M’gann watched him for a moment. Her brow furrowed in a good hard look as she puzzled his surface emotions out. Interest. Embarrassment. Curiosity. Then she exclaimed, laughingly, “I don’t look cool when I’m all static and fizz! Golly. I look like I’m fading in and out of existence, Lieutenant Trevor!” Okay, maybe it did look a little cool. “But if we ever happen to find ourselves clinking glasses of the Red Bull, I will let you see for yourself.”
She heaved the tank of the vacuum onto her back like a knapsack. “Poison Ivy is the lovely lady who left all of this pollen here where it doesn’t belong. She has the power to understand and control plants. Among other things. Tends to use it to screw over people who don’t really deserve it, unfortunately. Think of all the good that kind of gift could do for the world if its owner weren’t completely bonkers.” M’gann’s vacuum gulped up another plume at the corner of the porch as she followed Steve. “No doubt we’ll run into more than pollen in some areas. Perhaps she’s sewn some seeds for us to take care of.” She elbowed him playfully. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
“Trevor Ranch,” M’gann repeated. Her Martian mind was taking in every bit of it to recreate in her own mind later, so she could set it off across the ink black sea of memories she visited every night. It was a reflexive function. One that revealed itself both in the psychic realm and the more physical plane. “Did you grow up here, then? In one of your lives?” The questions were soft and mild. It was clear that he didn’t need to answer either of them if he didn’t want to.
She greeted his parents sweetly, with handshakes and a little curtsy, and tried her best to ignore their arguing when the two of them entered the house without them. Thankfully, the pair had said nothing about her unusual choice of backpack, and either way… Both her clothing and Steve’s had changed to fit the scenery. M’gann now wore a faded pastel dress with a pretty white lace collar.
Steve’s bedroom was, indeed, littered with pollen. It shimmered green and yellow and pink, impossibly sticky to the touch but practically dancing into the vacuum cleaner. “There. Now that should feel a tad better,” she said, admiring the key as she finished dusting off the room. “Ah, look at that. That’s a psychic segue if I’ve ever seen one. Where are we headed?” M’gann raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that the key would likely pull them there as soon as he said it aloud.
Steve blinked and they were in the plane, a runway laid out in the field of wheat, shining gold beneath the sun. But beyond that, a thick fog crept forward, dark and unsettling. It sent a shiver down Steve’s spine, frightening him enough that he turned the nose of the plane around, barely clearing the barn when they took flight.
“In the life before me -” His first life, that’s what this was, still so strange to think about. “- I left home and followed in my father’s footsteps, joining the army. But I didn’t -” Steve swallowed, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. He hoped the fog wouldn’t creep past the fence, overtake that precious farm. “It wasn’t who I was. Then, with nothing to fight for, it wasn’t even who my father was. So I completed my tour and set off, tried to find myself.”
The details came easier, the more he talked and the farther they flew. More of that fog hung over certain places, but he stayed clear of it, following the trail of pollen through the clouds. He detailed the odd jobs he took just to get by and enthused about all the people he met, who taught him a number of useful skills, some less than noble.
“The more I traveled the harder and harder it got to write home.” Steve’s voice was heavy and only grew heavier as they descended, zooming past the Eiffel Tower, still so very new. “I don’t -” Steve’s brow furrowed, the memories that had started so clear had suddenly turned fuzzy. More pollen to clear, perhaps. They were coming in for a landing, after all. “I don’t think I ever managed to pick up the pen, too worried what my father would -”
They landed with a jolt, Steve hopping out of the plane with little concern about if it was secure. What did that matter when it wasn’t real and the scene before them was one of devastation. A crater sized hole sat where a town once had been, something unseen leaving behind charred husks of hollowed out buildings and billowing smoke that twisted into poisonous clouds. “Be careful what you touch.” An unfamiliar (to a younger Steve anyway) authority hardened his voice, the words more order than warning. Yes, pollen mixed with ash, unusually bright against the soot, but Steve wasn’t sure there was anything left here for even M’gann to salvage. Nothing except -
Steve jumped down into the crater with reckless abandon, pulling free a sooty white blanket embroidered with swooping pink letters. He had a name, all that remained of his time here, wherever here was.
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