Mateo and Olimpia actually did lose a little bit of the temporal energy that
their bodies would store for regular use, namely for teleportation. The
Livewire was also tapped out of whatever reserves it had for itself, if any.
They didn’t know how it worked. Having no interest in staying here, the two
of them exited the apartment through the door, and walked down to the
ground. They spent the rest of the day enjoying the island’s amenities,
focusing predominantly on the water jetpacking sector. Neither of them had
tried it before, and it appeared that they had no other way out of here.
They periodically checked their own energy, and the Livewire’s, but nothing.
It wasn’t until the next year when their bodies were replenished by the jump
to the future. They now appeared to have the power they needed to activate
the Livewire. They still didn’t know what the hell they were doing, but they
hoped there was some kind of psychic control connection.
Having no better ideas, they borrowed a boat, and went out to the middle of
nowhere. They each held one end of the wire, and stepped back to make it
taut. They tried to focus on what they were trying to accomplish, returning
to the Vellani Ambassador thousands of years ago, but the opposite happened
instead. Their ship appeared over their heads a few meters in the air, and
crash landed into the ocean. Fortunately, this was dozens of kilometers
off-shore, so probably no one saw it happen. Mateo and Olimpia teleported
into the Ambassador to reunite with their people.
“How did we get here?” Leona questioned. She and Ramses were on the bridge,
making sure that all systems were still in working order. “Where are we?”
“That was us,” Mateo answered.
She spun around, and exhaled with relief. “Thank God. We were trying to
figure out where you two had gone. You had us worried sick!”
“We thought you had gone down to Ex-01, but we couldn’t find you, and
Oaksent seemed just as confused as we were,” Ramses added.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Olimpia interjected as they were hugging.
“This doesn’t make any sense. Mateo, you did teleport down to the planet.
You were detoured by the trip to the island, but you were only really gone
for one second. You should have returned to that very moment three days ago
to close your loop.”
“That’s not what happened,” Angela contended. “Mateo disappeared, and never
reappeared. You did too, at the same time. We’ve been looking for you for
the last three days. We were pretty mean to Bronach because of it.”
Olimpia and Mateo exchanged a look. “We’re in a different timeline,” she
determined. “What changed it? This thing?” She held up the Livewire.
“I don’t think it has the power to shift timelines,” Ramses said, taking it
from her, and examining it. “Something else changed history.”
“Did you guys notice that we’re still sinking?” Marie asked, looking at the
viewscreens to see bubbles shooting their way upwards towards the surface.
Leona instinctively looked up to see it too. “Yeah, it’s fine,” she brushed
off. “We need to make sure the timeline is okay. What are we missing? What
didn’t happen that should have?”
“Well, Matt rescued Elder Caverness,” Olimpia replied. “That’s about it, I
think. Well, he also punched the Oaksent.”
“We did that,” Angela said. “The Elder rescue, that is.” She reached up to
switch the channel on the nearest screen. They were looking at the security
feed for the guest room now. Elder was sitting up on the twin bed, leaning
against the wall, perpendicular to the head and foot. If they didn’t know
any better, they would think he was dead.
“He’ll just make more,” Olimpia explained. “He scanned and stores multiple
copies of Elder’s consciousness.”
“I can fix that,” Ramses decided. “Just give me some time to build a
consciousness nullifier.”
“That sounds bad...and difficult,” Mateo thought.
“It will just make it so that this Elder here will be the only one in
existence,” Ramses clarified. “We’ll have to go back to that time period to
use it, though, which means I’ll also have to figure out how to make the
navigation systems work properly.”
“Maybe that thing will help,” Leona suggested, gesturing towards the
Livewire.
“Yeah, I need to run some tests now that I have better resources than I did
when we last saw this thing in the Third Rail.”
They felt a small shudder as the ship landed on the ocean floor when the
internal inertial dampeners were briefly insufficient. Leona and Ramses
casually looked over to receive the damage report, which was minimal.
Escaping the situation was not urgent. Or maybe it was. There was a ping on
the sensors. “Someone is headed right for us,” Marie pointed out.
“It’s probably Search and Rescue.”
“Unidentified sunken vessel, this is Search and Rescue. Please respond,” came a voice on the radio. She was right.
“Where are they coming from?” Leona asked.
“Star Island.”
“Turks and Caicos?”
“Closer to Hawaii.”
“Never heard of it,” Leona said. “But either way, we need to figure out how
we’re going to get out of this mess. We could teleport, but they would see.
We could turn invisible, but we would still be displacing the water.”
“It’s 2474,” Angela said. “Don’t these people have reframe engines by now?”
“They’re certainly aware of them,” Leona answered, “but they’re not
commonplace yet, if our projections from The Edge meeting are at all
accurate. We basically allowed them to tell the public that it was a thing,
but it’s been their job to develop the tech on their own. There may be some
prototypes here and there.”
“Then that’s what we are,” Angela decided. “We’re using a prototype reframe
engine. We’ll surface, and launch right in front of them. No teleporter, no
invisibility, nor any other kind of holographic camouflage.”
“There’s no such thing as a water launch,” Ramses countered. “I mean, it’s
technically possible with fusion rockets—which we have, and wouldn’t have to
explain away—but it’s not feasible. The question those rescuers will be
asking is not can we launch from the surface of the ocean, but
why the hell would we bother?”
“Unidentified sunken vessel, please respond. A submarine is en route.”
“I know the cover story,” Mateo jumped in. “We tried to launch from a
floating platform, similar to the ones that Aldona constructed in the Third
Rail. We tried to launch with our new reframe engine, but something went
wrong. The platform sank, and we crashed here.”
“Where’s this imaginary platform now?” Leona questioned. “What we’re the
coordinates of our launch position?”
Mateo just shrugged. That was true, they might try to look for the platform
next to corroborate this complete fabrication.
“Computer, downshift the radio signal to five by two.” A ping indicated that
it had made the change. Leona pressed the comms button. “Search and Rescue,
this is unnamed reframe prototype one. We attempted to launch from a
floating platform, maybe...uh, thirty kilometers away from here, due
southwest. We, uh, ended up flying horizontally pretty early, and managed to
crash into the water. We’re presently repairing our buoyancy systems, and
should be resurfacing within the next hour with no help. We appreciate the
concern.”
“Thank you for your response,” the voice came back. “We’re gonna go ahead and sit tight until the submarine arrives for a more
thorough investigation. You have breached Moku Hoku territory, and we need
to assess the situation ourselves. We hope that you understand, but your
cooperation is not required.”
Leona made sure the outgoing signal was off while she shook her head. “This
isn’t going to work. They’re gonna come down here, and they’re gonna look
for that platform. Our story does not make any sense. How did we make it all
the way here without satellites, or other cameras, seeing our arc across the
sky?”
“Rambo,” Olimpia began. “When’s the last time you purged the hot pocket?”
“It’s been a while.” He pulled up the systems. “We’re about three-quarters
full. Why? What are you thinking?”
“Leona, get ready to teleport on my mark,” Olimpia went on. “Maximum range,
to the other side of the sun.”
“You’re gonna fake an explosion,” Marie realized.
“It won’t stop them from asking questions,” Olimpia believed, “but it’ll
stop them from expecting answers.”
Leona considered the plan, weighing it against the risks. She looked over at
Ramses. “Do it. Purge the energy upwards to conceal our disappearance. She’s
right, we won’t leave any debris behind, here or where this supposed
platform sunk, but we’ll be long gone before they realize that. It will just
have to be a mystery that these people never solve.”
They carried out the new plan. Ramses purged the excess energy from the heat
shunt. It only took a second before the explosion overwhelmed the water
above them. At that moment, Leona teleported them away. They didn’t jump to
the maximum range of 300 million kilometers, though, because then the L3
research station might see them. They were now relatively close to the sun,
which was radiating so much interference that no one would be able to detect
their arrival. Now that they were free from scrutiny, they could reenter
reframe speeds, and be on their way. But the question was, where were they
going to go? Ramses still wasn’t confident in the navigation for his new
slingdrive. Then again, it didn’t matter where they went, as long as they
didn’t try to stay here. Sol was the most dangerous star system to be in
when you were trying to stay hidden. They needed a good place to practice
and experiment discreetly.
The group decided to make a list of all the places they could go, in the
stellar neighborhood, and beyond. Then they plugged the suggestions into a
randomizer, and had the computer pick one out. They were headed for a little
world called Castlebourne.
