“The future?” exclaimed Kepa, an edge of panic in his voice. “What do you mean, the future?”

“Well, why not?” asked Maite, rhetorically. “Our time is the future for Marina and de Lancre, and they’ve both gone there. Why wouldn’t there be zatiak in what we would consider our future?”

“But, but,” began Kepa. “At least for the other bubbles we’ve visited, we had some historical context. We had some sense of what was going on. Here, we have nothing. We’re complete strangers.”

Maite nodded, turning her full attention to Kepa. “I agree.” She paused for a moment, really looking at Kepa for the first time since they arrived in this new bubble. “Ehm, what are you wearing?”

Kepa looked down at himself. He was essentially naked, a thin, clear film covering his body, adding a shine to it as it reflected the ambient light. It hugged his arms, legs and chest, following the curves of his muscles. The only part that wasn’t transparent was a strategically placed black circle, almost like the fig leaf of old paintings, covering his groin. He looked up at Maite and blushed.

“Why am I wearing this when you are wearing that?” he asked.

Maite could get glimpses of herself in the reflections off of Kepa’s skin-tight suit, but all she could really discern was a flurry of colors. She looked down at her body. She was covered in fur that almost seemed a part of her until she tugged at it and realized it was fabric. The costume went all the way past her hands, ending in gloves that had sharp claws at the tips. She turned, and noticed a tail that seemed to sway to her thoughts. The fur itself looked like the stripes of a tiger, but the colors shifted randomly every few seconds, leading to some very strange color combinations. She felt the top of her head. Pointy ears stuck up. 

“What does my face look like?” she asked hesitantly. 

Kepa smiled. “Looks like you are all ready to go to a Halloween party.”

Maite sighed. “What have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

At that moment, a woman walked up to them. She was wearing a pure white suit that billowed out at her forearms and calves. Above her arms and legs it was skin tight. The jacket flared out as it passed her hips. It was accented with black seams that ran the course of her arms and legs. She wore a wide brimmed hat that was also white with black edging and, to top it off, she wore dark sunglasses with a white frame. The white of her clothes contrasted with her dark skin.

The woman began talking to them, seemingly asking a question, but in a language that neither Kepa nor Maite had ever heard before. After a few moments, the woman paused. Kepa and Maite looked at one another.

“Ez dugu ulertzen,” said Maite in Euskara. “We don’t understand,” she repeated in English.

The woman just stared at her in disbelief, gesticulating and raising her voice. She kept pointing to her ear, where Maite noticed some kind of earpiece. Maite simply pointed to her ear, shaking her head, and repeating “No, we don’t have one.”

The woman walked away, clearly frustrated, shaking her head.

“What was that about?” asked Kepa.

“I don’t know,” replied Maite, “but it seems that those earpieces translate for you.”

A tall figure suddenly materialized behind them. It stood at least a head taller than either of them. Like some of the others they had seen, it wore a flat black headpiece with fabric that fell to the floor, hiding whoever was inside.

“Indeed, they do,” replied the figure in perfectly recognizable Euskara.

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It took a few moments for their vision to clear. When it did, they could tell they were still in the airport, but it was drastically different. Rather than the relatively sparse and empty hall they had just been standing in, they now found themselves surrounded by people, lights, and displays. Every nook had a different visual display, though where they came from, Maite couldn’t tell. They seemed to float in the air.

All of the people were milling about, dashing from one place to another with intention, as if they all had some place to go. The people around them were both familiar and strange. She recognized the stereotypical Basque features in a lot of the faces – the big noses, the big ears – but there were a lot of other faces as well, African, Asian, South American. It was a much more diverse crowd than she was used to seeing in the Basque Country.

More surprising than the faces were the sounds. Everyone seemed to be talking in a different language, even to one another, but they all seemed to understand. Maite could only hear occasional snippets of Basque, Spanish, or English, but they were different than what she knew. She recognized sounds and fragments, but the accents were… off. Mixed in were languages she couldn’t understand at all and yet, somehow, the others around her could. The cacophony of sounds was almost overwhelming.

And their clothes! Maite wasn’t necessarily as sheltered as Kepa, living in Gernika and going to school in Bilbao, but she had never seen the types of fashion that now flooded her eyes. No one wore anything she recognized. Some had on sleek, one-piece, form-fitting outfits that had no seams or zippers, but covered almost the entire body, hugging it and leaving little to the imagination. Patterns and colors shifted dynamically on the surfaces of some as their owners moved. Others wore even less, their outfits essentially transparent, leaving precisely nothing to the imagination. Maite saw Kepa staring at a few of the women that walked by, almost mesmerized by their curves. Yet others were on the opposite extreme, seeming floating wide-brimmed hats with what Maite could only describe as curtains falling from the brim to the floor. She assumed there must be people behind the curtain, but she couldn’t actually see them.

In contrast, other people were wearing the most elaborate costumes Maite had seen outside of movies. There were people dressed as pirates, as eighteenth century revolutionaries, as ancient Romans, and as native islanders. Almost every period was represented, as if some role playing game had gone berserk. 

And, finally, there were those that simply defied description, outlandish outfits that seemed to come straight from some science fiction story. Some wore large mechanical gloves that seemed able to crush anything they touched. Others, both men and women, had skirts that seemed rigid, as if made from plastic, that formed sharp angles against their skin. Even others wore coats and pants that rippled with spikes up and down the arms and legs, spikes that somehow retracted and extended dynamically as the wearer moved. Many had what appeared to be geometric shapes that somehow floated around them. One woman had circles that encircled her head, tilting this way and that as she moved. Maite saw a man who had a series of pentagons that wrapped around his arms and legs, changing shape and orientation as his arms and legs swung. 

She shook her head and closed her eyes, the visual chaos overwhelming her even more than the audio cacophony. 

She felt Kepa pulling at her arm. She turned, opening her eyes to see him pointing as he pulled her along. He pulled her to a window. It took a moment for her to register what she was seeing. Looking out the window, which covered the entire wall, her field of view was filled with skyscrapers that went up as far as she could see. They had more organic shapes than she had seen before as they twisted into the sky. Some seemed to branch like massive trees while others consisted of spheres attached to a central tower that seemed to rise to infinity. Green vines cascaded down many of them, with flat terraces covered in trees and other plants. Looking down, Maite couldn’t see the streets. Or, rather, there were no streets. The spaces between buildings were filled with vegetation, not nicely manicured but also not entirely wild.

Maite looked over at Kepa. “I think we’ve gone into the future.”

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“We just got home!” exclaimed Maite as she reluctantly followed Kepa to the white light.

“But,” pleaded Kepa, “it’s here. We can’t ignore it.”

Maite looked away, avoiding Kepa’s eyes. 

“There was one, back in California, while you were asleep in the car…” she began.

“Zer?” exclaimed Kepa. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Maite turned back to Kepa, her face red. “You’d just gotten shot and we’d finally escaped that sheep herder hell!” replied Maite, more angrily than she intended. “We weren’t ready… I wasn’t ready to go through another one, not yet.”

Kepa’s shoulders slumped as he nodded. “Ulertzen dut. I understand.” He looked up at Maite. “How are we going to keep doing this? There might be thousands of these damn things floating around the world. We will kill ourselves if we try to chase them all.”

Maite shook her head. “I don’t know. We can’t do them all, not alone. I hope Marina is doing her part, chasing these things down. And maybe she’s recruited others to help. Maybe we’re not the only ones jumping through time, chasing these zatiak?”

Kepa’s eyes opened wide. “Do you think there are others like us?”

Maite shrugged. “Why not? Why would we be so special? For all we know, she has a whole army, chasing these things through time for her.”

“And…” began Kepa, as his mind raced. “And, do you think de Lancre is also recruiting his own…”

“Minions?” interjected Maite. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem to be one to share power.”

“Why would Marina share?” asked Kepa. “Can’t she take on de Lancre more easily if she has more of the power herself?”

“That’s a good question,” replied Maite. “Maybe she just wants to keep him as weak as possible, and needs us to help her by eliminating zatiak from the time stream. But, we don’t know. Maybe there is something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Maite, throwing up her hands. “But, maybe, she has a way of sucking them out of us when we collect enough. Maybe we are just temporary vessels, storing the zatia we find until she can claim them.”

Kepa shivered. “I don’t like feeling like a pawn.”

Maite nodded. “Neither do I. But we don’t have much choice right now. If we don’t help Marina, de Lancre might become too powerful for her to stop.”

Kepa sighed. He looked at the white light floating in front of them. He looked at Maite. “Are you ready?”

Maite nodded, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Bai. Egin dezagun hau. Let’s do this.”

Kepa, grabbing Maite’s hand, reached out and touched the white light. The light grew and grew, filling their vision, blinding them, until it flashed briefly and all went dark.

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The next few days were a blur. While Javi was at work, Kepa and Maite continued to explore downtown and the beach. They went for a few short hikes in the local parks. However, they most enjoyed the evenings, when Javi was back and Julie joined them. One night, they watched a movie together; another, they played board games. It was nice to just get to know them better, and Maite was grateful for the down time.

Soon, it was time to fly back to Bilbao. Maite had been able to get their flights changed so that they were leaving out of Santa Barbara. They had returned their rental car and Javi and Julie had picked them up to take them to the airport. Javi had parked his car and was leading them into the departures area.

“Wow!”  said Maite. “It’s even smaller than Bilbao’s airport!”

Javi chuckled. “LAX is pretty close and, since you have to stop somewhere if you leave here anyways, a lot of people just drive to Los Angeles. It’s almost faster, with the extra security and all.”

“But those lines!” exclaimed Julie. “They are horrendous down there!”

Maite and Kepa got their boarding passes and checked their luggage. 

“Thanks so much, for everything!” said Maite as she gave Javi a big hug. “I can’t wait to return the hospitality.”

“We look forward to showing off the Basque Country to you,” said Kepa as he similarly embraced Julie.

“I look forward to it!” said Julie. 

Maite and Kepa waved as they headed toward security.

“See you soon!” exclaimed Maite.

The flight back home, though long, was uneventful. Maite couldn’t believe how much she had wanted normalcy and boring, after so many months in that boarding house. After watching both Blas and Kepa die. After being chased by de Lancre. She put on her headphones and plugged into some random movie.

It took almost a full twenty-four hours, but finally they were home.

“Glad I don’t have to do that very often,” said Kepa, looking over at Maite as they waited to get off the plane.

“Agreed,” sighed Maite, “but if I do get the position at Berkeley, I guess I’ll be doing it more often.”

“We’ll be doing it, you mean,” added Kepa.

Maite squeezed his hand. “Bai, guk.” She smiled.

They got off the plane. They grabbed their suitcases off of the carousel and passed through the doors into the spacious arrival hall. Kepa had left his car in the long-term parking, as they didn’t want to deal with the public transit system after such a long flight. Maite was relieved they had thought ahead. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with buses and trains.

They were about to head down the escalator to the exit and parking when Maite exclaimed “Begira! Look!” She was pointing at the end of the hall.

Kepa looked over and saw another bright white light, floating in the air.

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