I'KOSMAE: a Multiverse in the Balance Chapter Twenty-three

 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Satori(s) and a Concert in Salem

 

The rest of April passed, for Ambros, in what had become his “normal”: a blur of small but important tasks and instantaneous voyages to diverse places. He did more of the ‘Assemblyist Missionary’ visits every few days, pressing the Wobblies to find him targets. He lost track of how many he’d done.

Sometimes he came home from those trips hopeful, other times downcast and angry.

Around Tax Day he briefed the ‘highest Status’ Warriors from twenty Allied Lines on “what to expect when the coming multi-Timeline Incursion begins.”

“At least that bunch didn’t disbelieve me, or doubt my predictions,” he said to Luisa and Marie.

His weapons skills improved, to the point that he had a hard time recalling all of the lessons he'd learned: ‘Those techniques are now, each and all, part of my “style”. New stuff grows from the old, almost without me thinking about it.’

As his training advanced, his body changed, so subtly that he hardly noticed for a long time.

After a particularly grueling session with Arrenji, he went to shower in the Command Complex, instaed of at the City Baths. He caught a glimpse of himself, nude, in the wall-sized mirror. He stared for a moment.

 

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