Danica personally opens Mateo’s pod after the usual 10,000 years. “Good
news,” she says. “We found Bhulan, but I wanted to wait until your usual
wake up time, so you could help us.” She steps aside to let him out.
“Help you with getting her back?” he assumes. “How long did you wait?”
“Consistency is efficiency’s neighbor. I waited 700 years.”
“Okay. How did you find her?”
“I sent probes throughout the entire growing solar system. It took them so
long, because I couldn’t send very many. This is a very delicate dance, and
any alteration in the gravitational forces that bind the growing planets and
asteroids together could throw off the entire timeline. We’re not safe from
screwing up the future just because we’re living in the Hadean aeon.”
“And why do you need my help? Could not one of these probes tow Bhulan
home?” Mateo suggests.
“That is not their job, Matthew. That is your job.”
He yawns, because even though he’s been away for thousands of years, he has
not been asleep. It’s been a couple days, and he’s due for a rest. She won’t
let him do it. “Tell me where to go.”
Danica smirks. “Constance, drop down a hologram, please.”
The AI creates an image of the early solar system, initially showing where
they’re located under the crust on Theia. It zooms out and pans over, all
the way to the remote location of Bhulan’s pod, floating randomly in the
middle of empty space. “How far?”
“It’s around eighteen million kilometers from here.”
Mateo’s confused. “You mean eight.”
“No, look.” Danica uses her minority report hands to pull the image out
again. “Eighteen and change.”
“Danica, I can’t make it that far. I’m limited to the distance of the moon,
which means that would take over forty-five jumps.”
“Then make forty-five jumps.”
“I can’t breathe in space. I can survive the vacuum for short periods of
time, but teleporting shortens that period significantly. I barely made it
there and back last time, and that was half the distance. I didn’t know it
could have drifted that far, but it’s out of my reach. I get that you wanted
to teach me a lesson, but I’m not a wizard.”
Danica takes him by the shoulders, and starts leading him towards the
elevator doors. “You’re going to go out there and get my friend back, no
matter how far you have to go. You’ll do this, even if it kills you, and if
you don’t, I’ll kill Abigail and Cheyenne. I don’t know what future history
you have with the latter, but it’s clear that she’s important to you. Don’t.
Test me.” She slaps a handheld device into his hand, which will direct him
on the intercept course, then she presses the call button. The doors open.
He scowls at her. “Congratulations, cousin. You’ve done it.”
“Done what?”
“You’ve lowered yourself to villain status. Now you’re on my shitlist.”
“That’s okay. Way the timestream tells it, all your enemies become your
friends.”
“Try telling that to Erlendr Preston, or Tristesse Ulinthra.”
“Who the hell is Tristesse Ulinthra?”
“Exactly,” he replies as he’s turning around. He doesn’t bother stepping
into the elevator, he just makes his first jump into the void.
Jump two, jump three, jump four...jump forty-seven. He’s not going to make
it. The pull of death is calling to him, begging him to close his eyes, and
let go. He does let go, but not of his life; just the tracking device. As
it’s floating away from him, he sees it showing him at around 300,000
kilometers from his destination. One more jump would do it, but it will also
kill him. Then again, so will hanging out here. He’s well over halfway
there, so it’s not like he can cut his losses and go back. There aren’t any
spaceships or habitable planets around here. His only hope is not just
getting to the stasis pod, but inside of it. It was designed to hold one
person, but surely two can technically fit in a pinch. Bhulan won’t be
happy, but she’ll be fine, and more importantly, so will he. He musters the
last of his strength, and pushes himself to the limit. Eighteen million
kilometers and change.
He’s arrived, holding onto the edge of the pod, but it must be the back of
it, because there’s no little window. Let’s just get around to the other
side before we do anything rash. There we are. Wait, that’s not Bhulan. Who
is that? Holy crap, it’s Curtis Duvall. What the hell is this guy doing out
here and way back when? Ha, Danica is going to be so pissed when she finds
out. This is great. It means that Bhulan is still missing, and probably will
be for the necessary amount of time, or Constance would have found more than
one. This is farther out than he left her, so now it all makes sense. It
also means he’s about to die. That is, unless he can get himself into the
pod, which actually looks smaller than the ones the Constant uses. One final
jump.
Curtis wakes up with a start, and instinctively pulls the tube out of his
nose. He’s not in temporal stasis, but in normal suspended animation. He’s
been lying here for however long, aging incredibly slowly and asleep, but
destined to die eventually, if never found. The Constant pods can supposedly
last forever, but this was probably never meant to. Curtis gets his
bearings, looking down to check if the two of them are accidentally touchin’
peen. “Umm...report.”
“This is the Hadean aeon. You’re floating in the middle of space, between
where Earth and Mars will be.”
“What?”
“Actually, I don’t know that Mars doesn’t exist by now. But Earth is
composed of two different planets, which have not yet collided, but they’re
already there, ready to do that in millions of years.”
“How did I get here?”
“No idea.”
“How did you get here?”
“Magic,” Mateo whispers, trying to wave his hands in front of him
theatrically, but there’s not enough room to do that.” Oops, sorry.”
“Yeah. That was my...”
“Yeah, sorry again. Anyway, I teleported. I teleport millions of miles in
space to save someone else. It turns out it was you.”
“Well, thank you.”
“No problem, but uh...It’ll be some time before I can get us back to
safety.”
“Well, in the meantime, make yourself at home. There’s plenty of space.”
Mateo laughs.
No comments :
Post a Comment