The Shimmer

Step One: Get bearings.

Step Two: Accept the rulebook is gone.

1475Wayne’s Supplemental:

1476FRED: 100% functional. Boat: 95%. Dignity: we’ll get back to you.

1477Scotland looks just like the movies, except now I’m starring in the wrong genre.

1478Tether—too short. Next time: bring more cable, fewer assumptions.

1480 Champ’s scared but stubborn. She “trusts” us, or something like trust.

1481 I can’t really sleep—too many dreams, too many worries.

1482 The end, Dauntless skipped across the lake like a kid’s rock—and then we really skipped. Not sure we broke the laws of physics, but we did violate several lake safety pamphlets.

521 I’d write my mother, but she never believed my stories anyway.

525 Hydrofoils work. Should’ve gotten hazard pay.

526 Spyder’s still grinning. Vanessa threatened to tie us both down if we try that again without notes.

1036 In the Dauntless log, if FRED said it, you can bet it actually happened—possibly to the tune of a Klingon drinking song in the background.

1040 No training, chart, or GPS prepares you for the moment all your wildest stories come true. Especially the ones you never meant to write.

674 Client (leaning in, smug): “You’ll follow my instructions to the letter. You screw this up, and there will be consequences. Understood?”

678 Spyder (leaning back, grinning): “Yeah, about that—let’s get one thing straight.”

683 Spyder: “The only reason I take your ‘suggestions’ is because I agreed to take your money. That’s it. You don’t own me.”

933 Note to self: In future, test all portals with a detachable tether.

934 FRED survived, boat survived, my dignity did not.

935 Sheep now believe we're time travelers.

938 Somehow ended up in Scotland because we tied FRED to the boat.

1527 Maybe as Spyder uses her true name, Champ dips her head, tracing a gleaming swirl in the water—a silent answer, an “I see you too.”

307 Right then, the pie parade began—steaming, copious, and gloriously free.

315 Wayne, shaking his head as the lock cleared: “Are you ever going to explain how you do that?”

317 Spyder, grinning, plots a new GPS coordinate. “It’s pre-trained and responds to bagpipes.”

1322 I kept thinking—if Champ can smile, she was smiling tonight.

1323 I felt her pride; I felt her fear. Got the crowd to clap, got the monster to come, but this was only practice.