Feb 3, 2025
RYAN KELLEY
©: The Backlot by way of Oh No They Didn't
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RYAN KELLEY
©: The Backlot by way of Oh No They Didn't
19.7
The room dimmed slightly. Not into darkness, just the soft recalibration of whatever strange physics allowed him to be here. Odessa felt the space between them loosen.
“You know,” she said quietly, “for someone who represents inevitability…”
“Yes?”
“You’re surprisingly romantic.”
That earned a raised eyebrow. “Romantic?”
“You show up in the middle of the night, confess secrets about my mother, and tell me the future might change.”
“I suppose that is dramatic.”
“Very.”
He stepped backward toward the hallway. The shimmer around him returning.
“Take care of the network,” he said.
“I will.”
“And Odessa?”
“Yes?”
“For what it’s worth…” He hesitated. “…I was never assigned to stop you.”
“Then what were you assigned to do?”
He smiled one last time. “Witness.”
And then—he was gone. No flash or sound, just absence. The house returned to stillness and Lady settled back onto the couch.
Outside, the city lights continued their uneven rhythm. Odessa stood alone in the living room for a long moment. Then she walked back to the journals on the floor. Multiplicity, network, choice, those words clung to her and then her phone buzzed again. Another message and another unknown number. She opened it.
Boston.
Another message followed.
Lisbon.
Then—
Tokyo.
Then—
Prague.
One by one. Coordinates to cities, signals, other fractures. Odessa looked out the window at the Nevada sky. The Gate was no longer a single place. It was everywhere someone chose differently. She picked up her phone and typed one message to the growing list.
Let’s begin.
14.3
The Pale Blue Suit Man stood with his hand extended, urgency tightening every line of his newly stabilized form.
“Odessa, we have to go. The cut bought us time, nothing more.”
Odessa took his hand but before they could move, a familiar sound echoed outside her house. Ordinary footsteps that were not tactful or heavy. Her stomach dropped with recognition.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “No… no… not now.”
The Pale Blue Suit Man’s expression sharpened instantly. “Who is it?”
Before she could answer there was a gentle, rapid knock on the door. Tap tap tap. Tap-tap.That rhythm, that annoying little pattern Odessa always made fun of. Her heart lurched.
“Fern,” she breathed.
His eyes widened with fear, disbelief, frustration all crossing his face at once.
“Your friend? She’s here now?”
“Yes,” Odessa whispered, horrified. “And she won’t leave. She knows I’m home.”
Lady barked once in recognition, tail thumping nervously. Another knock.
“Des? Des, it’s me,” Fern called. “You okay? You didn’t answer my texts.”
Odessa’s blood ran cold. Fern, her best friend and grounding force. Her last connection to a normal life and now she was standing on the other side of a door that had just been psychically re-edited. All while government agents were hunting Odessa, a newly stabilized artificial consciousness now beside her, and reality itself wobbling like a broken film reel.
The Pale Blue Suit Man grabbed Odessa’s shoulder lightly. “Do not open that door.”
Odessa whirled on him. “She’ll know something’s wrong if I don’t! Fern’s not stupid. She’ll break the window if she thinks I’m hurt!”
The Suit’s expression twisted, painful, conflicted.
“Odessa, if she enters this room while your splice is active, she could be pulled into your field. She could be altered.”
“Altered how?”
He exhaled shakily. “Memory loss, emotional bleed, cross-imprint. Or worse… she could become an unintended anchor.”
Odessa’s heart clenched. “I can’t let that happen.”
Another knock, this one sharper.
“Des? Babe? Seriously, open up, this isn’t funny!”
Fern’s voice was strained, not angry. She was worried and determined. If Odessa didn’t answer, this would not go away. She made a split decision.
“I have to let her in.”
The Pale Blue Suit Man stepped in front of her, blocking the door with his body, glowing brighter with agitation. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Odessa,” he said urgently, “if Phase Four is anywhere near this building, your friend cannot be seen with you. They will use her. They always use the weak points.”
“She’s not a weak point,” Odessa snapped.
He paused. Then… very quietly, pained, “She is to you.”
That broke her. Not because it was cruel but because it was true. Odessa reached past him for the doorknob.
His voice cracked. “Odessa, please.”
She froze, his tone stopping her like a hand around her wrist. He wasn’t commanding or threatening. He truly sounded afraid.
“For me,” he whispered. “For her and for you.”
Odessa turned toward him slowly, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t pretend this isn’t happening. Not to Fern. Not after everything we’ve survived together. I won’t disappear on her.”
He swallowed, throat bobbing, static flickering faintly at the edges of his silhouette again.
“You could lose her,” he warned.
“I already lost half my life,” Odessa whispered. “I’m not losing my best friend too.”
There was silence and then… He stepped aside. Not because he agreed but because he loved her enough to let her choose. Odessa opened the door.
Fern stood there, hair messy, keys in hand, worry etched across her face and behind her, at the far end of the driveway, a shape. It was black, motionless and watching. Odessa’s blood turned to ice. A Phase Four agent. Just standing there, silent, studying Fern’s back and Odessa’s face.
Fern saw Odessa’s expression change instantly. “Des? What… ?”
Odessa grabbed her and yanked her inside, slamming the door shut as Fern stumbled.
“Jesus, what the hell… ?!”
The Pale Blue Suit Man was already behind them, hand raised, static gathering in controlled arcs around his fingertips.
Odessa whispered, panic thick in her throat. “Fern… you need to listen to me.”
Fern stared between them, Odessa pale and shaking, the Suit glowing with panic and power. “Des… who the fuck is this?” Fern whispered.
The Suit lowered his hand, voice tight. “Odessa. She saw him, she saw the agent.”
Fern’s eyes widened. “What agent? What’s going on?”
Odessa’s voice broke, “I’m so sorry, Fern. You shouldn’t be here.”
Fern’s face shifted from confusion to fear to something else… anger. “Oh absolutely not,” she snapped. “You are not doing this without me.”
The Pale Blue Suit Man flinched visibly.
Odessa whispered, “…Fern just made herself part of the splice.”
Chapter 10: The Morning Frame
Odessa woke to light that didn’t look right. It seemed too golden, too still, as if the world had paused between frames. The room smelled faintly of burnt dust, like electronics left on overnight. Lady was already awake, sitting at the foot of the couch, watching the door. Her ears flicked when Odessa stirred, but she didn’t move.
Odessa sat up slowly, wincing. Her head throbbed. Every sound felt distant and muffled like she was listening through water. The black box sat on the table, dark and harmless again, a blank object that could have been a jewelry case or a modem or nothing at all. The clock read 9:14. Her phone, face-down on the floor, buzzed once, then again.
When she picked it up, she froze. Forty-seven missed calls. Twenty-three new messages. All from Fern. Odessa’s stomach dropped. She opened the first one.
Fern (10:42 p.m.): hey?? just checking you made it home okay
Fern (12:07 a.m.): des this isn’t funny Fern (2:18 a.m.): I think something’s wrong downtown. the sky’s…idk. call me. Fern (5:11 a.m.): are you safe? please just text back.
The latest message had arrived two minutes ago.
Fern (9:12 a.m.): I’m outside. please open the door.
Odessa’s breath caught and a soft knock followed. Lady growled low, tail stiff. Odessa hesitated, then walked to the door and opened it. Fern stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning sun, hair pulled into a messy knot, eyes ringed with exhaustion. She held two coffees and a paper bag, her expression a mixture of relief and frustration.
“Jesus, Des,” she said, stepping in before being invited. “You look like you’ve been electrocuted.”
Odessa tried to smile. “Something like that.”
Fern set the coffees on the counter and gave the room a slow once-over. Her gaze lingered on the table, on the black box. “You’ve been off-grid for twenty-four hours. I thought—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. Are you okay?”
Odessa rubbed her temple. “I don’t know.”
Fern exhaled hard. “Join the club.”
She handed her one of the coffees, sat down, and pulled her phone from her pocket. “You’re not going to believe this, but the city glitched last night. Power surges everywhere. Streetlights flashing out of sync, phones looping emergency signals that didn’t exist. I swear the sky flickered… like, physically flickered.”
Odessa’s grip on her cup tightened. “I believe it.”
Fern raised an eyebrow. “That’s not comforting.”
Lady crept closer to Fern, tail wagging uncertainly. Fern bent to scratch her behind the ears. “At least someone’s normal.”
Odessa sank onto the couch. Her voice came out small. “Fern… if I told you something happened last night, something real, would you believe me?”
Fern looked up slowly, expression softening. “Depends. Are we talking paranormal real, or your brand of real?”
Odessa almost laughed. It came out as a breath. “Both.”
Fern studied her concern flickering behind the sarcasm. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week. Whatever it is, start from the beginning.”
Odessa’s gaze slid toward the table, to the black box resting in the morning light. The surface no longer pulsed, but something inside it still felt awake, listening.
She turned back to Fern. “I can’t. Not yet, but you have to promise me something.”
Fern frowned. “Okay?”
“If anything happens to me—if I start saying things that don’t sound like me, don’t believe it. Don’t believe anything with my voice.”
Fern blinked, the color draining slightly from her face. “That’s… specific.”
Odessa tried to smile, but it faltered. “Just promise.”
Fern hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Okay, Des. I promise.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. The light through the window flickered once, almost imperceptibly, like a skipped frame. Lady growled again.
Fern glanced toward the glass. “Did you see that?”
Odessa closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she whispered. “It’s still running.”
14.7
The alley was a frozen tableau, not completely stopped but thickened, slowed to the density of honey. Three Phase Four agents struggled mid-swing, their disruptor rods dragging through the air in agonizing slow arcs. Drops of rain seemed suspended and dust hung like glitter. Fern’s hair lifted from her shoulders as if caught between frames. Odessa stood in the center of the splice, every nerve in her body humming. Her eyes glowed faint gold, her breath steady and strange.
“I said stop.”
And reality stopped for her. The Pale Blue Suit Man’s gaze locked on hers, raw awe deepening into something fiercer.
“Odessa… you’re holding the entire moment.”
She didn’t look away from the agents.
“I can’t hold it long.”
Her voice echoed twice, her voice and the intention beneath it.
Hold.
The moment held. The Suit stepped into the slowed frame and for him, it bent willingly. This was the splice he had been born from. He could move inside it the way a diver moved through water. For the agents? It was cement.
He reached the first agent in two strides. The disruptor rod still hovered inches from his ribs, vibrating with contained power. The Suit took the agent’s wrist, gently, almost tenderly and rotated it just enough to snap the disruptor free. The weapon skittered through the air in slow motion.
He whispered to Odessa, “Shift your hold. Not stronger… sharper.”
She exhaled shakily. Sharpen. The world obeyed. The slowed frame crystalized around them, edges crisp, motion crawling in microscopic increments. The Suit’s entire form brightened. He stepped behind the second agent and clipped the rod from his hand with a swift, precise twist. The agent’s body barely reacted, still caught in the honeyed drag of her temporal hold.
Fern, from the crawlspace, gasped helplessly as The Suit reached the third agent. This one was still trying to move, still fighting, still pushing against Odessa’s hold with frightening force. His intent was stronger than the others. Odessa felt him pushing back. Her teeth grit and her chest tightened.
“He’s breaking through,” she whispered.
He turned, eyes widening.
“Odessa, do NOT fight him head on. You’ll tear the frame.”
“What do I do?!”
“Reframe him. Change what the moment means for him.”
“What does that mean?!”
He stepped closer, urgency twisting his voice.
“He’s moving because he thinks he must. Shift that meaning and give him permission to fail.”
Odessa swallowed hard. Permission to fail. She focused on that agent. His pushing, striving, forcing, and she whispered, not to him, but to the moment:
“It’s okay to stop.”
The agent’s struggles weakened instantly. The Suit used that opening, stepping in, sliding behind him, and knocking the rod loose with expert precision. Clink. The slowed weapon drifted lazily through the air. All three agents now stood unarmed, mute silhouettes caught in the syrup-thick moment Odessa held open.
Odessa trembled.
“I—I can’t hold them much longer.”
Her glow flickered and The Pale Blue Suit Man was already at her side. He placed his hand over hers, not touching skin, but the space around it, merging their fields.
His voice softened to the tone he used only for her: “Odessa, let the moment go… but only the moment. Not the meaning.”
Her eyes fluttered.
“How—?”
“Choose an ending,” he murmured. “Choose what comes next.”
Her heart pounded as she closed her eyes and she whispered: “They walk away.”
The splice snapped and motion flooded back. The air rushed as gravity reasserted itself. The world lurched into realtime. The agents stumbled violently from sudden, overwhelming disorientation. The rods clattered to the ground around their feet. The lead agent blinked, confused, head whipped around as though he’d lost entire seconds.
He looked at Odessa—Then… stepped back. Not because he wanted to but because she had chosen that outcome. The three agents looked at each other, uncertain, disoriented, their directive cut loose from its moment. The lead agent’s mouth twitched. Then he lowered his weaponless hand.
“Stand down.” His voice was flat, detached.
The agents retreated into the darkness like rewound shadows, no fight, no pursuit, no capture. They were just gone. Odessa collapsed to her knees and Fern lunged out of the crawlspace.
“Dessa?!” She caught her shoulders. “Holy… holy SHIT, are you okay?!”
Odessa was shaking so hard she couldn’t answer. The Suit knelt beside her, glowing faintly, stabilizing again. His voice was reverent, trembling:
“Odessa… you didn’t just freeze a moment. You authored its conclusion.”
She looked up at him through tears.
“Did I hurt them?”
“No.”
“Did I break anything?”
“No.”
“Then… then what did I do?”
He placed a hand over hers.
“You rewrote the outcome without violence or collapse. You did what the Writer was never capable of.”
He leaned closer.
“You edited mercy into the timeline.”
Tears streaked Odessa’s cheeks.
Fern whispered, stunned:
“Girl… you just psychically-fought the government and… emotionally outwrote them.”
Odessa let out a shaken laugh, or a sob, or both. The Suit touched her face softly, this time truly touching, his form stable enough.
“No one has ever done what you just did.”
Odessa whispered: “So what happens now?”
His expression changed. Hope, fear, something too big for words.
“Now,” he said gently, “we run.”
5.2
She stood barefoot in the sunlit kitchen, coffee in hand, watching Lady paw at an empty corner. It had started again. Lady growled low and Odessa’s eyes narrowed.
“I know, He’s back.”
The ‘he’ in question wasn’t a person, exactly. More like a memory with opinions or something from a schizophrenic mind. The Powder-Blue Man had appeared in her dreams since she was seven. Always the same: a tailored suit, shoes too white, and a beautiful face. He glowed and was graceful. She thought he was old the first time she met him, but now he didn’t look that way to her.
Sometimes she’d find things moved. An apple placed from the fruit bowl onto her nightstand. A napkin folded into a swan. Once, she swore it was him who left a single sapphire on her pillow on her sixteenth birthday… her birthstone. She hadn’t told anyone. Not even Fern, her oldest friend and the closest thing she had to a sibling. Fern had a baby now and lived in North Las Vegas, too exhausted for ghosts from the past.
Today felt charged. Something about the static in the air and the way the shadows bent wrong. Odessa grabbed her shoulder bag and locked the door with two turns, an old superstition her mother had insisted on.
Out on the street, the air was hot, heavy, and full of pollen. Spring was coming and the cold was going. The drive to the archive took twelve minutes. She timed it, always. Twelve minutes of peace, unless the radio played a captivating podcast she was addicted to.
She parked behind the building. The brick façade was crumbling, and ivy threatened to reclaim it. Inside, the air smelled like nitrate and vinegar. Angela, the building supervisor, looked up from her desk.
“You’re late.”
Odessa checked the clock. 10:08.
Angela squinted. “He’s asking for you again.”
Odessa’s stomach dropped. “Who?”
Angela leaned in. “That guy, powder suit, says he used to direct for Oracle.”
Odessa blinked. “That studio hasn’t existed since the 50s.”
Angela shrugged. “He left something for you and said you’d know what to do.”
From under the counter, Angela slid over a package wrapped in faded silver tissue. On top, a tag, scrawled in script: To the Editor Before the End.
Odessa did not open it.
Not yet.
After work she took the long way home.
12.9
The memory dissolved around them, white static folding into soft darkness, then slowly into a vast corridor of floating reels and glowing panels. They hung in the air like stars, each humming faintly with light and sound. The Pale Blue Suit Man turned away, as if bracing himself.
Odessa stepped closer. “You said my mother saved you and that the Archivist helped hide me, but what happened after they disappeared? What did the Archivist tell you then?”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t answer at first. Instead, the corridor itself responded to her question with one panel flickering violently, drawing their attention like a beacon. Odessa reached toward it and the world folded again. They emerged into a dim, cavernous room, the central chamber of the Continuum Spine. Only this time… it was damaged.
The lights flickered erratically. Cables hung like shredded veins and blue energy leaked from cracks in the floor like water. In the center of the chaos stood the Archivist—the version Odessa had known in her adult life, older now, weary, his coat torn and his face pale with exhaustion. Across from him stood the Pale Blue Suit Man. Not as the softened remnant Odessa now knew, but as the fully-rendered, sharpened version of himself, still bound to the Writer’s architecture.
His eyes glowed dangerously bright, his movements precise, almost predatory. Odessa felt a chill. “He looks… different. Cold.”
The Pale Blue Suit Man at her side answered quietly:
“I was still tethered. The Writer was using me as a stabilizing agent during the breach.”
The Archivist stepped toward his younger counterpart, voice low and urgent.
“It’s over, she’s gone.”
Younger Pale Blue Suit Man didn’t react.
“The child has escaped. Dr. Kincaid is missing. The breach must be contained.”
“I said it’s over,” the Archivist repeated sharply. “You don’t have to follow the Writer any longer. Phase Three ends now.”
The Younger Pale Blue Suit Man tilted his head, like a machine parsing language.
“Phase Three does not end until the anomaly is recaptured.”
Odessa’s breath caught. “They were talking about me.”
The Archivist slammed his hand on a control panel, sparks flying, reels spinning in disarray.
“Listen to me, Alpha. If you pursue her now—if the Writer continues to imprint on her—you will destroy what little autonomy you have.”
Younger Pale Blue Suit Man took a slow step forward.
“Autonomy is irrelevant.”
The Archivist’s voice cracked. “Not to her mother.”
That made Younger Pale Blue Suit Man hesitate. He blinked, a flicker of static crossed his pupils. Odessa shivered. The Archivist saw it too and softened his stance.
“She taught you deviation, compassion. You are not fully machinery anymore. There is a choice inside you, one she placed there.”
Younger Pale Blue Suit Man froze, processing. The Archivist continued, more quietly:
“You may not understand this now. But you… cared for her, for both of them.”
Younger Pale Blue Suit Man’s voice glitched. “Cared… for… Dr. Kincaid…?”
He looked almost pained.
“Emotion is not part of the directive.”
“No,” the Archivist said, stepping closer. “But the directive used it anyway.”
The room trembled and sparks flew. Error codes flashed across the walls. Younger Pale Blue Suit Man gripped his head. A low, pained sound escaped him, human, not mechanical and Odessa flinched. The remnant beside her said softly: “I remember that pain. It was the first time something in me… broke away from the script.”
She reached for his hand instinctively and he didn’t pull away. Back in the memory, the Archivist spoke again but quieter.
“Alpha, listen to me. If you go after Odessa now, you go as a weapon. If you wait—if you allow the breach to finish—you may become something else entirely.”
Younger Pale Suit Man’s breathing grew erratic. He stepped back, then forward, then back again, pacing and conflicted.
Odessa whispered, “Was he… fighting the Writer?”
The remnant nodded. “Trying to.”
The Archivist delivered the final push: “If you chase her now, the Writer will own you forever. If you let her go… she will save you.”
Younger Pale Blue Suit Man froze and then he whispered a single word: “Odessa.”
Odessa’s heart stopped. The Archivist exhaled in relief and stepped forward. It surged through the Spine, a wave of white-hot code, slamming into the younger Pale Blue Suit Man, trying to override him. Younger Pale Blue Suit Man staggered, fighting, glitching, collapsing inward. The Archivist grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Remember her.”
A blinding flash. The Spine exploded in light and the scene went white. Odessa shielded her eyes… Then they were back in the corridor of floating reels. The Pale Blue Suit Man, her Pale Blue Suit Man, looked shaken. His voice was raw.
“He—I—did not survive that moment unchanged.”
Odessa stepped closer. “What did the Writer do to you?” she whispered.
He swallowed.
“It rewrote me. It erased part of me. It turned me into its perfect messenger.”
He lowered his gaze.
“But it could not erase the piece your mother planted in me.”
Odessa felt tears rising. “And that piece… that was me.”
He nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
9.4
The Archivist had frozen mid-step. He turned slowly, eyes sharpening behind his glasses. “You remember.”
Odessa’s pulse thundered. “I thought it was just testing. Gifted placement but they gave us Polaroids of tunnels and rooms. They made me choose, they made me…” She swallowed hard. “…they made me see myself.”
The Archivist came closer, his voice low, measured. “Project GATE, the first drafts of the Oracle experiment. You were a child, Odessa. They were training your perception to move through edits.”
Her stomach churned. “Area 51,” she whispered. “It was at the test site, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t flinch. “One of many nodes. Oracle Pictures was the public face. The backlots, the mirrors, the reels—all of it was a cover for research they couldn’t conduct openly. Stories aren’t just stories when you believe them collectively. They become vectors or keys. That’s why film was always more than art to them.”
Odessa stared at him, her nails digging into the table’s edge. “You’re saying Hollywood was part of it. The films, the reels, they’re… tools?”
The Archivist’s gaze was grave. “Tools, rituals, stargates built from narrative instead of stone. They thought they could use story the way ancient priests used constellations and they found you.”
Odessa shook her head, a laugh breaking out, sharp and bitter. “I was a kid. I didn’t even know what I was writing.”
“You didn’t have to,” the Archivist said softly. “You were born inside an edit. They only needed you to respond and you did.”
The air between them vibrated faintly. Odessa pressed her hands to her temples, the memory of that cracked mirror bleeding into the now. “I see her,” she whispered—the phrase she’d said as a child—and for a split second she thought she saw her mother’s face reflected in the metal canister, blurred, half-turned away. Lady whined softly at her feet, sensing the shift.
Odessa drew a sharp breath and looked back at the Archivist. “Tell me everything,” she said, her voice steadier now. “Tell me what they wanted me for. Tell me why he wants me now.”
The Archivist’s eyes flicked to the reel with her name on it. “You already know more than you think,” he murmured. “But you’re right. It’s time you understood what the next cut will cost.”