Getting through airport security takes forty-five minutes, three different TSA supervisors, and what I suspect is a permanent entry on some government watchlist. By the time we reach our gate, James is trying very hard not to look amused.
"Not. One. Word." I drop into a seat, focusing on keeping the darkness contained. The nearby gate displays are already flickering between regular flight information and what might be arrival times in other dimensions.
"I particularly enjoyed the part where—"
"I will fold you into non-Euclidean space."
He raises his hands in mock surrender, but I catch the ghost of a smile. It's strange seeing him like this – almost relaxed, almost normal. When we first met, back when I was already with the resistance and he was still Mother Superior's faithful enforcer, he never smiled. Never showed any crack in that perfect Church facade.
I remember him from those days – how he'd watch me during operations, trying to understand how the Church's legendary lost messiah could work with their enemies. I was a myth to them back then, a cautionary tale of power they couldn't control. He probably expected someone more... impressive.
The darkness pulses, and I force it back. Have to stay focused. Have to keep it contained, especially in a place this dependent on sensitive electronics. The last thing we need is for me to accidentally transform a 747 into something that flies through dimensions that don't officially exist.
"Gate 23, now boarding group A," the agent announces, her computer showing boarding passes in colors that human eyes shouldn't be able to process. I clamp down harder on the darkness.
"Ready?" James asks.
"To get sardined into a metal tube full of electronics that really don't like quantum fluctuations? While trying not to accidentally tear a hole in reality at thirty thousand feet? With someone I'm not sure I can trust?"
"I was going to offer you the aisle seat, but go on."
The boarding process is an exercise in intense concentration. Every scanner, every electronic device, every piece of equipment wants to react to my presence. I force the darkness to stay contained, to stay quiet, to stop trying to show everyone what planes look like in four dimensions.
We find our seats – me in the aisle, James in the middle, a businessman in a suit by the window already deeply focused on his phone. The cabin crew goes through their safety demonstration while I try to convince reality to behave normally, or at least normally enough not to freak out the avionics.
"You're getting better at controlling it," James observes quietly.
"Better at controlling it, or better at hiding it?"
"Both, maybe." He watches me from the corner of his eye. "You know, when I first joined the Church, they had entire files about you. Training materials about what you could do, what you might become. Mother Superior used you as an example of both perfect potential and terrible warning."
"Sounds like her."
"But they never understood. They thought it was about power, about control. Even I thought that, at first. Watched you with the resistance, tried to figure out how they were handling you, containing you."
"And what did you figure out?"
"That they weren't." His voice drops lower as the plane begins to taxi. "They weren't handling you or containing you at all. You were choosing to work with them. Choosing to stay human. That's when I started to understand what the Church was really afraid of."
"That they couldn't control me?"
"That they never had to. That everything they were trying to force, to create through ritual and pain... it could happen naturally. Through choice. Through evolution."
The engines rev up, their usual rumble overlaid with harmonics that probably shouldn't exist in normal space. The darkness responds to the vibrations, wanting to show everyone what jet engines look like from outside normal reality. I clench my jaw, forcing it back.
"Pretty words," I say. "Convenient words."
"True words." He stares straight ahead as the plane accelerates. "Everything the Church thought they knew about you, everything they taught us... it was all wrong. You weren't a weapon that got away. You were proof that their entire approach was wrong."
The plane lifts off, and reality tries to ripple around us. I focus on keeping things stable, on not letting the businessman see his phone displaying text messages from numbers that contain impossible digits.
"And Rachel Chen?" I ask when we level off. "Is she proof too?"
"If I'm right about her? She's proof that there's another way. That understanding doesn't have to come through force and ritual. That science and compassion might be better guides than control and coercion."
"If she's real."
"Six hours to find out."
We fall silent as the plane reaches cruising altitude. The darkness settles into something manageable, though the seatbelt signs keep displaying warnings in languages that won't exist for another thousand years.
"I want to believe you," I say finally.
"I know."
"But I can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"I know that too."
The businessman falls asleep, his phone still showing quantum fluctuations despite my best efforts at control. James pretends to read a magazine. Out the window, clouds pass by in shapes that occasionally suggest geometries that Euclidean space wasn't meant to contain.
Six hours to Oregon.
Six hours to think about trust and betrayal, about truth and manipulation, about evolution and control.
The darkness pulses against my restraint, and somewhere far below, reality bends slightly in our wake, like waves spreading from the passage of a ship.
Time to find out what's real.
Even if the truth hurts worse than the doubts.