Void: Doctor Who (Part IX)

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It was November of 2168. The salmon battalion was gone, back to some point in history on Earth, to fight in some other war. That was evidently all they did. Saga hoped they had some good mental health care. It was one thing to be a soldier, it was entirely different to alter one’s allegiances every time one is dropped into a new conflict. Did they have any role in the decisions, did they sometimes have to fight against those they once fought alongside? Did they receive any compensation?

Durus was doing exceptionally well since the battalion left. The government was strong, working under the guidance of a sensible Constitution, one written with the future in mind. The people were learning to start working for themselves, and with each other. Unemployment was coasting at a healthy low rate, and sponsored programs were supporting those in transitional periods. They still lived in separate cities, but none was isolated. They maintained relations with each other, sharing knowledge and resources, and operating under the global banner. It was kind of the first time that Saga and Andromeda felt like they could take a breath, and really focus on their private lives. No one was asking the latter to build them anything, because they realized that, though this would be easier, if they utilized human labor on a construction crew, they could pay those people, and support the economy. Paramounts were still around, and using their time powers when warranted, but the entire system didn’t rely on them. That was what the Mage Protectorate was lacking; self-sufficiency, and they knew they couldn’t make that mistake again.

For the last several months, the two of them had been discussing having children. Years ago, they couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this world, but now that things were going so well, it didn’t sound like such a bad idea. They were now fully ready for the commitment—excited for it, even. The only problem was that they were both women, and conceiving a child together would be a little complicated, especially since Durus was still an underdeveloped state. At the moment, Camden Voss was visiting from his new city of Jaydecott, to discuss their options.

“Why me?” he asked.

“You’re one of the few people here that we trust,” Andromeda replied.

“Don’t you think that makes it a little awkward?” he questioned.

“A little, yes,” Saga agreed, which is why we’ve decided that the child would be born of Andromeda. I imagine being with her would make it a little less awkward.”

“For who?”

“Whom,” Saga corrected.

Camden blinked, and repeated, “for who?”

“Everybody,” Andromeda put forth.

“I don’t know about that. Have you tried contacting a prostitute? They’re very professional, and the industry is heavily regulated. You can trust them, even though you won’t know the donor very well.”

“We want it to be you,” Andromeda said honestly.

He took a breath for the first time since sitting down with them. “I don’t know how I feel about fathering a child to whom I’m not allowed to be a father.”

Saga shook her head at that. “We wouldn’t cut you out of our lives. You would be a part of this. No, you wouldn’t be his or her father—maybe more like an uncle—but we would want your input. They would grow up knowing you, and loving you.”

He shook his own head, but out of hesitation, not complete opposition.

“If we were on Earth,” Saga continued, “we would go to a doctor for artificial insemination, but we would still ask you to donate the sperm.”

“If we were on Earth, in present day, you wouldn’t need sperm. You could have a two-parent child using your respective DNA samples.”

“Earth in 2002, then.”

He sat in thought for a moment, then a lightbulb clicked in his head. “You can have a doctor.”

“No one here can do anything like that. I mean, they might be able to, but like we were saying, it all comes down to trust.”

“No, I know of a real doctor. In 1997, I was on a mission in Tennessee when I was suddenly transported to the future, in a different person’s body. As it turns out, a choosing one was sending her consciousness back in time, into other people’s bodies, to complete her own missions.”

“She was a doctor?” Saga asked.

“No, but there was a doctor there. It was her job to help the people whose lives had been temporarily taken over not totally freak out. Of course, as a salmon myself, I didn’t need anyone to calm me down, but I benefited from some therapy, just the same. She was a brilliant psychiatrist. She’s like the choosing one version of Baxter Sarka.”

“And she can help us?” Andromeda asked. “I assume she’s on Earth.”

“She travels all over,” Camden explained.

“You can call her with your sheetphone?” Saga hoped.

“Well, I can page her. She is a doctor, afterall.” Camden’s phone had only been used once here, to contact The Officiant, yet he still carried it with him wherever he went. He took it out and dialed. Then they waited. “Could take a few decades,” he said after a beat. “She’s not going to get it for another negative a hundred and forty years.”

“What?” Andromeda squealed.

“I’m kidding.” His phone rang. “See?” He lifted the phone and pointed it away from them, like a remote control. Once he pressed Accept, a light appeared from the phone, and corporalized a body in the middle of the room.

“Mister Voss,” she said. “Nice to see you again...for the very first time.”

“Same to you. How are you, and Quivira, and the rest of the team?”

“Well, thank you,” the doctor replied.

Saga stood up and shook her hand. “Saga Einarsson. This is my wife, Andromeda.”

“Pleasure to meet you two. I’m Dr. Mallory Hammer.”

“We’ve heard of you,” Andromeda realized. “The Officiant mentioned you before our wedding.”

“Ah, yes,” Hammer said. “Couples often need a consult before they commit to marriage.”

“Do you have any idea why we’ve asked you here?” Saga asked. She wasn’t sure, because sometimes time travelers knew everything about the outcome of events before they arrived. Knowing who knows how much, and when, can make communication a little difficult, which was why you kind of had to keep a laid-back attitude towards what would normally be treated as dumb questions.

She shifted her gaze between the three of them. “If I could hazard a guess, you two are looking to spice up your relationship?”

“No.”

“No?” she asked rhetorically. “Then my second guess would be that you’re trying to have a child, and you would like me to perform the procedure.” That was likely her first guess, and the other was just her attempt at humor.

“That’s the one,” Camden said.

“I am from the twenty-twenties. Under these conditions, I will need sperm. I don’t know if you were expecting same-sex conception, or...”

“Camden is meant to be involved,” Saga said, then she turned towards him. “That is, if you’ve agreed.”

He took a reverent pause. “I would be honored.”

“Sounds great,” Hammer said. “Do both parents want to be related to the child? Camden is obviously the sperm donor. One of you can supply the egg, and the other the uterus. Or the bearer can provide the egg as well.”

The others hadn’t thought about it yet, but Saga had. She wanted the child to be part of her, but she would not be able to carry it. She requested to speak with the doctor in private. “I can’t carry a child.”

She nodded understandingly. “Okay.”

“I’m much older than I look. I’ve been thrown throughout time, and de-aged, and torn out of reality. I was considering raising a child when I was stranded on Earth a few years back, and learned then of my infertility. My eggs, on the other hand, should still be fine.”

She nodded more. “Yes, the de-aging process has been known to produce a sort of...resupply of eggs. However, it can also cause spontaneous endometrial thinning. I wrote my thesis on the effects that time travel can have on reproductive organs.”

“Wrote your thesis where? What school would understand what you’re talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She set the conversation back on track, “does your wife know?”

“She does. We told Camden it would be less awkward for him to impregnate her, rather than me, but really, she’s our only option. But if I can provide the egg, I would love to.”

She nodded a third time. “That can be done. Easy.”

“Thank you.”

They went back to the other two. “All right, we’ve set initial plans.” She looked at the time on her pager. “I’m going to be back in two days.”

“Why?”

“If you still want to do it in two days,” she said, “you still want to do it. Never make a major change on the same day you decide to do it. It’s like going to the grocery store hungry. You’ll buy the wrong things. Let this sink in. In two days, we’ll iron out the details. Two days later, we’ll go over the details again. After another two days, assuming everyone understands the ramifications of what we’re doing here, we’ll begin the actual procedure.”

They didn’t say anything. They just had to concede to her expertise.

“I’ll need a sterile environment anyway, so if you could put me in touch with the hospital, or clinic, or whatever you have here, I’ll get going on my own process. Is everyone okay with how we’re proceeding?”

“I am,” Saga agreed.

“I’m going to need a verbal agreement from all of you.”

“I am.”

“I’m in.”

Hammer smiled. “Get used to making your intentions abundantly clear. I do nothing without consent.”

On November 22, 2168—one day after the report came out of Camden’s sister’s death—they made a baby.

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Microstory 790: Monarch

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There have been many civilizations, on many worlds, in many universes, across all of time and space. Most were created by humans, or some subspecies thereof. Unfortunately, the chances of any one of these surviving for any period of time is nearly negligible. People often wonder why they have not been visited by aliens, and though the truth is that there could be—and indeed are—many reasons, one of them is how difficult it is to reaching civilization milestones. Most fall before they advance enough to venture beyond their own little section of reality, and those that do will find it nearly impossible to meet any other civilization, for life is few and far between. Intelligent life is even rarer. When a major civilization ends—major being the operative word—there is one entity who is always present. A time traveler and immortal, he has adopted it as his responsibility to ease the transitional period when a culture dies, even if no life survives beyond it. When the Simmer Flood overwhelmed the first united shell, he was there. When Babylon was conquered, he was there. And when Adversary, and his demon army spoiled the lands of the living realm, he was there. He’s always there, taking on new forms, as necessary. He goes by many names, his preference being Deliverer. But others will call him First and Last, Beginning and End, and King of Kings. He is no ruler, though, nor does he have any interest in holding power over a peoples. He is there to help, and relies on a series of Bearers to know when and where he should be to be the most useful. For most transitions, he is around as true witness for a brief period of time. He may save as many as he can at the last minute, but he does not stick around for too long, fearing undue influence on the survivors. But there was one world whose fall was taking longer than usual, and required a little more help than others had. Society succumbed to chaos, leaving a great deal of people with far more arduous lives than they deserved. They grew angry, and began executing apocalyptic attacks against each other. But it would not end there. The misfortune just kept coming, in the form of domestic violence, and external threats. And so Deliverer endured through a long extension, acting as hero and friend to every decent individual that he encountered. He found himself liking this life, and it made him start rethinking his approach to his job.

Microstory 789: Walking Stick

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So I was thinking about how often I gravitate towards nonfiction when I’m trying to write fiction. Sometimes a topic speaks to my personal life, and I feel I need to be real in that moment, rather than leaving myself out of it, which is what fiction writers are meant to do. If you’re writing something, you need to choose one side or the other; made up, or real life. It shouldn’t be both. Only so many people can get away with writing themselves into a story, and I’m not sure I’m one of them. My Creative License doesn’t say I’m not allowed to, but it doesn’t say I am either, and I don’t keep good enough records to know whether I’ve paid enough of my dues. On the other hand, this is my website, and my book, and I can damn well do whatever I want. I don’t answer to a publisher, or an agent—though I wish I did, so if you know anyone, hook me up. When I was working on the plan for this series, I decided I wanted them all to take place in my recursiverse canon. But certain titles seemed to suggest this was not practical. Before I got too deep in it, though, I realized they could still all be canonical, but that any story could take place in any universe. I made a spreadsheet of each universe that I own, so I can keep track of it, which has made me realize that my universe is on that list. Now, I know that sounds like I think I own the real universe, but here’s the thing...I do. So when I was thinking about what story I could tell that involves a walking stick, I realized I know no better story than mine.

I come from a family of walkers. Not all of us have always done it, more specifically, so passionately, but we all do it now. During the summer before high school, I went to New Mexico with a small group of boys and their fathers in my Boy Scout troop. There’s a huge camp there for backpacking. I believe we went about fifty miles, but you would have to ask my father for confirmation. One time, we were sitting with our guide, who would only be with us for part of the trip. He asked us to go around the circle and tell the group why we wanted to do this. When they got to me, I started tearing up, and said that I just wanted to prove that I could. A few days later, I was having trouble keeping up, and my then-undiagnosed autism was making it hard for me to vocalize my feelings. I ended up flying into a rage, and throwing the walking stick my father had given me to the ground, where it broke apart. I eventually had to acknowledge that this meant I had failed in my goal. I was unable to prove that I “could do it”. Because though my fight with my father didn’t last forever, and I made it to the end, I had done it with an albatross of my own shortcomings. I’ve continued to carry around these character flaws my whole life, when I would really be better off replacing them with a walking stick. A few years later, just under the wire, I achieved the rank of Eagle, which many believe to be the greatest achievement a man can make. I do not believe that, for reasons including the fact that their sociopolitical positions stunted the exploration of my sexuality, and prevented me from finding out who I was. But still, scouting was something my father and I did together, and I do not regret it. To commemorate this milestone, he made me a brand new walking stick. A decorative one. A beautiful one. One that must not be used. One that you can see in the picture above. Though not likely his intention, his gift to me is a symbol, that no matter how many things I break, how many mistakes I make, we can always make another stick. It also symbolizes to me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned; that I can’t do this alone...that I will always need a little helping standing up...and that I deserve it.

Microstory 788: K-Boy

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At some point in the history of the bulkverse, a version of K-Boy ended up in a universe unlike his own. Here, though special abilities were possible, they were rare, and not nearly as ubiquitous as the time powers he had come to know in his home brane. His powers remained while in this universe, but they were significantly limited, as if the laws of physics—though outwardly exactly like the ones he was familiar with—were ever so slightly different. While still faster than any normal human being, he was significantly slower than before. He could run, but within the bounds of normal spacetime, and could be seen doing so by the naked eye. He found himself attached to a group of heroes, most of which had no special abilities of their own, but he was most known for his entanglements with a man named Michael Fintan, a.k.a. Boom Mike. Fintan was an actual boom operator, working on a number of popular and high-budget productions. He was not well-liked personally, for his reckless attitude, and juvenile behavior, but he was coveted professionally. He could hold the boom microphone for extended periods of time, like a statue, with some claiming his record to be forever. The truth was that he learned his patience and stamina while fighting in war. It was the characteristics he picked up here that caused K-Boy to gravitate towards him. As much as they fought their feelings for each other, it was ultimately useless. But their relationship would not be without its problems. K-Boy was strictly a hero, fighting for good and justice, while Boom Mike had become disillusioned with the government from his time in the military, eventually leaving it behind for the private sector. He became a mercenary, lending his services to anyone who was willing to pay him enough money. This created great tension between the two of them, and when it came time to choose sides, it was unclear whether Boom Mike would choose the right one. He was not a lost cause, and redemption was just around the corner, but he would have no hope without the dedication, and love, that he found in K-Boy.

Microstory 787: Justice Clerk

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In 1791, the United States Constitution was placed into operation, establishing the foundation of the nation’s laws, including those of the Adjudicative Branch of government. Many legal systems were proposed, the one that survived being an amalgamation of practically all of them. These are the parameters, as originally set forth by the administration, some of which has been amended over time. In every court, no matter how small, or how large, there exists one licensed adjudicator, and two independent arbitration panels of five individuals each. Known as arbiters, three of these are average citizens of the country, called upon to represent the people’s voice during deliberations. They are theoretically unbiased actors, charged with executing justice fairly, and without preconception, though this would be an unrealistic fantasy. And so each panel also has two arbitrators, who have undergone formal training in all matters of law. They study a variety of fields that fall into the four major departments of humanities, communications, government, and law. They are meant to serve as a sort of bias police, to ensure the arbiters are staying on track and keeping to the facts, as well as explain to them how law and policy work. Educated arbitrators serve an incredibly important role in the process. With no prerequisite of ethics training, it would be itself unethical and irresponsible to rely on an unqualified peer acting as an arbiter to be impartial during a trial. The separation of panel deliberations ensures as well, an ethical outcome to the court proceedings, by preventing undue influence, which could lead to a form of contamination called adulteration. If all has gone well, both panels, and the adjudicator, will reach the same conclusion regarding the case separately, and this is referred to as absolute accordance. Each case is defined by an accused, who is opposed by their accuser in the form of an alleger, which may or may not be a prosecuting body. If the latter is true, they are allowed to act as the adherent attorneys during the trial. They are thus opposed by one, or a team of, advocates, who argue for the rights of the accused. In order to maintain fairness in the trial, each side must maintain a balance of attorneys with the other, by at most a ratio of three to one. If, for instance, the adherents would like a team of seven, they must procure at least two more advocates to oppose them. This prevents a client with too much social or financial power from subverting the best interests of the state. Beyond these individuals, the court requires a certain number of other parties. For the protection of all, there must always be two court marshalls present, whose job as well is to manage any attestants. Attestants are called upon to testify in court if they have some level of background knowledge pertinent to the specifics of the case, or the crime itself. Lastly, an attendant (formerly known as a justice clerk) is responsible for handling the administrative duties of the court; documentation, scheduling, attestants, etc. As previously stated, many particulars have historically been determined to help create the best adjudicative system in the world, and these are only the basics that the founding fathers came up with over two hundred years ago.

Microstory 786: Nina

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Nina Poole did not have an easy life, even while growing up in a nice enough house. Her parents were somehow both negligent, and overbearing, with her. They were quick to become angry when she made a mistake, but failed to recognize her accomplishments, and did little to teach her life skills, or so much as take care of her. She would often wish that they just abandon her entirely, so she could fend for herself. At least then, her life would be consistent. Still, she got through it, and moved on with her life, vowing to herself that she would never speak to them again. Unfortunately, their bad parenting had left a bigger mark on her psyche than she knew, which ultimately led her to becoming pregnant by a man she barely knew, and had no interest in helping. She had to raise her son, Harlow by herself, and to make matters worse, she would keep seeking help from gracers who were about as bad as he was, one of whom fathered a second child of hers, little Damaris. He too left, and though her responsibility to her family was even more difficult than it was before, she made another vow to herself. If she was going to have to do this alone, then she would remain alone. She would stop trying to find a second parent for her children, and just focus all her efforts on the job itself. Of course, nobody does anything alone, and since she could not lean on her own parents, she started relying on her children’s teachers a lot more than most do. The majority of them were fairly receptive to the fact that these two students were in need of a little more help, but they could only do so much. That is, until Nina met Senia Laureda and Isabelle Salomon. The former was Nina’s daughter’s favorite teacher, and understood the whole family’s needs better than any had before. The latter was the school librarian, who Nina soon discovered had the ability to see people’s futures. She would use this gift to guide her students down the right path, with the help of Senia, the school principal, Keturah Bachman, and even Nina. And through all this good she was doing, perhaps Nina also happened to find someone who could truly love and respect her.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: [Temporal Dimension Conversion Error]

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“What time is it?” Leona asked when she woke up.

“Late o’clock,” Serif responded unenthusiastically.

“Is Ida still here?”

“I haven’t seen her. I haven’t seen anybody.”

“What?”

“Well, I’ve seen them, but nobody’s talking.” She snickered.

“Why can’t I...feel the bed?” I mean, I can feel it, but I can’t feel it.”

“It’s because we’re not really here.”

Leona sat up, which was difficult. Sure, she still had a headache, but other than that, she was feeling okay. No, it wasn’t her body that was having trouble moving, but more like there was some unseen force, holding her in place. Once she reached a new position, she was able to stay just fine, but getting there was a big chore. “There’s something wrong with the gravity.”

“You noticed it too? I thought I was just getting fat.”

Leona rubbed her temples, trying to swipe the headache away. “Did something happen? You’re acting weird. Did we get through the...weird gravity tower thing?”

“I think so. Or maybe that’s what’s causing the problems now.”

“What problems?”

“We’re stuck in here.”

“They locked us in?”

“Well, no, but we can’t open the door.”

“Serif. Can you please just explain what’s happening. How long was I out?”

She glanced up to the little window on the door. “A few weeks maybe. You’re better at the math.”

“A few weeks our time? That’s two decades!”

“No, few weeks their time. Few hours for us. I think.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. That’s not the ratio.” She struggled to get out of bed, and tried to open the door. She was right, it wouldn’t budge. She could touch the handle, but not move it. She forced herself back over to the bed, and found herself unable to move the sheets either. “Oh my God, what the hell is happening.”

“Every once in awhile they open the door, so I jumped out once. It took me forever to get back in, but I didn’t want you waking up alone.”

“Slow down, and explain things to me.”

Suddenly, Dar’cy came into the room and sat down at the table. She too massaged her temples, and also rubbed her eyes. Then she started writing in a notebook. And she was doing all of this many, many times faster than was humanly possible.

“We’re in a time bubble,” Leona realized.

“Yes,” Serif agreed. She stood up, and started heading for the door. “Like I said, you can do the math better. When she opens it again, which won’t be long for us, we have to jump out, or we’ll get crushed.

Leona quickly did some math in her head. “That shouldn’t work. She would have to leave the door open for, like, six minutes, for us to even have one second to escape.”

“She does. She opens the doorway, then she stands at the threshold for a long time, dreading going back out to the others, I guess. I think she comes in here to be alone. She’s packing up, let’s go!”

Dar’cy, moving at an incredible rate, gathered all of her belongings, and opened the door. Then she stood there for half a second, which was barely enough time for Leona to get out, and definitely not enough for Serif to. She tried to open it from the outside, but it was just as useless. Serif was accurate in that they weren’t really there. It would be like a drop of black pitch trying to nudge a penny. It just ain’t gonna happen, she was moving far too slow. That was what they were feeling. Though they were standing in time bubbles, everything around them had remained in standard time, which meant gravity was pulling on everything inside the ship using the same amount of force. But since they weren’t really on the ship, it was pulling on the two of them differently. Normally, time bubbles would counteract this dissonance, theoretically by accelerating gravitons, but honestly, Leona didn’t really know. Probably no one knew. Anyone who could manipulate the rate of time, like Missy or Jesimula Utkin, likely didn’t even understand how it worked. They just did it, and accepted its properties at face value.

Serif used mimery to indicate that Leona needed to move on and stretch her legs. Yeah, maybe the time bubble was going to last more than a year, but they had to hope it wouldn’t. And if that were true, all they would need to do was hold out for twenty-four hours. They would get hungry in that time, but they wouldn’t starve to death. If this problem didn’t stop once they reached the next day of their jump, then it wouldn’t matter where they were. They weren’t capable of eating food anyway. Leona powered down the walkways, very carefully avoiding the movements of the rest of the crew, who were entirely oblivious to her presence. She couldn’t quite guess what would happen if she bumped into one of them, but the universe could implode, so better not test it. She tried sitting in a few chairs, but people kept coming up and needing them, so she ended up finding a dark corner that was out of the way, and planting herself on the floor. There were two ways she was going to get through this without getting hungry enough to start screaming. She could either sleep, or meditate. Maybe leaving the room wasn’t such a great idea. At least there they had a bed no one else was using.

A couple of hours later, she could see Serif slowly walking down the steps. “I’m thirsty,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. Me too. But remember the rule of three.”

“Which rule of three. I don’t think I know any one of them, but I know there’s more than one.” She sat down next to her.

“You can survive three minutes without oxygen...three hours without shelter in a hostile environment...three days without water...and three weeks without food.”

They spent a couple seconds watching Brooke and Dar’cy play a heated game of ping pong. Brooke won, of course, but she wasn’t human, so that wasn’t really fair.

“What can’t you survive without for three seconds.”

“Three seconds you should be fine. You can survive anything for three seconds.”

“Let’s come up with something.”

“Ping pong?”

Serif laughed at the suggestion, which was important. If they couldn’t laugh anymore, they weren’t going to get through this. “Laughter! You can’t survive more than three seconds without laughter.”

“People...don’t laugh that often.”

“That’s true.”

They sat in the dark for just over a minute, because everyone was asleep for the next seven hours.

“Love,” Leona said.

“You can’t go more than three seconds without love. I think that’s true. That’s why heartbreak hurts so badly.”

Leona nodded. That was good. She had come up with something good.

“How long can you last witho—I mean, what can you live..without for longer than—for no longer than, three years? No, months. Let’s do months first.”

“Beethoven.”

Serif laughed again. “What?”

“I can go three months without Beethoven, but no longer than that.”

“Okay. Judges accept. For me, it’s...”

“What?”

“What? Oh, um. Manchester Orchestra.”

Leona nodded again. That was good. Serif had come up with something good too.

“Now, we’ll do three years.”

“Uhh...sex?”

“What about celibate people?”

“What about ‘em?” Leona asked, feigning disgust with such people. “I don’t know that we can do this one. I mean, if you can endure something for three years, you must be pretty good at it. I can’t imagine it starts getting difficult after that.”

“Prison? Coming from two people with no experience, let’s just arbitrarily say an individual starts having real problems in that fourth year locked up.”

“Speak for yourself, I’ve been imprisoned lots of times.”

“Yeah, I guess we both have. But not for three years!”

“That’s true. Though, there was that one time...”

They sat in more darkness.

“We need another game.”

“We can try to guess who will come into the common area next.”

“Okay, um, Missy.”

“I’m gonna say Paige.”

Then Missy walked into the room, passing right by them.”

“I win,” Serif bragged. “Nana nana boo-boo. Stick your head in doo-doo.”

“What is she doing?”

Missy was walking back and forth in front of them, like she was trying to find something, but without actually looking.

“What is she doing?”

She sped out of the room, and came back with Dar’cy, who didn’t understand why she was there. Then Missy started feeling around with her hands, forcing Leona and Serif to do everything they could to avoid her, which was damn near impossible what with them moving in superspeed.”

Finally they gave them a rest by leaving the room once more, but then they returned with the rest of the gang. Paige and Brooke couldn’t interpret what Missy was going on about. Meanwhile, Leona and Serif couldn’t hear anybody, but they did get the sense that it had something to do with them.

“Can she see us?”

“It would be impossible,” Leona said. We’re not..in this dimension. There are supposed to be three dimensions of space, and one of time, but we’re experiencing a second dimension of time. Yeah, her power is relevant, but this still isn’t one of her time bubbles. She does seem to be able to sense us, though.”

The crew was arguing about something, and then Paige ordered everyone to leave. No one returned as Paige sat down cross legged, staring intently at the wall, where Leona and Serif happened to be. She was moving around a lot, like one of those animations that isn’t drawn perfectly, so the lines shake around jarringly. But then she started slowing down, little by little, until she was barely moving at all. Then she slowed down even more. Finally, it was like her eyes opened up for the first time in history.

“What are you two doing here?” she asked.

“You can see us?” Serif asked.

“Of course she can. She adjusted her perception of time.”

“Yes,” Paige confirmed. “It’s not easy.”

“You should go,” Leona warned. “You’ve already been here for hours. You need to keep command of this ship. We’ll be fine.”

“Is this how it is for you? Do you always...watch the whole year go by.”

“I...” Leona began, not having even thought of that before, “don’t think so. Maybe we do. Maybe we always watch it, but something went wrong this time, which allowed us to move around.”

“Holy shit, could that be true?” Serif asked, horrified.

“Nothing in the rule book says it can’t,” Paige said.

“Seriously, you should go. If we’re not back next year, then I guess, ask for Missy’s help. Otherwise, I would rather we just not rock the boat.”

“It’s fine, I can stay here. Now that I see time this way, it doesn’t hurt. It’s actually getting easier.”

“Which could mean it’ll be hard to go back, which you should do now, because the ship needs you. You can’t just sit here for six months.”

“The ship’s automated. Dar’cy’s in charge, Brooke and Missy are keeping the systems running. My only real job was keeping Nerakali in line.”

“Paige,” Leona said softly. “There’s nothing you can do here either. The powers that be aren’t gonna let us stay like this forever.”

“They might not if you were salmon, but we all know that you two are different.”

“We are, but we were all asked to be here to do a job, and they still want that job done. I need to know that The Warren will still be here when we get back in 2168. You have to do that for me. Just ignore this corner for the rest of the year.”

“Leona.”

“Captain, please. For me? Go back to your time. We’ll see you later.”

Paige was still reluctant, but she finally closed her eyes in solidarity, and reopened them. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

She jumped up and ran away as fast as The Flash, or Quicksilver, or Lurker.”

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Void: Defiance (Part VIII)

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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.

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