Void: Defiance (Part VIII)

« < » > Entire Story

The New Crusades, as they were so unoriginally called, were a set of small attacks destined to culminate in a war between those with time powers, and those without. What began as animosity between Durus natives, and Earthans, soon warped into something completely different. Angry about the petty squabbling of the derisory humans, the paramounts—which was what choosing ones were called now on this planet—decided to take charge. Armed with so much more power than humans could do anything about, they started moving people around their proverbial chessboard. They took over the government, and started instituting their own rules. Humans from either world were treated as second class citizens. This had the completely foreseen effect of galvanizing the humans into forming a mutual union. Not only had the paramounts known this would happen, but were counting on it. They figured that the only way the Durune natives, and the Earthan refugees, would ever get along, would be if they had some kind of enemy to battle together.

Unfortunately, certain paramounts in their ranks started liking their power, and were on a path of taking things too far past the point of no return. Drawing upon the lessons left behind by the ancient source mages, they thought they could achieve peace, and also maintain their power. They had it all lined out. They had control of the child who could create new Watersheds, and wanted to use this resource as leverage over others, so everyone would depend on them. One of them was a verter, who could control the aging process of individuals, which would allow them to stay young forever, further cementing their undefeatable tyranny. What they didn’t have, however, was Andromeda. She was the only builder anyone had ever heard of on Durus. If they wanted to build a kingdom without using slaves or indentured servants, they would either need her on their side, or be able to force her to do their bidding. It was unclear whether they were going to succeed in this, though, because all of this had happened in an alternate reality.

A paramount who was not interested in a Durus under oligarchical rule, went back in time, and contacted Earth. The Overseer, which was the woman Saga and Vearden had worked under during Operation Second Wind, sent a salmon battalion to Durus to change the outcome. If the world needed a mutual enemy to unite the two sides, they would have it. The natives hated them for being part of yet another invasion. The refugees hated them for refusing to return them to Earth. There were a few hostile actions against the battalion, which had established a temporary military state in order to achieve their goals, but the soldiers never retaliated with violence, and not a single person was harmed beyond superficial wounds. One of the paramounts reported to have become hungry for power in the other timeline was showing signs of repeating alternate history, so Andromeda and Saga were asked to postpone their one year anniversary getaway to speak with him.

Enobarbus ‘Barbwire’ Agnelli had the power to invoke the spirits of dead people, whom only he could see. Theoretically, this could be used to provide closure for the spirit’s loved ones. Instead, he just used the knowledge he gained from these conversations against his opponents, real or imagined. “What are you two doing here?” He didn’t necessarily hate them, he treated everyone with about the same amount of scorn.

“We just wanna talk.”

“You’re working for the battalion, aren’t you?”

“In the spirit of honesty,” Saga began, “I will admit to having a prior relationship with a sergeant in the battalion. We are here with information regarding your future, which we procured from the battalion, but we are not working for them.” That was neither true, nor untrue. She was asked to help, but she had no obligation to do so, nor to report back to Adolphe.

“What happens in my future?” Barbwire asked.

“You tell us?” Andromeda suggested.

“That’s not my power,” he said.

“Well, what do you want your future to be?” Saga asked.

He took a second to think about this, like he was just interviewing for a job. “I want to be able to use my powers how I want. I don’t want to have to hide them, or use them for noble causes. I don’t want to be ridiculed, or categorized, or controlled.” He spoke only to Andromeda now. “You and I are powerful people. We’re better than the humans—”

“She’s one of us,” Andromeda suggested.

“Well, not really,” he contended.

It was true, for as many times as Saga could open a door to another time and place of her choosing, there was an equal number of times when she couldn’t, or opened a door against her wishes. It was interesting that he seemed to recognize this in her. Most assumed that her powers were just rather screwy while on Durus, but he appeared to know that she was not actually a paramount.

He continued, “If we’re better, don’t we have an obligation to help them?”

“I would sure think so,” Andromeda agreed. “But...isn’t that everyone’s responsibility. If you have the power to help someone, you should. Everyone should, temporal powers or no.”

“Okay, so...this is what I can do.”

“You can do what?” Saga pressed.

“I’m not talking to you,” he spat.

Andromeda stuck her finger in his face. “Hey! You won’t talk to my wife that way.”

He took a breath, and pretended to calm down. “I’m sorry. This is just something only you can understand. You’re paramount...full paramount, and you’re from Durus. We’ve spent a lot of time complaining about how things are now, but not much time actually trying to change it. People thought the republic was such a great idea, but look where that got us. Women were inferior, and couldn’t even go outside without a man’s permission.”

“That’s over now.” Andromeda shook her head.

“Maybe. Maybe you’ve cleaned out the whole government, but it’s still based on this socialistic pipe dream that, as long as everybody has a job to do, nothing will go wrong.”

“You don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Saga told him.

He was about to attack her again, but restrained himself, because it was counterproductive to his objective. “My point is that we’ve all forgotten what things were like before. Way before. When we first came here, Smith ruled over everybody. Through fear. Then he disappeared, and the source mages came to power. That was our renaissance. Yes, Miss Einarsson, we have books here too, I know what the renaissance is. The source mages used their powers to create an order, and the world flourished. We had day, and we had night. We had houses, in towns, with grass, and other life. We had food, and security. We had people protecting us against the monsters. Everyone thinks that, now that the literal monsters are all gone, we have nothing further to worry about. Well, I’m here to tell you that humans are fully capable of being the monsters. I’m scared, Andy—”

“Andromeda,” she corrected.

“Andromeda,” he said apologetically, “I’m scared. I don’t want to go back to the first republic, or to the Smithtatorship, or Earthan control. And everything I’m seeing here is leading me to believe that one of those three things is on its way. Which one would you rather have? If it’s up to me, I pick door number four. I pick us.”

“The beauty of a republic, Mr. Barbwire, is that no one rules. The people decide. The people vote. You want to take that away from them.”

“The people are stupid,” he said.

“You sound like Drumpf.”

“He made some good points,” Barbwire said with a shrug, unashamed of his opinion.

“What makes you qualified?” Saga questioned. “Sure, you have time powers, but so do a lot of people. That doesn’t automatically mean you know how to run a planet. That would be ridiculous. Powers aren’t given to people because of who they are. They’re not given at all, you’re born with them, which means for every smart chooser, there’s a dumb one. I’m looking at one right now.”

“Be nice,” Andromeda warned.

Barbwire wasn’t pleased about having to explain himself to an unworthy salmon, but he worked past it. “Are you sure about that? Do you know for a fact who gets powers, and why? Have you studied it?”

Thinking he would have no way of knowing whether she had or not, she leaned forward and lied, “I have, yes.”

He looked at the space above Saga’s head, and then scoffed playfully. “No, you haven’t. You’re just a slave.”

Saga looked behind her, but saw no one.

“You fell into this life, completely unprepared,” he recited. “You did the best you could, but if these powers that be,” he spoke with airquotes, “wanted you to do something, you had to do it. Sure, you gained real power at some point, and even when you lost it, you kept an echo of it. But you’re still. Just. A. Slave.”

He was presumably referring to the time she absorbed The Cleaner’s power, and ultimately used it against him, which left her with residual powers that allowed her to transcend her station marginally. But how would he know that about her? Saga decided to test him. “That’s true, and that led to my downfall. I was literally taken out of time, like I never existed. But then my friend, Vearden brought me back, and we continued our job together. I remember this one time,” she said, faking nostalgia, “when the powers that be asked us to help a budding agricultural society learn how to irrigate their crops. We weren’t supposed to use any modern inventions, but I snuck some hose from the future, just to get them starte—”

“That never happened,” he yelled, still focused on something behind Saga. “You just made that up.”

“I knew it,” Saga said, standing up, and looking around aimlessly. “Vearden, are you there?”

Barbwire knew he’d been caught. “He can hear you, but he can’t help you.” He was using his power to speak with a past version of Vearden, which Saga should have expected, or at least caught onto earlier.

“He shouldn’t be helping you either. He would never betray me.”

“Fear not. He has to answer all of my psychic questions. That’s how my power works.”

She could imagine Vearden standing right next to her, invisible and silent, but desperately trying to communicate with her, and stop this madness.

“Enobarbus,” Andromeda scolded, “stop this right now!”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Wait,” Saga stopped him, much to his delight. “Is there any way for me to speak with him.

“Like I said, he can hear you.”

“But I can’t hear him.”

“I’m powerful, not a god,” Barbwire forced himself to acknowledge.

Saga walked over towards the door.

“What are you doing?” Barbwire asked.

She reached for the doorknob. “You shouldn’t have brought him here. If ever this door was gonna work, it would be right now.” She opened the door, revealing a gigantic hall, which did not exist in realspace. She stuck her head in a little. “Vearden! Oh, Vearden!”

“Hello?” came the voice of a woman from inside. A woman Saga didn’t recognize appeared from the other side of the hall.

“I’m looking for Vearden?” Saga requested.

“How did you open that door?” the woman asked as she drew closer.

“What the hell is this?” Barbwire demanded to know.

“This,” Saga said to him with a smile. “Is The Crossover. This reality’s Vearden lives here.” She presented her hand to the woman. “I’m afraid, we’ve not yet met.”

“In my universe, we hug when we first meet people,” she replied, arms wide.

Saga accepted the hug.

“My name is Mindy Novak. Vearden is indisposed at the moment. He is...nearing the end of his tenure here, so he’s preparing for his exit interview.”

“Oh,” Saga said sadly. “Are you replacing him?”

“A new primary operator has not been chosen yet.”

“I was hoping he could...help me with this...problem,” she said to Mindy, referring to Barbwire, who was scared shitless.

Mindy took a look at him. “You’re Saga Einarsson? Vearden’s old friend?”

“I am.”

She took a device out of her pocket that resembled a tricorder, and pointed it at Barbwire, who was too stunned to move. “He’s not that relevant to this universe, I can take him off your hands.”

“Could you really?” Saga was surprised. She was really just hoping this Vearden could stop Barbwire from exploiting Ghost!Vearden.

“Some people can’t change, and just need to be removed from the equation. This may sound like murder is the only option, but all you really need is a different equation. I have a nice new home for him in mind.” She took him away, and it was over.

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 785: Valet

< > Table of Contents

In 2007, Magnate began its line of appliances, which quickly became its most successful department. People would always need ways to store and prepare their food, as well as easily perform everyday household duties. Then in 2012, Magnate expanded to entertainment electronics, including cameras, phones, and music players. As time went on, it was becoming clear that smartphone apps were going to remain the most important tools people use to maintain their lifestyles. There were apps for scheduling, apps for communication, apps for games, and apps for tracking fitness activities. Wanting to bridge their other departments into a more cohesive system, in 2017, Magnate started getting into materianet, which is sometimes known as the tangiblenet, but Magnate coined the former. They wanted to connect every machine or device an individual owned, so they could all communicate with each other, and share data. Theoretically, with this technology, your home will wake up when your car drives close enough to it by adjusting the environmental temperature, opening the garage, turning on the hall lights, switching the television to your favorite news program, and disabling internal security precautions. Before you even leave work, it can remind you to pick up a carton of milk, because it’s been communicated this need by your refrigerator. Similarly, connected cities should be able to measure the traffic on a given road, keeping street lights dimmed when not in use, and brightening them only when a car or pedestrian draws near. This was going to be a huge endeavor, and not everything Magnate has tried has worked out perfectly. But one thing they realized was that they really needed a single system that all devices would use. There needed to be a set of standards, and the company set out to create these, feeling themselves to be in the best position to do so. On the front end of all this is a meta-application called Valet. Valet was programmed to do everything physically possible for you. Valet knows your schedule, because it has access to your online calendar. Armed with this information, it can automatically instruct your thermostat to a setting ideal to saving energy, say when you’re off on vacation. Is a friend dropping by to check on the place while you’re gone? You can temporarily grant her certain house rights, which alters the temperature to her personal ideal, and it knows this, because everyone has their own account. You can lock her out of certain rooms, if she’s not allowed access, and can lock your car and/or garage down, so she can’t take your new Starburst out for a spin. All of this is controlled by a single application on your phone. Sounds nice, right? Though a great number of people came together to make this a reality, one special individual, with the ability to see the future, spearheaded the project. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Manus Burke’s personal assistant, Lynne Wallace.

Microstory 784: Mullet

< > Table of Contents

Mullets. What is a mullet? Well, it’s a species of fish; a few different species, actually. It’s a kind of haircut, known as business in the front, and party in the back. But that’s not what we’re talking about. In this case, mullet refers to a kind of time traveler very similar to a salmon. While other time traveler varieties are quantum biologically different than the others, a mullet is really just a special kind salmon that plays by their own rules. First of all, let’s codify the varieties, so you’ll understand how a mullet comes to be. The tippy top are the powers that be, and the choosing ones. Members of the latter have the ability to use their time powers as they please, while the latter have no power of their own, but can control salmon. Chosen ones, which are incredibly rare, are equivalent to salmon, but can be controlled by their respective chooser instead, though it’s unclear to what degree. Lastly, spawn are humans transformed into temporal manipulators by either a salmon, or a chosen one. They’re even rarer, and more mysterious. When Saga Einarsson and Vearden Haywood were first puppeted by the powers that be, they were deemed The Freelancers. This meant, actually that they displayed traits of salmon, but also chosen ones, which allowed them to sort of be passed around on an as-needed basis. But then an incident infused them with powers they were never meant to have. And though most of this power eventually drained from them, they maintained an unexpected level of independence, rendering them the first in a sixth type. Though they could still be called upon to act on the wishes of the powers that be, they could also refuse this request, which no salmon should be able to do. No one knows whether it’s possible to transform oneself from a salmon, to a mullet, and then to a full-fledged choosing one, to be completely free of the whims of the powers that be. But inspired by Saga and Vearden’s marginal success, salmon sure as hell started trying.

Microstory 783: Joy Girl

< > Table of Contents

I wanted to take a moment clear a few things up about my approach to sexuality in my stories, because the way they do things in these worlds may be a bit confusing. As I believe I’ve said before, homosexuality has never been condemned on these so-called “fictional” worlds. People tend to identify as bisexual, recognizing sexual acts as independent of love and/or procreation, but not always. But this sex positive position goes deeper than the acceptance of diversity. In our world, we have strong opposition to certain positions, like exotic dancing, pornography, and prostitution. Even the word pornography means “obscene painting”. Likewise, the word prostitution has a longer history of referring to dishonorable harlots than it does the job itself, meaning you could be called that in the 16th century as an insult, before sex workers adopted it the term more formally. But that’s just us, and it’s not how it has to be. In other universes, these people are respected for their dedication to their trade as much as a stockbroker, or a coal miner. Dancers and adult film performers are treated as artists, who provide a necessary and specific contribution to the world of entertainment. Similarly, sex workers provide a service for clientele in a more intimate, and usually private, setting. They don’t use that vile word, instead choosing to be known as paramours, which carries with it an interesting linguistic twist, in that it’s a portmanteau of para + amour, signifying their status as more ‘parallel’ to love, rather than in true love. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding these jobs, a lot of it evidence of ignorance. They say that the only reason a woman would walks the streets is because of some psychological trauma they’ve been unable to come to terms with by “healthier” means. The most common of these claims is daddy issues, but setting aside my fiction for a moment, I want everyone to look at their wall and see if there’s a fucking psychology degree on it. If there is, I then want you to look back at your records and check if you ever even had a fucking conversation with these women to make a reasonable conclusion about their motives or history. To be more general, let’s all take what any pundit or commentator says about the mental capacity of a politician, celebrity, news subject, or subculture, with a grain of salt, and appreciate the fact that that is not goddamn how science works. To be sure, this stigma does not exist in my stories, and I do this to illustrate how our world could look like if you rethought your judgy intolerance for one second. People claim there’s a lot of abuse, danger, a drugs attached to these jobs, and that’s true. But those are peripheral consequences of the laws and opposition towards them, not the industries themselves. If these things were both legal, and socially accepted, plus regulated, do you think those actual crimes would continue? Localized data suggests otherwise. This became more of a tirade against our (in)justice system, when I set out to simply codify my narrative canon, but if even one person starts questioning their judgy attitudes towards other people’s choices, then maybe I’ve helped, even only in some small way. This story is dedicated to all the joy girls out there, empowered by their sexuality, not ashamed of it. They are the best kind of wild cards.

Microstory 782: Sax

< > Table of Contents

One of my favorite bands growing up was Sunday Think About It, in no small part because of their variety of instruments that they used. I listened to their debut album, I Miss U!! I don’t know how many times. You can imagine how excited I was when I won tickets on the radio to see their Hudson City show, which would be their only Usonian stop during their international tour. The package included, not only two backstage passes, but also the opportunity to hang out with the band after the show. My best friend, Daleka and I were so incredibly excited, but there was just one problem: we lived thousands of miles away, and we had no money, and no vehicle. Our parents were supportive of us going, but since we had no way of getting there, they obviously didn’t think it would be a problem, so maybe that wasn’t so genuine. Well, we sure showed them. Keep in mind that this was a time before cell phones and security camera facial recognition. Back in these days, if you were caught on a train without a ticket, the conductor would send a message to the next station, where a law enforcement officer would be waiting for you. Of course, if you had enough cash on you, you could just pay for a ticket without dealing with the authorities, but if you had the money in the first place, you probably wouldn’t have had to sneak on at all. We played it right, though. He came by to check tickets, and we pretended like we were looking for them, freaking out about having lost them. There were real tears, and everything. We put on a good show. Fortunately, we are on the express line, which meant the stops were few and far between, so it would be awhile before he could let us off. He took pity on us, and agreed not to involve the law, I kind of always felt bad about us manipulating him.

As far as we had gotten, we hadn’t gotten far enough. We were able to hitchhike a few more legs, but that soon got tiring, and people weren’t willing to take us very far without being paid. We needed better options, so we thought up a new approach. Daleka had brought with her a saxophone, hoping that the band’s saxophonist at the time, Lochana McGiddy would sign it for, oblivious to the fact that nothing writes well on brass. Neither of us actually played the saxophone, but I was a decent flautist, so I knew I could figure it out. Every city we went to, we would find parks with the most number of visitors, and perform for them. We realized our shtick was better off with humorous undertones, with me “purposely” playing poorly, and Daleka dancing ridiculously. Well, we made it to the concert on time, and it was great. Unfortunately, we never did get to meet the band, though, as there were some failures to communicate that were beyond our control. As it turns out, the radio people didn’t have everything in order. Then about ten years later, someone on the internet invented a website where you could post short videos. Someone else, in one of the cities that paid our way to Hudson uploaded some footage from our performance. In response to this, others realized they had seen the same act in their own cities, and uploaded our other performances. Somehow, the band members of Sunday Think About It at the time caught wind of this, and saw our morning show interview about it. Feeling bad for having failed to meet us those many years ago, they invited us to Austin; paid our way, and everything. We started a jam session, and well, granddaughter of mine, you can guess the rest. I spent the next twenty-four years as their saxophonist.

Microstory 781: Sawbuck

< > Table of Contents

Jane Brown hated her name. At least if she had been Jane Johnson, or Jane Jones, it would have been alliterative, but this was the most boring combination her parents could have come up with. She suffered through it her whole childhood, witlessly playing into her own insecurities on the matter, which only convinced those around her that she herself was boring. She ended up being admitted to a college on the other side of the country, though, and decided it was high time she reinvented herself. So, she took a gap year to earn a little extra cash, and start the relatively slow process of legally changing her name. She knew it would take a long time in her case since she would have to convince the court to allow such an unusual change. She had landed on the name Sawbuck, for no particular reason, except maybe she saw an advertisement for a sawhorse earlier that day. She would never know for sure, but it sounded perfect for her, because she wanted to become someone interesting; someone people talked about, and asked after. By the time her first semester started, she had completed all the paperwork, and was fully approved. She was now Sawbuck. Sawbuck Honeyglider. Her classmates and dorm neighbors would ask her about it, and she would never tell them that she made it up. She came up with a lie to explain where her family came from, and every time she told the story, she’d add more and more flourishes. She never contradicted herself, though, so if her victims spoke to each other about it, they wouldn’t catch on to the fib. She got so good at it that she realized lying was her true passion. If she could weave this one incredibly intricate story about herself, maybe she could do it with some other story. So she sat down at her computer, and got to work. She came up with plausible falsehoods, but she didn’t incorporate them into a novel or short story. She didn’t write films or plays. She just wrote lies, and she found a way to spread them on the internet. Using what she had picked up on about law when she changed her name as a foundation, she taught herself how to set up false identities, and plant information in such a way that it looked like her characters had always existed, and that they had gone through all these harrowing or tragic experiences. She created an entire secret history of the world, all from her laptop, generating belief amongst even the most skeptical in the world in random, pointless, and sometimes innocuous things. Her reputation began to spread along with the lies themselves, and certain underground peoples began asking her for her help. This was how Sawbuck ‘Plain Jane’ Honeyglider turned herself into the infamous Fabricator.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 21, 2167

« < » > Table of Contents

The crew was in a depressive funk when the two of them returned to the timestream a year after Nerakali’s death. None of them particularly liked her—though Dar’cy did a little, because she didn’t have any history of hostility with her—but they were apparently right about the necessity of her virtual worlds. At least, the problems losing the worlds would cause was a self-fulfilling prophecy. They were going a little stir crazy being trapped in a tin can with hardly anything to do. The database was loaded with some mindless video games, but they quickly got old. There were some books and movies, but not all of it was good, and what was good, they had already watched or read over the last five years.

Nothing had gone wrong with the ship in the meantime. It was on course, and on schedule; Leona’s water filtration system was working perfectly; and Missy’s atterberry pods were functional, though they hesitated to use them. It took so much effort to convince The Emissary to allow the pods as backup in the first place. Though this was never stated explicitly by the powers that be, they had the distinct impression that the pods were not to be used just to pass the time quickly. In lieu of this, the organic humans spent an unreasonable amount of time sleeping, or just lying in bed with their eyes either opened, or closed. Brooke and Paige, the not entirely organic beings, did have a limited ability to go into a sort of power-saving mode that tempered the dullness of this life. They could not completely shut down, but it was a vital extension of a software feature used for regulating their conceptualization of the passage of time. At some point in the advancement of transhumanistic technology, developers recognized how horrifically tedious life would be when an individual with enhanced neural processing power perceived seconds as centuries. Thus, the temporal attenuator. Without it, people kill themselves purely out of boredom.

Right now, those two were in an especially deep hibernation, while Missy was performing more tests on Serif’s healing abilities. Dar’cy was the only one free to talk, and it looked like she desperately needed it. “I think it’s punishment for us letting Nerakali disappear to her death,” she said, almost completely unprompted.

“What is?” Leona asked, worried they had been in the middle of a conversation, and she just hadn’t been paying attention.

“My powers,” Dar’cy added. “I’ve not been able to use them all year. If Nerakali were still around, I wouldn’t need them anyway, but now they’re gone completely. I can’t even jump five minutes away.”

“Yeah, your father experienced the same thing on Tribulation Island. But that was Arcadia’s doing.”

“How did he get through it?”

“You mean, how did he get his powers back, or how did he handle life without them?”

“The latter.” She was tearing pieces of skin off her lips with her teeth.

“Well, life on the island was a lot more interesting, I think. They did have some arbitrary amenities, but they also had a lot of work to do. Hunting, fishing, repairing the shelters. Then again, I think he spent a lot his life up to that point using his powers, more than I imagine you have. I suspected too that somebody blended his brain with alternate versions of himself, so he was probably rather accustomed to having them. You know, I guess I don’t know how he managed to not go crazy. Eventually, he met your mother, though, so I’m sure that helped.”

“So, I should find a girlfriend?” Dar’cy gathered.

Leona looked around the room they were sitting in, which wasn’t any less empty than any of the other rooms. She and Serif were now staying in Nerakali’s quarters, since she no longer had use for them. “Well, your options are fairly limited.”

“You and Serif got any openings?”

They laughed for as long as they could, glad for a joke that took up the better part of twenty seconds of their long journey to Durus. But also Leona had a fleeting thought that they did indeed have an opening, like there really was meant to be a third person in the relationship.

“You just need to get creative. How about a play?” Leona suggested.

“Which play?” Dar’cy asked.

“Doesn’t really matter. On The Next Generation, crew members would rehearse and perform plays for each other. The characters weren’t generally actors, but they often filled their time in between missions with the performances. Sometimes they were even originals, written by one of them. They also played instruments, and put on concerts. That would take even more time, if you don’t already play.”

Dar’cy thought this over. “The only play I know that’s in the database is Waiting for Godot. I don’t know anything about it, but I guess we could do that.”

“Probably not that one.” It would make them even more depressed about sitting around and doing nothing.

“There’s also a musical called...um, Bridgedoom, or something?”

“Brigadoon?” Leona assumed. “Yeah, maybe not that one either.” That hit a little too close to home when it came to Leona and Serif’s real lives. “I’m sure you’ll find something in there, though. Ask the others for guidance, since they’ve spent more time on Earth, and know what would be in the library. You could perform it for Serif and me when we get back. Maybe you’ll even find something they created after our first time jump.”

“Yeah, that might be fun.” She didn’t look super convinced. She planted her face into Leona’s pillow. “Or I could just go back to sleep.”

Leona affectionately pulled her back to a sitting position. “No, don’t do that. Eight hours a night. Maybe nine. No more.”

“What is night? What is night when there is no day?”

“Deep.”

“Do you hear that?”

Leona did think she could hear something as well.

“It’s like...like a metal blade cutting into something else metal. Or, soldering? Or a laser etching into something? What is that?”

It grew louder, and Dar’cy’s descriptions were pretty good. Then a light began forming on the floor. They jumped up on the bed, as if it were a mouse, and as if they were afraid of mice. The light started as a pinpoint, but grew larger and larger, as the sound intensified.

“Is someone taking apart our ship?” Dar’cy asked. “Are we being boarded?”

“The floor just leads to the deck below us,” Leona explained. “If we’re being boarded, they’re already in.”

The light continued, until it was large enough to reveal a portal, out from which came two hands that pulled a woman into the room. She struggled to get her feet all the way through. “Verdammt! Scheisse!”

Leona helped her the rest of the way through, while Dar’cy became combat ready.

The woman looked around and got her psychological bearings, then she took out the Compass of Disturbance, and tried to get her literal bearings. “Wo bin ich?”

“What did she say?” Dar’cy asked, still ready for a fight, even though the intruder looked like she was over sixty years old.

“I don’t know,” Leona said.

“Don’t you speak Russian?”

“That’s German, and no, I don’t speak either of them.”

“Obviously you do, because you know which language it is.”

“That’s not how that works.” Still. Leona tried to remember what few things she picked up in college. “Uhh....dein name?”

“Ida,” she answered. “My name is Ida Reyer.”

“You do speak English,” Dar’cy pointed out, suspicious of her.

“Yeah, sorry,” Ida responded, still in a German accent. “It’s not my first language, though. I still don’t think in it.”

“Ida Reyer?” Leona echoed. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”

“I got a Wikipedia blurb,” Ida said, only halfway proud of herself. She shook their hands. “I’m an explorer. From Austria.”

“You have Juan’s compass.”

“No,” Ida said. “Juan has my compass. I’ve yet to go back in time and leave it for him to find. The Weaver bequested it to me originally.”

“How far out of your time period have you gone?” Dar’cy questioned. “This is a space vessel.”

Ida nodded and inspected the bulkhead. “Yeah, it’s okay. Not the best I’ve seen. The first thing I did was go hundreds of thousands of years in the future, to a planet of two kinds of aliens called the Eloi, and the Morlocks. They themselves didn’t have any working ships, but I came across an ancient crash site or two while I was there.”

“The Eloi and the Morlocks?” Leona asked, wide-eyed.

Dar’cy had no reaction.

“Yeah,” Ida laughed. “My friend, Helena bastardized that story so the 19th century dum-dums could understand it better. Don’t worry, she gave me some of the proceeds from the book.”

That was a lot to unpack.

Ida went on, “anyway, today is your day, Leona, which means I’m here on time. Looks like we have about a year to adjust heading just enough to avoid the cataclysm.”

“What cataclysm?”

“The 2167 gravity well.”

“It is 2167,” Dar’cy said.

It took a second for this to register with Ida. “Wait, what, are you serious?”

“Well, relatively serious.”

“Ah, crap, I’m late. She ran out of the room. “Shut off the engines! Shut ‘em off now! Plan B!”

“Computer,” Leona ordered, running out after her. “Awaken Brooke.” She ran into the cockpit to find Ida hastily tapping and swiping at the computer interfaces.

Brooke came out of her standby and tried to get her off of her precious machines. “Hell you doin’?”

“Brooke, we have to stop right now.”

“What do you mean, we have to stop? You can’t just stop a vessel traveling at a hundred-forty-seven million miles per hour.”

“We don’t need to stop the ship, just attitude control and thrusters. And mostly everything else.”

“What are you talking about?” Brooke protested. “Who are you?”

“A really good friend of yours. I’m sorry you’ve not yet been introduced to me, but I implore you to trust me. If we don’t take systems offline right now, the sheer will tear the hull apart. We have to let The Warren fall into the well without resistance. It’s the only way we’ll break free of it.”

“Are you crazy, we’ve got a schedule to keep.” The computer had woken Paige up as well.

“You won’t be able to keep it. Better late than dead.”

“Miss Matic, who is this woman?” Paige asked.

“A famous explorer. She’s using the Compass of Disturbance.”

“Yes, thanks for reminding me,” Ida said, taking the compass out, and placing it on the interface table. Circles emanated from where the compass was placed, along with tangential and radial lines, the bridges connecting information between the two devices. Ida seemed to be able to read the data. “Okay, so we still have time, but we have to do it now.”

“Captain,” Brooke asked.

“I’m not doing it,” Paige said. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but I’m not compromising the safety of this crew, or the importance of the mission, for you.”

“Don’t you see,” Ida said, “that’s exactly what you’re doing. There’s a tower out there that Saga’s wife, Andromeda created. A choosing one used his power to levitate it off the ground, and away from the planet, but it’s been gathering gravitational energy ever since.”

Paige wasn’t relenting.

Ida turned her face to stone. “Warren, override operations, authorization two-one-six-seven-plaintiff-temple-bachelor.”

“Transfer complete,” the computer responded.

“What did you just do?” Paige argued.

Ida ignored her. “Warren, shut down all operations besides life support, and minimal internal lighting.”

“No!” Paige screamed, but it was useless.

The lights dimmed, and the engines cycled down. With the gravdisk below them decelerating, they were lifted from the floor, and started floating around aimlessly. Not used to life without some level of gravity, Leona found herself hitting her head against the wall. And then nothing.

« < » > Table of Contents

Void: Crusaders (Part VII)

« < » > Entire Story

As the wedding day approached, Saga and Andromeda were asked to meet with a woman named The Officiant. She operated at a level of law that goes beyond humanity, and real time. Any salmon or chooser they’ve ever met whose been married was married by her. That was her one and only job, she took it very seriously, and she never let anyone do it for her. Right now, she was sitting across her desk from them. They were in a Justice of the Peace-like office that could travel with her across time and space, and apparently didn’t quite exist in this dimension. She regarded them warmly. “Do you know who I am?”

“The Officiant.”

“Do you know what that means?”

“That you marry people.”

“What kind of people?”

“People with time powers.”

She nodded, but like she was still waiting for a better answer, or for the most dramatic time to learn them the truth herself. But, then she just seemed to move on. “How long have you two known each other?”

“Four years,” Andromeda answered.

“Four years?” the Officiant repeated. “You don’t think this is too quick?” Her tone was ambiguously judgmental.

“No,” Saga said plainly.

“Good. There’s no room for doubt here.”

“I understand you’ve been having trouble with the locals.”

“As far as my world has come in the last several years,” Andromeda began, “there is still a lot of prejudice.”

“Has nothing to do with your genders, right?”

“Oh, heavens no.” Andromeda shook her head. “That’s never been an issue here.”

“So, certain peoples are just upset about a Durusian marrying an Earthan.”

“Durune,” Saga corrected.

“Apologies.”

“Tell me about the, umm...” she flipped through her notes, “the Dawidux incident?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“You think two years is a long time?” the Officiant questioned.

“I guess time doesn’t really matter to people like us. For us, it was two years ago. For Leona or Serif, it would be two days. For you? Maybe a literal aeon.”

She smiled and nodded again. “From what I gather, the Dawidux people were just one group of many.”

“I wouldn’t say many,” Andromeda disagreed. “There are others, yes. But they’re mostly harmless.”

The Officiant shifted in her seat. “I’ve heard people say that about Earth, but I’ve never heard an Orolakian say it.”

Saga grinned. “This is true.”

“I don’t know what an Orolakian is,” Andromeda lamented.

“Seems like a big part of your life, Saga, that she should know about.”

“The aliens, sweetie,” Saga said to her fiancée. “Remember? We sort of...started a revolution. Vearden and I.”

“You still need to finish it,” the Officiant told her.

“What?” Saga asked.

“That story is not over,” she added.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your marriage. Your relationship with each other is...a problem for time.”

“For time?” Andromeda asked. “Time itself?”

The Officiant nodded.

“Time can get fucked.”

“Saga,” Andromeda scolded her.

“What? I don’t care what the powers that be want from me! Ain’t nobody gonna stop me from marrying you.” She turned back to the Officiant and added, “including you.”

“I’m not here to stop you,” the Officiant said defensively. “I’m just here to chat.”

“That’s what detectives say to persons of interest,” Saga spit.

“Saga,” Andromeda scolded again. “Be nice.”

Saga regained her composure. “You’re right. I just don’t like being questioned. I put a lot of thought into my decision to marry this girl, and I know that she did as well. I’m not true salmon. I can resist the powers that be’s whims. Is that the right grammar?”

“You can postpone them, to be more accurate. Do not underestimate their power, or their...mercilessness. No,” she said before anyone else could speak. “Cruelty. That’s the word I’m looking for.”

“This is happening,” Saga said clearly. “You can either help us with it, or we can find a Durune officiant. Most people here are supportive, and not on a crusade against our bond.”

“I’ll do it,” said the Officiant, embarrassed for having failed in her mission to instill them with confidence in her. “But you do need to understand the risks. Leona and Mateo were authorized. You’re doing this without that authorization. Make no mistake, lots of salmon marry people the powers didn’t explicitly approve of, and they end up fine. I’m not saying this can’t work, but don’t you dare think you’re safe. The Atlantians make the Dawiduxians looks like a basket of puppies.”

Andromeda nodded soberly. “We recognize the danger,” she said after a respectful moment of silence.

“Who the hell is Mateo?”

“Let’s hammer out some of the details,” the Officiant said, moving on once more. “Have you chosen your chief attendants?”

The two concordants looked at each other. “Hokusai and Loa,” Saga said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know them?”

She laughed quietly to herself. “Time, right? Any honor attendants?”

“Camden and Morick,” Saga imagined.

“And my mother.”

“Well...”

“My mother is going to be part of the ceremony, Saga. Stop resisting.”

“Do you not like her?” the Officiant asked.

Saga mindlessly examined her fingernails. “She asked me to help her daughter with her time powers a few years back. She wasn’t expecting us to fall in love. She blames me for all the...issues we’ve had with the Durune. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a lovely woman, and she has no qualms with us being together. She’s not technically racist, but she’s one of those people—”

“Careful...” Andromeda warned.

Saga carried on, and repeated herself, “she’s one of those people who see racism in others, and think they’re helping by trying to get us to...avoid those situations.”

“She’s trying to protect us,” Andromeda reasoned.

“She’s victim-blaming,” Saga volleyed. “She wants us to change our behavior, when she damn well knows it’s everyone else who needs to change.”

“She just—” Andromeda didn’t want to have this fight again.

“She means well, and I know this, but I’m going to stand up for myself. You’re going to stand up for me too, and I would like—I feel I would like...her to do the same, instead of just saying we need to wait for others to wise up, and learn to do the right thing.”

Andromeda nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“You’re right, though, let’s not do this in front of company,” Saga acknowledged.

“No, this is important,” the Officiant said. “I can’t marry you if I don’t get to see what you’re going through.”

“You wanna see our baggage?” Saga chortled. How much time you got, doc?”

“Infinite,” she answered truthfully.

“That makes me think; they should make a time traveling therapist,” Saga noted, sort of off-topic.

“Yes.” The Officiant stood up and brushed the space dirt off the front of her pants. “Doctor Mallory Hammer. She’s very good, I’m sure you’ll meet her one day.” That didn’t sound so good. “Welp,” she continued, “looks like you two are ready to get married. I’ll be back next week for the ceremony.” She started handing them her business card, but then pulled it back. “Oh, wait, you don’t have phones here.”

“Uhhh...” Saga thought about it. “We do. Camden was carrying a sheetphone during the Deathspring. I’m sure it’s somewhere in our cottage. Battery would be dead, but we could find a way to charge it.”

“That’ll work,” the Officiant said. After handing the card over, she began to fade away, as did the rest of her office around them. They were left standing in the middle of the thicket.

“What is that?” Andromeda asked.

“Business card. Has her contact information on it.” Saga turned it over. “And a note. “Trust the ones in camouflage,” she read aloud.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a warning from the future, for the future. I’ve seen these kinds of things before. The only decision we have to make is whether we trust the source.”

“I feel like we can trust her.”

“Then we’ll follow her instructions.”

That night, their cottage was attacked. A hate group dressed in black threw molotov cocktails through their windows, which Andromeda expertly sealed up with blast doors. Unfortunately, this was merely a distraction, for they were already inside the house. Camden, their most skilled fighter, was presently in the capital, consulting for a new law enforcement agency they were trying to get up and running. Andromeda tried to use her powers to build some structure that could help them, but one of the attackers knocked her out cold before she had the chance. Saga then tried to fight back the ol’ fashion way, but wasn’t strong enough. They must have knocked her out as well.

She woke up with her arms tied behind her back. Andromeda was already awake, tied up on the other side of the room.

“Finally,” the leader guy said. He removed his—what was that mask thing called, a baklava?—from his face, and grimaced.

They weren’t impressed.

“Do you not recognize me?”

“Should we?” Andromeda asked without fear.

“I’m the guy you dropped a tower on in Dawidux. Bet you didn’t think I survived, did you?

Of course, they did recognize him as the leader of the angry mob, but this guy survived on ego, and ego alone. They knew to not feed the trolls. “Honestly, I don’t remember you there,” Saga lied. “I remember that happening, but which one were you?”

This pissed him off immensely. “You stupid bitch.”

“Bite your tongue, assbutt!” Andromeda screamed, while clearly trying to use her powers against him.

“Not this time, sugartits,” he said to her. “This time your powers are being suppressed by an injection. You won’t be able to stop it with a knife this time.”

“What the hell do you want?” Saga asked derisively.

“I want a clean Durus. I hear you two are getting married,” he said with feigned excitement for their happiness together. Then he dropped the act. “We’re not okay with that.”

“Well, we would have asked you for permission, sir,” Andromeda said, besting him in the acting department by imitating a stereotypical obedient housewife, “but...who are you again?”

This man needed to find his center. His temper was getting worse. “I’m not going to try to show you the light this time.” He knelt down and wrapped his arms around Andromeda’s torso to cut her ropes apart. “You wanna be with your Earthan girl forever, then you got a deal.”

Now, this moment right here would have been a perfect opportunity to spit in his face, but Andromeda never did anything half-measure. On their upteenth date, she revealed to Saga that she had the ability to vomit on cue, which she decided to demonstrate again, this time for whatshistoes. Taking advantage of his absolute disgust, she snagged the knife from his hand, and totally jacked up his shoulder, then she prepared to fight her way through the other six men who had come into their home. Somehow, though, they had guns. A lot of them.

Firearms were incredibly rare on this planet. There were a healthy number of them in Springfield when it was sucked into the void, but few people around with the knowledge to make more. One of their terrible leaders was a man named Smith, who did have this knowledge, for he was a literal blacksmith. Overtime, however, production was able to cease, because he disappeared, or something, and had failed to pass his skills onto others. When a group of choosing ones started using their time powers to create mages, projectile weapons seemed too pedestrian to use, so they were locked up. They had been used on occasion since then, but not much. That these guys had them proved there was still at least one corrupt politician left in government.

“Sit back down!” one of the men with guns ordered. He then kicked the leader guy, who was now crying in pain, to his face. “Shut up, sir! I said sit down, you Earthanfu—”

He didn’t get to finish his derogatory term when a magical hole opened up in the ceiling. Above them they could see a hovering military helicopter. There were no helicopters on Durus. Soldiers wearing green camouflage dropped down on ropes and swiftly removed the terrorists from their respective waking states. The ceiling returned to its normal form. After the soldiers were finished, they turned toward the women. “We would love it if you could create a door for us. Our pilot would like to speak to you two. Please know you can trust us.”

“We know we can,” Saga said, disrespectfully removing the knife from the bigot’s shoulder, and wiping the blood off on his pants. “But she can’t make a door. Her powers have been suppressed.”

“Gadhavi?” she said to one of her soldiers.

Gadhavi stepped forward and held up a needle.

“Go ahead,” Andromeda consented.

He injected her with a serum that returned her powers to her, so she could recreate their front door. They walked out to find the helicopter on the ground. The terrorists who hadn’t made it into the cottage were all lying on the ground. The pilot was still finishing up a few things in his bird, but then he stepped out and removed his sunglasses.

Saga breathed a sigh of relief. “Sargent.”

“Nice to see you again, love.”

“How did you get here? Why?”

“We’re here to stop the New Crusades,” Adolphe Sargent, military strategist extraordinaire, said. “I also hear there’s gonna be a wedding?”

« < » > Entire Story