When David started the car, Selva tensed. Mari glanced back at her. “David’s a good driver.”

“Yes…” Selva said. “I would be more confident if I hadn’t seen how many of these devices… crash.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got airbags and seat belts, and oh, right crumple zones!” Mari grinned.

The alien girl’s fingers were digging into the front seat’s fabric as she stared at Mari, her violet eyes wide. “You are trying to reassure me by talking about all the ways these vehicles protect their occupants when they crash?”

“Um…” Mari looked over at David. Then she looked back at Selva. “Now, look in front of us at the street lights that are designed to keep us from smashing into other cars!”

Selva growled, her knuckles going white.

“Mari,” David said. “Don’t antagonize the nice girl sitting behind me with the big gun.”

“That would just make us crash,” Mari said.

“Would you please let him concentrate!” Selva said.

Mari frowned. She really did seem worried. “Don’t you have cars where you come from?”

“We have… trains and skyships, but nothing like this,” she said. “Nothing so close to—watch out!” The car jerked to a halt as David braked and honked the horn as some guy zipping through the red light. Selva let out a squeak and closed her eyes.

“Morons,” David said. “We’re almost there.”

“I would like to not talk any more until we stop,” Selva said.

“Okay,” Mari said. Wow, she is really freaked.

David drove a little while further and then pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. There were only a few cars in it, nobody around as David turned the engine off. “Okay,” he said. “Selva, they sort of… don’t let people walk in here with guns.”

“You want me to leave my weapons?” Selva frowned. “No.”

“Look, if someone sees you with a gun, they call the cops. Then lots of guys with guns show up and arrest you.” Mari rolled her eyes. “Do you want that?”

“Or you could just summon them while we’re in there.” Selva folded her arms.

Mari sighed and took off her wristband, sticking it and the neutralizer into the glove compartment. “See, I’m unarmed. Look, if we wanted to grab you, why didn’t we just call the cops when we were waiting for you?”

Selva stared at her for a moment. “Fine. But I am not helpless even without my gun and blade.”

“Well, that wasn’t a threat, not at all,” Mari muttered. But she didn’t say anything as Selva put the gun in her bag, followed by her blade, and then arranged things so they were hidden under papers and other trash. The three got out of the car, Selva looking around nervously.

“Look,” David said. “We can talk here. I know we got…um got off on the wrong foot, but we really just want to talk. That’s why we’re not taking you to any cops or other adults, because if you don’t like this, you can just go off on your own.”

“Very well,” Selva said.

“Just, um…” Mari looked around. “Don’t talk until we have a seat. It sounds kind of strange.” Oh hell… “If someone looks at you, will that thing…”

“This?” Selva held up her translator pendent. “No. If you’re more than a few feet away, you’re out of the field. They’d just heard me speaking my language and you… Speaking English.”

“Good,” David said. “If anyone comes up, just don’t talk. That way we can just say you’re speaking in your language, and we’re speaking English to, um… practice.”

“Well, it sounds close enough to French.” Mari frowned. “But some people around here know French, so don’t… call it that.”

“Of course,” Selva said. She adjusted her clothes, the dark cloth blending into the night. “I’ll try not to stand out in the world I was brought to against my will.”

Sarcastic, much? Mari shook her head.

Fortunately, the dining room was empty enough that they just walked in and seated themselves. The Italian Grotto was actually designed around some little artificial streams that divided the place into several smaller sections. David, Mari, and Selva walked to the far end of the place, a little booth surrounded by plants, a little waterfall spilling into one of the streams by them.

David and Mari sat down on one side of the booth, and Selva sat down on the other side. Mari noticed that Selva’s left hand was on the table—by the silverware.

Most notably, the knife.

When the waitress came by, David ordered for them all, getting a big pizza and coke for everyone. She nodded. “I’ll get it right now. Have fun, kids.”

Mari waited until she was out of range. “Okay,” she hissed. “We didn’t bring you here, so how did you come. Do you know about breaches?”

Selva stared at Mari, then took a deep breath. “We don’t know much about them. They are like punctures in reality, coming from the aether dimension.”

“Okay, wait,” David said. “What’s that?”

“A…” Selva paused. She grabbed one of the napkins held it up. “This is our reality. The material world.” She took another napkin and put it under the first one. “The aether dimension underlies all the material worlds, even places as… strange as this.”

“So…” Mari frowned. “Okay, then why are there holes getting punched? That’s what we do.” Well, what we did do before we got demoted. And we sort of know that the bomb did it, but I don’t think we should get into that just yet. “We look for aetheric breaches, and high aetheric levels before things come out.”

“Spirits.” Selva nodded. “Spirits that coalesce around the emotions and imprints of material beings. “Some elemental, some anima.”

“Wait, what?” Mari frowned. “What is that…”

“The words,” Selva shook her head. “I don’t think the pendant adequately translated them. An elemental is a spirit that has coalesced around an element or attribute of the area. They are usually transitory. An anima spirit is one that has taken its form from sentient or sapient beings.”

“Okay, we… sort of knew that,” Mari said.

“And how did you get here?” David asked.

“I—” Sevla fell silent as the waitress brought their drinks. She stared at the fizzing drink. “It’s boiling.”

“Nah, it’s just coke,” Mari said. You don’t have coke at home? “Try it.”

Selva took a sip, grimaced, swallowed, then coughed. “Sweet,” she got out. “So sweet!”

“Don’t you like sugar?” David asked.

“Yes, in candy, not in my drink!” She put it to the side and stared at them. “So, some time ago, about fifty standard years, there was…” She shook her head. “Let me go back a little bit further. We started experiencing storms. About… 70-80 standard years ago. Something was… deranging the aether dimension. Normally, it merely permeated through the barriers, which is why we were able to make use of it. But these were like… eruptions.” She frowned. “In some places, they caused things to become very bad. But then…”

“What?” Mari asked.

“The Eruption and the Shockwave. Fifty years ago, there was a… hole torn into the barrier between the worlds. It was…” Selva fell silent. “Very bad. Entire nations were shattered, there were wars and conflicts, and the aether became… less safe. Breaches and eruptions became more common.”

Fifty years… But a standard year might not be one of their years, but on the other hand, if they were anything close to it, Mari remembered what Wilma had said.

And there was much screaming. She glanced over at David.

“What… what do you think caused it?” David asked.

“We never found out.” Selva shook her head. “Some thought it was an attack, others thought it was a judgment. I mean, most people were busy with the issue that the Silver Confederation collapsed, there were 15 million dead, 60 million refugees…” She sipped the coke, carefully. “My grandparents met in a refugee camp.”

Mari felt ill. Could it be? But that was an accident!

“I—” David fell silent as the waitress showed up with the pizza. David grinned, as she put out the plates.

It was a good grin. Mari bet that Selva didn’t notice how strained it was.

Have some pizza. By the way, we sort of blew up your world.

Mari stared at her slice. Selva nibbled at hers.

“This is…actually good,” the girl said.

“Yeah.” Mari smiled while her stomach did flip-flops. “Good.”