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| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2 |
Hundreds of thousands of years from now, the universe will be a very
different place. No world, no culture, no daily routine would be
recognizable to someone from the present day, or even thousands of years
later. In this future, three boys were born. They lived on Earth, the
surface of which had largely been abandoned, and left to thrive in peace. A
small sect of humans remained throughout this time, incidentally keeping
their population small by emigration, and otherwise avoidable
life-threatening diseases and dangers. There were fully organic humanoids
elsewhere in the galaxy, but they were genetically engineered one way or the
other. This tiny Earthan village was composed of normal people who were the
last in a line of natives. Being of the same sex, the trio was unable to
further the species, finally marking the end of an era. After their
respective parents died, they were all alone in a universe that they
despised, and did not understand. They were inconsequential. Or at least
that was what anyone who found out about them believed. But there was one
thing that set them apart. They were not normal humans. Being the final
members of the race had intrinsically made them special, which time itself
took to be significant.
The boys grew up, and eventually forgot their own names. They adopted new
ones, based on their individual time powers. Time travelers were still
around, but only because they traveled through time. Except for these three,
they were no longer being born, because the conditions were no longer
suitable for them. Antichron was so named because he was a true time
traveler, who was capable of freely moving backwards and forward along the
timeline. Antiparticle could teleport multiple particles to a single point
in spacetime, forcing an unnatural collision that resulted in the
annihilation of them all, and an explosion correlative to the number of the
particles, and the speed of transport, and reversely correlative to the size
of the point. Antintropy could reverse entropy, repairing what once was
broken, or healing what once was damaged. He could theoretically restore all
of reality to a more ordered state. But to do that, he needed power. To do
that, he needed the other two. Together, they became The Antitheses, and set
about to change their present. This turned out to mean changing the past
first.
A war ravaged the galaxy centuries prior to their time, which contributed to
the dwindling natural human population. To win this war, the Antitheses
could go back to the beginning of it, and use their considerable powers to
win without breaking a sweat, but they did not want to reveal their powers
to those who would misunderstand or fear them. They needed to become heroes
in their own time, not villains before they were born. They had to win this
war using traditional tactics. It was going to take a lot of work, but it
was not impossible. To prepare for the mission, they went back even further
in time, to an even more primitive technological period, hoping to steal an
obsolete warship called the Sharice Davids. It was a powerful vessel, but
limited in its advancements, which made it perfect for the future war. There
were vulnerabilities in more advanced starships which the Davids did not
have to worry about. Unfortunately, this mission proved to be more difficult
than they thought it would.
They faced far more opposition in the 23rd century than they ever expected.
Antichron’s ability to read the timeline was less refined than he hoped. The
ship kept slipping from their grasps. Every time they tracked it to a new
point in spacetime, it would move to another before they had any chance of
boarding it again. At one point, it appeared to be destroyed, but then it
showed back up on their temporal radar, and they were able to pursue once
more. Annoyingly, it was traveling much faster than it should have been, and
they were having trouble keeping up. Antiparticle was capable of teleporting
them from one point to another without annihilating the particles,
but this took a lot more concentration, because that wasn’t what he trained
himself to do. Destruction was the name of the game for him, and reapplying
his skills in another way proved tiresome. It was now the year 2337, though,
and the ship was right before them. They were nearly there.
“It’s gone!” Antiparticle exclaimed.
“Again?” Antintropy cried. “How could it be gone again? They were staying in
one place! We’re in the middle of nowhere. Why would they come all the way
out to this region of space, only to disappear yet again?”
“No idea,” Antiparticle replied. “Follow them, Antichron. Where have they
gone to next?”
Theirs was less of a ship, and more of a small snowglobe-shaped lifeboat,
protected by a semitransparent plasma field. They didn’t think that they
would need anything else, and besides, the more massive the object, the
harder it was for both Antichron to jump through time, and for Antiparticle
to teleport. Antichron didn’t say anything. His eyes were closed.
“Antichron!” Antintropy shouted.
“I’m looking!” Antichron shouted back. He shook his head. “I can’t find it.”
“That’s impossible!” Antintropy was never really not angry. “We would
detect debris if it were destroyed, even if it were vaporized by something.
It went somewhere, through a portal, or via the new teleportation drive it
seems to have. And if it’s anywhere in the timeline, Antichron, then you
should be able to pick it up. All of time and space at your fingertips. Find
it!”
“I can’t. I’ve looked,” Antichron insisted. “It never comes back. We have
attempted to intercept it at every moment that it has existed after the
moment in its personal timeline where it was historically destroyed. I’m
telling you, wherever it is, it’s not in the timeline, and it never
returns.”
“Not in the timeline,” Antintropy echoed. “Where could they be if not in the
timeline? There is no outside of the timeline.”
“Not as far as we know,” Antiparticle reminded him. “We could not find a
teacher to help us learn the ways of the time traveler. If we were to find
someone now, they might be able to illuminate us.”
“Stop suggesting that!” Antintropy demanded. “We’re not going to look for
help. We’ve always done this on our own, and will continue on that way.”
“It’s obviously not working,” Antichron said. “Perhaps we underestimate
these primitive people. They may have escaped in a way that none of us is
familiar with, and are now cloaking themselves from detection. We’ve been
chasing them relentlessly. They could have learned something about us.”
“What can ants learn of gods?” Antintropy questioned.
“Wait,” Antiparticle said, looking at the screen. “There’s something out
there. We may have picked up a piece of debris afterall.”
“Plot an intercourse immediately.” Antintropy was not always the leader.
Their trio had no predetermined leader, but power shifted periodically when
one of them managed to bully the others into submission. It would continue
to change if they never came up with an agreed upon hierarchy. This was
assuming, of course that they didn’t destroy themselves by the time they
accomplished their objectives anyway.
Antichron did as he was told, and flew their platform towards the only known
object in the area. It was very slow, yet still difficult to maneuver. They
passed by it a couple of times before they managed to sync up with its
drift. It appeared to be a person, wearing a vacuum suit, but they were also
sitting down. Antiparticle programmed the plasma barrier to accept them as a
non-threat, then floated up to bring them in.
Once their mysterious visitor was completely inside of their transporter,
the helmet opened, revealing a man. He was not surprised to see them, but
also did not look upon them with any level of familiarity. He moved his eyes
from one to the next, to the next. “You are here to steal the Sharice
Davids?”
Antintropy cleared his throat, and took a half step forwards. “Yes, we are.
Do you have a problem with that?”
“I personally don’t,” the man replied, “but you’ll find it difficult since
the Sharice Davids no longer exists.” He paused, only to continue before
they could respond. “They changed the name. It is now known as the Cormanu,
so depending on what you’re after, you may be too late to the party.”
“Who are you?” Antintropy asked.
“My name is Meredarchos, but I’m currently in the body of a man named
Carbrey Genovese. I can help you get to the universe that they have escaped
to, but you will have to do everything I say without question.”
“Why would you help us?” Antichron questioned warily. “What’s in it for
you?”
Meredarchos nodded as if they had already come to an agreement. “I have been
searching for someone to help me in my home universe. I keep believing that
I have found my champions, only to be thwarted by someone else, or even my
targets themselves. I am trapped where I was born, and cannot leave on my
own. I can teach you how to travel to where the crew of the Cormanu have
escaped to, but before we do that, I demand that you use this technology to
rescue me first.”
“Your physical form is stuck where it is, and you can only leave with your
mind?” Antiparticle summarized.
“This is correct,” Meredarchos confirmed. “I seek out the weakest of minds,
which might be the mentally vulnerable, or the injured. This man here was
too busy trying to recover from truly severe wounds to keep me out.
Unfortunately, my intrusion suppressed that recovery further, leaving me in
this lame shell. I had to stay dormant for a while to survive. I need
strength to find another host, but that does not matter if you can get to my
real body. It is dying, and I cannot fix it where it is. It must be
transported somewhere else, or I may end up trapped in a faulty new body,
such as this one. The Cormanu is of no concern to me, but I’ll help you. As
an added bonus, I’ll ignore your universe, and only conduct my work
elsewhere. Trust me, that’s a good deal.”
“What exactly is your work?” Antintropy asked him.
“You cannot be made aware of that. It is a non-negotiable stipulation. If
you want the Cormanu, you’ll have to agree to that, as well as a few more
details. You may add your own requirements as well as we continue to discuss
this.”
The Antitheses negotiated with Meredarchos, and laid out their plans. He
taught them how to synthesize something called an atomic lance, which
tapered to a point so small, it could pierce through the nucleus of an atom.
With this, they were able to access hyperdimensional space, also known as
the outer bulk. Bulk energy would leak into their lance, and fill the
storage tank. This took a very, very long time, but they did not need
to stick around to wait for it. All four of them jumped a few hundred years
into the future, but they left the snowglobe where it was. When they
returned to the timestream, the bulk energy reserves were full, and they
were ready to make the jump. The whole thing shook violently, tossing them
around like rag dolls. They did not bother installing seats on this thing,
nor protective belts to hold them in place. Meredarchos was able to stay put
by magnetizing his hover chair to the floor. The Antitheses, however, had to
alter artificial gravity to keep themselves against the plasma barrier,
which could be as hard as rock, or in this case, as soft as pillows.
They waited patiently as the shaking continued for several minutes before
finally reaching critical mass, and falling through the breach in the
universe’s membrane. Now that that part was over, they were able to place
themselves in temporal stasis so they wouldn’t get bored, because it would
be untold time before they could reach Meredarchos’ universe of origin.
Seconds later, they were there, so they pierced the second membrane, and
landed on the planet. It was desolate and plain. There were absolutely no
geographical features. The whole world was entirely smooth. They found
Meredarchos’ original body where it was barely holding onto life inside of a
small personal living chamber. They pulled it into the snowglobe, which was
getting pretty crowded now, and took off. First the shaking, then the
piercing, then the stasis, then the piercing again, and they were finally
where they wanted to be.
“This...this feels weird,” Antiparticle noted.
“It’s a dead universe.” Meredarchos was still piloting Carbrey’s body. “The
laws of physics don’t foster life here. There are no habitable planets, only
us, and the Cormanu.”
“Why would they come here?” Antichron asked.
He shrugged Carbrey’s shoulders. “It has plenty of chemical elements. “The
ship was heavily damaged, so they need raw materials to repair it. If I
hadn’t taught you how to travel the bulk, this would be one of the safest
places to hide.”
“They’ve detected us,” Antiparticle announced.
“That’s okay,” Meredarchos decided. “They won’t be able to leave yet. I’m
surprised they made it here in the first place, but I’m sure they’ve
exhausted their power, so even if the repairs didn’t keep them from escaping
again, they’ll have to refuel first. If I were you, I would take your shot
now, though. They’ll be looking for workarounds to their predicament.”
“You can stay here,” Antintropy told him. He took Antiparticle’s hand, who
in turn took Antichron’s. The Antitheses teleported right into the Cormanu
where they found themselves trapped in what looked like a hock.
A woman casually approached, and dragged her fingers along the laser beams
that were preventing them from leaving. When she removed her hand, they saw
that the tips had been burned off. “I’ll just get Landis to fix it. Because
you underestimate us. You see, we’ve been eavesdropping. We know who you
are. We’re currently upgrading the ship, rendering it completely useless to
you. It will not serve you in your stupid future war. We’ll let you out if
you leave us alone forever, but if you ever come after us again, then we’ll
react in kind. We give second chances, but not thirds. What say you?”
Antintropy scowled and approached the lasers. “We’ll leave your ship alone,
and revert to our backup plan, but in the meantime, you’ll become our new
fixation.”
The woman leaned in closer. “Then you’ll die.”
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