The Man Who Asked Twice

“Funny thing about help — the first time someone asks, it changes your life. The second time, it reminds you how much of it you’ve already given away.”

The late afternoon sun hung low over Glenelg, casting the kind of light that made everything look simultaneously more beautiful and more melancholy. I leant over the ageing wooden railing of the jetty, letting my weight settle into the familiar posture—elbows resting on weathered timber that had absorbed decades of salt spray and human contact. The endless sea stretched before me, transformed by the setting sun into a magnificent tapestry of purple and orange that would have impressed even the most jaded traveller.

The waters beneath danced in the fading light, each ripple catching and reflecting the day's final glow with a grace that seemed almost choreographed. The rhythmic lull of the ocean kissing the wooden pillars beneath my feet was a melody I'd known since childhood—the sound of home, of South Australia, of a life that felt both impossibly distant and stubbornly present. It was a stark contrast to Belkeep's waters, which I'd come to know too well over the years. Those seas were ruthless, their currents carrying a violence that made the Southern Ocean seem tame. Lifeless, too—no fish, no seabirds wheeling overhead, just cold water that claimed lives with methodical efficiency.

Sixty-two people last week alone. The number sat in my gut like a stone. Sixty-two souls who'd been desperate enough to risk those waters, to gamble everything on reaching a mainland that might not even exist, that might be nothing more than wishful thinking. I'd authorised the attempt—or rather, I'd failed to forbid it, which amounted to the same thing in the end. Their deaths were mine to carry, added to a list that had grown unconscionably long.

The tranquillity of the moment—the beauty of the sunset, the gentle rhythm of Earth's familiar ocean—felt like an insult to their memory. Here I stood, able to cross between worlds with the press of a button, whilst they'd drowned trying to traverse a few kilometres of water. The guilt never got easier. If anything, it sharpened with time, each loss cutting deeper than the last because each one proved I was failing at the fundamental task Grace had trusted me with: keeping people alive.

"You're looking old."

The voice shattered my contemplation like a rock through glass. Deep, resonant, unmistakably Jeremiah's—carrying that peculiar blend of warmth and bluntness that only decades of friendship could breed. I didn't turn immediately. Part of me wanted to hold onto the moment of solitude a bit longer, to postpone whatever fresh crisis had brought my mentor back into my life after three years of silence.

"Jeremiah!" I finally exclaimed, turning slowly, letting genuine surprise and delight colour my voice despite the apprehension coiling in my chest. Time seemed to stutter as my eyes found his. He surged forward with those same purposeful strides I remembered, closing the distance between us with the confidence of a man who'd spent his life navigating far more treacherous terrain than a South Australian jetty.

His embrace was like dropping anchor in a storm—solid, reassuring, a reminder that I wasn't carrying everything alone even when it felt that way. "It's so good to see you again," he said, his voice muffled against my shoulder. The pat on my back carried weight beyond simple greeting, a heaviness that spoke of unspoken stories and hardships I hadn't witnessed. The lines etched into his face told their own story, one I'd need to read carefully.

As we stepped back from the embrace, I allowed myself a proper look at him. Jeremiah was only fifty-three—a few years my senior—but time had not been kind. His long, wiry hair, once uniformly black, now played host to streaks of grey that caught the dying light. These silver threads framed a face that had become almost a stranger to me, concealed beneath a thick, scraggly beard that spoke of months without easy access to basic grooming. The Jeremiah I remembered had always maintained a certain standard, a pride in appearance that had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with discipline.

I forced a twisted grin, attempting to mask the concern that must have been plain on my face. "You look like you've seen better days," I said, the teasing tone one we'd cultivated over decades—our way of confronting harsh truths without drowning in them.

"Ain't that the truth," he admitted, resignation weighing heavily in those four words. Our laughter came on cue, the customary exchange between Guardian Atum and Guardian Atum Ra, but beneath the familiar rhythm, something felt off. The laughter was hollow, a performance for an audience that no longer existed.

The scraggly beard, the ragged clothing, the weariness that seemed to emanate from him like heat from pavement—all of it told a story I didn't want to read but couldn't ignore. Three years had elapsed since our paths last crossed. Three years of escalating danger, of Guardians hunted and killed, of settlements fallen and alliances shattered. We'd maintained distance not from choice but from necessity—the less we were seen together, the less risk to the communities we'd sworn to protect. Information travelled through whispers and intermediaries, never direct contact, never anything that could be traced or followed.

But Jeremiah's appearance now, unannounced and unexplained, meant something had changed. Something significant enough to risk the exposure, to break protocols we'd maintained for years. I studied his features, trying to reconcile the man before me with the mentor who'd guided a nineteen-year-old farm boy into responsibilities that still felt too large for his shoulders.

Had he, like some of our comrades, chosen the path of solitude? The question formed unbidden, unwelcome. Some Guardians, faced with the relentless hunting and impossible odds, had simply vanished—not dead, but withdrawn so completely into Clivilius or into hiding on Earth that they might as well be. I'd heard whispers about Brian, about others who'd once been pillars of our scattered network. The thought that Jeremiah might have joined their ranks unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.

The world we'd sworn to protect was fracturing, its Guardians reduced to shadows scattered and isolated in the face of overwhelming darkness. Standing there on the Glenelg jetty, bathed in the last light of day, I was acutely aware of how precarious our balance had become. How easily everything could tip into chaos if we made the wrong move, trusted the wrong person, acted too rashly or too cautiously.

Jeremiah's expression shifted, the attempted levity draining away to reveal something far grimmer beneath. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of a man delivering news he wished he didn't have to share. "Port Stower has fallen."

The words hit like a physical blow. My heart stuttered, seemed to forget its rhythm for a beat. Port Stower—over 2.7 million souls the last time anyone had managed an accurate count. A city that had thrived despite everything, that had represented hope and civilisation in a world that seemed determined to crush both. Gone.

"Shit." The word escaped before I could stop it, inadequate and pathetic in the face of such magnitude. My response was a whisper in the face of an unimaginable storm, laden with sorrow that seemed to suffocate the air between us.

"How can that be?" The question emerged as more plea than inquiry, a desperate hope that perhaps I'd misunderstood, that the reality wasn't as dire as it seemed. The idea that such a bustling metropolis could be reduced to ruins, its vibrant life extinguished, was a concept my mind actively resisted processing.

Jeremiah's eyes—red and swollen in ways that suggested recent and copious tears—locked with mine. The grief in them was naked, raw. "It's all but gone," he whispered, the words barely audible over the gentle lapping of waves against the jetty's pillars. "Over seven thousand souls clinging to the remnants. The rest..." He trailed off, the sentence unfinished because completion would make it too real.

As he continued, each detail added another layer to the tragedy. Over two million people scattered across desolate regions of Clivilius, displaced and desperate. Many had fled to neighbouring cities, overwhelming fragile infrastructures that were already struggling to support their own populations. The cascading effects would be catastrophic—refugee crises that would strain every settlement, resources stretched beyond breaking, conflicts born from desperation and scarcity.

And the Guardians. Jeremiah spoke of them with a heaviness that suggested personal knowledge, perhaps personal loss. Forced into dangerous liaisons with Earth to procure supplies, they'd been systematically hunted. Tortured for information about other Guardians, about settlement locations, about the Portal Key network that kept Clivilius connected to Earth. Many had been killed outright, their bodies left as warnings, their Portal Keys taken and studied by entities that should never have possessed such technology.

A tear escaped my eye before I could stop it, trailing down my cheek in betrayal of the composure I'd been trying to maintain. My heart ached for the lost, for the city that had been a beacon. I knew war—even my island fortress of Belkeep bore scars of conflict, had weathered attacks that had cost lives and nearly broken us. But this was different in scale, in the sheer enormity of loss.

"Cody," Jeremiah's voice broke through the tumult of my thoughts, softer now but somehow heavier. "Clivilius is in chaos."

The statement settled over me like a wet blanket. I cast my gaze downward, watching the water move beneath the jetty, finding it easier to look at than Jeremiah's grief-stricken face. "And Earth is no different," I confessed quietly. The admission felt like surrender, an acceptance of disharmony that had seeped into every corner of existence. The boundaries between worlds were blurring, but not in the way the Prophecy had promised—instead of union, we were getting synchronised collapse.

What happened next stopped my heart. Jeremiah extended his hands towards me, palms up in supplication. The deep scars of iron shackles were etched into his wrists, the marks unmistakable even in the dying light. These weren't old scars, worn smooth by time. These were relatively fresh, the tissue still raised and angry, speaking of recent captivity and suffering I hadn't known about.

"I need help," he said, his voice cracking on the words.

The phrase transported me instantly, violently, back across thirty years to a moment that had defined everything that followed. I need help. The exact words, spoken in the exact same tone, that had started this entire journey.

I was nineteen again, my life rooted in the hard soil of my parents' farm near Gawler. The oldest country town on mainland Australia—a fact we took pride in, though God knew why geographical accident of settlement should be a source of identity. But it was home, familiar and comprehensible in ways nothing would ever quite be again.

That day—29 October 1987—I'd ventured into the local pub after a long shift in the fields, seeking nothing more complicated than a cold beer and perhaps some conversation with the usual crowd. The Kingsford Smith was a institution, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone's business and half the town could be found on any given evening.

Fate had intervened in the form of a collision at the bar. I'd knocked into a stranger, sent his beer tumbling, and what should have been a brief moment of apologies and replaced drinks had transformed into something else entirely. Jeremiah had insisted on buying me a beer to replace the one I'd caused him to spill—a reversal of responsibility that should have struck me as odd but somehow didn't in the moment.

The beers had flowed, and with them, stories. I'd talked about farm life, about days governed by the rising and setting of the sun, about a life defined by seasons and soil and the simple satisfaction of work completed. He'd listened with an attention that felt both flattering and slightly unnerving, asking questions that suggested genuine interest rather than polite patience.

Looking back now, I could see the manipulation in it—the way he'd drawn me out, assessed me, determined whether I was suitable for the burden he was about to drop on unsuspecting shoulders. But in the moment, it had felt like connection, like finding someone who understood the restlessness that had been building in me for months.

My life then had been complicated in ordinary ways. Six siblings, each with their own dramas and needs. Parents who were ageing, whose health and energy were beginning to flag in ways that frightened me more than I could articulate. My brother's sudden departure to Sydney, leaving without proper goodbyes, creating a hole in the family structure that no one quite knew how to fill. The farm demanded constant attention, offered no respite, yet provided grounding in the midst of everything else spinning out of control.

Into this world walked Jeremiah—mysterious, reticent about his past, carrying himself with the kind of weathered confidence that spoke of experiences far beyond my provincial existence. His reluctance to speak of himself should have been a warning, but instead it deepened my fascination. He'd admitted to being an orphan, to spending the last six months living rough on the streets, surviving through resourcefulness I could barely imagine.

On a whim—or what I'd told myself was a whim—I'd invited him back to the farm to stay with my family. It was an impulsive offer, born from compassion and perhaps from that same restlessness that made me want to inject something unexpected into the predictable rhythms of my life. My parents, bless them, had accepted the stranger with characteristic country hospitality, asking few questions and making up a bed without fuss.

Later that night, curiosity had drawn me to his door. My sister Janice had shown him to his room, and something in the way she'd looked at me afterwards—a mixture of concern and excitement—had planted a seed. When I'd seen the vibrant flash of light seeping from beneath his door, all thoughts of propriety had evaporated.

My knocks had gone unanswered. The compulsion to know, to understand, had overridden every instinct towards privacy and restraint. I'd entered the room to find an entire wall pulsating with swirling, colourful energy—impossible, physics-defying, reality-shattering. The room had been empty of Jeremiah, empty of any sign of human presence except that doorway to elsewhere.

When he'd emerged from the Portal, when our eyes had locked and he'd spoken those words—"Cody, I need your help"—I'd been standing at a crossroads without realising it. One path led back to the farm, to the life I'd known, to predictable challenges and ordinary satisfactions. The other led... well, to exactly where I was standing now, thirty-five years later, on the Glenelg jetty with scars on my soul and blood on my hands.

I'd said yes. Standing there in that guest room, confronted with undeniable evidence of something beyond my understanding, I'd felt resolve stir within me. This was more than an appeal for assistance—it was a call to step beyond the boundaries of my world, to embark on a journey that would challenge everything I knew.

He'd placed the Portal Key in my hand, its surface cold and foreign. The instructions had been simple: point and press. When my finger had depressed the button, a sharp prick had startled me, followed by an eruption of energy that transformed the wall into a canvas of swirling colours. His encouragement to step through had been met with fear and fascination in equal measure.

The crossing had propelled me from familiar confines into intense darkness. My heart had hammered frantically, a rhythm matching the tumult of my thoughts. The voice that had greeted me in that darkness hadn't been audible in any traditional sense—it had resonated within the very core of my being.

"Welcome to Clivilius, Cody Jennings."

Those words had been both introduction and confirmation of a journey I hadn't known I'd started until it was too late to turn back. The immediate surroundings had been barely visible, just the suggestion of water and an eerie silence so complete it had felt like a physical presence. Minutes had stretched whilst the cold seeped through my clothing, whilst soft crunching beneath my feet had revealed snow—impossible, contradictory snow in a place that shouldn't exist.

I'd fled back through the Portal, shaken but fundamentally changed. The explanation Jeremiah had offered in the hours that followed had unveiled a narrative so vast and complex it had seemed to stretch the boundaries of sanity. Yet I'd believed it because I'd experienced it, because the evidence had been undeniable.

"Cody? Are you okay?"

Jeremiah's voice yanked me back to the present, to the weathered timbers of the Glenelg jetty and the weight of thirty years lived in service to impossible duties. The transition from memory to present moment was jarring, disorienting.

"Yeah," I responded too quickly, shaking off the remnants of the past. "What can I do to help?"

His gaze held cautious intensity, as though weighing my sincerity against some internal scale. "How is your settlement doing?" The question seemed simple but I recognised the weight beneath it—he was assessing whether I had resources to spare, whether Belkeep could support whatever he was about to ask.

"We're struggling," I admitted, the honesty laying bare vulnerabilities I'd have preferred to keep hidden. "Only three hundred and twenty-six of us left." The number was a condemnation—evidence of my failures as Guardian, as leader, as protector. "We still haven't found any other settlements. People are desperate to escape the islands." The words tasted like ash. "Last week, sixty-two died at sea."

The confession hung between us. Sixty-two deaths that I could have prevented if I'd forbidden the attempt, or perhaps caused by forbidding previous attempts until desperation reached breaking point. Leadership was a series of impossible choices, each one leaving blood on your hands regardless of the decision made.

"The seas around the islands are rougher than anything I've ever seen on Earth," I continued, needing him to understand it wasn't just recklessness. The people who'd died hadn't been foolish—they'd been desperate, had weighed the odds and decided drowning was preferable to slow starvation. "We're isolated. Running out of options."

Jeremiah's solemn nod acknowledged the gravity without offering empty comfort. But beneath his reaction, I sensed purpose, a reason for his appearance that transcended mere reunion. My patience, already frayed by months of escalating crisis, snapped. "What do you want, Jeremiah?"

The directness seemed to catch him off guard. His expression shifted, eyes widening with intensity that suggested I'd struck closer to his purpose than he'd expected. "You've been seeing someone for several months now. Don't you think it's time you did something about it?"

The shift to personal territory was so abrupt it felt like whiplash. "She's not ready," I replied instinctively, defensive walls slamming into place. Gladys was complicated, our relationship even more so. The idea of bringing her into Guardian life, of burdening her with responsibilities she'd never asked for, sat uneasily in my gut.

"Since when are any of us ever ready for the responsibility?" Jeremiah challenged, frustration sharpening his tone. "Think of your children."

An uneasy chuckle escaped before I could stop it. Why was he pressing this now? "The twins are young adults now," I countered, attempting to redirect away from waters too turbulent to navigate whilst standing on a public jetty.

"Yeah. I know," he conceded, but his gaze remained unyielding. "But you've been trying to support the settlement yourself for years. How many since the last Guardian was killed?"

The weight of his question settled on my shoulders like physical mass. "Eighteen. Sylvie Sprake. Killed twenty-third of December, two thousand." Each word carried the weight of eighteen years of solitary struggle, of trying to be enough when I'd never been enough, when no single person could be enough.

"Why are you trying to do it alone? You know I still have two more devices. Let them help you."

His plea carried desperation that felt wrong coming from Jeremiah. My mentor had always been the pragmatic one, the voice of measured response. This urgency suggested stakes I wasn't seeing yet.

I deflected, turning the focus back on him. "Why now? Why after all these years? Why now reconnect with me?" The questions spilled out, confusion and suspicion fighting for dominance.

"So many questions," Jeremiah mused, shaking his head with something between amusement and resignation.

The response ignited my frustration. "Don't start that obedience bullshit with me, Jeremiah. You were the one who taught me to question everything." My voice sharpened, tension escalating between us like a gathering storm. We'd never been here before, never at this precipice where decades of trust strained against immediate crisis.

What happened next crossed lines I didn't even know existed between us. Jeremiah's grip on my arm tightened with alarming intensity, his fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. "What the hell! Have you gone mad?" I exclaimed, shock sparking visceral reaction as I tried to wrench free.

"Luke Smith has been found. He's been given a Portal Key and has now activated it."

The words were hushed, erratic, as though speaking them aloud might summon dangers we weren't prepared to face. The revelation sent shockwaves through every foundation I'd built my reality upon.

"What!" The eruption was involuntary, too loud for the intimate conversation we were having. "The Luke Smith? The one Clivilius has told us to watch for?"

It couldn't be. After decades of waiting, of teaching Freya and Fryar about a Prophecy that had seemed increasingly mythological, suddenly it was real? The timing felt wrong, the circumstances suspicious.

"Yes," Jeremiah confirmed, a grin spreading across his face that seemed disconcertingly out of place given the gravity of everything else he'd revealed.

The implications crashed over me in waves. If Luke Smith was real, if the Prophecy was actually unfolding, then everything changed. All the suffering, all the waiting, all the deaths might actually mean something. But the timing also felt deeply suspicious—Port Stower fallen, Guardians hunted to extinction, Clivilius in chaos, and now the prophesied saviour appears?

"Then it's time," I declared, the words a solemn vow. If the Prophecy was true, if union between Earth and Clivilius was actually possible, then every sacrifice might be justified.

"Yes," Jeremiah agreed, his nod echoing my resolve.

From my jacket pocket, I retrieved the access card—small, white, plastic, unassuming in the dying light. I'd carried it for weeks, uncertain what to do with it, whether the risk of using it outweighed the potential benefits. But if Luke Smith was real, if the endgame was actually approaching, then holding back served no purpose.

I handed it to Jeremiah, watching as his expression morphed from mild interest to intense curiosity. He turned the card over in his hands, examining it as though it might reveal secrets through touch alone. "What's this?"

"It's an access card for Killerton Enterprises."

His reaction was swift and intense. "What? How did you get this?" The shock in his voice was gratifying—proof that I'd managed something he hadn't anticipated, that I'd been operating on levels he hadn't suspected.

"The how is not important," I deflected, unwilling to explain the complex series of events and moral compromises that had led to my possession of it.

Our stares locked, caution and curiosity balanced precariously. "Have you seen the facility?" Jeremiah finally asked, his question laced with fear and fascination.

"I've been inside." The admission was a gamble, revealing cards that could either save me or condemn me.

"What!" His exclamation carried shock and immediate concern. "You need to be careful. They'll kill you if you're found out."

"No!" The shout surprised even me, volume inappropriate for a public jetty. I quickly moderated my tone. "It's not what you think."

"What do you mean?"

"Killerton Enterprises isn't what we thought. It can help us."

Jeremiah's disbelief was palpable. "Help us? But Clivilius said..."

"I know what Clivilius said. But what if Clivilius was wrong?"

The suggestion was heretical. Questioning Clivilius was not something Guardians did—the entity was our guide, our source of purpose and direction. Yet my experience inside Killerton had challenged assumptions I'd held for decades.

"Wrong?" Jeremiah echoed, the word almost unthinkable. "Clivilius is never wrong."

"Are you sure about that?" I pressed, forcing the question he needed to confront.

The silence that followed was heavy with contemplation and conflict. I seized the moment. "You need to get that to Luke," I urged, pointing at the access card as though it were a lifeline.

"I don't think it's a good idea. This is treason you're talking," Jeremiah insisted, extending the card back towards me as though it were contaminated. "If Killerton Enterprises doesn't kill you for this, Clivilius most certainly will."

I refused to take it back. "Please, help me get this to Luke." The plea was raw, desperate.

He shook his head, resignation rather than refusal. "I'm not in a position to make contact with him."

The statement spawned immediate suspicion. "But then how did you know—"

"But you are," he interrupted, pressing the card back against my chest with firmness that brooked no argument.

"I don't understand," I confessed, confusion plain on my face.

"Gladys Cramer."

The name hit like a slap. "Gladys?"

"Yes. Gladys knows Luke Smith very well."

The simplicity of his delivery belied the magnitude of implications. How had Jeremiah come by such information? My mind raced through possibilities, connections, implications that spiralled in dozens of directions simultaneously.

His hand rested on my shoulder, reassuring weight anchoring me. "Let me bring her to Clivilius, my dear friend. You need her."

I looked down at the access card in my hand, then back at Jeremiah. The path ahead was fraught with uncertainty, possibly with betrayal, definitely with danger. But the alternative was slow death for Belkeep, was abandoning any hope that the Prophecy might actually mean something.

"Okay," I conceded, the word forged from resolve solidified in the crucible of thirty years of impossible choices. "Let's do it."

The sun had fully set now, leaving us standing in twilight on a South Australian jetty, plotting revolution against the very entity that had given our lives meaning. Somewhere, Grace would have either laughed at the audacity or wept at the recklessness. Probably both.

I pocketed the access card and turned towards the expansive ocean, towards whatever came next. Beneath me, the ocean continued its rhythmic conversation with the jetty's pillars, indifferent to the fact that the world—two worlds—might be about to change forever.