Microstory 2435: Bloodbourne

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This dome is scary, even though you know that you’re technically safe. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s heaven for fans of the horror genre. While Zombie Dome has its niche, due to its broad appeal, Bloodbourne takes care of everything else in the genre. Ghosts, goblins, evil demons, and other monsters. If you’ve read about it in a book, or saw it in a movie or show, it’s here...somewhere. Lurking. Waiting to pounce. Some are trying to kill you, some are trying to scare you, and some have more bizarre motives. Bear in mind that the safeguards are extremely strong here. If you go in there with a regular human body, nothing is going to hurt you. I even think they’ll lower the scare level so they won’t even give you a heart attack, though I don’t know how they ensure that when everyone’s personal constitution is different. If you’re wearing a sufficiently mechanical or strong substrate, you’re fair game. The monsters can kill you, and they will. They follow whatever rules they’ve been programmed to follow, based on their nature in the source material. If you see a guy in a mask holding a knife, you better run, or try to fight. That’s another important note. Even though you may be in a mechanical body, it’s not superhumanly strong. You will not be able to bat the hostile force around like a cat with a ball of yarn. You’re meant to be in a simulation of what the horror would be like if these characters were real, and that goes for the victims just as much as the bad guys. Your body is capable of bleeding, and it’s capable of dying. Of course, you’re consciousness will survive, but getting back into the scenario is difficult. I think it should be easier. They could treat it as a learning experience, where you get to try new tactics, but I guess they think you should have to choose a different scenario to keep going. That could change in the future. That’s why feedback like this is so important. I hope they read them. Now here’s the question, can you play one of the bad guys yourself? No, you can’t. I think that’s a shame, and they should change that too. My mind can just as easily be uploaded into the body of a psychopathic killer as a scream queen. I wonder if they just have an issue with potentially targeting people who are already psychopaths, and just haven’t had the pleasure of living out their wildest fantasies. People have been debating these things for centuries, because virtual reality affords us the same opportunity to be our sickest selves completely free from punishment or other consequences. We still haven’t found an answer, though some black market stuff can be really disturbing, so I think we kind of have settled on some boundaries. There’s something very different about doing it in base reality. Maybe that’s just taking a step too far. I’m not sure. See? This is why the debate is still raging after all this time. Draw your own conclusions. In the meantime, enter the scariest place on Castlebourne...if you dare.

Microstory 2260: Put it Off Forever

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Dutch’s interview with the talk show went great yesterday. He didn’t lie, but he kind of embellished a little, making it seem like there’s a lot more drama going on behind the scenes at the house. We’ve had our disagreements, but I don’t ever go into detail here, because I don’t think they’re that important. This is more about what’s happened, and how I feel about it. I feel like the rest of it is rather personal, and not my place to say. But you have to understand that we are three people from different walks of life, who have been forced together through unusual circumstances. We’re not gonna agree on everything. But it’s all okay. Anyway, it sounds more interesting than it’s ever been, so now the producers want me and Kelly to go on the show too. I couldn’t tell you how she feels about it, but I still don’t really want to. I’m very quiet and awkward, which you wouldn’t know from just reading these posts, because expressing myself is all I do here. But the written word is a lot different than in-person conversation, which is a far cry from a televised interview. Still, this is what people are asking me to do, and I’ve been getting requests from national outlets since I got sick from the prion disease. I guess I can’t put it off forever, and Hello, KC Metro is a good choice for a first attempt. Yeah, I suppose I would rather start at the local level if I have to do it at all. I won’t have to travel for it, and the pressure will be a little bit lower. So okay, I’ll do it, if they still want me. I’ll let you know more information as it comes in. Dutch’s interview was sort of last minute, but I should think that guests are usually scheduled weeks in advance, so don’t be expecting something tomorrow.

Extremus: Year 84

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Tinaya Leithe was reportedly on an away mission for eleven years before she finally returned home, which is not exactly a lie; it’s just not the whole truth. The passengers of Extremus are aware that there are some excursions away from the ship, and that it always involves some form of time travel. They’re aware that someone managed to go rogue decades ago, and found a civilization millennia in the past. They don’t know who this person was, or how many of his acolytes have infiltrated Extremus, but they know that these people exist. They do know about Verdemus, but they don’t know that the crew maintained a persistent connection to it for years. They also don’t know that a permanent connection has finally been established in the form of two new Nexa that Omega and Valencia built on either end. Given enough time, everyone presently on board could theoretically go there. They could travel back and forth, or abandon the grand mission altogether. Publicizing the events surrounding the colony has been proposed as a viable option, though some are taking it more seriously than others.

Tinaya stands at the bottom of the steps. Everyone currently in-the-know is sitting on them, patiently awaiting the beginning of her presentation. Culture on the Extremus is a hodge podge from all sorts of different originating cultures. They come from Earth, Durus, Ansutah, Gatewood, and Extremus itself. Each time their ancestors moved—or had been moved—to a different place, they adopted new traditions and practices. One of the customs that they picked up from their time in the Gatewood Collective is the concept of a Devil’s Advocate debate. In a stalemate, or a state of ethical dilemma, two opposing forces will settle their differences by arguing each other’s positions. Tinaya believes that they should reveal the truth about the planet to the passengers. They should lay it all out on the table, and let the chips fall where they may. She will thusly be arguing against that. She takes a deep breath as if she’s about to start talking, but she doesn’t.

“Have you not prepared?” Lataran asks in a faux English accent. “She believes in maintaining the secrecy of Verdemus, and their integration into the Nexus network. Not only does it allow them to travel back and forth freely, but it gives them a lifeline to anywhere else in the galaxy that has one of their own machines. People could just go live on Earth, or Teagarden. To her, letting anyone go would set a dangerous precedent. They could lose everything. What they’ve built here could fall apart, and turn the whole mission into a joke...a footnote. Thusly, when it’s her turn to speak, she’ll be arguing in favor of transparency.

“Point of order,” Councilman Modlin argues. He’s serving as the mediator in this debate, because he remains undecided. “The Devil will not speak until the Angel is finished.” It is the Devil’s job to advocate for some sort of change in the status quo, or at least a greater change. In D.A. proceedings, there is no back and forth. Only the mediator and audience members may ask questions, or make comments.

Lataran opens her mouth to apologize, but the rules are clear, and strict. She’s not even allowed to do that. So she just nods, and turns back to face her opponent.

Tinaya is grateful for the delay. She is prepared, but she’s afraid of winning. That’s the fascinating reason for the practice. The better you are, the more likely you are to win, which actually means that you lose. More often than not, it manages to poke holes in everyone’s argument, and the result ends up being the proverbial Door Number Three. It shows people the compromise that they were unwilling to recognize before, because they’re too far on one side of the spectrum. They can’t see it until someone forces them as far to the opposite side as possible. But in this last second, she has changed her mind. “I’m ready.” She clears her throat, and pulls up a list on the smartboard. It contains all the bad things that have happened on the ship since it launched that have been known to be caused by the Exins. “This is what the Exin Empire has done to us. These are attacks and sabotages carried out by agents of the enemy.” She clicks the remote. Sub-bullets appear between the items. “These are the consequences of those actions, rippling out from the attacks in ways that could not have been predicted.”

She gives the group time to read through them. She did not only create this for illustrative purposes. Some people in the audience may need to be reminded of the specific events, and a few, like Aristotle and Niobe, weren’t around to see it, nor study it in school. She clicks again. “This is what time looks like.” On the screen is the name Jeremy Bearimy in cursive. It’s a reference to a popular TV show on Earth, which claimed this to be the shape that time makes in the afterlife, as opposed to the traditional linear model. It’s a joke, really, but still canonical. There actually is a real man named Jeremy Bearimy who was given this name by a fan of the show who found him as an infant, unwittingly playing into what would become the boy’s unusual temporal pattern. Time doesn’t really so perfectly look like this in the real world, but it’s a closer approximation than a straight line. Tinaya points to the r in the surname. “If the Exins find out about Verdemus at this point. All they’ll have to do is wait until time gets back to here to wipe us all out. She traces the loops and curves forward before pulling all the way back to the beginning of the name, and starting over. All she’s really saying is that it doesn’t matter when the Exins find out that Verdemus wasn’t destroyed. They would be able to use this information to change the past.

“So, you’re saying that we have to keep it a secret forever,” Belahkay figures.

“Yes,” Tinaya confirms. “When time travel is involved, there’s no getting past it. Your past might be waiting for you in the future.” She clears her throat again, and sets her pointer down.

“That’s it?” Councilman Modlin questions.

“That is the breadth of Lataran’s position. The only reason to keep it secret from the passengers is that some of them may be spies, if only unknowingly.”

Lataran perks up, and tries to argue, but she can’t. Not only is it still not her turn, but she’s not responsible for her own position. She has to stay on the opposite side until the debate is over. She has to pretend to be against herself.

Spirit decides to help her out. “I think that what the Captain wishes she could say is that it’s more nuanced than that. There’s a lot that you’re leaving out.”

“Madam Leithe, you are failing to understand the assignment. You’re expected to rigorously argue your opponent’s position as if it were your own. You’re expected to act in the spirit of healthy debate, not lose on purpose to win in the real world.”

“I’m not,” Tinaya contends. “I agree with her now.” She looks over her shoulder at the Bearimy model. “This is all that matters. The Exins are the greatest existential threat that we face. And they look just like us. There is no way to know who among us would help them, and hurt us. They didn’t infiltrate Extremus, they didn’t even infiltrate Gatewood. They infiltrated Durus. They covertly landed on the rogue world centuries ago, bred a secret society, the descendants of which would later travel through The Abyss, and into Ansutah. Their descendants maintained this secret society over the course of two thousand years before humans escaped that universe, and came back here. Their descendants then boarded Extremus, and now, their descendants are here. Over a hundred generations apart, and they still act against us. That’s commitment. And there is no competing with it. Honestly, I don’t know if we can trust the people in this room.”

“I must say,” Arqut jumped in, “that we don’t know for sure that that’s how the Exins ever infiltrated us. We’ve just not been able to pinpoint the origin of the spies that we’ve discovered. That doesn’t mean they go all the way back to the Durus days. There are and were billions of people in Gatewood. It would not be that hard to sneak someone aboard one of the cylinders, even only days before Extremus launched.”

“The fact is,” Tinaya stresses, “that they were here, and could still be here, and we’ve never been able to catch them until they’ve done something bad. No one can know about Verdemus,” she says firmly. “We can’t even just not tell anyone about it. We have to destroy the Nexa. And before we do...” She trails off, at first to pause for dramatic effect, but she becomes so comfortable in the silence that she finds it hard to get out.

“Before we do...?” Niobe encourages.

“Before we do,” Tinaya repeats, “everyone here has to go back to the other side, and stay there until death.”

They all scoff or shake their heads. “What?” Spirit asks.

Tinaya shakes right back. “We’re too dangerous. What if, say, Aristotle meets someone special, and mumbles something about it in his sleep? What if Lilac gets drunk, and spills the beans to a random fellow patron at the speakeasy?” She doesn’t actually know whether there is a speakeasy. She just assumes that drinking alcohol is around here somewhere. “We can’t. Trust. Anyone.” She emphasizes. “There are people already on that planet. I didn’t put them there, I didn’t authorize them, but it can’t be undone.” Actually, it could be if they wanted it bad enough. “We’re not just protecting the Extremus mission. We’re protecting them too.” The number of people who are a threat to the safety and security of the planet is exactly the same as the number of people who would be a risk if someone leaked any information. Then again, that has always been the case. They are under constant threat.

“If we don’t trust the people on the ship to not be spies, what the hell are we doing here? What’s the point?” Lataran blurts out.

“The Devil will wait her turn,” Councilman Modlin declares.

“No, it doesn’t matter. I switched sides too. “Tinaya, these people need to know that there’s a choice now. None of us was around when Extremus was first being conceived.” We didn’t choose to go on the mission, but we have a choice now. I’m going to stay as this is my home, but we can’t speak for everyone else. There is a movement,” she admits. “It’s small, but growing. Some people do want to leave. They want to live on a planet. They’re angry that we left Verdemus in our rearview mirror. Some even think that we should turn around. Now that we have a way to go back without turning the whole ship around, don’t we have an obligation to present it as an option? Don’t we owe those people that much?”

“Where does it end?” Tinaya asks. “Do we place a cap on the number of emigrants? What if everyone chooses to leave? What if they change their minds?”

“I’ve thought of that. Everyone will have maybe a week to make their decision, and submit their application for resettlement. After that, there are no take-backs, and no late additions. You go, and you stay gone, and you can only travel to Verdemus. We’ll lock the computers out of all other destinations.”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Tinaya begins, realizing that this Devil’s Advocate debate has officially gone off the rails. “You want to tell them the truth about Verdemus, but lie about the Nexa’s true limitations?”

“They’re apparently called Mark III Nexa.” Lantern uses airquotes. “Yes, we could argue that they can’t be on the full network; that they can only go to each other. That way, everyone stays out of the Goldilocks Corridor, and even the stellar neighborhood. I’m advocating for transparency, not one hundred percent transparency. There is a line, I believe in lines.”

Tinaya sighs, and steps over to the wall. There aren’t very many viewports on this vessel. Most of them are viewscreens, and even then, there’s usually nothing to see that isn’t fake. Their ancestors could look out a window to see Gatewood, and their descendants will hopefully one day look out to see the Extremus planet. But for now, it’s nothing but the doppler glow, and that’s blinding unless the glass is heavily tinted. That’s what this viewport does; show what it really looks like outside the ship as it’s traveling at the highest fraction of lightspeed at an extreme dimness. She turns the tint down just a little bit to make it a little bit brighter.

Lataran stands up, and approaches—not her opponent—but her friend. She places a hand on Tinaya’s back. “Word will get out. We may both be dead by then, but people will learn what we did. Do you want them to think that we didn’t trust them, or that we believed in them? Would you rather force everyone to stay on a mission that no one cares about anymore than let everyone leave, and just accept that as our fate? Our parents’ parents wanted us to get to the other side of the galaxy. That was their dream. And it’s still mine, even though I won’t be alive to see it. It’s not necessarily anyone else’s though. And I want them to be happy too.”

“I think we both well know that you can be alive to see it if you so wish.”

Lataran nods. “Yes. But it’s still up to us to keep this thing moving, and when we’re gone, regardless of how we answer The Question, we’ll have to hope that our children will keep it going for even longer. But if they don’t—” She reaches up to turn Tinaya’s chin away from the window. “If they don’t, Tinaya...then that will be okay too. It will not be a dishonor to our ancestors. It’s up to us to choose our own fate, and if our grandparents loved and love us as much as they should, they’ll understand.” She looks through the viewport now. “We don’t even know where we’re going. Maybe we were always on our way to Verdemus.”

Tinaya smiles softly at her best friend. “They were right to choose you as Captain. You were made for this job. You remind me of Halan Yenant.”

“I should be so lucky,” Lataran replies. She looks over at the crowd, who all suddenly start to pretend that they’re not watching them. Omega probably has an implant that allows him to hear their whispers. “Don’t be so quick to count yourself out as a good Captain too. You’re not dead yet.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Lataran gives her a hug, then releases. “Come on. This debate is over, but we need to come to a consensus. It’s not just about convincing each other. Everyone has a say. I’m sure Vaska will have a lot to say when she comes back from the planet.”

They return to the group, and keep talking it through. They eventually come to decide on partial transparency, but determining exactly what that entails warrants much more discussion. And some outside help.

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Extremus: Year 80

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Tinaya and Aristotle are stuck in the past, but they are not in a new timeline. Their other selves are still in their midst, but they’re unable to interact with them. It’s like a parallel dimension, but with some bizarre rules. Fruits and vegetables are available here, as if they straddle the dimensional border. But people and animals are practically invisible. They can still detect them under certain conditions, and they’ve pieced the puzzle together enough to determine that the strongest appearances come during moments of temporal energy use. When Past!Tinaya passes through a wall using her mirror powers, Future!Tinaya and everyone else can see her shadow, as well as that of the wall. When Past!Aristotle trots to another celestial body in the solar system, the people in the parallel can witness his disappearance, as well as the surge of power that emanates from the event.

The two of them are not alone here. Vaska made it through, as did a bunch of survivors of the settlement explosion seven years ago. Future!Tinaya saved them with her weird mirror abilities. How exactly that worked, though, she’ll never know. Her glass skin is gone, having apparently been transferred all the way into the big showdown with the explosion. It still happened, just in the main dimension. Now their only concern is finding a way to get there themselves, but they’ve not had any ideas in the last seven years. None of the people on the settlement is an expert in a pertinent field. Not all of them even feel that they should be worried about it at all.

“This is our home now.” Bartel Ateren was assigned the Verdemus mission in the capacity of a botanist. His job was not originally meant to require that he do any actual work on the ship on a regular basis. The people who first set foot on Extremus were never going to be the ones to land on the destination planet. In fact, most of the people who lived there would never see the future world at all. Or so they have always been led to believe. Tinaya knows better, but she’s not supposed to, and she’s not allowed to talk about it. Most people are not aware of the truth, yet they continue to study fields of research that will only be particularly useful on the new homeworld.

Theoretically, the information that their descendants will need to survive and thrive can just be pulled from the central archives, which exist as many copies on multiple servers. Still, it only seemed right that the knowledge be passed down through teachers instead. Again, the majority of students will never get any opportunity to use what they learned, but they do it anyway. Bartel, on the other hand, was not actually a teacher. He was more like an emergency teacher, there to be available should anything happen to the regular teacher before they could pass the knowledge on to the next generation. He was able to move to Verdemus in secret, because he had no living relatives, nor many friends, and the next generation has successfully grasped the necessary concepts, meaning his original job is done. He has since become a reliable leader for the survivors.

“But we’re not really here,” Tinaya argues. “On the other side of the planet, they built a megablock to house the soldiers that are being deployed in the Ex Wars. We have no way of getting there, and even if we did, we probably couldn’t live there, even though there would be plenty of room. It’s inaccessible from this dimension.”

“I don’t need the megablock,” Bartel reasons. “The huts we’ve built here are more than enough for us to be happy.”

“What about your children, and your children’s children? You don’t want more for them? You want them to live their lives with no hope of even contacting the rest of the galaxy, or the ship? If you’re digging in, then you ought to do it right.”

“That’s exactly why I wouldn’t want us to try to live in the megablock. I want them to make their own way, to build a new society from the ground up...literally. This is what they had in mind for the Extremus mission in the first place. Well, not exactly this, but you know what I mean. The self-reliance, and the journey of development. That’s the point. We’re just doing it here and now, instead of out there, and in the future. And anyway, who cares which version of Verdemus we’re on? We can’t leave the planet either way. Sorry, I know Totle’s your friend, but he’s not had any success with his powers.”

That’s fair, they never expected to be able to leave Verdemus in the first place. So they’re stuck on a different Verdemus, so what? What’s the difference, in the end? Well, family; that’s the difference. So maybe this isn’t that great of an argument. “He deserves to go back to his mother and Niobe, and I want to see Spirit again. And Belahkay, and even Omega. Ilias, I could do without, and Eagan is whatever.”

“I can understand that,” Bartel concedes. “But I’m worried that if we succeed in crossing back over to the main dimension, they actually will find a way to return us to Extremus. I was never the kind of person who was angry to be born on a ship that I would never leave, but I didn’t know what I was missing. This place is paradise. The people still on that hunk of metal...they should be so lucky.”

Tinaya smiles at him, and nods. “That’s exactly why we have an obligation to go back; back to the real Verdemus, and then to Extremus. If you feel so strongly about it, you should try to tell others about it who may feel the same. I can’t guarantee that the council will give you the chance. They may decide to shut you up so you don’t ruin their plans. But one thing’s for sure, if we stay here, trapped in this parallel on this planet, there’s no hope at all of spreading the message.”

He tries to take a breath, but a yawn comes over instead, and he finds himself opening and closing his eyes one at a time. “Sorry. Yes. I, uhh...yeah. You’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea how to get back.”

“Vaska has a theory about that.”

“Yes, she mentioned that.” The two of them work closely together, studying the ecosystem to figure out exactly where they are, cosmically speaking, and how they can touch the plants, but not the people or the artificial structures. “It had something to do with a particular plant we discovered, and the other you?”

“She can explain it better,” Tinaya decides. “She’ll be here any minute.” When the bomb went off, besides the people who she saved, only the mess hall remained standing, and only in this parallel dimension. It’s not a very cozy place to live, which is why they’ve built new structures on this side, but they still use this as a communal area. On its own, it’s a temporal anomaly, which is why it’s the only place on the whole planet where other-siders are perfectly visible. When one happens to wander within its walls, which are invisible to them, they can see them. It doesn’t occur often, though.

“I’m here! I’m here,” Vaska says. “Whoops.” She instinctively avoids running into Eagan, who just so happens to be in her path. He’s here a lot. Since they’re in different dimensions, they would simply pass through each other without feeling a thing, but she’s forgotten that for a second. “I can’t remember, how many people are with us?”

“There are thirty-one,” Tinaya reminds her. “Twenty-eight survivors, plus you, me, and Aristotle.”

Vaska nods as she’s inspecting the walls of the mess hall. “I believe that will work.” She peeks through one of the windows. “That corner is slightly closer.”

“You said something about the two Tinayas making contact with each other?” Bartel says. “What does this building have to do with anything?”

Vaska faces Tinaya. “When you told me where you and Aristotle were standing when he tried to trot you off the planet, and you ended up in the Gatewood Collective, were you accurate? I mean, were you precise?”

“Yeah,” Tinaya confirms. It was right over there. Or it will be, rather, later today.” This is the day that they accidentally travel through time. She’s about to close her loop.

Vaska holds up a grassy plant. There’s nothing special about it in appearance. It really just looks like prairie grass, or something else equally mundane. “We can touch the plantlife, but this? This is different. This is special. When we take hold of any other plant, we pull it into our dimension, stealing it from theirs. For some reason, this stuff maintains its connection to the others. I’ve tickled Ilias’ nose with it. He couldn’t see it anymore, and he didn’t know what was going on, but it happened.”

“What does that mean for us?” Bartel asks her.

“This building is a temporal anomaly. The moment Tinaya and Aristotle go back in time is also a temporal anomaly. We need to connect them to each other.” Vaska cups her hands together. “We do that with this plant. I propose we build a chain with our own bodies, linking the corner of the mess hall to Past!Tinaya. She’ll anchor us to the main dimension, and unwittingly pull us through whatever barrier separates us.”

Future!Tinaya and Bartel just stare at her. “That’s...a contrivance.”

“No, it’s not. It’ll work.”

“How do you know? You just made it up.”

“I’ve been studying this plant. It’s a keystone species. Scratch that; it’s the keystone species. The other plants; they can’t communicate with each other without it. It’s like a telephone wire.”

“What’s a telephone wire?” Bartel questions.

“I’m telling you, this will work. We need a chain. But to reach all the way over there, which I’ve calculated to be forty-two meters away, it will require all thirty-one of us. We got a lot of shorties.”

Tinaya looks at her sadly. “Vaska, I know you want this to work, but Bartel’s right. You’re just guessing.”

Vaska huffs a bit, and shakes her head. “The explosion that destroyed the settlement was larger than it should have been. The explosion that destroyed the time mirror, and imbued you with its glass power, was more focused than it should have been. Aristotle’s jumps; Tinaya, your creation of this parallel dimension in the first place—all of these things have been affected by this. It’s all about the grass!” She urgently shakes the sample she has in her hand. “I’m gonna call it timogramen,” she says matter-of-factly, like anyone has any interest in arguing against it. “It explains everything. The way you tell it, dumbasses wasted their time finding suitable trees to make paper, when they really should have been studying this instead. It is unlike anything I have ever heard of before. I don’t know how it evolved, or what else it can do, but I do know that it can send us back to where we need to be. And besides, what’s the worst that can happen if it doesn’t work?”

Both Tinaya and Bartel think it over. It does sound rather random and silly, but she’s right, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. It’s not like they have some other option which this could interfere with. “Okay,” Tinaya finally says. “We’ll bring it to the group. Hopefully they all agree. Like you said, we need everybody.”

“I’ll help too,” Eagan says. “I believe that you are overestimating the arm span of everyone here.”

The three of them are flabbergasted. “Y—you can see and hear us?” Bartel asks.

“Yes,” Eagan replies.

Tinaya throws her hands up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You’re from the future; I didn’t want to disrupt the timeline,” Eagan answers. Oh, that’s actually good logic.

“Well, I suppose that makes sense,” Tinaya admits. “Still, you could have communicated with us.”

“I was gathering information. Why did you think that I was always standing over here? The mess hall doesn’t exist on my side. It’s just ash and ruins.”

“You’re just weird, Eagan; you’re weird,” Tinaya reiterates.

“Fair enough,” he says.

“Are we gonna do this thing, or what?” Vaska asks impatiently. “Time is running out. Past!Aristotle and Past!Tinaya are about to disappear.”

“Wait, can’t we just have them get closer to the building?” Bartel suggests. “Or even in the building? We don’t need a human chain if Eagan helps.”

“No, he’s right,” Tinaya contends. “That would disrupt the timeline, which places all of your lives at risk. If Totle and I never end up on Gatewood, we never find any help getting back here, let alone with Vaska, who we needed to study the—what did you call it?—timogramen? Things have to play out exactly as they did until I finally close my loop. The human chain it is.”

They take Vaska’s proposal to the rest of the group. They have some questions, and they’re just as skeptical about the efficacy of the plan, but they too recognize that the downsides are minimal. One of the biggest issues is just convincing them that they should indeed return to the main dimension. Some of them were brought into this project specifically because their absence from Extremus would not be noticed, like Bartel. Others left families on board, who signed confidentiality agreements. They want to get back to them, which they were promised would be done regularly with the time mirror. So their side of the argument eventually won out.

Vaska takes a team out to harvest more of the timogramen. They crush the grass up, and lather everyone’s arms with it. It’s apparently meant to act as some sort of natural conduit of temporal energy, which will pass from Past!Tinaya and Past!Aristotle, all the way to the mess hall. Eagan was right. After they all line up, Future!Aristotle on one end, and Future!Tinaya on the other, they do find themselves short. Eagan adds himself as an extra link between Aristotle and Chef Webster. They complete the chain just in time for the special event. Tinaya places her hand on the shadow of her younger self just as she and Aristotle make the jump, which will ultimately send them to Gatewood. The power surges through her, and then down the line of survivors until it reaches the mess hall. Then it passes back again. It goes back and forth a few times before bursting out in a blinding light. When it recedes, the chain has been broken as most of them have fallen to the ground, but it is not yet clear whether it worked.

“Tinaya?” Spirit asks. “That was fast. Did it work? Hold on, did you end up going to Extremus after all? Are all these people from there?”

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Extremus: Year 79

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Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2, and by Pixlr AI image editor

It took a long time for the medical staff in the Gatewood Collective to realize that there must be something quite unusual about the planet that Tinaya and Aristotle were living on, and even longer to realize that Tinaya’s whole glass skin condition was making things worse. As it happens, Verdemus emits an unusual form of radiation, which sticks with everyone who steps foot on it. It doesn’t appear to be harmful, but the Gatewooders—is that what they’re called?—didn’t want to take a chance, so they needed time to remedy the issue. It appears that it will happen on its own given enough time away from the environment, but in the interest of expediency, they found a way to dissipate it quickly, but still safely. The primary physician postulates that it’s the result of a form of communication. The plant and animal life on Verdemus have indeed been noted to enjoy some level of harmony. It’s nothing quite as dramatic as Pandora from that one franchise, but it does seem to be there to support its idea of homeostasis. If true, it’s the Gaia Hypothesis made real, just not for Earth. The doctor is fascinated by this possibility, and is very interested in visiting Verdemus to study it.

Captain Kestral McBride is not okay with that. “Doctor, the deadline to apply for passage on the Extremus was weeks ago. You’re not getting on that ship.” It’s July of 2270, and the TGS Extremus is days from launch.

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Norling questions. “I’m not asking to get on the ship. I want to go to the planet, and I have to do that seventy-eight years from now. I have to go back with Miss Leithe and Mr. Al-Amin.”

“That’s not how I’ve made the new recall device work, Vaska,” Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell tries to explain. “It will send the two of them back to where they were before they traveled through time. They can’t take someone with them.”

“Well, then modify it so it can,” Vaska suggests.

“That would be a supertemporal transporter,” Ishida argues. “That’s so much harder, if not impossible given the parameters. Now, you give me a collapsar, and I’ll send you into the next galaxy, but—” She interrupts herself to stare into the corner as if she’s just given herself a new idea.

“You don’t have to worry about all that,” Maqsud contends. “I tried telling you, I’m just having trouble with accuracy, but the power is in me. All you have to do is devise a device that taps into my temporal energy. I certainly can take people with me.”

“That will not be necessary,” Kestral insists. “Dr. Norling will not be going anywhere.” She faces the doctor. “We need you here.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. I’m not the only doctor here. But I am the foremost expert in Verdemusian radiation.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” Kestral asks sarcastically.

“Name one other.” Expert is a definite exaggeration in this case, but she is indeed the closest thing they have. The problem is that Keshida doesn’t care. They don’t need to know how the planet works, so they’re not properly incentivized to sign off on this mission. Vaska has to come up with a good reason why anyone should go, not just that she should be the one. That’s probably going to be a pretty tall order.

“I’m sorry,” Kestral says simply.

Vaska steps over to gaze out of the nearest viewport. Many stars can be seen from this angle, but they fade away closer to the edge where just a hint of the sunshine from Barnard’s Star peeks out from behind the hull. “Do you remember what your lives were like before we came to this universe as refugees...before every moment—waking or unwaking—was consumed by your responsibility to our health and safety? Do you remember what you were doing, and why? Do you remember your dreams? Why are you such brilliant scientists?” She turns back around. “Did you study because it was easy? Because you were bored? Or did you do it because you wanted to learn, to discover? In the last couple of centuries, humanity has encountered a handful of exoplanets. We’ve gone right to them. Each one is special in its own right. Proxima Doma is the closest. Bida is the most Earth-like, albeit naturally a deathtrap for all Earth-born organisms. Hell, even this system right here, with no fully coalesced planets, is interesting enough. But Verdemus sounds like a paradise. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before. And you just...couldn’t give a shit? What would Past!Kestral and Past!Ishida have to say about your attitudes?”

For Tinaya’s part, that’s a pretty decent argument, but it doesn’t have to resonate with her. It has to change Team Keshida’s mind. The two of them exchange a look, and then they gently press their foreheads together. It looks like more than just a familial bond, but a genuine means of communicating with each other without other people hearing, or having to leave the room. This is all but proven when they separate, and suddenly agree to Vaska’s request. Ishida retires to her lab where she modifies the recall device. It was originally designed to send Tinaya and Maqsud back to a place where they had already been, but since Vaska has never been there, that plan will no longer work.

Six days later, they reconvene to explain the new situation, and give them a chance to back out. Ishida holds up the device. Unlike the first one she created, which was only a relatively small sphere, this is three hoops connected to each other by a larger sphere. “Interstellar teleportation is very difficult to accomplish. It’s hard to do it at large scales, and it’s hard to do it at smaller scales. Recall technology, like homestones, get around this using a branch of mathematics that even I don’t understand. But basically if your quantum signature has already been to a place, it’s easier for it to get back there. Going somewhere new that’s so far away is a whole different ball game. I think I’ve figured it out for a one time trip, but I cannot guarantee the results. It’s still based on your recall point,” she explains to the Verdemusians. “And Vaska is still a hanger-on. Most of the time, when something goes wrong, navigation is what gets thrown off, rather than, say, coherence. This is actually a good thing, because while you may end up in the wrong place, at least you end up in one piece. Or three, as it were.”

“What’s the margin of error?” Tinaya asks.

“A few years, plus or minus. Though, from where I’m standing, due to the added mass of Vaska’s presence, my guess is that you’ll be late instead of early. It’s up to you to decide which is preferable.”

Tinaya looks over for Vaska’s guidance.

“No, no, no,” Kestral says. “She doesn’t get to decide this for you. Since this affects all three of you, it must be a unanimous decision. She’s not the only one taking a risk here. If even one of you doesn’t want to take that risk, we go back to the original plan, and Dr. Norling will have no choice but to return to her pathetic job as the Primary Physician for billions of people.”

“I’m in,” Tinaya agrees with no hesitation.

“For what it’s worth, so am I,” Vaska confirms sheepishly.

They all turn their eyes to Maqsud, who waits a moment. “I still think I can do this myself.” He doesn’t look as confident as he wishes. Verdemus is 16,000 light years away, and they’re trying to get there eight decades in the future. Those numbers do not match up with each other. A Trotter can travel through time given the right conditions, and these aren’t them. It’s clearly possible for him, since he’s the one who got them here in the first place, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to transport them in that way intentionally, and accurately. “But this sounds like a safer bet. Let’s do it.”

Ishida holds the sphere and hoops in front of her. She presses four buttons on the sphere, which release a single leg that extends to the floor, holding it up. “It’ll be here when you’re ready. Its range is unpredictable, so I’ll activate it remotely. Take the suits on your back, and one carry-on. That’s all it can handle. Any questions?”

“We’re ready now,” Tinaya decides, seeing Vaska with her carry-on. She’s the only one with any belongings.

“All right. Give us a minute to get out of here,” Kestral says. “Goodspeed.”

As Team Keshida are leaving, the three passengers get in place. The hoops open, and allow them to step inside to wrap around their torsos. Since they’re not perfect circles, the only way to fit into them is to either face the center, or the outside. The former seems more awkward, so they all end up looking away from each other. A couple of minutes later, they feel the power vibrating through the metal. They instinctively grab onto their respective hoops as the leg retracts itself. A translucent bubble forms, and expands around them, then a few meters beyond. But its borders are undefined. The Captain and Lieutenant were right to bug out.

Once the power reaches critical mass, the bubble suddenly collapses again, and zaps them with a painful—but not overly painful—electrical shock. The room they were standing in disappears, transplanting them to a different one. Tinaya recognizes it immediately, even though she only saw it for a second years ago. This is the mess hall on Verdemus, which exploded when Tinaya unwittingly triggered it by teleporting Ilias away from the hostages that he had taken. Ishida was wrong. They didn’t show up a little too late, but way too early. They’re at risk of changing the timeline. Then again, maybe they should. Then again, how could they have any hope of doing that? This isn’t a few days prior to the tragedy. This is that very moment. Ilias is here, as are his hostages. He’s holding onto one of them tightly. That’s as much as Future!Tinaya is able to garner before Past!Tinaya appears out of nowhere, and takes hold of him. She teleports him out of here, and into the woods.

In one more second, the deadman’s switch is going to obliterate this entire settlement. Dozens of people are going to die, leaving only one survivor who was graced with phoenix resurrection powers. There is not even enough time for Future!Tinaya to remove her suit’s gauntlet to reach her watch, which is the only way she can teleport out of here herself. Even if she did, at best, she can save the other two travelers. Everyone else is still going to die. They’re going to die all over again, and she’s going to have to relive that pain, that loss.

Something is happening. An energy is surging through her again. A bright light is breaking through her suit, melting it along the way. Time appears to slow around her. Only Maqsud and Vaska are moving at a normal rate. The hostages are standing up to run away, but have barely made it to standing positions. The suit slips all the way off of her, leaving only her shining naked glass body. The light expands faster than the bomb explodes, and they begin to battle each other. The glass light wins out, and fades away. Everyone is alive. She has just successfully changed the past. Or has she?

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 18, 2398

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Leona pulls up to the building, and checks the text message again. Yes, this is the right address. It’s a news station; cable news, it appears. She’s sure she should recognize it—it’s probably really famous—but she’s found it hard to stomach these people’s ideas of journalistic integrity. Why would Winona summon her here? This is fishy. Ah, she may as well go in and check it out. It’s not an abandoned warehouse, after all, so if it’s another blacksite, there sure are a lot of cars in the parking lot. She gets out, and enters through the front door. The desk attendant asks for her name, and when she gives it, he hands her a badge. It already has her face on it. Maybe it is a government building, and the news station thing is just a front. He pulls out a map of the interior, and draws a pathway from this location to the greenroom, where she’s apparently supposed to go. She badges herself in, and heads off.

Winona is sitting on a couch in the greenroom, tapping on her phone. She holds one finger up, and keeps tapping with the other hand. She smiles up at Leona when she’s done. “Thank you for coming. Welcome to New York.”

“Why am I here, Honeycutt?”

Winona puts her phone away. “The day we launched the ship, did you launch something else? Or was there a payload in our rocket that we weren’t told about? I’m not mad, I just need to know before I go on.”

“Go on what?”

Winona doesn’t answer.

“You’re going on TV.”

“Someone has to answer for the launch. I’ve been on my damage control tour. Again, I’m not mad. We were going to send that thing into space sooner or later, we just weren’t planning on having Miss Walton or the kids on board. This particular show is particularly important, because of the other guest.”

“Who is the other guest?”

“The lead engineer for the Snowglobe Collective.” So the sinister organization exists in this reality too. That could mean that someone is purposely matching history, like with the War Memorial, or it’s actually the same company that spans multiple realities. “Well, he’s not really the lead engineer. He’s more the mouthpiece, but he’s going to use science to show how irresponsible we were.”

“They’re the ones who own the satellite,” Leona guesses.

“So you did launch something else? Did you attack the satellite on purpose? Were you targeting them?”

“It was a coincidence that had nothing to do with them,” Leona tries to explain. “We needed to orbit Earth to find Meredarchos and Erlendr. We didn’t have time to build and launch our own so Mateo...”

“So Mateo what?” Winona prods.

“He teleported up there.”

Winona nods. “Because of course you people can breathe in space.”

“It’s complicated.”

She sighs. “It always is.” She removes a holstered gun from her bag, and hands it to Leona. “Here’s your sidearm.”

“Mine?”

She jiggles the gun. “Yeah, you’re my bodyguard.”

“Since when?” Leona questions.

“Since that’s how I got you into the station. Don’t worry, it’s not just a cover. I need you to actually protect me. This is a crime hole.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a special place where certain crimes are legal as long as they’re justified in the eyes of the entity that dug the hole, i.e. the guy who owns it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The mouthpiece out there. We’re going to have a debate. If I lose, has the right to kill me. You cost his company hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue from their research investment.” There’s that high inflation again.

“You brought me here knowing that I would be trapped.”

“If I win, you can kill him.”

“I don’t want to kill him.”

“You won’t have to. It’ll be our prerogative. You’re my champion. He has his own, who I’m sure is not as good as you.”

Leona turns away from the gun. “I’m not trained on firearms.”

Winona reaches into her jacket, and pulls a stick from her breast pocket. She swings it down to telescope it open.

Leona rolls her eyes, and takes it from her. “That’ll work.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there a lawbook, or something here?”

Winona beams a file to her device. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m going to send it to my loophole expert.”

When called, the two of them leave the greenroom. Leona watches from side stage as Winona takes her place on one side of a table. A well-dressed man sits down on the other, while the host, Solomon Powers sits at the head. He gives his opening spiel to the audience, and then prompts the debate.

The lead engineer, a Mr. Jacey Plaskett throws a graphic to the space above his shoulder, not just in chroma key, but as a hologram. “What you’re looking at here is the last known location of our research satellite before it was attacked on the tenth of October. As you can see, at 17:56, the satellite begins a decaying orbit. It should have been able to stay up there for three years, which would be more than enough time for us to course correct, but roughly 36 hours later, we lost contact with it entirely. Not even the world’s greatest orbital tracker has any idea where it is. In between the time of the mysterious attacked, and the loss of signal, that woman right across from me launched an unsanctioned, unworthy, un-American fusion-powered rocketship from the weirdest longitudinal parallel imaginable in Kansas!”

“It’s in Missouri, actually. And how was it un-American?” Winona questions him.

“We have reason to believe that you employed scientists from Croatia.” He says that word with such disdain. “I can’t think of a country worse than it, besides the other baby-killing nations.”

“We’re not here to debate the morality of medical abortions,” the host reasons. “Please keep your remarks on topic.”

“Sorry about that, Solo. Thank you for your understanding.” Jacey turns his attention back to Winona. “What was your explanation for the launch again? You were testing fusion motion endurance?”

“That’s right,” Winona replies.

“What do you have to say about the timing?”

“It’s a coincidence. Our rocket was nowhere near your satellite at any time.”

“Right, and where is it now?”

This is all putting the team at risk. They’re at fault, but not for the reasons everyone thinks. Admitting responsibility would open the door for the authorities and the public to ask questions that neither Winona, nor the rest of the SD6, want to answer. The team doesn’t want that either. “That’s confidential.” It’s all she can say.

“Of course it is.”

“Let’s take a look at the Scales of Truth!” Solomon interjects. A curtain behind him slides open. The scale is pretty much to the table on Jacey’s side. “Oh, it’s not looking good for you, Miss Honeycutt.”

Leona’s phone dings. After she reads Kivi’s message, she steps into frame, wielding her telescopic stick, shocking all. “I challenge for control of the Microsovereignty.”

The audience gasps and Solomon smiles. “Listen, Little Miss—”

“What did you just call me?”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”

“You don’t need to know my name, you just need to take off your jacket, and come down here for a fight.”

He’s still in shock. “A challenge for sovereignty entails a fight to the death.”

“I can choose to show you mercy when you’re on the floor and unconscious.”

“I don’t think you know who I am. I didn’t get to my position by being a little pussy cat. I earned it through strength and mercilessness. You’re not going to beat me, I don’t care how long your stick is.”

Leona lifts the stick up a little, and looks down at it. Then she throws it to the side. “Then I’ll do it with my bare hands.”

Everyone laughs, except for Winona, who knows what she can do. “Solomon, don’t take the bait. All she wants is for you to unilaterally rule in my favor. But rest assured, she will beat you, and you will lose everything.”

Solomon keeps staring at Leona for a moment, then looks over at Winona. His face hardens, and he starts to remove his jacket. This is a man who does not operate by silly things, like honor or morality. He likes to keep score, and there is no greater threat to his winning streak than a challenge that he doesn’t accept. He’s the kind of guy who would follow the old saying that goes, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, even though any reasonable person would realize that the chances are actually zero percent. He rolls up his sleeves as he’s dramatically walking down the steps.

Leona leaves her rental in the lot. Winona drives them both back to the airport, where they’ll board a flight to Kansas City. “Did you know I would do that?”

Winona gulps. “I wasn’t aware of that loophole. I was just hoping you would beat his champion in combat. If you had, I would have gotten a second chance at the debate.”

“That wouldn’t have been enough.”

“I realize that now. I’m sorry,” Winona says after a beat. “The first time is hard.”

Leona lets her forehead bounce against the rattling window. “That wasn’t the first time I killed,” Leona contradicts. “It’s not even the first time I did it to gain control over something that I didn’t want. It’s just the first time I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Exemption Act: The Ends Justify the Means (Part III)

< > Entire Story

Carbrey spent about a month studying this universe’s technology, so he would understand how it worked before he even thought about engineering something real. He picked it up pretty quickly seeing as the tech wasn’t too dissimilar to what he was used to, but he said he would rather be safe than sorry. The laws of physics, he claimed, were exactly the same, so that was nice. The facility they were staying in was mostly a gigantic underground hangar, with a few other rooms attached to it. They each had their own place to sleep, but it was nothing fancy. This place was obviously not designed for boarding. Freya wondered what they once kept in here, and why it was abandoned. While they were relatively close to the nearest population center in Kansas City, Khuweka assured them that no regular human would show up. A few temporal manipulators were aware of it, but none had much reason to use it in this particular time period. There appeared to be at least one, though. They were eating lunch together in the middle of the hangar when a ceiling suddenly appeared above their heads, starting from a single point, and then extending outwards. Of course, there already was a ceiling, but it was many stories above them. This one was only a few stories up, and while that was more than enough room to clear their heads, the force of its abrupt arrival knocked them all to the floor.

“What the hell just happened?” Limerick asked as he was sitting up and massaging his head.

“I don’t know,” Khuweka said honestly. She had been thrown down as well, but Maramon were physically superior to humans, so she wasn’t hurt at all.

Andraste, on the other hand, was very hurt. Blood was seeping out of the back of her head, and spreading out on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. When Landis saw this, he started crawling towards her. His wing appeared to be hurt as well, perhaps broken, but he knew that Andraste was priority. He took a deep breath, and exhaled over Andraste’s body. “Injuries heal faster than terminal diseases,” he explained, “but it will still be a few minutes.”

“What if she’s dead already?” Zektene asked. “I don’t mean to be negative, but can you cure death?”

“Death is a process,” Landis answered. “It doesn’t happen in one moment. I can’t go digging up graves, but if she died, it was quite recent, so it should be fine. She will not have even experienced permanent brain damage, which is the one thing I cannot repair.”

“Khuweka,” Carbrey began, “what is that thing?”

“I think it’s a ship,” Limerick assumed right.

“Zek,” Khuweka said, “could you take Mister Genovese to investigate? Jump back here at the first sign of trouble.”

“Okay,” Zek replied. She took Carbrey by the hand, and teleported away.

A minute later, Andraste sat up, and checked the back of her head, not out of pain, but because it was still wet with her blood. “What happened?”

They told her.

“Do you feel okay?” Freya asked.

“I feel great,” she answered. She started opening and closing her hands. “I think my arthritis is gone.”

“Yes,” Landis said. “I’m a holistic healer. I couldn’t cure only one disease or injury if I wanted. It’s all or nothing.”

“We should all get treated,” Limerick suggested excitedly. “I know my liver could use a little TLC. You guys know what that acronym means?”

“Yes,” they replied in unison.

Five minutes later, Zek and Carbrey reappeared before them. “It’s an interplanetary warship called The Sharice Davids.”

They all looked to Freya. “I’ve never heard of it. Sorry.”

“Is there anyone in it?” Khuweka asked.

“Totally empty,” Zek said.

“Based on what little of the system I saw,” Carbrey started to say, “an emergency escape maneuver recently completed its sequence. It was traveling all throughout time and space, spending only seconds at any one point, evidently so no one would have time to board it. It had to stop eventually, though. This last jump depleted it of all its power, except for what little was able to eke out in order for me to get this information, but then it died completely.”

Limerick was staring up at the bottom of the vessel admiringly. “We should keep it.”

“It isn’t ours,” Khuweka argued.

“Why did you choose this hangar?”

“Because no one else was using it.”

“No one else is using this ship either.”

“You don’t know when they’ll be coming back,” she contended. She turned to face Freya. “It is your job on this team to know these things, or find out. Please make some inquiries for us. Meanwhile, Carbrey, power up some of the internal systems, just to gather more information. We’ll only refuel if we all decide we’re allowed to.”

“How do I...?” Freya began to ask, but thought better of it. She was right, this was her job. She had to figure this out herself, or she should just quit. Out of everyone here, she was the most dedicated to the cause. Not even Zek totally wanted to be here. She mostly joined the mission in the first place because she didn’t want Freya to be alone. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I’ll go with you,” Zek offered for the upteenth time.

“Good, because I need a ride to Giza.”

They teleported to the benbenet of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was invisible to all who did not know it was still there. A man was standing before them. “Stargazer,” Freya began, “you once told me that you owed me a favor, even though I had done nothing for you.”

“Not you, per se,” Stargazer corrected. “I consider alternates to be equals. Another version of Saga helped, and I honor that.”

“But if you do me a favor, am I not taking it from her?”

“You are not. What can I help you with?”

“We need to find someone familiar with advanced temporal technology, specifically in regards to a spaceship,” Zek said.

“This is my friend, Zektene Cormanu,” Freya explained. Stargazer was polite and accommodating, but wary of strangers. “She’s cool.”

He nodded with his eyes closed, then turned to Zek. “What time period?”

“This one, I think,” Zek answered. “It’s called The Sharice Davids.”

Stargazer was taken aback. “That should not be here in this moment. You must take it away. It is too dangerous. The future depends on no one else ever finding out it survived. I didn’t even know, and must now have my memories erased once you leave to protect it.”

“We’re sorry,” Freya said with a frown.

“No, it’s quite all right. It’s good that you came to me, since I know what to do with this information.”

“It’s only an interplanetary ship,” Zek pointed out. “Where could we possibly hide it?”

He shook his head. “It was designed to protect against external threats to the solar system, but it eventually became outdated, and time travelers later retrofitted it with interstellar capabilities. It was destroyed before reaching its first exoplanet, so if it was put back together, it means some very powerful people came back to reclaim it for themselves. You cannot let that happen, so you cannot trust anyone.”

Freya looked for answers in the layer of sand on the floor. “There might be a way to get rid of it.”

“Tell me nothing,” Stargazer warned before she could continue. “I’m happy to erase my memories, but the less I ever knew, the safer the information will be.”

“Understood,” Zek said. “But just to be clear, there is no one in this timeline who deserves this? Does it not belong to someone else?”

“It does,” Stargazer confirmed, “but it is best that they also believe it was destroyed. The knowledge should not go further than you two.”

They winced.

“You’re not the only two, are you?”

Freya straightened up, and put on her poker face. “I will tell you nothing. No comment.”

He smiled. “Good. Carry on.”

They returned to the hangar, but no one was there. A hatch was open on the bottom of the Sharice, suggesting that everyone made their way into it while they were gone. Zek transported Freya up to the bridge, and then began sweeping the corridors using a series of rapid jumps. A minute later, she returned to ferry Freya to the group. They were in an auxiliary control room, which Carbrey said was where the emergency temporal displacement drive was housed. Based on its remoteness and lack of signage, he guessed that very few people were made aware that this TDD existed. Freya and Zek relayed what they had learned from Stargazer, and it seemed to mesh well with what Carbrey was able to learn from the computers.

“So, not only can we take it, but we actually should?” Limerick was happy to hear this.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Khuweka disagreed. “Stargazer wants us to get this thing out of the timeline, and the safest way to do that is by sending it to some other universe. That’s not something we can do, and even if we could, we need a ship to get to Worlon first, and this can’t do that if it’s supposed to remain a secret.”

“Aren’t we going to Worlon before anyone else arrives?” Andraste reminded her. “We should be able to keep it secret until the mission is over. Perhaps this is fate. It certainly came at the opportune time. Mr. Genovese was just about to start building us a new one, and now he doesn’t have to.”

“It’s not that simple,” Carbrey said, pulling himself away from the screen. “I was working on a minimalist design. It would incorporate the reframe engine, but it was otherwise only large enough to accommodate the seven of us. This thing is far more than we need, and I don’t think it has a reframe engine.”

“We don’t need it if we can travel through time,” Limerick noted.

Carbrey shook his head. “The TDD is gone. It was only ever meant to be activated once, and as it was sending the ship to this last location, it evidently self-destructed somewhere else in time. The logs called it a...” he squirted at the screen, and rediscovered what he read before, “Lucius last resort. Whatever that means.”

Something was distracting Freya from the conversation. “Landis, are you still hurt? Can’t you heal yourself.”

“I can’t,” Landis answered. “I cannot heal myself. After I got my foundation going, my security detail was composed of hundreds of people.”

“Anyway. I think we’re destined to use it.” Limerick was so sure of himself. “Build the reframe engine thing, put it in here, and let’s get on with it. I know it’s not easy, but you still have two years.”

“That doesn’t help us with the real problem,” Khuweka reminded him. “Once we destroy the Ochivari, someone would have to take the ship to the Triangulum galaxy, or something. I’m not sure anywhere is safe, not when considering time travelers.”

“I thought you said I could travel to other universes,” Limerick said.

“Yeah, you can, and other people can follow you through. You can’t create a shatter portal large enough for a spaceship, and even if you could, you can’t breathe in outer space. You would have to be outside the ship to make it happen. Look, the Sharice came back here for a reason. It believes this is the safest place for it. I say Carbrey builds us what he was going to all along, and we just leave it alone.”

“I can’t accept that,” Limerick fought. This is a warship, and we’re in a war. And who knows, maybe our mission will change enough about the future to stop these evil future people from even existing? I say the ends justify the means.”

“I agree with him,” Freya finally said. They looked at her, a little shocked, but not completely surprised. They knew she was all gung ho about killing the Ochivari, but she was also quite protective of her universe, and if keeping this ship around put it in danger, was that worth the risk? As they were arguing, she was working through that conundrum in her head, and ultimately decided that yes, it was. “We don’t know what we’re going to encounter out there, and this is our best shot at surviving. If we don’t succeed, we can use this in the war, and we’ll always keep it far enough away from whoever is trying to steal it. I don’t know how we’ll actually get the damn thing to another universe, but that’s not our problem at the moment. Let’s stop the Ochivari, then worry about that later. Hell, we might even find a solution on Worlon. We still don’t know how it is they were born with the ability to bulkverse travel. Perhaps it has something to do with their home planet. We can take whatever that is for ourselves.”

“I think it’s too dangerous,” Khuweka said, shaking her head slowly. “But I am nothing if not a fair leader. I will concede to whatever the group decides.”

They continued discussing, letting Andraste moderate the debate. In the end, they decided to use the Sharice Davids towards their own goals. At least if they always had it with them, they could control other people’s cognizance of it. They figured it was better than just leaving it here, and hoping that no one happened to show up.

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