Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

“How was work?” my Jada asked when her other self got in the back.

 

“Don’t rub it in,” other-Jada said. “Please tell me I get to have some nice memories to cancel the last eight hours out with.”

A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

We were supposed to be rehearsing. But there I sat for almost two hours waiting for everyone else to show up. I took the time to noodle out some practice, one of us had to at least. Claire and Nick are usually here before me, I was starting to get anxious. At least Tori is always late, but never this late. “■■■■■,” I said to myself, “are ya sure you just weren’t stupid and showed up the wrong day like last time?”