence. It doesn't feel like anything dramatic. It feels like work — the familiar rhythm of the lab, the data building on the screen, the two of us in companionable quiet. The integration opening degree by degree, the resistance dropping, the access widening.

ARIA is present throughout. She has been present since I put the cuff on. Attending, keeping the promise. And then, at ninety minutes, she opens the cognitive space.

Aftermath
Part 2: Rebuild
By Tomi

Haruto begins to rebuild his life, his confidence, and his relationship with Rina

Nancy was still lying in bed when I went to start my shower, but she got up and showered when I was done. Once I had breakfast set up, she came to the table, dressed plainly in a T-shirt and shorts.

“Jody, I want to apologize for what the group did yesterday.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do. I think we all do. You gave us permission to do that, but it wasn’t reasonable for all of your fiancées to get together and have an orgy that went on for hours.”

“OK. Apology accepted.”

Chapter Four
Final Preparations

The final weeks before the banquet were quieter than the training hall—but far more exhausting.