​     "So why aren't the Azure flooding into our universe by the battalion?" Niki asked.

     "The Azure aren't going to be much help, I'm afraid," Gramps replied. 

     Adam had a more blunt response. "They've given up on this universe. As far as they're concerned, it's good as gone."

     "But why?" Trevor asked, and Niki thought she might actually have heard a bit of a sob in his voice. The Azure recruiting him was the best thing that had ever happened to Trevor, absolutely and forevermore changing the course of his life, and now it was over for good?

     Then someone else came into the room. 

​     Trevor had kind of forgotten about him and kind of hadn't. 

     Niki hadn't forgotten about him at all but figured he was off in a crib somewhere sleeping.

     Adam's son.

     He stood a foot and a half high. 

     Like his father, he wore his hair long to his shoulders. 

     He looked out at the world as if enchanted by everything he saw.

     "Whoa," Trevor said. "The last time I saw him, he couldn't have been more than a day old."

     "Exactly one day," Adam replied, "although he was born in Domitika, and time there was nothing like time here."  

     "He's sure grown a lot since then."

     "He seems to be growing twice as fast as any human baby on Earth," Abby said. "He's big for a one year old, isn't he?"

                                                  CONTINUE