Stella blinked as she woke up uneasy at Adam’s bedside.  Adam was still asleep, his vitals steady.  She must have dozed off for a moment.

    Something was wrong.

    Stella took stock.  It was just after dinner.  Adam was still in his post-operative coma, but the doctors said that he should wake up any day now.  Fred and Rachel were back at their hotel room getting some much needed sleep.  Mitsubi and Kaguyama had already been for a visit and left.  Atria had held a meeting in the morning, had work she needed to do all afternoon, and would be coming by in a couple of hours to tell her all about it, and Cap and Alice would be stopping by later in the evening, but otherwise she would be sitting vigil alone for the time being.  Until Atria arrived, it was just her and Adam.

    So, who was the third person in the room?

    Stella’s heart sank as she looked into the shadow in the corner of the room.  The man in the black three-piece suit who had shot Adam looked back at her.

    “Good,” he said in English.  “You’re awake.”

    Stella swallowed.  A cold sweat ran down her back.  She mustered her courage.  “Kill me if you must, but please let him live.”

    “Stop,” the man said.  “If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done so.  I have questions.  You are going to answer them, and you will be honest and forthcoming.  I don’t need to tell you what will happen if you aren’t.”

    Stella nodded.

    “Why did he take the bullet for you?”

    Stella blinked.  “I don’t understand.”

    “He stepped in front of you and took the bullet in your place,” the man said.  “Why did he do that?  Why didn’t he just let you die and try to kill me in revenge?”

    “Because he loves me,” Stella said.  “And I love him, and I’d do the same for him if the positions had been reversed.  That’s what people who love each other do.  Please, just don’t hurt him.  If you have to take somebody, just take me instead, please.”

    “I told you to stop that,” the man said, emotion entering his voice for the first time.  “Explain this.  People don’t just do that for other people.  Why are you trying to take his place?”

    “Because I love him,” Stella replied.  “I want him to have a long and happy life, even if I can’t be there to share it.  So, if one of us had to die, I’d rather it be me.  He feels the same – that’s why he stepped in front of me.  That’s what love is.  How can you not know this?”

    The man shook his head.  “None of that makes sense.  You should have been trying to save yourselves, and then taking revenge.  That’s how people work.”

    “That’s not how it is here,” Stella said.  “People care about each other, and put the ones they love first, even if they have to sacrifice themselves to do it.”

    The man shook his head again.  “Enough, enough, enough!”

    Stella gripped Adam’s hand for dear life.  She closed her other hand on the armrest of her chair to stop it from shaking.  As she watched, the man collected himself.

    “New question,” the man said.  “Why do you want to force me to return to my world?”

    Stella blinked.  “We don’t want to force you to do anything.  I thought that you might be homesick, like I was when I first came here, and that maybe we could help you with that.”

    “Don’t lie to me,” the man said.  “You said that you were trying to find a way to send me back.”

    “We’re trying to find a way to send anybody who wants to go  back,” Stella said.  “But not all of us do.  I want to stay here with Adam.  And if you don’t want to go back, we’d never try to force you.”

    The man shook his head.  “That’s not how it works!  You give somebody a choice, and if they don’t do what you want, you kill them – that’s how it works!”

    “Not here it isn’t.  We don’t have any right to force you to go back to your world if you don’t want to go.  It’s up to you – if you want to stay here instead, we’d try to find a way to make that happen.  That’s the truth!”

    The man stood, shaking his finger at her.  “None of what you say makes any sense.”

    “But it’s all true.”

    The man retreated to the door, his eyes wild.  “I hope you both survive what’s coming,” he said, and then he was gone.

    Stella began to hyperventilate.  She gripped Adam’s hand as she tried to bring her breathing under control.  And then his hand squeezed back.

    Stella looked up.  Adam was awake.

Atria burst into the hospital room to find Stella leaning against Adam as he played with the remote to the television.  “I came as soon as I got your call,” she said to Stella.  “I barely had time to change back into civvies.”

    “He was here,” Stella said.  “The man who shot Adam was here.”

    “We’ve identified him,” Atria stated.  “His name is Jack Death.  According to Mark Gable, he’s from a series of bad action movies.  He left your security detail unconscious but alive, at least, which is more than we expected from him.”  She turned to Adam.  “Adam, I am so sorry that I sent you out the way I did.  I should have at least made sure you had body armour, or–”

    Adam raised his hand.  “It’s okay, Atria.  I’m going to be fine, and you had no way of knowing this Jack whatever-his-name-is was out there.”

    “It was weird,” Stella said.  “It’s like he didn’t understand what compassion or love is, or even what a choice is.”

    “Apparently his story is just extended gunfights,” Atria explained, sitting down.  “His creators didn’t even give him a character motivation other than survival.”

    “That explains a lot,” Adam said, shifting in his bed and wincing.  “When we talked to him in that alley, he treated everything like an ultimatum.”

    “You need to rest,” Stella said to him.

    “Same goes for both of you,” Atria said.  “You’ll be happy to know that the Japanese government is changing Adam’s visa to ‘Designated Activities’.  That way, you won’t need to worry about having to leave the country before you’re recovered enough to travel.”

    “Good,” Adam said, leaning his head back and looking at the television.  “Sorry, I’m just so tired.”

    Atria nodded.  “Recovering from serious wounds is like that.  Just take it easy.”

    “Wow, this anime looks cheap,” Adam said.  The ending credits music began to play.

    “Do you think Jack Death will come back here?” Stella asked.

    “I don’t think so,” Atria replied.  “If he was going to kill you, he’d have done it.  Hopefully you won’t ever see him again.  From now on, Jack Death is my problem.”

    “My god, it’s him,” Adam said, pointing at the screen.

    Atria looked up and her eyes widened.  On the screen was the thief who had invaded her world, ranting at an underling.

    “The hero’s party will never save the Bright City!” the thief declared.  “He will watch it burn!”

    “Hit the information button on the remote!” Stella said.  “We need the title!”

    Adam hit the button just as the scene faded out.  In Japanese letters, the name Reincarnated as the Most Powerful Hero in the World displayed on the screen.  Atria tapped the title into her phone and grinned.

    “We have it,” she said.  “We can identify him now.”

    The station identification flashed onto the screen, and then the opening notes of a rerun of Eternal Chronicle of Hyperborea began to play.  Atria looked up at the television again, and then nearly dropped her phone in shock.

    On the screen, she saw herself in an undamaged reactor room, talking to Prometheus about what to do next now that they had prevented the attack on the communication hubs to the south.  She watched as the Atria Silversword in the show got into her mech and departed through the cavernous main doors.

    “Stella,” Atria said.  “What am I looking at?”

    “It’s the information stream,” Stella said.  “When new episodes are aired and watched, it must update the information of your world, bringing it into compliance with what is in the episode.”

    Atria swallowed.  “Have I been replaced in my world?  If I go back, will there be two of me?”

    “I’m sorry,” Stella said.  “I hadn’t thought about that before, but I think that might be the case.  It could be that a parallel world split off where you didn’t leave though, so you might be able to go home again – there’s just no way to tell for certain.  But, it was more likely an update.”

    Atria took a deep breath.  “And if it was an update, and I went home, there would be two of me.”

    Stella stared at her hands.  “Until the next information update.  At which point, one of you would probably be erased to bring your world back into compliance with the story.”  Stella looked up.  “I’m so sorry, but you probably can’t go home.”

NEXT: “Responsibility”