CHAPTER SEVEN: CE INTERRUPTUS p. 39

The headquarters of the Juliana Foundation for the Arts in the Mandela Effect reality (JFA) was located just outside St. Aldans, Cheltenham, England. The palace was nestled outside of the city in the briars. Locals rarely spoke of it, and when they did, it was with a shrug or a sideways peek. They called it the Glance. Not because it watched, but because it remembered what you didn't. 

Now, inside the shrinking realm between the ME quantum reality and CE, were the six leaders, one from each quantum reality: Dr. Thassia Rho, Foundation Chair, strategic architect, mythic, elusive, and final authority. Isadora Venn, Public Director, Legacy Steward; polished, conflicted, quietly resentful. Halden Virelli, Chief Archivist, emotional fidelity expert. Both teams of quantum twins were looking for the shard, burrower, and intruder who was active in both of their realms.

Dr. Rho said, "She's gone. She was there a moment and gone." The two Isadorras spoke as one, an annoyed thought to all six of them. In the Glance, it seemed, they had only had one tongue. 

It felt like a house of mirrors that refused balance. 

The Glance didn't reflect—it fragmented. Within its pearlescent chamber, the two Dr. Thassia Rhos floated inches from the imaged wall, their bodies suspended in quiet defiance of gravity.

Their outlines pulsed, soft-edged and unstable. One edged slightly forward, the other tilted back, yet somehow they appeared locked in a dance of convergence. Their faces—same bones, same gaze, same mythic calm—began to bleed together like too much water on an artist's palette.  Their faces, the bridge of the nose, cheeks misaligned, mouths staggered in confusing sequences.

It wasn't a reflection. It was reabsorption.

The mirror didn't mimic their appearance—it stitched together the version of Rho that was before the Effect had fractured them, before quantum realities diverged. And now, the Glance, in its perfect indifference, was calling them back to singularity.

The fusion wasn't painful. But it was quiet. Inevitable.

If they remained even seconds longer, the twin Rhos would have merged into one figure—distorted, incomplete, a disappearing through the wall like static fading from memory.

The Glance was a realm where duality wasn't permitted. It was fusing them to who they were before the Effects shattered reality. If they stayed in it much longer, they would merge. Perhaps, they would finally be absorbed by it and vanish into the borders. All they understood was that it was time to leave. The twin sets of JFA leaders returned to their respective realms.

In the ME reality, the three leaders of the JFA emerged through the aperture into the depths of secrecy that was the palace Juliana Foundation of the Art headquarters. From there, it was a tunnel that would lead them back to the manor. However, they were exhausted, and an anteroom for them was nearby to access their investigation results.

The group settled at the canteen tables in the lobby, their limbs heavy, their muscles dulled by the strange weightlessness of the Glance. Time inside the chamber had no measure—no seconds, no hours, only the endless now. Yet upon return, the present always resumed, as if no time had passed at all. It was impossible to say how long they'd truly been gone. A moment? A millennium? The only certainty was this: the Glance had held them outside of time, and now time held them again.

Dr. Halden Virelli sat down in a chair around a lobby canteen table with his peers. "What the fuck just happened to us? We were seconds from being assimilated. If we hadn't left when we did," he paused with the unfinished thought dangling. He shook his whole body as if he were trying to shake off hundreds of tiny no-see-ums attacking him. "And what... who was that we saw?"

Dr. Rho said, "I think it was trying to merge our two selves, fix us, heal us..."

Dr. Isadora Venn added a startling thought, "Did it succeed?" 

"Well, it looks like our reality. I know what we can do to verify where we are: we check the top effect and see if it is the wolf reality or the lion. We do know our realm has the wolf, and the lion is the top Mandela Effect in our reality. If it is a lion, then we have merged." Rho stated matter-of-factly. 

Isadora walked over to the nearest lab interface node, typed in, top known Mandela Effect and it threw up on the screen: Top Mandela Effect, JFA listing: No. 1. Isaiah 11:6, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb... She said, "Relax, we made it back. We are home."

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In the morning, June awoke in the office bedroom, and the morning light danced across the ceiling like a saga. Her body felt heavy, not from sleep, but from something unidentifiable in reflection. She rose slowly, walked barefoot across the cool floor, and stopped at the small tabletop mirror she used for makeup. It sat angled toward the window, catching fragments of the early morning Himalayan light. 

She looked in, inspecting her face—not for beauty, but for familiarity. The mirror didn't distort, didn't glow. It was just glass. She turned it around to assure herself it wasn't a secret portal to another dimension. She peeked anyway, waiting for something to shift. A flicker. A sparkle, anything to put her mind at rest. Nothing came. She turned to walk away and then turned suddenly to take a glance at it. She was a child again, hoping to catch magic with a look, maybe.

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