The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 21, 2473

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Last year, this ragtag group of random time travelers who didn’t care to have anything to do with each other humored Utari Kiswana, and took a tour of the artificial island that they were on. It was a really interesting place, and they all probably would have enjoyed themselves had they come here on their own, and weren’t being held at this point in spacetime against their wills. There were a ton of activities to do here, like mountain climbing, sailing, and paragliding. There was even a train that just rolled around on a set of circular tracks, where some people apparently lived permanently. After it was over, they were all exhausted. Most of them were asking to just be sent back to where they belonged, which poor Buddy must have actually obliged, but Utari seemed to be in charge now.

A funny thing happened on the way back from dinner. Utari and Buddy wanted to get rooms in one of the main beach hotels for everyone, so they could stay the night, and wake up refreshed in the morning. As Buddy described earlier, dozens of beaches radiated from the island, allowing a lot of residents to have beachfront property. The main part of the island, however, was still surrounded by water, and there were a ton of hotels and housing units there too. They just weren’t quite as immersed in it. It seemed like a nice place to stay, but by the time they got checked in, two of the abductees mysteriously disappeared. Buddy apparently made the attempt to bring them back, but was unable to.

“You were transported to my domain in the future,” he guessed. “You’re here now, and so am I. Basically, my past self was unable to retrieve you, because he would be stealing you from me, and that would not have been okay.”

Mateo looked over at Bhulan and Arqut. “You have been here for a year?”

“It hasn’t been that bad,” Bhulan replied.

“It’s actually been kind of nice to get a break from the ship,” Arqut added. “Though, I would like to see my wife again, so could we be quite quick?”

“Quite quick with what?” Olimpia questioned. “Have the rest of you figured out how to do anything that this asshole is asking of us?”

“Hey, there’s no need for language,” Buddy argued.

“Then how’s anyone gonna understand me?” Olimpia asked combatively.

“We have an idea,” Tauno jumped in. “We’ve been waiting for you two to return before we try to implement it.”

“It’s this.” Utari set her briefcase carefully on the ground, and opened it to retrieve a cable.

“The Livewire?” Mateo questioned.

“You’ve heard of it?” Buddy asked.

“I’ve used it,” he explained. “It caused some problems in the Third Rail, but it also saved lives. That’s what it does, transfers consciousness. Why would we want that?”

“That’s not all it can do,” Utari began. “It can transmit any form of energy, including temporal. We think we can wrap this around our respective wrists, and channel our power into a focal object. That thing might end up with enough power to accomplish what we’re trying.”

Mateo took the Livewire from Utari’s hands, and started wrapping it around his own palms for no particular reason. “I’ve seen a lot of wondrous things. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what some of you have seen, but I’ve picked up a few things here and there. My best friend, Ramses may be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to temporal energy. Sure, you got your Hokusais and Hogarths...your Team Keshidas and Holly Blues, and even my wife. They’ve made some great things, but I still don’t think they compare to Rambo. He really gets into it. He has worked hard to figure out the fundamentals of time, and the manipulation of it.” He carelessly dropped the wire to the ground. “What you’re suggesting is stupid. Your lemon issue is not there for lack of power. There’s plenty of energy to go around. People with more power than all of us combined have not been able to transport citrus. You’re not gonna get it done with more temporal energy. If anything, you want less. Lemons don’t like time. They tolerate it at a one-to-one ratio, which is why they don’t explode in every grocery store in the world. They only become overloaded when you mess with the balance.”

“So, what’s your suggestion?” Buddy planted his hands on his hip.

Mateo shook his head. “Why did the Buddha’s hand citron go extinct?”

“A lot of things happened,” Buddy said. “Highlights include climate breakdown, wayward pesticides, pests themselves, a lack of customer demand during the rise of genetically modified organisms; particularly dayfruit. In fact, a lot of fruits have become extinct by now when we stopped growing them in favor of more efficient alternatives, not just citrus. Those I could rescue, if I were so inclined.”

Mateo nodded, and approached the man. “You’re a time traveler. Go back in time, and protect the Buddha’s hand. Build a greenhouse, keep it protected. Hire people to maintain it for the last few centuries. Do this the right way; you don’t need magic. Did you ever think of that?”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Buddy decided after a long beat.

“It is,” Mateo agreed. “Preserving life is work.”

“No.” Tauno picked the Livewire back up, and wrapped it around his wrist before moving on to do the same to Bhulan. “I built the Fourth Quadrant out of raw power that I store in my dick. I can do this. I just need a boost.”

As offended as Bhulan was by Tauno’s crude remark, she didn’t stop him from pulling her into this power-sharing gambit. Arqut let him wrap it around his wrist too, as did Utari and Buddy. They stood there, like the worst basketball team in the league. No one tried to force Mateo and Olimpia to join them, but what else were they gonna do? Buddy and Bhulan were the only people here who could send them home. They might as well humor them again, and give it a shot. He was right, it wasn’t going to work, and hopefully, it wouldn’t instead make things worse either. The two of them huddled up with the group, and closed the Livewire loop. Arqut gave Mateo a wink, which was weird, but okay.

“We connected this room directly to the mountain’s primary fusion chamber,” Utari revealed. “We should not be lacking in electricity.” She took the first end of the wire from Tauno, and shoved it into the wall socket.

They could feel the pulsing energy surge around their wrists. It kept circling the loop, over and over and over again, building as it was continuously fed by the underground fusion reactor. Buddy was smirking as was happening. That was when Mateo realized that they never selected an object to focus the power into. That must have been because it was Buddy. He had chosen himself to be the vessel. He was clearly a megalomaniac, so this should have come as no surprise to them. The real question was whether he would stop at this mission, or move onto the next one after this. What would he do with all this power? The dude wanted some lemons. He was being a jerk about it, but evil was not the word that either of them would use. Utari, however, appeared to have let her hand show. She could turn out to be the real threat. She could be the next Cleanser, or Oaksent. She was smirking even more sinisterly, like she knew something that Buddy didn’t.

That was when Arqut breathed deeply in and out, and flexed his arm muscle. He reached over with his free hand, and cupped his fingers over the wire on his other wrist. The energy stopped circling the group, and instead began to redirect into Arqut. He was taking it. He was taking all of it.

“What are you doing?” Buddy questioned angrily. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Yeah, how are you taking it from us?” Utari pressed.

“It’s all about the entropy, baby,” Arqut answered vaguely, pleased with himself. “Energy tends to flow from a higher concentration to a less ordered state. I’m the least ordered state in the room, dumbasses. I’m not a time traveler. I’m only human.”

Buddy and Utari tried to remove themselves from the circle, but were literally tied up. Bhulan and Tauno were smiling, and it was becoming clear that this was the true plan all along. Had Mateo and Olimpia been here during their interim year, they likely would have been in on it too. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Utari kicked the wire out of the socket, but that wasn’t where the energy was coming from anymore. If anything, it helped, because now the temporal energy was free to slide along the wire on its own without competing for space. Only a few seconds later, the other four were noticeably drowsy and dizzy. They couldn’t keep their eyes open. Meanwhile, Arqut was stronger than ever, and the two members of Team Matic were doing fine.

The energy slowed down on its own, and once it was used up, most of the group fell towards their backs. Olimpia managed to catch Bhulan in her arms, but she was still passed out. “How are you two standing?” Arqut asked.

“We’re salmon,” Mateo told him. “We don’t live off of temporal energy. It really only comes to us once a day.”

“Yeah, we need sunlight!” Olimpia agreed cheerfully as she was carrying Bulan to one of the beds. “We’re plants!”

Arqut smiled, and walked over to open the shades as a nice gesture. He then went over to untangle the Livewire from everyone’s arms. “Most temporal objects are illegal on the Extremus. Tauno is a jackass, and we all know we can’t trust these two yahoos. Bhulan already told me that she has a knack for trying to destroy these things. So I think the only logical answer is to give it to you.”

“What happens to them?” Mateo nodded his head towards the people on the floor.

“I don’t care what happens to Utari. There is a way for me to tether myself to the ship when I get back home, and Bhulan will find a similar solution in the Constant, where she belongs. Tauno has all sorts of friends, I’m sure he can ask one of them for protection from Buddy. That’s why you need this. It could be your version of a solution.” Arqut handed the wire to Mateo. “I hope your friend, Ramses is as resourceful as you make him sound.”

“How do we get home?” Olimpia asked. “Do you have all their powers now?”

“I have their power,” Arqut clarified. “Not their powers. Bhulan’s will replenish itself eventually, and she’s already agreed to send me back to the past. As for you, I just gave you what you need. You take care.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2193: Unremarkable Piece of Wood

< > Table of Contents

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

As I warned you, there is nothing that I can say about our hiring process right now. We’re in a precarious position, and have to keep things confidential until the next step. But my work is the only thing I’m doing right now, and I don’t have anything else to tell you. What shall we discuss instead? How about I just make up a quick story for you? It’s been a while since I’ve written fiction. I kind of started to try soon after I arrived here, but nothing came of it. Yeah, I think I’ll see if I still have the skills. Here goes.

I don’t have any trees in my yard, nor do my neighbors. They had all been removed by the time my dog and I moved in here a few years ago, so I couldn’t tell you why. I see stumps, so they were there at some point. I bought it because there’s a lot of space for her to run around, and a really nice deck. There was a tiny little porch behind our old house, and she loved to sleep there, but she deserves better. One morning, I let her out to do her business when I discovered a twig right in the center of the deck. It had to have blown in from quite a distance away. I drew meaning from it that surely wasn’t there. Still, I tossed it over the railing, and it landed on the patio. The next day, I noticed it still sitting there, so I casually threw it back up onto the deck. I kept doing that periodically ever since. I would sometimes go out, and leave it alone, but sometimes switch it from one of its landing spots to the other. Again, it wasn’t every time, but it still felt like part of my routine. It felt like it was something that I ought to do, like a little game I played with myself. A few weeks ago, I was barking at my dog, trying to get her to do her thing quickly, because I was running late for work. It was really hot, so while she can normally just stay outside, I was going to have to keep her inside, and drive home during my lunch break to let her out again. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, and heard a crack underfoot. I froze there for a moment, certain that it couldn’t be what I thought. Perhaps it was only an acorn, or something. Of course, an acorn would be just as unusual to find here, but far less valuable, because that twig was mine. I carefully lifted my leg, and saw it sitting there. It appeared to be okay. It was still intact. I smiled, and picked it up. Yes, everything was going to be okay. I tossed it back up to the deck, and called my dog over, so we could move on with our day. She trotted up the steps, slower than I would like. She knows how impatient I get, but my girlfriend occasionally comes in through the garage, and she’s always sniffing around for her new mama, even when she’s not there. We got all the way up to the deck, and then I saw it. The twig was where I threw it, but in two pieces. It hadn’t survived my attack. I froze again, unsure what I was supposed to do now. It sounds so stupid, this unremarkable piece of wood, that I should care so deeply for it. How long would it have lasted if this hadn’t happened? I’ll never know, because I ruined it. I can’t concentrate on my work, or anything else I’ve tried to do. I think the incident just sort of forced everything I wasn’t happy about in my life to bubble to the surface. I dunno, I’m no psychologist. Life just seems so futile now. No matter how many times you’re able to toss that twig over the railing, it falls apart eventually. Everything ends. Everything dies.

Orthogradient: Antitheses (Part V)

< > Entire Story

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.”

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 10, 2212

« < » > Table of Contents

Ramses Abdulrashid stepped out of the homeportal. Or, at least that was what he tried to do. Best guess, portals weren’t very good at exiting on moving objects, like this spaceship he was now back on. Though that didn’t explain how teleportation to a planet was possible. Everything in the universe was always moving around, so there had to be some way of navigating. This wasn’t important right now, though. He had to pull his face off the floor, and gather his bearings. This was The Sharice Davids, which exploded near Proxima Centauri over sixty years ago, or over two hundred years in the future, depending on the perspective. He managed to look up the corridor just in time to watch his younger self be teleported out of the danger zone. The bridge section of the ship was a safer place to be at the moment, but there was no way to reach it, and it wasn’t destined to last long anyway.

Future!Ramses ran up to Weaver and Goswin, who had been left stranded here when the teleporter who rescued his past self was unable to return for them. He knew for a fact that they were going to survive this ordeal, though, so there must have been some kind of way out of here. Weaver ignored him for a second so she could speak into comms. “Computer, initiate AU level burst mode, heading Proxima Doma.”

“Where did you come from?” Goswin asked.

“Sixty years in the future,” Ramses answered, “give or take five years.” He was a great engineer, but if he wanted to solve a math problem, he still needed some time to make the calculations, be it on paper, or in his head. Since the first time he experienced this date, he spent most of the time living through every second of the year. More recently, however, he was on his best friend’s pattern, so it was unclear exactly how much time had passed for him in total.

“Are you here to rescue us?” Weaver asked.

“I didn’t technically come here for that, but that must be our fate. I’m just not sure how.” Ramses looked around. There was nothing of note but walls and floors, so he was just biding time until his brain came up with something brilliant. It worked. “The Ubiña pocket.”

“How is that gonna help us?” Goswin questioned. Won’t it be destroyed once the rest of the ship falls apart completely?”

Weaver consulted her computing device. “I estimate that to be in five minutes, give or take five minutes.”

“I can jettison the pocket generator,” Ramses explained to Goswin. It’s based on a paramount’s temporal power, but it still needs physical tech to exist. All we need to do is protect that.”

They look to Weaver, who was far more experienced with this sort of thing. She looked up from her device. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

They ran down the corridors, heading for the pocket dimension area. The pockets were designed for recreation, to keep the crew entertained during long journeys, but they had never been used. Fortunately, they did go through rigorous testing, so there should be no reason they wouldn’t work.

“How hard will it be for you to reprogram the generator thingy so it can be jettisoned?” Goswin asked as they were running.

“I just need to command it to do so,” Ramses answered. “It’s already capable of it, in case this very thing happens.”

“Whose idea was that?” he asked.

“Holly Blue’s,” Weaver said, referring to her alternate self.

They rounded the corner, and came face to face with a Freemarketeer redshirt named Enata. He was bloody and half dead, and trying to hold a gun to them, but was unable to lift his arm high enough. Ramses reached out, and took the weapon out of the man’s hand. “You can either die here, or come with us. Honestly, I don’t care which.”

Enata looked like he was near tears. Then he closed his eyes, and waved them past. He followed them surprisingly quickly with his limp. He wanted to live, despite having been directly involved in this ship’s destruction. They made it to the Ubiña pocket room.

“Pocket four,” Weaver said to them. “Seems fitting.”

Enata ran into the entryway, and slammed his face against the wall.

“Give me a second to open it up,” Weaver said as Goswin was helping their enemy from the floor. She pressed a button, and activated the pocket dimension, revealing a microworld with a serene bit of land next to a circular escher creek. “Now you can go through.”

Goswin helped Enata in while Weaver stood there, waiting. “Go on in,” she said. “It’s like an old-timey security system. I have to program the jettison on a delay. This thing won’t work while we’re inside.”

“Yes, it will,” Ramses lied. “Let me see that.”

Just as she was handing him the device, Ramses lifted Enata’s gun, and pointed it at her. “Go.”

“What do you have against me?” she asked.

“What? No, I mean get in the pocket. Sorry, that wasn’t clear. I’m the one staying out here.”

“We just need to put it on a delay,” she argued. “It’s fine.”

“Sure, the generator will fly off into space, but going what direction? And who is going to rescue us? No one knows this is happening. Trust me, I’m from the future.”

“So, how are you going to save us?”

“I’m gonna shoot you.” That was not a lie.

The ship shook and shrieked. It was not going to last much longer. It was either now or never. Weaver sighed. “I’ll return to this moment, and save you too.”

Ramses smiled. “I’m sure you will.” That was a lie. He knew what Weaver would go on to do with her life. She would have never taken the time to come back here and return the favor. After everyone was safe inside the pocket dimension, he ejected the generator. He then went into the weapons menu, and selected the gun he was looking for. This was not a destructive weapon. It was designed to send a target on some desired vector. In this case, he was sending the generator on a course for Earth. At this distance, it would take them over six years to get there, but once it arrived, Weaver would detect atmosphere, and be able to free them from the pocket. It might not have been the best option, but it was the best Ramses could come up with on such short notice. He had seconds left. He raced through the computer system, activated the vector gun, and sent them on their way. Then he stood there alone, waiting to die.

The hull opened up through the floor, sending him flying towards his death. It was a spectacular sight, he couldn’t help but think. But then something strange happened. The hole started sealing itself back up, and he started drifting back down to his feet. Had Weaver done it? Had she made it to Earth, invented a thing or two, and somehow returned to the past to save him? The hull stitched itself all the way back together, the fires died down, the exposed wires retied themselves, and tucked back out of sight behind the wall panels. At first, he figured time must be reversing, but Weaver, Goswin, and Enata never came back out of the pocket entrance, walking backwards. No, this wasn’t the reversal of time, but of entropy. In minutes, everything was exactly as it was meant to be, except the crew was still gone, as was the part of the ship that was designed to control this thing. Who had done this, and why? Surely it had nothing to do with him.

The only thing he could think to do was head for the auxiliary control room. Three people were already in there, looking over the consoles. They seemed surprised at his arrival.

“Mister Abdulrashid,” one of them said. He consulted a computing device on his wrist. “The timeline is intact. Did we miss something from the historical accounts?”

“Report,” Ramses said bluntly.

“Hold on, we’re trying to figure this out.”

“Report!” he shouted.

The leader sighed. “You first.”

“This is my ship,” Ramses said. “I mean, sort of. I’m a member of the crew, and you’re invaders. So, I’ll say it one more time, and then that’s it. Report.”

“All right, calm down. We were just taken aback. According to records, you escaped the destruction of The Sharice Davids, and continued back and forth throughout the timestream. This is Antintropy. He’s the one what put your ship back together. Over here we have Antiparticle. And I’m Antichron.”

“Why are you here?” Ramses asked.

“We are at war in our time,” Antichron answered. “We need a warship.”

“I can’t let you have it,” Ramses said plainly.

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know who you are. You could be the bad guys. Maybe you’re fighting against my friends.”

He seemed amused by the idea. “Your friends do not live in our time.”

“If we never reach your time period,” Ramses began, “then you must be from pretty far in the future, and if you’re from that far in the future, do you really need a decommissioned-then-retrofitted 22nd century warship?”

“That’s precisely why we need it,” Antichron explained. “It’s called intentional obsolescence. It’s not vulnerable to the kinds of attacks we’ll be going up against. This vessel is perfect. It was lost on this day, and its wreckage never recovered. All we have to do is simply remove it, and take it to the future.”

“Like Jack Harkness, or Pria Lavesque?”

The three of them looked at each other for answers. “We do not appreciate the references. We truly are from too far in the future.”

“Cool,” Ramses said dismissively. “Well, I’m not gonna let you commandeer this ship. If you really are from the deep future, then I don’t care much who wins your war. So, I’m going to take this ship back, and you can go do whatever you want without it.”

They seem amused again. “It’s cute how you think you can do anything to stop us. You’re just a human.”

“I’m a human who’s watched a lot of old TV and movies, unlike you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” This was a tricky gambit, but it was the only thing that was going to get him out of this situation. He took one step back, and placed his hand on a panel on the wall. It started heating up a little, and after a few seconds, verified his identity. The panel fell to the floor, revealing a wall safe. He punched in the code, and removed a special weapon. What this weapon did, he didn’t really know, but it was obvious how to work it. He pointed it at the three invaders, and shot them. The blast placed them in some kind of stasis cocoon. That was great and all, but what was he gonna do now? Oh, well there was this lever inside the safe as well. He wondered what that did. There was more than one way to find out, but there was only one best way. He reached in, and pulled it down.

Energy surged through the walls. It was so powerful that he couldn’t hold onto the lever anymore. Once it reached critical mass, the invaders disappeared. But no, they didn’t go anywhere. It was the ship that had moved, leaving them behind. Ramses walked over to the navigation controls, and watched the readings change. The ship just kept jumping through both space and time, in no particular order. It would only spend a few seconds in any one point before moving on to the next. Then he saw it. March 21, 2014. That was the exact date he needed to get to. He rushed back over the lever, and slammed it up. He wasn’t going to be able to hold on forever, though. The lever wanted to go back down on its own, and resume its programming. He had to get out of here immediately, or he could wind up in the cretaceous period. “Computer! Emergency evac! Authorization Bachelor-Vociferous-Plaintiff-Marathon-two-one-two-four!” The slick time-jumping program was something he would have to go back in time and secretly install himself. The emergency evac protocol, however, was built into the ship long ago.

Confirmed, the computer replied in Sharice Prieto’s voice. Brace for atmospheric dissonance.

Suddenly, he was standing outside the ship, on the ground. It disappeared on its own, continuing on its journey to wherever and whenever. He dropped to his knees and caught his breath. Atmospheric dissonance was no joke. It shouldn’t be this bad, though. The ship was calibrated for Earth-like climate. Someone came up to him, and injected something into his neck. He immediately felt better. “Thank you,” he said as he was standing up. “I think.”

It was an old woman. “Acclimatization solution.”

He was indeed feeling better. “Where are we?”

“Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, March 4, 2923.”

“Twenty-nine-twenty-three!” Ramses exclaimed. “Oh my God, I’m way off.” The time-jumping program must have switched moments by the time he reached the lever again.

“Nope,” she disagreed confidently. “You’re right on time. Just step into this cave, and walk towards the other end at a steady pace. You’ll need to make your own way back to Kansas, though.”

“Oh. Well. Who are you?”

“Let’s just say...if you read the book of my life, it would be a real page turner.”

“Paige Turner,” Mateo said.

“Yep, that’s what she said,” Ramses replied. He had just told his friends of his harrowing adventure.

“No, that was Paige Turner. That’s her name.”

“Oh, that was her? You described her a little younger.”

“You were nine hundred years from now,” Leona explained.

“Oh yeah, I guess so. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing. What have you guys been up to?”

They looked at each other, and over at what Ramses assumed was the invisible projection of Mateo’s psychic stowaway, Arcadia. “Scheming.”

« < » > Table of Contents