| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1 |
It’s not everyone on Castlebourne who can get a private meeting with the one
and only Hrockas Steward. Billions of people are visiting. They don’t
technically live here permanently, because citizenship seems unnecessary,
and isn’t an obvious process, but the population is growing. Many have been
here for decades. The point is, Elise is special. She’s not the only
transgenic person on the planet—not by a mile—but she’s one of the few
people in history who can teleport.
Elise isn’t here simply for the sake of it, but the purpose of the meeting
is very real, even if she has an ulterior motive. It’s her job to keep the
man busy in a secure location so her friends can break into the castle. They
didn’t have a whole lot of time to plan this, so it’s not as sophisticated
of an attack as they would like, but they need that routing information.
Within the hour, Zelda’s disappearance from the network will trigger a
subroutine in the backup system, which will awaken an outdated version of
her.
This is something that you have to set up ahead of time. People come and go
from planets all the time, it doesn’t mean their backups automatically try
to replace them, or the galaxy would be chock full of unwarranted
duplicates. It’s a failsafe that Hrockas put in place on their behalf. The
assumption is that the more recent Zelda is dead, which is true, but the
program doesn’t know that Miracle has a way to get her back. While she’s
preparing for that with newcomer Reagan, the rest of the team are trying to
hack into the administrative database, or whatever. In fact, they should be
in it by now.
“If you have somewhere to be,” Hrockas says, “we can do this another time.”
“No, sorry. Wait, what?” Elise asks, confused.
“You keep checking your watch,” he points out.
“Sorry, yes. I’m not in a hurry,” Elise replies while she tries to come up
with an explanation. “I’m trying to get a feel for my temporal energy. I
would like to find a way to gauge it. Like, I jumped us all three here, per
your instructions, so how much did that take out of me? Thirty percent?
Fifty percent? More? How would I know unless I just try again, and hope for
the best? Do other teleporters deal with this kind of uncertainty?”
Hrockas nods. “That’s why I suggested connecting you with a friend of a
friend. They’re also a teleporter, so they would know more about it. It’s
not exactly my specialty. I can’t even do it myself; not biologically,
anyway. I deliberately avoid it because I think it grants me too much power.
I might be deluding myself, it’s just, when you own an entire planet...never
mind, you don’t wanna hear about my problems.”
“No, I do,” Elise insists. She’s not lying either. The man is pretty
well-liked all around. He set up a paradise, and he doesn’t seem to be
asking for anything in return. His laws are reasonable, and he mostly stays
out of people’s way. Not much is known about him personally, or exactly how
he came to own this colony. There is usually a story, but the visitors rely
mostly on rumors to make it make sense, because by all accounts, he was not
the very first person to settle here. He has even hinted that Castlebourne
is named after a person, but who? “I’m very curious about what it’s like.”
“What it’s like to be me?” Hrockas guesses. “I don’t think either of us has
time to get into that, but it’s not as hard as it sounds. Everything’s
automated. You don’t need a giant government making decisions anymore. The
past has done that for us, the laws are self-evident. You wanted to discuss
and learn about your powers, though.”
“Yes, and I don’t want to speak with anyone else. I trust you,” Elise says.
“What about Telman?” Hrockas asks. “Do you trust Telman?”
Elise looks over at Telman who is standing over her with a scanner in one
hand, and a syringe in the other. “Yeah, I trust Telman.” That’s not totally
true.
Hrockas presses a button to lean Elise back in her chair.
Straps pop out from the arm and leg rests, and wrap themselves around her
body.
Hrockas smiles. “Okay, well he’s going to show you a series of images. I
don’t want you to try to teleport to them, which is what these straps are
for. They keep you in one place. I only want you to reach out with your
mind. Most teleporters have an innate sense of if their destination is safe
to jump to, or if it’s a busy street, or inside of a wall. Not everyone can
do this, though, so we need to know your limitations. If something goes
wrong, he’s ready with a baseline cocktail. Just relax.”
Elise takes a breath and watches the images go by. They appear to actually
be video feeds from Castlebourne. The entrance to 10,000 Emerald Pools, a
wide shot of The Wasteland, a weird empty cardboard city, the Castledome
castle, the Castledome castle interior, the Castledome castle admin wing,
the Castledome castle admin wing server room, where most of her friends are
trying to break into the mainframe. “Oh.”
Hrockas holds on the feed and nods. “Oh,” he echoes casually.
She looks over at him. “How long have you known?” She looks back at the
video, where she sees Azad appear before the hunters, and begin to arrest
them.
“Since before you even thought up the plan,” Hrockas explains. “You think
this is the first timeline where you’ve lost someone, and the first time
you’ve tried to get them back? I mean...it’s the first time
you’ve personally been here, which is an interesting development, and
a nice change of pace, but seriously, I have a lot of time traveler friends.
Have you heard of the Infinity Suite? It’s not an optical illusion, it’s
literally infinite. I’m protected from alterations to reality thanks to
another friend of a friend. I’m not sure if that matters anymore, because
some of this is unprecedented.”
“Oh, you mean like this?” Miracle’s voice asks from out of Elise’s view.
Elise turns her head to see Miracle is standing with Reagan, holding a
parabolic dish. Before Hrockas or Telman can do anything, she blasts them
with an energy wave.
The two of them collapse to the floor, and it’s unclear if their bodies are
dead.
“What’s going on with Zelda?” Elise asks desperately. “Did we lose hope?”
“No, but we have a workaround. We needed them out of our way,” Mir
answers.
Elise struggles to get out of the chair, but has to let Miracle set her free
of the magic straps. “What are we gonna do? The whole team has been
arrested.”
“We knew they would be,” Reagan explains. He sets some kind of contraption
on a nearby table. “They were a distraction while Mir and I went for
something else.” He shows her a vial of clear liquid. “I think there is only
enough concentrated temporal energy for one person. We may be able to
squeeze in another, but I don’t wanna risk it.”
“One person to what?” Elise massages her wrists and flexes her wings.
“To go back in time...not consciousness travel, though,” Miracle explains.
“This would be physical. If we want to change things, we have to do it
differently. We have to do something crazy. You won’t be detected. You’re
the only one who can stay invisible to the sensors. You don’t follow the
same rules. Those straps never would have worked.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Elise is more lost than
ever.
“Hold still.” Reagan drapes her in a big black robe, and pushes a big red
button.
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