​     Nexus moment, plus twenty-four hours. ​

​     Abby heard her father returning home. 

     She ran to greet him, but, halfway down the stairs, when she first saw him, she faltered. She'd been so worried about him...and all that business about Adam Forwarder and his compound being obliterated...and the only call she'd gotten from her father was to tell her that he'd survived and had, himself, taken no physical injuries...and now he was home, and she felt so relieved that...she felt so grateful that he'd returned to her that she'd forgotten...her father had just lost his oldest and finest friend, supposedly someone who could never be killed...but there was something else, too. His father looked shrunken now. He actually looked old now.

     It was raining out, and Gramps wore his rain slicker. Abby removed it from his shoulders and hung it up. "Daddy, I've been so..." 

     "I know." 

     "I wasn't able to contact you after the first time you called." 

     "Oh?" He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He'd turned it off. Then he'd forgotten to turn it on again. "Oh." 

​     "Father, are you okay?" He seemed so feeble. Fear rose in Abby's throat until she choked. She'd never seen her father so fragile before. She took his elbow to lead him to a chair in the living room. "Come on, Daddy. Let's go sit down."

     "I don't need you to..." But he didn't pull away from her. He needed the contact of a loved one right then. 

     "We're going to get you out of those clothes, Dad. Have you eaten? I could warm up some..." 

     "Brandy," Gramps replied.

     "That bad, huh?"

     "The worst. I need sleep. I need hours and hours of sleep." 

​     "Daddy..."

​     "You know, billions of years ago, Adam and I were on a planet called Allo. This was not an advanced society. Their shields were their swords as well, so they always carried two, one for each arm, and they were very good with them. It's me and Adam against maybe fifty of these huge, hairy, crafty, muscular Alloans with their two swordshields apiece, and we fought them for a day and a night and a day. We held them, they finally retreated, but both Adam and I were cut to pieces, Adam especially because he was always braver than me and took a lot more chances in battle than I ever did. He'd lost an arm. A foot. A sizable chunk of his left shoulder was gone. Blood leaked from everywhere. I was afraid we'd lose him then, but we didn't. We stayed with a widow who adored Adam, all women adored Adam, and, as the days passed, we slowly healed. His arm grew back. His foot. From then on, I'd always assumed he was immortal. I never thought I'd know a day when I felt, in my heart of hearts, that Adam Forwarder no longer existed. But yesterday..." Gramps trembled. "I watched that monster beat him to death, Abby." 

     "You poor..." Then Abby noticed something that scared her more than anything that had transpired since her father had returned. 

     "D-Daddy," she said, her voice trembling. "Where is your earpiece? Why aren't you listening to that comedian that you..."

     Gramps pinched his ear where his earpiece used to be as if he, himself, noticed that it was gone. But then he said, "I don't know. It...It seems so silly now to..." 

     "But you've listened to him constantly since mother..." 

     "I'm sorry, Abby. After all these years, I just don't think he's funny anymore."

     Abby held her father tight. "We really are in some very serious trouble then, aren't we? I mean all of us, all of Infini." 

     "Not tomorrow. Not next week. But...yes...sooner than any of us would like."

     She sat on his lap like she used to when she was a little girl and needed Gramps to chase the nightmare goblins away. "It's hopeless, then." 

     "As close to hopeless as I've ever known in my life."

     Here came the tears with Abby. "So what do we do?"

     "Plan. Act. Fight as hard as we can when we can. Die when we must." Gramps hugged his beloved daughter and, yes, he did cry just the slightest bit himself.

CONTINUE