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Page 65<br />
"Well, thank goodness for that."<br />
I took a few moments to walk around the enormous suite of rooms. At first, I<br />
thought it was completely empty, but all of my things had been transferred over. It's just<br />
that I don't own that many things. I've been living in a journalist's apartment on a<br />
journalist's salary. I've got some great records, a decent little collection of movies, and<br />
several bookcases full of books. Essential furniture, but nothing more. And seeing my<br />
things in a space like this put my life into an unsettling perspective. I felt exposed, like I<br />
was only play-acting at being a grown-up.<br />
As I stepped into one room in particular, I was struck by the way the high windows<br />
bathed the place in light, and I imagined using it as my writing studio. As I stepped further<br />
into the room, a vaguely man-shaped pillar of crackling energy appeared in the middle of the<br />
room, and I watched dumbfounded as it resolved into a specific human form, then went<br />
vague again. A human scream filled the room, sudden and overwhelming, coming at me<br />
from all directions, and the energy resolved into human form again, holding this time.<br />
It raised one arm, and I took a step back, afraid it was reaching for me. Instead, it<br />
drew a symbol with its finger, the energy hanging there even after it put its arm down again,<br />
a perfect oval burned into the space between us.<br />
One more scream, loud enough to drive me back out of the room, and I was alone<br />
again, my entire central nervous system on high alert now. When the Commander put his<br />
hand on my shoulder, I flinched and bit my tongue at the same time, flooding my eyes with<br />
angry tears and my mouth with the copper taste of blood.<br />
"What you just saw was a reflection, an echo of something that hasn't happened yet."<br />
"What was that? What was that circle?"<br />
"It wasn't a circle. It was a zero. Or it will be. It's complicated. But you were in no<br />
danger."<br />
"Good to know."<br />
He turned and headed into another room, and I realized we were done with that<br />
particular conversation, and it was time for whatever was next on his checklist, like giant<br />
sentient piles of energy are an everyday thing. I followed and caught up with the<br />
Commander outside a particularly sturdy closet door.
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