“Karen! No!”
Alethia shot up from the bed she laid in, throwing covers over her knees and legs. Her face ached, but only vaguely. She looked around and found herself in the Kains’ guest bedroom. Rachel, Richard, and Alethia had spent a pleasant cold February weekend decorating it two years after their parents passed away. Alethia cherished that memory because this was one of the first places she had seen both Kain children genuinely smile since their parents died. Until then the smiles had been tinged with guilt, like proximity to their parents’ deaths forbade glee.
“Glad to see you’re awake, Allie.”
The voice spooked Alethia for a moment, but her eyes had already adjusted to the light and she saw Zoe sitting in the room looking over her.
“Zoe? What are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to go out or something, but I heard you were injured. You slept for almost two days. Richard was starting to get really nervous, even though he could not admit it. What’s going on with you, Allie?”
Alethia wanted to tell Zoe the truth so much. The excuse she gave herself for not letting the truth free right then: that she was too overwhelmed to face Zoe.
“I wish I knew. It’s like a run of extended bad luck!”
Zoe’s head turned down. Alethia blew that chance and could see that fact written as clear as emoji on Zoe’s face. She hoped Zoe would give her one more chance, even if Alethia did not deserve it.
“I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I think you might be in trouble with your school now too. Something about insufficient evidence for medical leave or something.”
“Oh shoot! Oh no.”
“I know this is a lot, but a lawyer named Gretchen called too. She needs you to call her as soon as you are conscious. Your phone has been blowing up.”
Alethia felt sick to her stomach. First Karen, now school, the police, and worst of all, Zoe’s eyes held a recriminatory focus that made Alethia fear that she had already exhausted her final chance. Her mind was muddled under the pressure as she tried to decide what her biggest priority was right then. Zoe stood up and said,
“Anyway, I am gonna head home for now. Call me if you need anything.”
That was too much for Alethia.
She was off the bed and at the door in the blink of an eye. Zoe shouted, but covered her mouth when she saw what had blurred into her vision. Alethia had her head down in her best expression of contrition,
“Please wait. Let me explain, okay? You asked for the truth and I think you deserve it, okay?”
Zoe nodded, eyes wide over her hand. She slowly removed it and said,
“Okay, but you have to go sit back there on the bed, okay?”
She was shaken, but she did a good job hiding it.
Alethia blinked and was sitting back on the bed, legs crossed, hands in her lap. Zoe turned her head and did a double take.
“Okay. That’s unexpected. Are you an alien or something?”
“Come on Zoe, just sit down for a second and I will explain. It’s nothing nefarious, I promise.”
“Uh huh.”
Zoe watched Alethia as she sat back down on the cute cerulean cushioned chair Rachel picked out for this room.
Alethia took a deep breath and said,
“A few days ago, maybe a week and a half or so, my life kinda changed.”
“That’s when I met you.”
“Yeah, right about then. A friend of mine offered me a serum…”
Zoe finished telling her story, the whole story. That was the first time she told anyone outside of the original group the full truth. Zoe nodded and said,
“What is the square root of 6793?”
Alethia spat the answer out without thinking about it,
“Eight two point four one nine… huh. Neat. Wait how do you know? Ha ha.”
Zoe had her phone out and was clearly checking Alethia’s answer. She said,
“You can do bigger numbers, can’t you? So what’s the catch?”
Alethia sighed,
“Bad luck so far. That’s it really.”
“Well, except for Karen, your friends are idiots. Rob sounds like a jerk. You said he’s been giving you the creeps since he get the serum, right?”
Alethia nodded. She had held nothing back from Zoe and the opportunity to retell her story had already given her some additional thoughts.
“These silver things were not the time travelers, were they?”
“I don’t think so. Richard never saw what attacked them in the first place, right?”
“It might have been these things.”
“Maybe they are the aliens. Like time hopping silver monsters that the cops are protecting us from.”
Alethia’s intuition whispered to her: that’s not right. She had a bad feeling about the time traveling police force. The pain of the therapy, the way that their recruits had no choice in the matter. Karen’s abduction came after Richard injected her with the red serum. That had to be connected.
“I am not so sure Zoe. How can we tell who the real bad guys are? We thought that Rob was cured, right? But from what I saw at his house… that was the old Rob and then some. With Karen sitting there compliant, I think something hinky was happening. I just don’t know what.”
“And now they are both missing. What do you plan to do? What about the force that hit you in the face?”
Alethia whispered this part, she thought she would be able to hear Richard if he were listening at the door. But their individual enhancements were so irregular. He might have way better senses than she did.
“I think that was Rob’s power. I swear I saw something like a plate of blue glass when I went down. It smacked me in the face. What if it was a force field or something?”
“Like all of you are hiding your powers from each other, right? Then there is this second group of supers, the one you encountered when Karen was shot.”
“Right. We don’t know where they fall in all of this. I only saw the one, the woman. But I assume there are others. I guess you do too.”
Alethia’s suppositions about Richard were confirmed when she heard him moving around downstairs. She could hear Rachel there too. They had a quiet conversation Alethia could not make out. Rachel was not happy about what Richard said, but she snatched her keys and slammed the door as she left. Zoe heard the sound,
“Was that Rachel?”
“Sounds like it. She does not sound pleased. Richard must have…”
Alethia’s words were cut off by screams from outside. She was at the window in seconds, blinds pulled aside. Zoe made a soft exclamation of surprise at Alethia’s speed. As her brain made sense of the scene below, Alethia had already shattered the window and was soaring out to the trimmed grass below. Rachel lay on the grass near two quicksilver figures. She twitched and Alethia landed, her legs straining but her enhancements kept anything from breaking. The liquid silver creatures moved faster than a normal human, but they were no match for the speed Alethia possessed.
Their Mandelbrot limbs missed their mark entirely. Rather than charge the monsters, Alethia scooped Rachel up and moved her next to the stone sidewalk. During the trip, Alethia confirmed that Rachel lived.
She would only hurt these creatures.
Richard lacked her restraint. He jumped to stand over Rachel. Alethia rolled out of the way as Richard harried the silver creatures. Alethia turned to engage and she saw that Richard was over matched. He refused to cede the ground over his sister, stupidly drawing the monster attacks to her in the first place. She raced to help him as the second silver creature shocked him from behind. But it braced itself and intercepted Alethia as she tried to reach Richard. He blinked away in a flash of light like Karen and Rob. Rachel was missing too
Why did they wait to retrieve the two of us? Why did it take Rachel?
Alethia wondered this while the remaining huge silver creature turned and faced her. This all happened in the middle of the street, out in front of the Kain home. In the age of cell phones how would they keep this secret?
Alethia dodged the silver monster’s advances. It struck like a praying mantis. An aspect of its attacks worried Alethia. She dueled it and spun waiting for her opening while it continued to take blitzing strikes at her. A voice from the door drew a shred of her attention, Zoe shouted her name as Alethia backpedaled the latest lightning attack.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Zoe raced toward her in slow motion Alethia wanted to turn and wave her away and would have if her dodging steps had not carried her into a series of electric probe needles. Zoe’s hand clasped Alethia’s as her world went blank.
Alethia blinked her eyes, the light did not grow as she blinked, but her world returned to focus. A short ceilinged room that glowed faintly held her. Several small grey, blue and white crystals served as a bed. They felt oddly soft, even fluffy. Alethia stroked them and felt a calming sensation emanate from the crystal as well as general warmth.
The push at her emotions forced her off of her feet and into the center of the room. The wall opposite the bed she woke on bore crystals in an arch pattern, as if they had formed a doorway. Alethia pressed on the portal and the door retreated, like crystals dissolving in liquid. She stepped over the threshold and the crystals returned, growing back into place.
A railing ran perpendicular to her door, creating a meter-wide walkway. Over the railing a long drop that seemed to continue forever gave her vertigo as she watched it. Alethia spun and two children ran behind her giggling and throwing a silver mass between them. Her head spun as she overlooked the incredible signs of life before her.
Alethia clung to the rail and tried to place herself. She had been abducted by the silver monsters.
What were they? As if in response to her unasked question, three of the silver creatures floated to her level, facing her from the massive open space beyond the balcony.
Four more silver creatures skittered up with a man wearing a pair of jeans and a polo shirt.
Alethia fell into a defensive stance and the man said,
“Please, please. There is no need to escalate this situation. For anyone.”
His rolling voice reminded Alethia of her father. In fact the outfit did too. Her suspicions were already raised,
“Why do you remind me of my dad?”
The man sighed and mumbled,
“I told you this would not work.” He addressed Alethia and said, “let me end this silly effect, okay?”
Alethia nodded at him. He touched his chest and the image of him as a golfing executive changed to a man with a wide mustache and a liquid silver set of clothing. He spoke a muddling language that Alethia heard, but understood without being able to explain the mechanism.
“Sorry about that, but my superiors can be stubborn and old fashioned. Aha, old fashioned.”
He winked at Alethia and tipped and imaginary hat to her. When she did not relax or laugh with him, he cleared his throat and said,
“Harumph. Yes. Well. I am Thelleus Marnvin, the nominal director of the modest settlement you find yourself in. These are my assistants and body guards.”
He waved to the silver beings standing around him. A section of the silver armor retracted and six different faces nodded to Alethia.
She inclined her head to the silver creature in the middle of the fliers,
“What is that? It didn’t say hello.”
He cleared his throat.
“Ah, yes. That is a who, not a what. And she is your friend, I believe.”
A panel cleared on the silver creature showing Zoe’s face. Her eyes were closed so she did not nod back to Alethia.
Once again, Alethia’s instincts took over. She planted her feet and jumped at the mustached man, intending to take him hostage and force them to free Zoe. Before she could move, the ground had trapped her feet with crystal and she found herself rooted in place. She snarled at the man,
“If you hurt her I will find you, do you understand? Where is Karen, where is Richard? Where are my friends?”
The man looked offended.
“Madame, we are not hurting your friend Zoe. We are keeping her alive and healthy despite the temporal transition.”
“Because you snatched her!”
“Yes, regrettable consequence of our attempts to secure yourself.”
“What about the rest of my friends?”
The man sighed.
“The enemy intercepted our temporal arcs. Only you escaped their notice. I think they believed your own transit was a distraction. Your friends are in the hands of very bad people. The same whose nanites now course through your bloodstream killing you.”
“Wait what? Why should I believe anything you have to say.”
The man looked at Alethia with pity on his face. He said,
“I believe that you now possess the intelligence to understand if we showed you the medical data.” His eyes flicked to one of the silver creatures next to him. No, not creatures. These were people, people who rode in some sort of powerful armor.
The creature retracted and the person’s form grew to be distinct. She had cherry red hair like she dyed it. The woman scowled at the mustached man, Thelleus, and said,
“My name is Linda. I will assist you.”
“I want to know what’s going on, are you holding me here?”
The crystals had receded from her legs. Thelleus said,
“I am afraid we are. For now. You have free access to our arcology until your friend’s condition has improved. To answer your next question, that will take about three weeks, four if she proves stronger than most. To answer the question after that, I promise we will not hurt her. She is not being hurt now. Just like our enemies, your so-called benefactors, we are obligated to treat those we pull through the timeline. As you will learn, our own therapies have no chance of rendering the subjects insane, do not induce sterility, and do not reduce their lifespans to years.”
Alethia had far more questions now. Lifespan? Sterility? What?
The woman with red hair took Alethia’s hand and Thelleus said,
“Go with Linda. She will prove my claims to you. She has food as well.”
Linda grabbed her arm in a firm grip. She did not quite dig her fingers into Alethia’s muscles, but her grip hovered on the edge of doing so. Alethia imagined the woman’s nails and finger pads leaving tiny little bruises in her arm by the time she arrived where they were going. Several crystal doors opened for the two of them. Linda guided her through crowds, some of who sat before a lecturer or screen formed by large flat crystals. No matter where they turned, all eyes turned to observe Alethia. She had noticed something odd about the eyes of the people in the rooms. In every case their whites were silver rather than flat white. Alethia’s eyes caught those details easily, despite Linda’s pace. Neither Linda nor Thalleus had silver eyes.
“Why are their eyes silver?”
Linda sounded annoyed,
“Because they are citizens. They live among the swarm, they do not die by it.”
“What does that mean?”
Linda sighed,
“Those are the people my kind die for. Usually killed by your kind. Mostly.”
Linda’s glare silenced further questions from Alethia. She considered sitting down or digging her heels in, but she suspected that would play directly into Linda’s hand. The angry woman would probably delight in dragging Alethia along the hallways for the gawkers to see.
They finally stopped at the end of a short hallway, several turns off of the main concourse. Alethia could backtrack to where she had awoken, but saw no reason to right now. Linda pressed a door open and the room within held a steaming bowl of food. Alethia was hungry and the food smelled like fish curry. She approached it on her own after Linda released her arm. The door sealed shut behind Linda while Alethia sat down at the bowl. She could not see a spoon but she was so hungry she just tipped the crystalline bowl into her mouth. The curry was sweet with a mild spiciness to it. Alethia would have preferred something with a bit more spice and maybe a hint of coconut. But she could hardly complain.
Linda folded her arms and watched Alethia devour the food. Satisfied, Alethia set the bowl down and said,
“So now what?”
“Now you learn.”
The first lessons consisted of review of the native language. Her eidetic memories turned out to work exactly as advertised. Eight hours later, Alethia was reading and speaking Quook-shal like a native. Linda’s teaching method left much to be desired. She volunteered nothing, but always answered Alethia’s questions.
Sixteen hours later, Alethia had worked her way about through the nineteenth century’s understanding of human biology. Her math background was weak enough that she spent the first several hours catching up to the present time, which was the only question Linda would not answer for Alethia.
“Other than the present time, will you answer any of my questions?”
Linda gritted her teeth audibly.
“No.”
Alethia could hear the omission in Linda’s voice. The words were true, but there was probably only a tiny remaining bit of information Linda would not share. Alethia thought about it a moment and said,
“Is the remaining thing something obvious like your people’s military strategy or something?”
Linda spoke through her clenched teeth,
“Yes.”
“Are there any other questions you won’t answer honestly?”
“Yes.”
Linda sounded like she was holding onto a cliff edge by her finger nails. Alethia wanted to know what made this so difficult, but she considered that maybe she did not want to hear Linda’s answer to that question. Instead she said,
“Let me guess, the last thing you won’t talk about is something like the time that has passed between my home time and your present, right?”
Linda sounded defeated. Her head dropped a fraction of a millimeter,
“Correct.”
“Is there anything else?”
She sighed and said,
“No.”
Alethia grinned and knuckled down to learning. By the twentieth hour, she needed more sleep. Crystals rose at her unconscious demand and she was asleep before she could think to ask after Zoe again. Her initial investigations were directed there. She wanted to know exactly what was wrong with Zoe and how they were messing with her.
Another twenty four hours later, plus another two-hour nap, Alethia felt relieved. Based on what she studied in that time, Zoe should be fine. She was no dupe, at least she did not think so. She knew how easily information could be curated to provide a given answer. She knew how easy it would be to have Linda answer every question bold and earnest and lie only about the important ones.
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But Alethia felt like she had asked the right questions now. Time sickness was a scourge. She agreed with the Keepers — that is what they called themselves — that the timeline should not be messed with. Despite her prodigious new intellect, time theory boggled. The whole notion of cause and effect failed in the face of temporal travel. That axiom lay at the heart of the Keepers’ objection to its use.
History was still forbidden Alethia, so she did not know the origin of the Keepers or the Enforcers, their enemy and the group who created the serum that Richard gave to his three friends, Alethia included. But she had the impression they were once the same group. Moreover, she detected a clear transition in the beliefs of the Keepers.
During their early history, some major event rocked their organization from the top down. Centuries — or who knew, maybe weeks — of peaceful isolationism broke down. What emerged was a group of “Time Keepers” committed to dual goals: the preservation of their own people and to stopping the depraved actions of the Enforcers.
The contemporary groups defined themselves in opposition to each other. Alethia did not feel particularly comfortable with either of them. That marked her transition into studying the effects of the serum running through her bloodstream.
Mere hours later, Alethia felt chilled to the bone. The nanite structures in her blood did indeed heal her of a wide range of disease. Time Sickness was just one of those. Chills ran down her spine as she read its description, like reading about Tuskeegee or the early Manhattan Project accidents. Time Sickness combined the degenerative effects of aggressive tumors with the total system failures of Ebola. Worse, parts of the patient’s flesh might necrotize, heal, then finally slough off. They might live through that part of the experience. Most pain medicines had limited effects against Time Sickness, so even a reduced lifespan of accelerated cell death was better. But only slightly so.
On top of all of that, the treatment options from the Keepers included one that might let her return to her normal life. When she brought that up to Linda she said,
“That is available to you and we would happily administer it. You understand that not only would you lose the enhancements the enemy gave you, but you would not be allowed to accompany your friend Zoe to retrieve your other friends.”
“What do you mean? Did Zoe accept a commission with you?”
Linda nodded, her smirk was clear as the sun was hidden in his strange subterranean lair.
“She did.”
“Damn you. Why do you… Nevermind.”
She did not want to give Linda the opening to share her feelings about Alethia. The woman was rude enough without that.
Two more hours passed. Alethia spent the last hour annoying Linda,
“Who wins the Magic the Gathering tournament in Austin’s Sword and Board store in 2091?”
“I am not allowed to tell you that.”
“How many separate dentists did Dennis Hoffman have before he died?”
Sigh, “I do not know.”
Linda had to respond,
“What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever told another person?”
Linda sighed and the door opened,
Mustache — Thelleus — stood there.
“You are excused Ms Diné”
“Oh thank the Lord!”
She retreated with incredible haste, Alethia wished she had asked that last question earlier,
“What’s up Thelly?”
Thelleus’s mustache twitched,
“I trust you have verified our claims?”
He sounded exactly as officious in Quook-shal as he did translated.
“I guess so. It’s hard to know what or who to trust. Linda said Zoe chose your side?”
“We explained the circumstances to her. She chose augmentation. As you may as well, Ms Thompson.”
“Are you my escort while I decide?”
He nodded,
“I am still the director, but I have subordinates who could use the experience. Why don’t I show you some interesting artifacts, Ms Thompson?”
“Sure, I am game. Why is it that no matter how hard I try, I can’t learn anything about where or when we are?”
Thelleus had already turned away,
“Why Ms Thompson, you expect us to trust you so soon? I am shocked. Almost as shocked as you are mistaken. Which is still only a trifle. We will not discuss when we are with you. But we would happily reveal where we are. Here, this is only a suit. Something our children would use for safety. Put it on.”
He offered her a silver mass of liquid. Alethia went to retrieve it and found that it was not actually liquid. It was a large sack made of opaque silver material. It felt rubbery, like it responded to being squeezed between her fingers.
Silver flowed over Thelleus’s body.
“Do try getting dressed Ms Thompson. I thought you had studied our science. This is a spacesuit.”
“Oh.”
When he said that, she made the connection between the odd-looking sheath she had only seen images of before and the mass in front of her. She found that she could step on an area near the opening and pull the whole mass over her head like a tent or clown pants. Alethia giggled at that image as the suit sealed itself to the edges and closed in on her.
For a moment, she felt a panic as the silver cloth covered her face. In seconds, it faded and she felt like she wore nothing at all. She continued to breathe without problems. Thelleus tapped her suit and said in a microphone voice,
“Check suit integrity.”
Alethia wondered how to answer his question when the words popped into her vision followed by a colon: “S-squared protection at 100 percent.”
She repeated that to Thelleus. He said,
“That means your seals and shields are at full. If that number drops below 75 percent, you have to disengage. But I doubt you will have to worry about that for now.”
He touched a series of crystals and a door down the hallway grew shut. Wind roared in Alethia’s ears after the door closed and her suit informed her that she had entered a near-vacuum.
“Safety protocols prevent disengaging suit while in near-vacuum”
A soft mechanical voice whispered to Alethia while additional checks rolled by her vision. Ten seconds later her feet stuck to the crystal platform beneath her and a the words, “Maglock steps: active” appeared.
“Okay, I am opening the doors.”
Alethia turned around, her feet clicking to the crystals as magnets disengaged and reengaged on her soles. A crystal wall rose along the whole side of the hallway. There was no room on this part of the building, only space. The crystals moved slowly and at first all Alethia could see were tiny dots of light representing stars or even distant galaxies. Then the lower corona of a red sun appeared followed by a tiny blue star. They were close enough that Alethia could see the two stars in their fiery glory clearly. The suit must had polarized to keep from blinding her. She could also see a trail of meteorites and dust leading between the two stars. At least that was what she thought the trail was until her suit provided a scale. Two hundred earths could fit into the smallest “asteroid” she saw at the edge of the trail. Millions of suns would fit into the smaller blue star. The number her suit fed her provide the red sun scale was a meaningless power of 10.
“Oh God, it is beautiful! How?”
“Nascent supernova. You cannot see it here, but we are near a galactic core that would be both meaningless and absurdly dangerous to name. The forces here are intense and while the cosmological theorem seems to hold so far, your studies should at least hint at how valuable this place is for our purposes.”
“Time dilation, that’s a super massive black hole over there?”
“Between the two stars, yes. Time moves very slowly here. Some of our greatest successes have been developed here or at a space arcology like this one. Your ion systems are active, yes?”
Once again, the question answered itself for Alethia. Her suit’s systems reported that it had more than enough fuel and that the solar pressure in this locale was muted by the arcology’s systems nearby. She reported as much to Thelleus and he said,
“Then kick away with me. Time your jump and disengage your mag locks. Try it.”
Alethia watched him tumble away from the crystal surface. She felt dubious, but at the same time she was utterly entranced by the experience. When would she ever have this chance again? She kicked away with a brief prayer about fools and their folly.
The massive station pushed away from her and her jump carried her spiraling out, away from Thelleus and the station. She could see it for what it was now, the suit’s scale still in place. It was almost seven times larger than the pyramids and hovered in space glowing silver. That effect meant it captured energy from the surrounding areas, Alethia knew that from studying the days prior.
Tiny reflective windows shined from the surface of the arcology.
“What are those little lights?”
Thelleus’s voice still sounded radio-transmission crackle-y to Alethia,
“They are people. Citizens protected by the Keepers.”
“Do they fight?”
Thelleus sighed,
“Only to defend themselves. Tell me, Ms Thompson. Were you this battle-focused before you took the Enforcer’s serum?”
“Maybe.”
Thelleus scoffed over the radio channel.
Alethia said,
“Hey, I am part of a medieval recreation society and I practice bow and sword. So it’s not like I was a pacifist or something.”
“But my question stands, were you this battle oriented prior to the serum?”
“I admit it, I feel more violent now than I did a few weeks ago. But honestly, the effect feels very subtle to me.”
“You would have asked me about troop disbursements here?”
Alethia paused now. She was not sure what she really wanted to know about this giant colony station. Aside from the usuals, what was the story with it in general? Is this the only one? How did they manage to situate this ship so close to an SMBH without crumbling to dust or exploding from the forces. For that matter how did she hover in space so close to something like this?
But none of those seemed like the kind of question Thelleus was looking for. Much of what she would have wondered has already been answered by her studies. In truth, space was peaceful and she would not have minded floating out here by herself for a few days.
As long as she could return.
She did not say that to Thelleus. Instead she said,
“You brought me out here for a reason, what is it?”
“I want you to understand that we are trying to save people, not destroy them. The Enforcer’s manipulation endangers everyone. Even the people here, where our temporal shielding is the strongest.”
“What exactly are the Enforcers doing that is so upsetting for you guys?”
“Less upsetting and more genocidal. Their manipulation of the timestream has killed untold billions.”
“I am not even sure how to parse that logically. Do you mean they manipulated events so that people were not born or something?”
“We do not consider that a crime in and of itself. That is an ontic question we do not try to resolve. Therefore the act of manipulating the timeline itself is our real objection in cases of temporal annulment. No, the genocide involves using the time stream to do things like disrupt life support systems. Or breech hulls. Until we started placing our colony vessels near black hole event horizons, we lost hundreds of vessels, billions of people, to attacks by the Enforcers. Only four of them could wipe out an entire colony.”
“And these suits are a recent innovation?”
“Did you not look into the provenance of the suit?”
Alethia had been curious at first, but origins like that tended to be obscured in the records the Keepers shared.
“No, why?”
Thalleus laughed,
“Aliens showed us our suit technology as well as the defensive field that protects our ship from the gravity of the black holes nearby. They also taught us how to make stasis field exclusions. That is what our strike teams used agains the Enforcer’s base that initiated the entire course of events in which we find ourselves.”
“Explain to me again why you do not just hijack a time machine and fix the problems the Enforcers caused.”
Thalleus did not sound like he wanted to offer this explanation to Alethia.
He said,
“We find additional violations of the timeline to be too dangerous. We do not use the Enforcer’s time machines.”
“Why don’t they just reset the time themselves? Like move back before your team sealed off their base?”
“The exclusion field prevents that. The Tachyon emission is non-linear. Attempts to breech the timestream from within a large radius result in trapping the traveler in the exclusion field. When the field falls, the traveler into the field suffers a series of negative effects.”
“Like what?”
As soon as she asked it, she wished that she had not. Alethia did not need new nightmares.
“Usually the effects are mild. The subject moves in space, but not in time. Usually they intersect with a body or gravity plane that destroys them. Sometimes they end up in space and occasionally they end up fine. Neither the Enforcers nor the Keepers try to move forces through a live exclusion field.”
“What exactly do you want me and Zoe to do now?”
Alethia rotated in space, her feet spinning around her head while she spoke to a man from the future. The brilliant blues and greens streaming into and out of the space between the stars in the distance looked like no other colors on earth. Alethia wondered if the colors were true and if she would see the same thing with her naked eye, assuming the radiation did not blind her or if the suit she wore polarized to give the gas and dust colors of their own.
Thalleus had paused, but probably not to let Alethia enjoy the scenery. He finally said,
“We want you to retrieve your friends. Especially your friend Karen.”
“Why her exactly?”
“She is a squad commander. That means her mind contains the full program for re-creating the Enforcer serum in its basic state. We might be able to cure their soldiers without having to subsequently conscript them.”
“Are all of your soldiers recovered Enforcer soldiers?”
“Of course not. We have only successfully recovered around five former enforcers.”
“What? I was under the impression this process was safe.”
“You mean the process of receiving the nano-armor? That is entirely safe unless you are already infected with the Enforcer nanites like yourself. In your case, the conversion process might work, we give you about a twenty percent success chance. Unless your enhancement is healing. Then the chance is zero.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your ‘power’ whatever it is. You are not an instant healer, are you?”
“Oh, no. I have a different one.”
“Would you tell us? We have not see all of the varieties of additional powers and new ones would help our scientists.”
“I can double myself.”
“You can what?”
Thalleus was already floating toward Alethia. She said,
“I can create a double of myself. I can even think with her, but I feel like my brain is being stretched when I do.”
“We should return to the arcology right away. I want to have our scientists examine you. Is that acceptable?”
“I guess so? Do I have a choice?”
“I told you when you arrived that you were as free here as we can accommodate. Once our mission has been successful, you will be freed to return to your own time should you desire. We would even leave you with your Enforcer augments if you preferred. Though I seriously suggest you reconsider that course.”
“Is the examination invasive?”
“What do you mean? Oh… No, gods above we would not do something like that to you.”
Alethia snickered,
“What did you just learn about my time?”
“I checked vivisection. I forget how barbaric your time was. We have no need to cut or dissect you to perform our tests. In fact, I find the process generally relaxing. You only sleep two hours a day, right?”
“Yeah, I have trouble if I try to sleep longer than that.”
“Another benefit of the Enforcer nano-regimen. Do you want to try the examination now?”
“You are very excited by this, why?”
“This is not personal exactly, but a colleague mentioned the existence of your power set to me offhandedly. That power set would prove extremely useful for the purposes of engineering a safe conversion process for other Enforcer agents.”
“Okay, let’s get this over with. How do I fly back to the base?”
Thalleus said,
“It works the same way that most of our systems work, just try thinking about floating to the black space on the surface down there. I will highlight it for you. Highlight launch bay, computer.”
Alethia’s vision narrowed to a small black rectangle on the underside of the arcology. She thought about floating there and a series of velocity and acceleration equations popped up before her vision. The computer showed her what it was doing and she could see a transparent ramp leading her to the launch bay. Her computer system flagged Thalleus as a nearby object, but his course did not appear to conflict with her own.
She landed on the ground and her mag lock feet engaged right away. Thalleus was only a few seconds behind her. He closed the airlock and re-pressurized the room in only a few minutes. Once the pressure was close to Earth normal, his suit retreated from his face and he spoke out loud,
“You can safely un-suit now. You are welcome to keep that suit. In fact for safety purposes you should have it on you at all times.”
“Is that a real danger?”
“Well, this is a space station near a super massive black hole. The suit won’t do much about that part, but it will protect you from vacuum and a surprisingly wide range of radiation. Here, let me give you a path to the science wing.”
Alethia’s suit opened and to her eyes a small white path appeared in the crystals on the floor. She said,
“You were serious about the whole being checked up thing, huh?”
Thalleus said,
“My colleague would be perturbed to discover I delayed you more than necessary. Please do not tarry overlong. If you need me, any part of the ship should be able to connect you to me. Be safe Ms Thompson.”
Thalleus nodded to her and walked swiftly in the opposite direction. Alethia reminded herself that he was supposed to be the administrator for the whole station. She was flattered that he spent the afternoon floating in space with her, but she also bet he had more important things to do than babysit her.
Alethia followed the white path to a green tinted section of the arcology. The doors opened and her nose detected new scents she had not encountered before. A woman wearing a green suit stopped her and said,
“Excuse me, this is the experimental wing of the station. Unless you have permission from the senior researcher or higher, you cannot be here.”
Alethia bowed and said,
“I am sorry, administrator Thalleus sent me here, I am infected with the Enforcer nanites.”
The green mask peeled away from the woman’s face. She had freckles and green dyed hair without roots. Maybe it was naturally green.
She smiled and said,
“Then you’re Alethia Thompson, the body maker?”
“Yes?”
The woman clapped,
“That is fantastic! I have a whole testing division ready for you! My name is Natalie Goshen.”
She held out her hand, Alethia shook it.
“I studied late twentieth century for my history credit. Was my greeting correct?”
“You mean the handshake?”
“Yes, and the acknowledgement of name exchange. Names are very important during your century, yes?”
Alethia nodded,
“I guess so.”
Natalie smiled and bobbed her head,
“That is great! Thank you! Would you mind if I practiced my English and oral technique on you later?”
“I’m sorry what?”
“I would like to practice my twentieth century English on you. I am also an amateur cunilinquist. Since you are new here and sexual exchange is trivial to people from your time, do you mind if I practice on your body?”
“Um, I. You have that part, about sexual exchange, totally wrong. I do not consider sexual exchange to be trivial.”
Natalie cocked her head to the side,
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean that people in my time are not as sexually liberated as you seem to think.”
“You mean you are part of a anti-expression subculture? That is GREAT! Would you let me interview you while we conduct the biological tests?”
“I… um. Just interview?”
“Of course. You said that do not consider exchange trivial. I assume that means you have some taboos regarding the act. We had thought that the majority of human society abandoned those taboos after the end of the twentieth century. Evidence of an atavist culture so late would rock the foundations of historical study of your era.”
“Sure, I’ve never been interviewed before. Or full body examined.”
“Really? We understood that these tests were available to you during your time as well, fascinating! Please step this way and disrobe.”
Alethia removed her space suit, but balked at removing her clothing. No one else on the station had appeared in the nude.
“I should take off all of my clothing?”
“Does your society have a taboo about nudity as well? I did not mean to be insensitive!”
Alethia laughed at that response and she said,
“I guess we have a lot of taboos that might seem weird. I guess it does not matter if a bunch of you are going to see me nude anyway.”
Alethia started to strip, but found herself incapable with Natalie’s penetrating gaze watching her like she was a bacteriological specimen she waited to start growing.
“Could you maybe look away while I do this?”
“Of course, I am sorry!”
Natalie turned around and a small drawer opened in the crystal wall of the small room. Alethia was bare naked now and started expecting this whole thing to devolve into a Dadaist dream. Soon her favorite elementary school teacher from second grade, Mrs Soriente, would appear and start fondling Alethia’s breasts. If that happened, Alethia decided that violence might be warranted.
Instead, Natalie bowed to Alethia without letting her eyes linger over Alethia’s body. The crystal door closed and a voice addressed Alethia. This was a man’s voice.
“Ms Thompson, this process could take upwards of eight hours to complete. Would you care for some entertainment, food, or beverages?”
Alethia ordered up some more scientific reading from the station’s database. She wanted to learn as much as she could about the nano-systems that currently infected her body and the other systems that the Keeper’s offered.
Other than that, the process of being examined was boring until the first eight hours passed. After that the same male voice addressed Alethia,
“Can you activate your augmentation freely or do you still require stress to activate the system?”
“I can bring me out at will, more or less. Give me a second.”
Alethia concentrated again, letting herself feel stretched between two points, like her eyes, ears and mouth were just a few feet away. With that thought, a second form peeled out of her first. In a blink, she was looking at the room she stood in with two sets of eyes. She could hear the dull non-echo of her own heartbeat in the room. The voice returned,
“Thank you Ms Thompson, how long can you sustain the duplicate?”
She did not really know the answer to that question,
“I don’t know. I have never tried. Is there a limit normally?”
“Let’s see how long you can maintain the duplicate. Can she sleep while you are awake?”
Alethia shrugged. She focused on the mind of the second version of herself. She laid down on a crystalline bed that extended from the wall. Alethia laid down and closed her eyes. Her double was asleep in seconds and Alethia felt oddly relaxed. Like she had just shut down a low-level anxiety generator.
She could see her own nude body sleeping a few feet from her and it looked wicked strange. The voice returned,
“Thank you Ms Thompson. Would you leave the double out until we tell you or you cannot sustain it any longer?”
“Sure. Can I have some soup?”
A few seconds later a box popped open from the side of the wall revealing more of the curry soup she had her first day here. This soup turned out to be good. She wondered where they grew the fish, but considering where they were, she decided not to investigate that or spend a bunch of time trying to find out. She just ate her soup and appreciated the incredible mixture of harmonious flavors.
Once her food was done, the bowl dissolved into the wall and Alethia resumed her reading. After a while, she no longer had to concentrate while her double slept. Part of her mind automatically tracked the position and status of the double and made sure she was okay.
Several more hours later, Alethia passed out herself, taking note of the time before she did.
Two hours later, she woke laying on one of the crystalline beds. For a moment she tried to figure out which version of herself she was. Then her position and the details from the day returned and she realized that this was the double’s body she looked out of. Her normal body’s eyes flew open in shared panic and Alethia experienced vertigo while her mind scrabbled to determine which version of her was the correct one to be looking out of right now.
In a strange doubled voice she said,
“Is the test still on or can I go?”
“You may leave whenever you would like, Ms Thompson. If you are willing, we do have some additional tests to perform.”
Alethia reeled, she needed to put away Alethia sub one now before her mind broke.
“I would like to relax for a while without having my powers or augmentations or whatever on display. I would not mind returning.”
“That is fine, Ms Thompson, thank you for your time. Once the research team has reviewed the results of the tests, we will make them available to you. Felicitations!”
Alethia did not recognize the last female voice that bad her farewell, so she assumed the shift had changed. She intended to return to the experimentation room. For no other reason than she wanted to continue to practice with her double, even if the chance existed that the Keepers could free her from the serum’s effects.
That possibility rattled around in her mind, delved up by the promise of freedom from the Time Travel problem and the rest of the complications facing her life in the last three weeks. At the same time, Alethia heard the siren’s song of purpose whispered to her from between the lines of Thalleus’s offer. She knew why he took her on the space walk yesterday. It had been wonderful and was a taste of what Alethia would be refusing if she declined to help them.
Then there was Zoe.
She had apparently already accepted the Keeper’s offer of augmentation. If that was true, wasn’t Alethia practically obligated anyway? On top of all of that, helping them would be her only shot at saving Karen. Maybe the only shot Karen had.
Alethia heard a knock on her door,
“Enter!”
Thalleus walked in as the door receded.
“I wanted to address what happened to your friends, if I might.”
“I was wondering why they weren’t here if you abducted them.”
“Indeed. That we do not use their Time Machines does not mean we lack the means to move through the streams. The main difference is that the Enforcers can easily track our movement and have been known to intercept. During our extraction of your friends, our teams were intercepted and eliminated. We believe that your companions were the target of the attacks, so we also believe they are alive. Our temporal investigations confirm this.”
“I suppose you want to know if I will join you.”
“In a sense, I suppose. Before we discuss that, I have a different question.”
“Ask away.”
“Did you finish your interview with Natalie Goshen? If not, I suggest it before you consider leaving.”
“Thalleus, you seem kind of fatalistic to me, what’s up?”
“The chance you will survive the conversion therapy has been revised. It is less than ten percent, and several researchers believe it is actually zero. There is no consensus at this time. I hoped you would speak to Natalie before you made your decision.”
Alethia did not say it, but what Thalleus told her was enough. A near-zero chance of survival was easy to parse. Alethia would accept the cleansing or whatever they wanted to call purging her of the ‘Enforcer nanites’ and return to her own time, presumably without either Zoe or Karen. That part hit her in the gut like a kick.
She said,
“Sure, I would be happy to tell Natalie more about my time. When?”
“She is actually right here with me now. She has some informational packets for you. Do you think you could speak to her now?”
Natalie wore a pink and orange sundress with her hair in three separate ‘tails’. The dress had a hole in the chest cut to make a window for Natalie’s breasts, nipples and all.
They were nice as breasts went, but Alethia did not need to stare at them right then. Despite that, the window inexorably drew her eye.
Natalie grinned and passed her palm over her décolletage, which was weird considering that her boobs were bare. Thalleus fled before Natalie had stepped all of the way into the room. She said
“Do you like my outfit, I chose this as representative of your time.”
Alethia blushed and said,
“You would be mobbed if you wore that in public in my time. Maybe fined for inciting a riot.”
“I am not sure what all of those colloquialisms mean, but am I to take it that my clothing is not fully appropriate?”
Alethia nodded,
“In my time, you would not display your secondary sexual character…”
Natalie interrupted her,
“Do you mind if we switch to English? I wanted to try some phrases on you.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Natalie leaned into Alethia and whispered,
“My real name is agent Coleman. I work for Administrator Thalleus directly. Factions of the Keepers do not want to see you successfully transition to our organization. I cannot go into details, but this dossier does. Be sure to read its contents and memorize them, and use the incinerate function of the disposal units to destroy the documents when you are done. I used the excuse of this English session to mask this conversation. The computer will report a lascivious misunderstanding, but we are running out of time. Now I am going to kiss you, feel free to react appropriately.”
Alethia did not have a chance to process everything Natalie said to her before she leaned even closed to Alethia, inhaled a tiny breath and wrapped her lips over Alethia’s. She tasted like strawberries and creme and her lips felt soft. Soft like she somehow moisturized them in addition to her skin. Alethia wanted to know what Natalie used for lip balm only a second after the contact began. Alethia moaned as Natalie gave the kiss her full effort. The tip of the woman’s tongue explored the edges of Alethia’s mouth, tapping at her teeth and carefully tracing the lines of her mouth.
React appropriately… Alethia’s thoughts were overwhelmed by the exchange. A tiny part of her remarked, this is my first real kiss, as her brain threatened to fade to unconsciousness again. She drew away from Natalie and took a deep breath,
“That is not your first time doing that, is it?”
“I understand your time has reservations about same sex attraction, but your file indicates that you yourself prefer females. Is your file mistaken?”
Alethia blinked at the woman,
“Sorry, I meant to say that you are very good.”
Alethia spoke English to the woman, she was so disconcerted. Natalie said,
“Thank you! Does that mean you will reconsider my offer of oral pleasure?”
