Fervor: Sandlot (Part X)

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I’m standing in front the mirror, staring at myself. I still look like me, but also not really. This isn’t the first time I’m seeing the new me, of course. I got some good hard looks yesterday, soon after Jesimula Utkin rapidly aged me, but I just can’t stop. We discussed it a little, and estimated that I was maybe twenty years old at this point. A part of me feels violated, but I can’t honestly say that I’m upset about the results. I’ve always been mature for my age, so maybe this is my outside finally reflecting my inside. My biggest problem always been people not taking me seriously, and this could solve all that. Then again, she technically stole six years of life that I could have lived. If I’m to die at the age of eighty, I’ll now have only experienced seventy-four years of time. Perhaps later on, once I’m starting to feel self-conscious about my wrinkles, I can call Jesi back, and have her do the same thing in reverse. Hell, is there any reason she can’t just keep doing that for me? If this doesn’t prove that immortality is possible, I don’t know what will. Maybe there’s a limit, I don’t know. I would at least like to live to be two hundred. I guess that’s just an arbitrary choice, though. No, this is all stupid anyway. It was difficult enough to explain why my father, Serkan was only five years older than me. Now I’m meant to be the older one? Then again...

“Paige, we’re going to get you fixed,” Slipstream says to me when I try to start brainstorming over breakfast. There aren’t supposed to be such thing as a bad idea.

“I thought this was a safe space. I don’t need you yelling at me,” I complain.

“She wasn’t yelling,” Hogarth says.

“No, she’s right,” Slipstream says. “I’m sorry, Paige. Your feelings are paramount here, but I want you to understand the ramifications. You can’t go back to high school, so your only option would be to get your equivalency. It may not be right, but employers perceive that to be an inferior education. This is all assuming someone can create for you yet another identity after the first two, because everyone beyond this room, other than your fathers, thinks you’re fourteen.”

“That’s a lot to assume, yes,” I counter, “but it’s not as bad as assuming we can get Jesimula to reverse this. Everyone needs to be prepared for the possibility that this is my life now.”

“Oh,” Slipstream says as she starts to tear her toast into little strips—there’s probably a story behind that behavior. “I’ll get her to reverse what she did. Don’t you worry none ‘bout that.”

“What are you going to do?” Leona asks.

“I’ve already called my tracers. We’re taking a little field trip to Independence. I don’t want you to have to come with us, Paige, but you’ll have to be closeby.”

“No, you can’t involve the tracers,” I say, remembering something Serkan told me back when.

“Why can’t I?”

“It’s the tenth of April.”

“So...?” She doesn’t know why that’s significant, nor should she.

“Serkan starts to run with you today,” I explain. I don’t want to say too much about what I know of these people’s futures, but this is important.

“I thought he was stuck in another dimension,” Slipstream says.

“I’m not talking about that Serkan,” I tell them. “I’m talking about the original Serkan; the one who doesn’t know a thing about time travel yet.”

“Isn’t he still a minor?” Leona asked. “New Gangs are only for adults.”

“The tracer gang makes exceptions for Frenzy winners,” I clarify.

“Is this true?” Leona asks Slipstream.

She doesn’t answer right away, but keeps her eyes on me.

“Slip,” Leona presses.

“Yes,” Slipstream finally says, eyes still on me. “It’s true, even before I met Paige here, we had our eye on Serkie. He’s a force.”

“If he doesn’t go on probation in your gang starting tomorrow,” I begin, “after today’s audition, everything he does after that is ruined. You wanna talk about reversing, this decision could prevent me from ever coming to the 21st century. Jesi releases a virus, Keanu freezes the real Kansas City, dogs and cats living together.”

“I get it,” Slipstream says shortly. “Your father has to join the gang. But the longer we wait...”

The longer we wait, what?” I ask. “The unobtanium in my quantum injector solidifies, and there’s no longer a way to reverse the time polarity? I can wait a few days. History can’t. And remember, just because it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it’s not history.”

Slipstream considers her choices, but ultimately relents. She recognizes what’s top priority here, so she finishes eating, and heads out to the gray district, so she can meet my future father, and close the time loop. We all have to make it to July 17, 2026, which is the day after the ninth annual City Frenzy, before we can stop worrying so much about altering the timeline.

For an hour after Slipstream leaves, I’m once again in front of  the mirror. I’m not just staring at myself anymore, like a creepy ghost-child in a Japanese horror flick, though. Little Brooke the other day discovered a magical closet behind one of the normal bedroom closets that’s the size of a clothing store, maybe even larger. I’m trying out new clothes. This is more than just a safehouse for time travelers. The clothes I normally wear are pretty loose, so they don’t fit too badly, but I still need something better.

I’m currently wearing a cute little blue dress with a daisy pattern when I hear a voice behind me. “That looks perfect on you.”

“Jesimula,” I say with a sneer.

“You can call me Jesi.”

“We’ve decided you need to put me back as I was.”

“Back as you were?” she echoes. “As a scared thirteen-year-old girl in 1972?”

“Not that far back,” I correct with a roll of my eyes.

“I see, so you’re looking for the ideal?”

“I’m asking you to reverse everything that you’ve done to me; nothing more, nothing less.”

“Is that really what you want, or is that what your friends told you that you need?”

I don’t hesitate. “It’s what I want, and it’s what is right. If I want you to change my age, I’ll ask for it, which is what I’m doing right now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It would be unethical for me to send you on this mission as a child. I had to age you up.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but what you did is already unethical. You’ve violated my body, for one, and you haven’t even matured me. I’m still a minor; the difference now is I can pass for an adult. Barely.”

“I don’t see it that way. Don’t you want to know what the mission is?”

“It doesn’t matter, because I’m not doing a single thing for you.” I know it’s dumb as soon as I say it it, because I obviously have no choice. Jesi is here on behalf of her own agenda, and it’s irrelevant what anyone else wants. I dart my eyes toward the exit, but she’s blocked it.

She almost frowns when she notices, but does not doubt her plan. She sprays some sort of odorless, tasteless something in my face. Then she creates a bubble around me, and disappears. I expect everything around me to start changing, but it doesn’t. I’m stuck in the bubble for about twice as long as the clinic was last time, and when it finally dissipates, and lets me out, I see that the closet is still just as it was before. It must exist in some other dimension, because I seriously doubt Jesi created a bubble for me that didn’t do anything. I cautiously walk over towards the door, and open it up.

Before me is a darkened and empty hallway. On the opposite wall, however, is a bright light. At first I think it’s just a lamp, or something, but then my eyes adjust, and I can see the truth. It’s the sun. It’s the sun as viewed from space. I step closer and admire the view. Yeah, I’m definitely in the future. I can’t tell whether I’m in a ship, a space station, or something I can’t even comprehend, but the sunlight illuminates a few structures to the side of me that all look exactly the same. I suspect that I’m just in another one of whatever they are. Oh, and there’s also a little planet below called Earth.

I can hear what sounds like sand being sifted to the side of me as the lights inside the hallway turn on. I look over and see a figure forcing itself out of the wall; or more like part of the wall is becoming something else. Tiny little pieces come together to form the general shape of a human being, and eventually rearrange themselves into more and more detail. In the end, there’s a person standing there. “Our sensors indicate that an entity has suddenly appeared in this sector. What is your designation?” she asks of me.

“Paige Reaver-Demir.”

“Species.”

“Human.”

“Species of human.”

“Uhh...regular?”

“You are short for a regular human.”

Not really. “Am I?”

“You clothes, anatomy, and wonderment in your surroundings better resemble the average teenage human girl from early 21st century.”

I don’t say anything.

She lifts her head to examine me from a slightly different angle. “Right. Well, you are not authorized to be on the bubble relay. I can return you to anywhere on Earth that you would like.”

“Um, does Kansas City still exist?” I ask, knowing whatever this thing is, she already has the whole woman out of time thing figured out about me anyway.

“It most certainly does,” she replies. Then she starts walking down the hallway, expecting me to follow her.

We board a small ship, and drop down to Earth. I ask to land on the edge of civilization. I don’t tell her this, but I want to do some recon before I run into anyone else. Jesi wants me here, and she’s not a good person, which means I shouldn’t be here. I could hardly ask her to let me go to, like, a moon of Jupiter, or something, though. The only thing I can do is investigate.

“Wait,” I stop the sand entity before she takes off. “This may sound strange, but—”

“It’s April 10, 3117, by your calendar.” she interrupts.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“What the hell am I doing here?” I ask out loud after the sand creature flies away.

“You’re helping me build this fire,” a young man answers from several meters away.

Startled. “What?”

He stands from his crouch and draws closer, but not threateningly. “My parents put me in this program that teaches you how to do things the way people used to. Maybe you know how to start a fire with nothing but these tiny pieces of wood?”

I look down at his fire, and at the box of matches he’s holding. “How did you know I would be here?”

“I didn’t,” he says, laughing. “You just fell from the sky, like an angel, right on top of my solo lot. I was going to ask how you knew I would be here.”

If all Jesi wants me to do is help this poor kid light a fire, then I guess it can’t be too bad. Then again, this could start a fire that ravages the entire continent, for all I know. I decide to risk it. I step over and take the matches from him, and prepare to light the fire. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s my woodpile,” he says, like I’m the stupid one.

“Where’s your tinder?”

“My what?”

“Have you been trying to light these big sticks and logs?”

“Bigger sticks, bigger fire,” he starts off confidently, but clearly starts questioning his own logic by the end of the last word.

“Oh, dear. Let’s go get some bark. You got a knife?”

“Yeah.”

I have him shave tinder strips off the bark, then place the remaining pieces of top to act as kindling, so we can get the fire going. “Start small, and let it grow. You can’t just light the whole thing at once.” I pull a log off, and toss it across his camp lot. “This one is wet, it’s useless.” I continue the lessons, as needed, until we have a pretty good fire going that will be able to sustain itself for a good long time. “Did they teach you anything, or just throw you into the deep end on day one?”

“They threw us into the deep end on the second day,” he says.

I laugh, but realize that he isn’t. I think that his instructors literally threw him into a pool of water. Science and humans had both presumably advanced so much that people weren’t even swimming anymore. Not knowing how to light a fire from a match is one thing, but swimming should be an essential skill in any time period.

We watch our creation for a few minutes, at which point I abruptly turn around. “Kay, byeee.”

“Wait, can’t you stay?” he begs. “I’m supposed to make mores.”

“You mean s’mores?”

“See? I still need you.”

I suppose I won’t be able to get home until Jesi shows up, and sends me back through one of her sliding bubbles. “I guess I can stay a little while longer, Smalls.”

“My name is Asuk. I told you.”

“You’re killin’ me, Smalls. We make s’mores, but then I have to go.”

“Great.”

I help him with his cute little history project, then I proceed to stay with him for almost an entire year.

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Microstory 925: Nanotechnology

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Let me start this off by explaining that nanotechnology does not exclusively deal with teeny tiny robots. Those are a big [sic] part of it, but they don’t tell the whole story, and are only being studied in some of the fields that can benefit from the subject as a whole. Nanotech refers to the manipulation of technology at nanometer scales, which can still always be incorporated into larger devices, like your phone. There’s this concept known as Moore’s Law, and in order to stop this from getting too technical, it basically means that computer processors are getting smaller and smaller all the time. Nanotechnology allows us to get so incredibly small that, not only can your phone itself be smaller, but it can be more powerful, allowing you to perform more complex tasks, faster. But again, that’s not all there is. Nanomedicine will do wonders for the development of cures for an array of diseases. You see, when it comes to your body, it’s all about the processes happening at miniscule scales, in the background, that you aren’t even conscious of. Little cells are floating around you, interacting with each other, and foreign objects, and performing the duties they’ve been programmed to carry out. This is what allows us to fight off diseases, while at the same time, it is the exploits in these microscopic systems that allow pathogens to take advantage of us in the first place. Our microbiome is under constant external threat, and certain cells are consistently required to learn to deal with dangers they’ve never seen before. But what if we could subvert all that? What if, when a new disease comes along, artificial cells could be the ones to attack the invaders, and heal the patient, just by more efficiently mimicking cells that evolved to do that for you. Highly specialized superserums can be injected in the early days, but as technology marches on, we will one day just have an army of these nanoregulators inside of us that can be updated over the air at the click of a button. You can request new resistance using an app on whatever device people are using in those days, or maybe there will be some central server that blasts a security patch to everyone all at once. Of course this all comes with risks.  What if someone figures out how to hack this? What can they program your system to do against your will? How far can they go? Can they order your body to literally start attacking itself? Can patches be reversed, or otherwise corrupted? What long-term effects would this regimen have on your system? Could it have a negative impact on your body’s natural functions, or those of your descendants? I don’t claim to have all the answers, which is why I love that thousands—maybe millions; what do I know?—of people are all working together to figure this all out before anything bad happens.

Microstory 924: Medical Science Breakthroughs

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Settle in. This one is short, because I can offer little insight into this matter, and the only people who disagree with medical advancements are religious zealots whose opinions don’t matter. I’ve already talked a lot about transhumanism, and I appreciate that people may not be quite on board with such a thing, even if they understand it, because it’s a pretty high jump to that from cures and treatments. Cyborgs are ever-present in science fiction narratives, and they don’t paint a very pretty picture of the concept. People are strapped with machine guns for arms, and they’ve usually had one eye replaced with something artificial. The truth is that upgrades will be far more seamless and elegant, but I’m already digressing. In the meantime, before those wild alterations to human physiology take place, we have good old fashioned medical science to keep us alive and healthy. You might be surprised to learn that only a couple infectious diseases have been eradicated worldwide. I don’t mean that as an underexaggeration. There are literally only two of them: smallpox, and rinderpest. A few more can be eliminated if problems with funding and distribution can be solved first, but not many. The rest of the diseases have treatments, often very promising ones, but they don’t have cures. While the diseases themselves cannot be eliminated, the symptoms they cause can be handled with the right cocktail. While not ideal, pain and symptom management is an important component of wellbeing. This is set to change, which I mentioned the my entry about the spread of truth. Institutions, like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization, are learning more every day. It can only get better from here, as long as we increase public access to treatment centers. I, for one, am hopeful about it, especially if we work towards the development of nanotechnology. Oh, look at that, up ahead; a post about nanotechnology.

Microstory 923: Manchester Orchestra and Others

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When I was in eighth grade, I found one of my sister’s CDs, and decided it to play it. It was a band called The Offspring, and they immediately became my favorite. Not long after, my birthday came up, and I was surprised by two tickets for a concert, which included Fenix TX, and Sum 41 as openers. I didn’t like them, because they were taking up time I felt I should have used to hear the music I came for. I later warmed up to Sum 41, but I never listened to that other one. As you might have ascertained, this was my first rock concert. My father went with me, presumably to protect me, which I need. I was a tiny little thing with undiagnosed autism, and I don’t think I would have been able to handle the mosh pit. And I think that because I only lasted long enough to hear one song from The Offspring before I couldn’t take any more of the jostling. The bouncer—who was really cool, and gave me a bottle of water, and a genuine Offspring guitar pick—lifted us both over the barrier, and let us walk around to the back to finish the show. I loved it, though I wish I had learned more the songs. I’m not sure in what capacity Napster existed back then, but we almost certainly didn’t have it yet. Acquiring music was a difficult process that required thought. And money. Flash forward six or seven years, and The Offspring are toppled as my favorite in an upset by contender Muse. They only lasted for a few years before a stray tweet led me to this Vancouver-based group called Mother Mother. I even spent about $800 on a trip to a film festival in the middle of nowhere Ontario to see them live. I wasn’t meant to spend that much, but the cheaper rental car company required a credit card, which I did not have, because I only ever buy things when I have the money for it in my account. Seriously, I once owned a car, and even though I made payments, I could have technically bought the whole thing in cash. Anyway, jump once more to 2017 when my radio station introduces me to Manchester Orchestra, which changed my favorite band list for a third time. I guess liking bands with the letters “M” and “O” is just my M.O. I do like lots other music, too. Here’s a quick list (in no particular order): Imagine Dragons, ABBA, Eminem, Vanessa Hudgens, AWOLNATION, Carla Sendino, Alt-J, Caroline Rose (even her country-rock album), Joywave, Selena Gomez, Misterwives, Brie Larson, Dredg, and almost any disco. My tastes are pretty eclectic, and I still love all my former favorites. I wonder whether there will be a fifth favorite, and what that is.

Microstory 922: The Spread of Truth

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A part of me was surprised by King Dumpster’s upset victory in the presidential race, while the cynical part of me was not surprised at all. I had lived 29 years of my life by then, and had already met a lot of assholes. Sure, the election was a wakeup call for how bad it really is, but I could always see it. Here’s the deal, though. We’re on the cusp of great change; not just a blue wave, or even a simple revolution, but of a sudden jump in progress, and an actual dawn of justice. While politicians cater to lobbyists, and hicks who don’t even vote for their own self-interests count the broken down cars on their lawns, bunches of smart people are solving all our problems. They’re developing artificial intelligence, coming up with responses to climate change, formulating life-saving medicines, and much more. Soon, everyone will have enough food to eat, and a sturdy shelter in which to eat it. We won’t have to work as much anymore, and the topic of war will be limited to history discussions. But none of this can happen without the support of the rest of us. You see, at the same time that Ferguson, Charlottesville, Brexit, and Donald Trump illuminated what we’re fighting against, it equally showed us who we can trust. These shockingly divisive issues created a naughty and nice list for most of us. I know who of my social media friends voted for the wrong candidate, but I also know who made the right choice. These debacles forced everyone to take a stand, on whichever side that may be. It’s easier to fight an enemy when you know who they are. So we’re going to take up our Captain America shields, and defend the truth, without sacrificing our integrity. And we’re going to win. They may think they have God on their side, but their God is also an asshole, and his power relies on our belief in, and submission to, his wrath. I’ve looked into the future, and I don’t see any red hats. I just see love and truth.

Microstory 921: Hand Sanitizer

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I discussed hand sanitizer in the Stepwisdom entry about Cleanliness in general; wherein I recount my first experience with the stuff as being God-adjacent. For someone like me, cleanliness is extremely important. I’m not a germaphobe, mind you. I get sick all the time, and it has been this way my whole life. I’m not afraid of being infected by something, and I’m about 83% that, if the zombie virus ever plagued this world, I would be immune to it. What I have a problem with is cross-contamination. My OCD is what gives me the need to control the nature of my environment, but it’s my autism that dictates what how that environment should ideally be. There’s this trope you can find on the web called Blessed With Suck. Basically, a character will be burdened with some supernatural ability that is mundane, pointless, or downright inconvenient. There are a lot of superpowers that I occasionally believe myself to possess, like being able to see the future, or sensing other people’s emotions. The one power that I actually do have, all the time, is the ability to feel the ick around me. If you were to clean a table thoroughly, I would be able to touch that table, and tell that it’s happened. No big deal, right? Anyone can intuit the cleanliness of an object. Now imagine you ran your palm along the tabletop. Your hand isn’t particularly dirty; you weren’t picking your nose, or chalking up to climb a mountain. It was just your hand. Well, I can tell that too. I won’t know exactly what happened, but I’ll be able to tell that something contaminated that surface, and it’ll bother me. I once worked with this girl in a room where all the tables were pushed together, and we sat around it. She would put her feet up on her section, and—I dunno, doodle “Mrs. Donald Trump” in a notebook, I guess. When it was lunch time, she would go grab her food, and place her fork on that table...right where her shoes were. Then she would use that fork to pick up food, and put it all in her mouth. She was putting dirt in her mouth, along with animal feces, and God knows what else she’d walked through. Because she was a crazy person. People think I’m weird for walking around with hand sanitizer, but it makes me feel safe, and it makes it a lot more difficult for me to put poop in my mouth. Can you honestly say the same?

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 18, 2195

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Breakfast the next year was quiet. Not even Vitalie was going off about what ancient film she watched, or serial she binged. Ulinthra had done a lot to them over the last two weeks, but this was the first time they felt completely powerless. Brooke Prieto was the very definition of integrity and loyalty. That she could be convinced to abandon her friends for selfish gain meant that there really was no stopping Ulinthra. She could lose her powers right now, and she would still have the upperhand on the world, not because she was stronger, but because she was good at breaking people’s spirits, and quashing all hope.

“I wanna see her,” Vitalie finally said as they were still sitting at the table an hour after everyone was finished eating. They weren’t even looking at each other.

Leona shut her eyes, and shook her head. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“I don’t think that would be a bad idea,” Ecrin said.

“What do you know?” Leona questioned.

“Quite a bit, actually. I’m over three hundred and seventy years old.”

“Call me when you reach your first millenium,” Leona volleyed.

“Why are we fighting?” Vitalie asked

“I’m sorry,” Leona said. “You just don’t know what you’re asking. I’ve already seen her, and it took all my strength to wait until I could find a bathroom before throwing up. I was her guardian for...well, a long time. While I’ve never considered her my daughter, I guess she’s like a niece. She was family.”

“She’s not dead, Leona,” Ecrin reminded her.

“I know that,” Leona acknowledged. “But I don’t know that there’s any coming back from this.”

“Don’t count her out just yet,” Ecrin said, like a mother herself. “I’ve encountered a lot of people that I never thought I would trust, but circumstances forced me to take the risk, and I was pleasantly surprised sometimes.”

“Sometimes, meaning...” Leona invited.

Ecrin sighed. “Maybe half the time.”

“I’ll take those odds,” Vitalie noted, having based her whole outlook on life on fifty-fifty chance.

Before the conversation could continue, they started hearing muffled voices on the other side of the door. Back in the day, this was either cause to feel fear, or go open the door to see who was there. As it were, things were generally best left to happen on their own. Leona could make out someone egging another on with, “do it. Do it!”

Inaudible chatter.

“That’s an order, soldier. Do it!”

“Leo—” the other voice started to say.

“No! No warning! Just do it!”

Ecrin suddenly flipped over the table, and tugged on Leona and Vitalie’s shoulders to get them both behind it. They heard a crash as the door was blown off its hinges, and sent flying into the room. Debris collided with the table, proving that Ecrin had at least made the right call, and had even possibly saved their lives. Somebody chuckled in delight.

After a pause, Ulinthra spoke up. “Uhh, anyone in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Vitalie,” Ecrin whispered. “Jesus.”

“What’s a jesus?”

“I’m overjoyed that you’re alive,” Ulinthra, bottle of beer and all, said as the three of them were standing up.

“As am I,” Brooke said, not as glad to be there as her compatriot was, but more sincere with her words.

“You were right,” Vitalie agreed. “I don’t wanna see her.”

Ulinthra grimaced and looked back at Brooke. “Come, Brookey. You belong at my side.” It was hard to see that, but Brooke did seem resistant to it. She was not extremely pleased with what had come to pass, so maybe there really was hope. “Now. As you can see, I’m a little drunk. People don’t drink as much as they did when I was alive. I mean, I’m alive—I just...” She closed her eyes in a wince, and tilted her head to find out whether she needed to throw up or not. “Sorry. You know how it is. What I’m trying to say is that everyone in this room understands me, and no one else does.” She was sounding more and more like the stereotypical drunk girl at a party. “You guys are my friends,” she said, like it was an argument. They weren’t bothering with any response, though. “Okay, I’ll say it. The war is not going great.

“Cranama—shit. Panama is safe. This is my stronghold, but I have lost territory. Kansas City is a bitch. She was bitch when I lived there. And she’s a bigger bitch now, ‘cause she wants me back. I need an advantage, because my strategy is no longer working. Apparently somebody spread the word about the penny trick.” She stuck out her tongue and mimicked heaving sounds, but ended up actually throwing up a bit. Once she was done spitting, she went back to her speech, “so I’m here looking for an advantage, because my strategy is no longer working.” She left her mouth opened, and darted her eyes back and forth. “Did I already say that?”

“What do you want from us, Ulinthra?” Leona asked.

“Not you,” Ulinthra shouted. She lifted her hand, and pointed out Ecrin. “Her. I need you to make a call, Ecrin.”

“It’s pronounced Ecrin,” Ecrin corrected. “It’s Turkish.”

“What did I say?”

“I’m not calling anybody for you,” Ecrin said.

“I need you to call the salmon battalion. I know you know them. They came to your planet, you worked with them when you were a,” she loudly whispered, “secret agent.”

“They’re not going to help you,” Leona argued.

“They’ll do what I say. Everyone needs to do what I say! Call them!”

Ecrin shook her head.

Ulinthra started tiresomely repeating herself, changing her volume and inflection for added effect. “Call them! Call them. Call them. Call them. Call them. Call them.”

Brooke threw something small on the floor in front of Ulinthra.

Ulinthra stopped and squinted at the shiny thing. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Brooke said. “What is it?”

Ulinthra squinted more, and leaned closer. “It’s a penny. It’s on heads.”

“Good,” Brooke said.

Ulinthra stood up straight, and looked at Brooke. “You’re gonna hit me again, aren’t you?” She did not have the mental capacity to do anything but brace herself and take it when Brooke reached back and punched her right in the temple, possibly hard enough to kill her.

“Holy shit,” Vitalie said.

“What did you do?” Leona asked Brooke.

“Don’t worry, she’s not dead. I may have put a bit more force than was necessary, out of anger, but it was not a lethal blow.” Brooke looked to Vitalie and Ecrin. “You two get her to the couch. Leona, you should shower. I’m having my people come with plastic sheeting, because it wouldn’t be safe to transport.” She looked back at the entryway. “We coulda used a door, but we’ll figure it out.

“Tell me what’s happening,” Leona demanded to know.

“I know you’ve not had much time to recover, and I also know that you’re not meant to undergo a bone marrow transplant while you’re pregnant, but we’re going to need just a pinch more.”

“More for what?”

There was a hustle and bustle down the hallway; the sound of boots.

Brooke started talking to her wrist, “they’re coming. Move in. Protect this unit with your lives.” She lifted Ulinthra’s unconscious body like a suitcase, and carried her to a bedroom as the shooting started, ushering the other three in as well. Two soldiers rushed into the unit, and stood post at the bedroom door as Ecrin was closing it.

“Brooke Victoria Prieto-Matic, what is going on?” Leona repeated the question.

Brooke dropped Ulinthra onto the bed. “The end of the war.”

Leona came to sometime later, feeling groggy from the anaesthesia. In this state, trying to wake up all the way, she went back over everything that had led to this. Ulinthra had gotten Brooke on her side by giving her the cure to some disease she had given her in the first place. Brooke spent two years working apparently undercover, training cadets in Ulinthra’s war against the world, and waiting for a good opportunity. This came when Ulinthra let herself get drunk, and taken hostage, while a team of her loyalists tried to reach her. Brooke evidently had her own people, though, who fought back against them. While they were doing that, Brooke was extracting bone marrow from Leona, and transplanting it to Ulinthra, presumably to even the odds. If Ulinthra ended up on Leona’s pattern, her power would be severely limited. There was still the question, however, of whether any of this would actually work. The powers that be might have taken measures against this sort of thing. After all, both Leona and Ulinthra were salmon, even if the latter seemed free to do her own thing.

The first face Leona saw when she was finally able to keep her eyes open belonged to Governor-Councilor Isabeau Tribaldos, who was one of two leaders for the Panamanian arcstate before Ulinthra took over. She had been reportedly killed in the initial battle, but a lot of people believed her, and other members of the representative congress, to still be alive, locked up somewhere. The other Governor-Councilor was executed publicly, in a gruesome show of strength. “She’s awake,” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos said.

Vitalie appeared in Leona’s field of vision. “Brooke said I’m meant to give her this.” She took an injection gun from the nightstand, and shot something into Leona’s shoulder. “This should help with your recovery time. I don’t know what you remember, or what you heard when it was over, but we had a good fight about what Brooke did to you. Pregnant women are not allowed to donate bone marrow. When Ulinthra did it to you the other day, it was wrong, and when Brooke did it again, it was still wrong.”

“It’s okay,” Leona said, sitting up. “I understand why she did it. I just don’t know if it’ll work.”

Governor-Councilor Tribaldos shook her head slightly. “It was just a contingency, to lessen her power. We took the arc back, and we have her. She won’t be hurting anyone else, time powers or no.”

Leona adjusted the pillow behind her. “Are you one of us?”

“I barely understand any of this,” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos said, straightening Leona’s sheets. “I’m just what I believe you would call a human.”

“Well.” Leona began in a hoarse voice, which Vitalie noticed, so she went to find some water. “We’re glad to have you back.”

“I am too. We’re putting Arianrhod in the same cell they kept me in. She should be comfortable there. I mean that too; it wasn’t bad, there just weren’t any windows.”

When Vitalie came back with the water, Leona asked, “where are Brooke and Ecrin?”

Vitalie fell into a frown. “Brooke is coordinating efforts to hunt for remaining Ulinthra loyalists.”

Leona waited patiently for too long. “And Ecrin?”

“We already found a lot of loyalists. They’re dead, because they tried to get into this room.”

“Where’s Ecrin?” Leona asked once again.

“Brooke’s cadets did the best they could, but they were severely outnumbered, so they needed help. Since I’m entirely useless, Ecrin was the only one who could do that.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s at peace, in the other room. With a sheet over her face.”

“How do you know she’s at peace?” Leona asked, angry but managing.

“She told us. She didn’t...pass right away. She said she had lived five lifetimes, which she thought was more than enough.”

Leona struggled out of bed, and stood up. “She was almost four hundred years old, because she had superpowers. Most people here are immortal through tech. There’s no such thing as enough life.”

“I’m just telling you what she said,” Vitalie responded calmly. “I’m not saying I agree.”

Brooke ran into the room. “We have to get you to safety, Governor-Councilor. You two should probably come as well.”

“Why?” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos asked. “What’s happened?”

“Ulinthra escaped.”

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Fervor: Time Slider (Part IX)

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We all go back to the Bran safehouse to rest and regroup. Dr. Hammer said that the treatment she provided would slowly return the three patients’ memories. The brain doesn’t handle well the sudden onslaught of memory. Evidently things like this have happened before, and when proper precautions are not taken, the subject can totally freak out. Remembering all the bad things one has done, and that which has been done to them, always outweighs the good things. It doesn’t seem to ever do irreparable damage, but it’s always safer to bring them back more gradually. This left them with two options; either for Hilde and me to move on with the plan without help, or to wait until the others were ready. The first one wasn’t going to work, since we didn’t really have a plan, so now only one option. Well, still two, because it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to let it all go, and leave it to the professionals. As confident as I feel as an independent person, I do know that I’m still just a kid. What can we do?

Theoretically out of an attempt to answer that question as nothing, Jesimula Utkin shows up the next morning after breakfast with her private security. I recognize one as the guy who shot me with a taser gun, but I don’t see the one who helped me get back at the first. I feel like I should be worried he was found out, and suffered consequences. That makes me responsible.

“It took me longer than it should have to find you,” Jesimula says. “I guess that’s why they call it a safehouse.”

“So, we’re not safe anymore?” Slipstream asks. She now remembers a fair better chunk of her life. It’s not anywhere near enough to really know who the rest of us are, but she recalls the hero she became to help rid this city of gang violence, which makes her the leader here again.

“Yeah, that sounded bad,” Jesimula admits. “We got started all wrong, and I’m here to clear the air. I spent years working on my company. I wasn’t drawing up profit schedules, or commissioning the most lavish of offices—as you saw with our fairly drab two-story brick building. My friends all went above and beyond to make their organizations high-end cash cows. I just wanted to cure the world, but I can’t do that if just anyone can walk in and out as they please. I personally vetted every single one of my employees. When we slide through time, we dismiss all but essential personnel, and we use a trick I picked up in the future to erase specific memories. We can do this because they each underwent comprehensive medical testing.

“When you showed up unannounced, we were not ready for you. We don’t know how your respective brain chemistries work, and you were too close when we released the memory blocker. We need to be able to slide out of any time period without alerting the locals to it. There’s a reason why we chose to set up shop in that part of Independence. It’s kind of dead, so there aren’t a lot of people around, and those that are, are usually far enough away to avoid the full force of the memory field. Like I said, you were a mistake. We give most people an uncontrollable desire to leave the immediate area, but you were too determined. That is a contingency that we are currently working on, so it does not happen again.”

“What do you mean when you say you’re trying to cure the world?” Leona asks. She now possessed almost all of her memories. What Hammer learned by consulting with other choosing ones was that Leona had before experienced memory manipulation, which apparently makes it easier to remedy.

“There’s a cure for what ails you,” Jesimula answers. “It may not be from now, and it may not be on this world, but I promise you that it exists. There’s this blue flower on Orolak than turns everything around it blue, wherever you plant it, and it can...anyway—it can do amazing things, as can others, and we can get those to the people who need them.”

“And they’ll all be very grateful to you for it,” Hogarth points out. Hers was the worst memory of all, but her love for Hilde negated all that. She knew how she felt about her, and she didn’t have to remember what they had been through to trust her. “They might even give you a little money for it.”

“It’s 2025,” Jesimula says with a sour face. “Capitalism reigns. It won’t in the future, but I’m not trying to cure people in the future. People expect to pay money for value. If I gave it away for free, they would reject it. I actually did try this. Then I went back in time and rewrote my own history, because it does not work; not in this time period. However, I have a special team, just like any other company, who know how to price. We charge just enough to get people to think it’s worth it, we have a discount program for the less fortunate, and we donate what we don’t use for upkeep to free clinics. I don’t know who told you I’m the bad guy, but I really do have good intentions.”

“Yes, good intentions,” Hilde begins to say.

“Road to hell, yeah, I’ve heard that. Life isn’t so simple.”

“Are you here for nothing more than an apologia for your business model?” Slipstream asks, trying to get to the point.

Jesimula glances back at her security detail. “I’m here for an offer.”

“Join me, and we can rule the world together!” I mock.

“It’s not like that,” Jesimula says. “We could use a couple more scientists, and Miss Horvatinčić, there is suddenly an open position on the security team.”

“You seem to know a lot about us,” Hilde notes.

“More than they know about themselves, I would suspect,” Jesimula agreed. “I think we’ve established that I do my research. If you think that I’m destined to do something wrong with that research, we would all be better off with you by my side. I don’t want to keep fighting you if it’s just going to end to disaster. If you know something, then let’s act on it.”

“We don’t know enough,” I finally speak up. “You would have to shut the company down. I mean, even if we stop what we already know is going to happen, maybe your new path leads to something worse. You could go back to the cretaceous period, and awaken some ancient fungus. It doesn’t matter how many safety protocols you come up with, there will always be leaks and accidents.”

“Why don’t you help me with that?”

“What?”

“You could find the loopholes.”

“Weren’t you listening to me?” I ask. “You can never be one hundred percent safe. This whole operation is too risky.”

“Plus, she’s fifteen,” Slipstream argues.

“Fourteen,” I correct her.

“Even worse!”

“So, you’re young, so what? I can fix that for ya,” Jesimula says, casually and seriously. She hovers her open palms in front of my temples, and forms a warped spacetime bubble around me. I suddenly feel myself being stretched and altered. I grow a little taller, my boobs get bigger, and my face feels rougher and wrinklier. I can’t see anything while it’s happening, though, and by the time I can reopen my eyes, Slipstream is midbattle against Jesimula’s security team. Hogarth and Hilde are right next to me, presumably having tried to break through the time bubble.

Leona is holding Jesimula’s arms behind her back, like a cop trying to make an arrest. “Put her back!” she orders.

“No,” Jesimula replies plainly.

“Put. Her. Back,” Leona repeats.

“No, you let me go, I’ll finish it. She’s still younger than I was planning.”

“You planned this?” Hilde growls.

“I got the idea from your daughter, and her friends.”

“What are you talking about?” Hilde questions. Does that mean she doesn’t have a daughter, or that she doesn’t know what Jesimula knows about that daughter’s future?

“You’ll see...” Jesimula teases.

Slipstream is finished putting down all the guards, so she takes tiny Jesi by the shoulders and presses her against the wall. “You’re going to fix this.”

Jesimula is not at all intimidated. “I offered you peace amongst us. I expect you to come around eventually, and I won’t return to this time period until you do so.” She tilts her head and smiles, then she disappears, evidently not needing her hands to use her powers.

Slipstream turns around. “Tie them up with their own zip cuffs. They’re going to help us. Paige, I promise we’ll figu—” she stops short, and freezes, trembling slightly, but violently. She suddenly falls hard to her face.

Behind her, Jesimula is bringing her leg back down to the floor, having kicked Slipstream in the back. She’s pointing a weapon at the rest of us. “Get up!” she orders her men.

They struggle to their feet, and gather around her. “I know this doesn’t help how you feel about me, but we all make mistakes, as you pointed out, Older!Paige. I believe you will one day forgive me.” She creates a bubble around her and her people, and slides them all out of time.

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