Amaranti went through the shatter portal first, along with their bug alien
prisoner of war. Angela went through next, followed by Mateo. The punching
guy took up the rear, in case the portal closed on them, and he had to
create another one. They all apparently made it through just in time. The
five of them were now standing on a moon in another universe. A ship was
destined to come retrieve them at some point, but scheduling anything at a
certain time was difficult when accounting for multiverse travel, since
different universes ran on different timestreams. This rock wasn’t
uninhabitable, but the atmosphere was a little thin, and not suitable for
long-term survival. They got themselves into an outpost, where they found a
little jail cell, enough supplies to last months, and breathing apparatuses,
which just helped them get enough oxygen to be more comfortable. They
reiterated that they would get them to July 22, 2137, but that Mateo’s best
chance of getting this thing out of his neck was here.
Amaranti was hesitant to explain who it was they were, and what their
mission was. Mateo didn’t care for any specifics, but they were evidently
fighting an enemy that was well aware of the world of salmon and
choosers, and he needed to know more about that. The other guy,
Limerick pointed out that Mateo was clearly not completely oblivious to how
the bulkverse worked, and their contact protocols did not bar them from
reading him into the situation. Those secrets were mostly there to protect
people who had only ever seen a little corner of their own universe. Mateo,
on the other hand, had been to many other universes, perhaps even more than
these two had. When he told them that, they were quite surprised, and
flatteringly impressed. Their excitement grew when he added that his mission
involved assassinating eight alternate versions of Adolf Hitler. There was
clearly no issue when it came to telling Mateo about the war.
“They’re called the Ochivari,” Amaranti began. “They’re the basic bitch race
of the bulkverse. Different factions have different exact motivations, but
one thing they all have in common is that they want to destroy all evolved
life, everywhere.
“It’s more than that,” Limerick continued. “They want to kill anything that
impacts their environment too much. On my world, we have a species called
beavers. They build these things called dams—”
“We know what beavers are,” Mateo interrupted.
“Well, that’s apparently enough to make the Ochivari try to wipe them out.
They think they’re protecting the plantlife, and little critters that keep
more to themselves. Birds build nests, that seems to be okay, and bees
actually spread plants, so that’s great. Ants are fine, as are snakes.
Humans, beavers, meerkats; they all just do too much to the planets they
live on. We’re obviously the worst offenders, which is why they focus so
heavily on us.”
“Beavers are a keynote species,” Angela pointed out. “They actually help the
environment.”
“We don’t know if the Ochivari don’t realize that, or if they simply don’t
see it that way. They just go in and try to kill anything that alters the
ecosystem to a high enough degree.”
“Why have I not heard of them before?” Mateo asked.
“Beavers are never going to change,” Amaranti said. “They’ll keep building
dams until evolution tells them not to. There are, however, based on what
little evidence we’ve been able to find, some human cultures that have
abandoned their old ways, or otherwise improved. They eventually develop
technology that allows them to restore their planet’s wildlife, and stay out
of its way. The Ochivari leave these worlds alone.”
Mateo recognized what they were talking about. People were already living in
megastructures that avoided damaging large swathes of land by going more
vertical. There were plans to take this further, and start hanging all of
their structures from orbit, so they never had to touch the ground at all.
“We do that on our version of Earth.”
“Exactly,” Amaranti agreed. “That’s why those two were there. They were
surveying your Earth, and tracking your development. They have a large
presence in your universe, because of your multiple timelines. Normally,
they can just jump to the future, and find out how the people there end up
progressing. It’s a lot different for you, they’re not sure how to handle
it.”
“We were sent to capture one, and kill all others,” Limerick said.
“Like them,” Angela noted.
“How’s that?” Limerick questioned.
“You kill the Ochivari like they kill us,” Angela went on.
“That’s what war is, buddy.”
“Has anyone tried talking to them?” Angela suggested.
Limerick was shockingly offended by this. “You want us to do what!”
“Calm down,” Amaranti told him. She turned back to Angela. “It wouldn’t
matter. If we went back to the Ochivari’s homeworld of Worlon—back to before
they did any of this—we could conceivably convince them not to attack us. We
could stop them before they decided to become what they become. It might
work. However, it would create a new timeline, and as great as that sounds,
the old timeline still existed. As we said before, different universes have
completely different timestreams. When you left your Earth, it was July 21,
2136, but that’s only by your calendar. It’s the sixteenth century on
this moon, according to a different calendar. And it’s not time travel. When
you cross the boundary of one universe, you may enter another at any point
in time, in any reality. Because metatime, which is time that exists
outside of any universe, is not a temporal dimension, but a spatial
dimension. There has been at least one reality where the Ochivari left their
universe, and that can’t be undone, because as soon as they stepped out,
they started experiencing metatime, and were no longer beholden to the logic
of serial causality.”
Angela looked at the floor and nodded. “How do the Ochivari come to the
ability to travel this bulkverse, as you call it? They build a ship, or
something?”
“They’re born with the ability to do it,” Limerick explained. “It’s...it’s
hard on them, though. Their method is extremely unpleasant, which I find
quite satisfying.”
“They’re kind of like him,” Amaranti added.
“No, not like me!” he fought.
Amaranti pursed her lips, and nodded, actively avoiding making eye contact
with Limerick.
Angela was still nodding, theoretically on to a great idea. “So they’ll
become bulk travelers no matter what.”
“Yes,” Amaranti said, not seeing the purpose of this line of questioning.
Angela smiled. “Then why don’t you create an alternate reality where the
Ochivari are good...and ask them to fight with you?”
Amaranti and Limerick didn’t know what to think of this suggestion. They had
clearly never thought of it themselves. Before they could agree with her, or
not, the door swung open. A man came through with a comforting smile on his
face. “Y’all need transport? Oh, looks like we have a couple new recruits
here.”
“We rescued them,” Amaranti replied. “They’re not recruits. One of them
requires medical attention, and then we have to get them to their version of
July 22, 2137.”
“Not yet,” the man said. “They’re not recruits yet. Hi, my name is Chase
Palmer. Let’s get you home.” He offered his hand. Angela took it.
Chase led them out of the outpost, and about a kilometer away to a clearing,
where a spaceship was waiting for them. They embarked, and strapped
themselves in. “Take us up, Cassie. Head for Torosia.”
“Sure thing,” the pilot, Cassie said. She flew the craft up out of the
atmosphere, but they didn’t go far before something changed. Mateo’s heart
sank quickly, before springing back up to its place in his chest. Through
the viewports, they could see an ocean of beautiful colors, but all of them
shades of orange. Mateo guessed it to be some form of faster-than-light
travel.
In about an hour, they were at their destination, so Cassie dropped them out
of FTL, and landed on a planet that was presumably called Torosia. There,
Mateo went under surgery to have the pattern suppression patch removed from
the back of his neck. It was reportedly fairly easy to do, but wasn’t
something he could have handled on his own. He was given the greenlight to
travel after a few hours of rest, just to make sure nothing went wrong.
Limerick had to go off on some other mission, so he wasn’t able to transport
them back to their home universe. But that was okay, because he wasn’t the
only person capable of doing it. A young woman in a fancy futuristic vacuum
suit showed up wielding a knife. She introduced herself as Zoey Attar, which
was a name Mateo immediately recognized. She was present at his wedding with
Leona, and had helped flower girl and ring bear, little Dar’cy Matigaris
find the rings after the latter accidentally mixed them up with the flower
petals.
Zoey used her knife to tear a hole in the spacetime continuum, which they
crawled through to get back to their universe. She did not follow them
through, though, evidently confident that they were in the right place at
the right time. They were standing at the top of a hill, and since they
didn’t have any clue where they were meant to go, they just sat down and
waited, spending the time tearing apart blades of grass, and talking about
their lives. A few hours later, the world around them blinked away, leaving
them seemingly at the same place, but in a different reality. Leona, Sanaa,
Jeremy, Kallias, and Aeolia were trekking up the hill, headed right for
them.
“Oh, thank God,” Leona said. “I was hoping it would be you.”
“We were all hoping that,” Sanaa corrected.
“Where have you been?” Kallias asked.
“We’ll tell you all about it. But first, how did the transition go last
year?”
“It was fine,” Jeremy answered. “It’s probably good you weren’t there. That
lunar hermit did not like being around people. Fortunately, he couldn’t see
Bran or Aeolia, because the three of us were stressful enough.”
“The lunar hermit?” Angela questioned. If the transition was on the moon,
why did the map send us to the Mariana trench?”
“The trench was two days ago,” Leona explained.
“It’s not Monday, July 22, 2137?” Mateo asked for clarification. “We were
told very specifically that we would be delivered right to you.”
“Whoever you’re talking about overshot their target,” Aeolia said. “It’s
2138 now.”
“Ah. I guess that’s not that bad.” But then Mateo instinctually reached up
to massage his neck, having felt a sharp pain back there.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” He saw the world around him change colors, like two dozen
lamp filters flashing in front of his eyes, which started feeling heavy.
Then he fell down and passed out.
No comments :
Post a Comment