There were two ways to gather temporal energy for time travel, or to
accomplish other temporal manipulation goals. One was to find it in a
parallel dimension, and the other...was to literally wait for it. In the
end, that was really all temporal energy was: the passage of time. The
ladies listened to Elder’s explanation silently until they thought he was
done. “What if we took multiple trips?” Rita suggested. You go back,
reconnect with Extremus, build a larger time machine, and then come back for
us.”
“I don’t want to be stuck here without a temporal engineer,” Debra argued.
“You wouldn’t be,” Rita tried to clarify. “It’s time travel. He could return
to this moment a second after he left.”
“Unless wherever he goes kills him,” Debra reasoned.
“I’m not even sure if I can gather enough temporal energy for even one trip
as far back in time as we need to go,” Elder tried to continue. “I’m just
pretty sure that I can’t take anyone with me. It’s the triple mass rule. The
average choosing one can transport themselves plus two buddies. The machine
itself would be more massive than three people alone, which means that it
will require extra temporal energy. Maybe if one of us metabolized the
energy naturally, it would be different, but this is all very uncertain.”
The conversation halted when they heard a noise outside. It sounded like
something was falling. They were in the garage, which didn’t have any
windows. “Was that one of the solar panels?” Rita guessed.
They stepped into the foyer to look out one window, but couldn’t see
anything. They spun around to the opposite window when the sound recurred.
They still couldn’t see anything, so they peeked over the sill as far as
they could. Debra had the best angle. “There’s something sparkly down
there.”
“Sparkly, like a diamond?” Rita asked.
“More like water. Or ice.” That was when they saw it. It was ice. It was
fallen ice, also known as hail. Whether it was made out of water was a
question they couldn’t answer, not yet.
Elder pulled out his handheld device, and commanded the nearest exterior
drone to drive over to the ball of ice, and run a quick analysis. “It’s
water ice. Ninety percent dihydrogen monoxide, plus five percent air
bubbles, and three percent dust. The other two percent is carbon, and a few
other trace elements.”
“Guys. Look,” Rita encouraged.
They raised their heads to find that the few pieces of hail were only the
vanguard. It was hailing and raining in the distance. The precipitation
appeared to be coming out of nowhere from about thirty meters above the
ground. “I guess now we know where Oaksent has been living.” Elder gritted
his teeth, irritated about what this meant.
“He looks like he has a lot of temporal energy,” Debra pointed out the
obvious.
“Yeah, looks like it,” Elder admitted.
“It’s just that...if we wanna get out of here, you two are gonna have to
swallow your pride, and let us go over to speak with him.”
“Yes, Debra, thanks, we get it,” Rita snapped back. “Is the rover ready?”
she asked Elder.
He first manufactured a rover to test the stability and durability of the
metals found on this planet. They could do with a way to travel away from
the structure in person anyway, and it came with lower stakes than the time
machine will. “It’s finished, but I’ve not tested it.”
“You should do that today,” Debra suggested.
One time, when Elder was looking for a book on the tablet that he hadn’t
read yet, he came across a personal document that Debra had written. It was
fanfiction that portrayed Bronach Oaksent as the hero, and Debra herself as
the damsel in distress. She couldn’t even picture herself as the protagonist
of her own novel, which was what saddened Elder the most. He didn’t read
much of it, because it wasn’t any of his business, but his speedreading
kicked in automatically, so he got the gist of it pretty quickly. She had
contrived this whole fantasy about a man she had barely met. They didn’t
even have an image of him in the database. Her entire idea of what kind of
person he was came from a short biography in the manifest, while her
imagination had to fill in the rest. She thought of him as her savior mostly
because Elder was the poisoner. The fact that Oaksent was the one who had
orchestrated this whole thing was a causal connection that she wasn’t
capable of making. This wasn’t surprising considering she also struggled to
string two sentences together into a coherent thought. That was probably why
she sought out men like Oaksent in the first place, because she relied on
others, and always had. Coming aboard Extremus alone was the biggest mistake
she had ever made, and this would be true even if none of this had happened
to her. “Boy, you’re quite anxious to get to your little boyfriend, aren’t
you, Karen?” That was mean.
“Don’t call me that!”
Elder didn’t want to apologize, and Rita didn’t want to give him the chance
to try, and screw it up, so she changed the subject. “Do what you need to
with the rover, and then we’re leaving.”
“It holds two people,” Elder clarified. “One of us will have to stay here.
Or should I say, one of you, because I obviously have to go.”
Rita looked over at Debra apprehensively, who looked back in fear. She had
obviously been dreaming of finally meeting her hero for months, but she was
not useful. Elder was the genius, and Rita was the leader. So her only
option would be to beg. Rita sighed, apparently giving up already. “You go,
but I’m trusting you with that. You know how we feel about him. If you make
one choice that gets any of us hurt because you can’t tell the difference
between fantasy and reality, you’ll wish you had chosen to stay.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Debra complained.
Rita gave Elder a look. Perhaps she too had come across the fanfiction. It
was just sitting there in one of the main menus. She didn’t even password
protect it, like an amateur. “Just follow my instructions before you leave,
and while I’m on the radio. And whenever I’m not telling you what to do,
listen to Elder. That’s all you have to worry about. You don’t have to make
any decisions at all.”
“Fine.” Debra wasn’t happy, and was probably already searching for loopholes
in this mandate.
Elder went back to the garage to shift gears from the time machine to the
rover. He gave it multiple inspections. Whenever he encountered an issue
that needed to be corrected, he would then go all the way back to the
beginning, and start the inspection over. His own safety codes demanded that
he complete an inspection in full without discovering any problems
whatsoever. Measure twice, cut once was a cliché for a reason. Once it was
ready, he piloted it remotely from the safety of the structure, but only for
twenty minutes. The safest way to do it would be to have it make several
unmanned trips, but Rita was anxious for answers, and they didn’t know how
much, or how little, temporal energy Oaksent had stored up, or how he was
using it. There were different ways to trigger a hyperlocalized low altitude
thunderstorm, and some were more efficient than others. There was no purpose
to causing the weather event in this situation beyond demonstrating his
might, so it was a total waste. Elder might need to get him to stop before
they ran out of the energy they needed for the time machine.
He moved the rover back into the garage, and repressurized it. Debra was
packed up and ready to go. She had showered, which wasn’t a bad idea, if for
bad reasons. Elder decided to take a quick one himself, further delaying
departure, and making her even more impatient. After he was out, and ready
to go himself, Kivi pulled him aside. “Here.” She handed him a gun.
“Where the hell did you get this?” Elder questioned. They had never had a
gun on this planet before.
“I don’t know,” Kivi replied.
“You don’t know?” he echoed. “Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“I found it in my personal back the day we arrived on this godforsaken
planet,” Kivi explained. “I didn’t say anything, because tensions were so
high back then, and I didn’t say anything later, because there was no reason
for it. Well, there’s reason now. Oaksent is dangerous, and you need to
protect yourself.”
“Kivi, he’s the mastermind. He probably gave you the gun. He slipped it in
your bag, knowing that you had been marked for transport.”
“Maybe,” Kivi agreed. “It doesn’t matter. Take it. I don’t advocate for
violence, but I would rather it be in your hands than his...or mine, for
that matter.”
“Fine.” He carefully stuck it in his own pack, and headed out to the rover
where Debra was waiting. He performed one more quick inspection, the kind
you were supposed to do every time you went out for a drive, whether it was
on an alien planet, or within the safety of a breathable atmosphere. Then he
and Debra waved goodbye to Rita and Kivi, and headed out into the minor
unknown.
The rain and hail fell upon the rover, causing annoying damage to the frame.
It was a new vehicle, but it already required repairs. Great. Fortunately,
they found that the storm served only as a border between the two camps.
They passed through it quickly, and ended up in Bronach’s domain. Now they
realized why Elder’s drones had never managed to find it, because it was
located within its own parallel spatial dimension. This wasn’t a pocket
dimension, but it was similar. It was sunny here, and grassy on the ground,
and the air was thick and breathable. He had come a hell of a lot more
prepared than Elder had ever suspected. Oaksent was going to win this
battle of minds. Debra would never see him as the enemy now.
“What a dick,” Debra said.
“What?”
“He’s had this the whole time, and never said anything? I’ve been shitting
in a hole, and showering with freezing cold water. What. A. Dick!” Wow, that
was a dramatic swing in the other direction. It was a little offensive. The
toilet that Elder ended up building for them was nothing fancy, and it was
made out of metal, since they had no ceramics to work with, but it was
pretty nice. “Ugh. Stop the car.”
“We can’t get out yet, Debra. I can’t be sure that this is real.”
“Stop the car!” she repeated.
He came to stop, and let her open the door. A gust of wind rushed in, and
didn’t kill them, so the atmosphere appeared to be legit. And anyway, if
Oakset had wanted them dead, there were easier ways than tricking them into
thinking that this was a hospitable environment.
Oaksent stepped out of his brick house with a huge smile plastered on his
face. “You’re finally here! Only two of your survived?”
“The other two are back home,” Elder replied.
“Two?” Oaksent asked. “Rita, and who?”
“Kivi,” Debra answered. “Kivi Bristol.”
Oaksent shook his head rather apathetically. “Never heard of him.” Hm. As
much as he knew, maybe he didn’t know everything. He wasn’t God.
“It’s a her,” Debra corrected.
“Whatever.”
“How are you powering your dimension?” Elder asked, only wanting to be here
long enough to make some kind of arrangement.
“Initially?” Oaksent began. “Temporal battery. Now, a temporal generator.”
He chuckled when Elder looked around for it. “It’s disguised as that
mountain.”
Yeah, that rock spire would be about the right size for something like that.
A temporal generator would have to be a giant tower. It either collected
energy from two dimensions that operated at different temporal speeds, or it
processed the flow of normal time over the course of aeons. Neither one
should have been possible. For the first method, you can’t get any more
energy out than you put into creating and maintaining the parallel
dimension, so it would have to be maintained through some other source. For
the second method, it would obviously have taken a long time to build up the
energy required to be useful. It had only been less than a year. “Hm.”
“You’re confused, I can see that.” Bronach was quite pleased with himself.
“Tell me, have you ever seen the Bill and Ted films?”
Elder knew exactly what he was talking about. The Bill and Ted Gambit was a
time travel trick where, instead of being prepared for present and
near-future obstacles, you make plans to later go back in time to make those
preparations. If you’re operating within a single timeline—which you aren’t
always, so be careful—then it will appear as if you could see the future. It
took the concept of cause and effect, and flipped it in reverse, so the
effect essentially caused the cause. It was risky, relying on your future
self to accomplish something in the exact same way that you had already
experienced, but not impossible given enough time and power. “So. I will one
day take you back in time, and in the past, you will have me build a
temporal generator on this planet, so your past self can use it in our
current present.”
Oaksent acted like he wasn’t smart enough to instantly track the sentence as
he carefully considered it for a few seconds. “Yes,” he said, tapping an
imaginary nail on the head with his finger. “Except I’m not sure whether you
were the one who built the generator for me. All I know is it was waiting
for me precisely where I wanted it to be.”
“What do you want in exchange for the temporal energy?”
“A ride, obviously. You want the time machine too. You want it to go back to
Extremus, and I want it to go back to before the Extremus even existed.”
“We can’t go back to the Extremus if you prevent it from existing,” Debra
reasoned.
“I never said that I was interested in that,” Oaksent insisted, shaking his
head. “On the contrary. When I say before the Extremus, I mean way, way
before, but that doesn’t mean I want to do anything to it. I don’t care
about it anymore. I’m exactly where I would like to be, and the crew and
passengers of that ship can go off wherever they want, as long as they stay
out of my way.”
“What happens if they don’t?”
Oaksent sighed. “They will. Because you will warn them to leave me alone.
This is my domain. Neither Extremus nor the stellar neighborhood wants or
needs it, so let me do my thing, and we will all get what we want.”
“I don’t think so.” Debra suddenly pulled a gun out of the back of her
pants, and trained it on Oaksent.
“Why the hell does everyone have a gun around here?” Elder exclaimed.
“It’s the same one, Old Man,” Debra explained. “I heard Kivi talking to you,
and took it out of your bag while you were focused on the road.”
“Well...” Elder began. “Don’t use it.”
“I thought you would be my biggest fan,” Oaksent said to her, hands up
defensively. He didn’t look too scared, but not because he knew what was
going to happen in the future, only because she didn’t seem like the violent
type.
“Don’t underestimate me!” Debra cried. “I’m sick of everyone thinking that
they know who I am. But you people never actually ask me about myself. You
just make these unfounded assumptions about me because I maybe complain a
little too much, I have trouble taking responsibility for my own actions,
I’m insecure about my mistakes, and I find it a lot easier to blame everyone
else for my problems! But that doesn’t mean you know me!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Bronach said in a tone.
She waggled the gun towards him. “You could have made our lives a lot easier
with your little time mountain thing, but you chose to keep to yourself!
What kind of selfish son of a bitch are you?”
“It was a test,” Oaksent argued.
“Oh, it was a test?” she asked mockingly. “Test these bullets!” She fired
the gun, but missed, because she wasn’t exactly an expert marksman.
Oaksent took this opportunity to take out his firearm, and shoot at her
instead. He too missed, but not because he didn’t know how to aim. A masked
man appeared literally out of thin air, and took it on the chest. He tripped
backwards a little, but didn’t fall down.
Elder couldn’t see the time traveler’s face, but he recognized the mask.
This was standard issue in the Darning Wars for ground battles that took
place on unbreathable worlds. Thousands of people wore it, but there was
only one man who would logically be standing before them right now. The
stranger removed the mask, and smirked at all of them. It was a young Elder
Caverness. Present!Elder didn’t recall ever being here in his own past, but
that wasn’t surprising since he already knew he had deliberately erased the
memory of several years of his life.
“What the hell?” Debra asked.
Oaksent was shocked too.
“Fire in the hole,” Young!Elder said coolly. He lifted a device in his right
hand, and pressed the button on the top of it. The temporal generator
disguised as a rock spire exploded, sending temporal energy every which way.
