EPSILON DELTA, PART SIXTEEN: FATE’S WIDE WHEEL

Kat had been fine with doing a controlled firebombing of Compton’s camp, up until the point that he heard Alice on his communicator say, “Everyone. Get out. Get out now, NOW, N–"

Kat’s first instinct wasn’t to run, but rather to flatten himself down on the ground where he stood on the edge of the clearing. He was pretty sure he couldn’t run fast enough, and besides, the purple smoke he could see implied that Alijda had just teleported herself back in to get Beam. He tried to bend the fire of the exploding tent around and away from that location.

The mystic shockwave was a surprise.

Kat wasn’t sure whether things happened in the blink of an eye, or whether he actually lost consciousness. Either way, the next thing he knew, everyone in the clearing was flat on the ground. Except Compton. The short, bearded man was now standing rigidly, quietly, instead of bellowing about getting Destiny back. Then a smile flickered over his face.

Kat didn’t like that.

Firestorm charged in from the other side of the clearing. Kat winced, but decided not to intercede yet. Curiously, as Firestorm hummed and released a fireball towards Compton, the short man simply watched it approach. That is, until it was almost right in front of him, at which point he raised his palm, whistled - and the fireball bounced. Firestorm dove to the side and rolled as it came back towards him, causing Kat to wonder how much the cloaked man could be affected by his own attacks.

Kat took advantage of the distraction, crawling into the clearing, staying low to the ground. Alijda, Beam and the henchman who’s been holding onto Beam were all in the same general area. Hopefully they were merely unconscious, as it beat the alternative.

“Oh, this is brilliant,” Compton said, his smile becoming a smirk. “All I need now is more power. Hmmm, and what’s this aura I sense…"

Kat froze as Compton began to stride towards him - but it was Beam that Compton reached for, grabbing her by the arm and hauling the blonde up to her feet.

“Whuhhhh?” Beam warbled, the holographic girl seeming as dazed by the blast as any of them. She barely managed to stay upright as Compton began to drag her back towards the location of the stone circle. The location of the dimensional weakness.

Compton then began to whistle continuously, eyeing both Firestorm and Kat, as if to make it clear that he knew they were there, and not to do anything stupid. Beam moaned and tried to push Compton away as he reached his destination, but the man simply gripped her by the ear instead, whistling louder as Beam slumped down to the ground.

Kat remained where he was, trying to analyze the situation. Was Compton somehow draining Beam’s batteries using his magic? To what end? Compton pointed down. To weaken the dimensions? Firestorm tried to attack while their adversary’s attention was diverted - but again, his fireball bounced off an invisible wall.

“Damn it,” Kat said. He helped that attack burn itself out, before it could cause any major damage. He was getting good at that of late, given how they’d been trying to restrict the effects of their fire attacks to the clearing itself.

“Oh, you thought I had to be watching you to bounce your attacks back?” Compton snarked, ceasing his whistle. “How wrong you are. No, no, this power, awakened in me by that explosion, you have no chance of defeating it. Not with such pathetic attacks. And soon, I’ll have bled out enough energy from this strange one” - he jerked Beam’s head by the ear - “to gain full mental control over this mystic doorway. You hear that, Destiny, wherever you are? You’ll rue the day you crossed me, make no mistake.”

Compton resumed whistling.

However, having been reminded of the fact that Fate had been brought to safety reinvigorated Kat. Moreover, he knew Rose and Alice were still out there too, likely working on a plan. They simply needed to regroup. Kat resumed heading for Alijda.

He had managed to ascertain that Alijda was fine, but unlikely to regain consciousness any time soon, when Compton resumed his gloating.

“Ha ha! I can feel it happening,” Compton shouted in delight. “Control over this mystical gateway. Soon, I will be unstoppable.” He began to whistle louder.

That had happened faster than Kat had anticipated. Was another shockwave imminent? Firestorm began pushing himself to his feet; he looked to Kat for guidance.

Kat shook his head. They didn’t have enough information here. Maybe, after talking to Fate, they could reverse whatever Compton was about to do…? They certainly couldn’t manage it if they were left unconscious. Kat motioned at Firestorm to leave the clearing as he grasped for Alijda’s shoulders.

Which is when Rose ran in.

“Rose, run away,” Kat shouted.

Instead, Rose stopped and stood her ground about five metres away from Compton, issuing him a warning. So was this part of a plan? As Rose’s body seemed to double, and then double again, Kat had to assume it was, resisting the urge to gape. Did Rose have magic? Or was it holograms, maybe?

Whatever it was, it got Compton’s attention enough to free Beam, tossing her aside. But then, they had to assume Compton already had enough energy to enact his plans by now. Four sets of Rose cracked their knuckles. Then three of them rushed at him - as the fourth doubled back towards the treeline.

Okay, this HAD to be a plan.

Kat exchanged a glance with Firestorm (who was looking rather dumbfounded), then pushed himself up, running towards Compton himself. It had just occurred to him that they had only tried magical means of bringing him down. Perhaps Rose’s reasoning was that he was still vulnerable to a left hook.

His belief lasted only as long as it took to see one of the Roses try to punch Compton’s shoulder, her fist bouncing off an invisible wall, making her hit herself instead. From behind, another Rose tried to kick Compton’s legs out from under him, only to hit a similar barrier, and end up falling over herself.

The third Rose paused, then stuck out her tongue, stuck her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers in the air. Provoking him? Because maybe Compton couldn’t maintain his defence while using an offensive power?

Kat honestly wasn’t sure what the plan was here any more. He stopped running, hoping someone would clue him in.

Compton seemed equally unsure of how to deal with Rose. He took a step forwards, swinging for the Rose who was taunting. She ducked out of the way, pulling SecondRose back up onto her feet as she moved. The third Rose, shaking out her hand, screamed down at the stone circle on the ground, and abruptly there were two circles there.

“You meddling…" Compton’s growl trailed off as he reached back and pulled some sort of switchblade out of his pocket.

“Oh, we’re doing physical violence here?” SecondRose snarked. “Because you don’t have the magic skills of your father?”

With a yell of rage, Compton slashed at ThirdRose, the teenager only just managing to duck and roll out of the way, audibly muttering, “oh, flûte”.

Kat was now headed for Firestorm. “The diary,” he called out. If this was all connected back to Fate’s abduction, there had to be some information there. “Is there a symbol we can use against him?”

“Uh, no, there was no handling of an invincible guy with a blade section,” Firestorm countered, pulling the book out of his robes and shaking it at him.

“Compton’s not invincible,” one of the Roses called out.

“All he can do here is absorb or reflect,” another Rose agreed.

“Watch him reflect my power,” ThirdRose added. She sang a note, and then there were four Roses running around Compton again.

“I will END you,” Compton said, lunging for a Rose. He managed to slice through part of her shirt, making her yelp.

Kat snatched the diary out of Firestorm’s hands and started running back towards the fight. “Hey, instead of beating up on girls, why not face off with me? I’ve got a book here with ALL of Destiny’s secrets in it. You want it?”

Everybody paused at that.

“Kat, do you know what you’re doing?” a Rose asked.

He looked back at her. “Do you?” he challenged. Because he was pretty sure he’d worked out their plan by now. To keep Compton away from the gateway, and to stall for time. He held Fate’s diary aloft.

“Give me that book,” Compton said.

“Say please,” Kat requested.

“Give it to me NOW,” Compton insisted.

“Wow, I can see why you’re not great at running a business,” Kat observed. “You can’t even follow simple instructions.”

Two of the Roses giggled. Compton looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel somewhere. “You think I don’t know some of my dad’s spells?” the shorter man screamed. “Hand that over, or I will use them. I will END you. All of you!”

“Hey, know what’s at the heart of this?” SecondRose mused. “Father issues. Paige had ‘em too. Find your own path separate from your father, Compton. Be your own person.”

Compton turned to glare at her. He had been letting out the occasional low whistle whenever he hadn’t been speaking. Now he whistled higher, and louder, and he started gesturing towards SecondRose. She placed her hands on her hips.

Compton gestured towards her. SecondRose’s head snapped back, and with a shocked look on her face, she fell to the ground - and vanished. The other Roses in the area staggered for a moment.

Kat almost shouted out ‘What did you do?’, but from the expression on Compton’s face, he seemingly hadn’t expected that result either.

“You think you’re so tough? Try that again,” shouted a Rose.

“Rose, what are you–" Kat cut himself off, as another Rose standing behind Compton raised an index finger and shook her head. Compton repeated his series of whistles and movements, and moments later, another Rose was gone.

Compton turned back to Kat. “Now, give me the book,” he declared. “Or another of your friends gets it.”

“Oh, no, no, please, do that once more first,” a Rose croaked out. “We almost got it that time.”

Compton obliged her. Moments later, the only people standing in the clearing were Compton, Kat, Firestorm, and one last copy of Rose. Or possibly she was the original Rose, and the Rose now returning to the clearing with Fate was the copy. Kat cleared his throat to keep Compton’s focus on him.

“Here’s the thing,” Kat said. “I’ve made a copy of the important pages here. If anything happens to me, a friend of mine will bring them to the police.”

“If you’re pinning your hopes on them, you must be desperate,” Compton observed. “Now stop wasting time and give me that book.”

“This book? Or the REAL book, which I have hidden back in the bushes?”

Compton shook his fist at Kat. “If you persist in these games, you WILL face the same fate as those redheads.“

“Actually,” came a new voice, tired but with a hard edge to it. “I’m the Fate you need to be worried about right now.”

Compton spun. Fate was now ten metres away from him. “Destiny. Have you finally come to your senses? Will you serve me?”

Both Roses moved to flank Fate, as the blonde spat into the ground. Then Fate began to trace something there with a stick she was carrying. “The spell for scrambling minds,” she remarked. “The one known by Compton Senior, the one that allowed him to abduct people. He was always so secretive about it, I was never able to figure out how it worked. Until now.”

Compton smirked. “You hope to try it against me? After I used it to dispel the doubling magic of this redhead? Fool, I can bounce it right back at you. You’ll lose your own mind.”

Fate looked back up at him. “Oh, no. No, because my spell will be stronger than the version you’ve been throwing around.”

Rose raised her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Hi. I’m Algebra. I multiply things.”

Compton’s smile morphed into a glare. “You stupid women. Even now, you do not understand my true power.”

“It still seems to be ‘reflect’ or ‘absorb’ to me,” the other Rose reiterated. “More to the point, for as long as you’re on reflect, we can do this.” She clapped her hand onto Fate’s shoulder, sang a note, and then abruptly there was another copy of both Rose and Fate, sketching on the ground. Then another.

“Meaning as long as you’re on reflect,” the Roses chorused. “We’re powering up.” More versions appeared, starting to form a circle around Compton. “The question becomes, are you man enough to absorb what Fate throws at you without succumbing? Or are you going to remain in the shadow of your father forever?”

Kat could have sworn Compton’s face went purple. And with a dozen Fates arranged in a half circle around the angry man, Rose’s notes ceased to be effective in creating any more copies.

“Now,” Rose whispered.

Fate began to chant the same phrase Compton had used earlier, but while he had punctuated his with whistles, Fate simply made her voice sound melodious. It wasn’t a happy melody, in fact Kat could pick up on an undercurrent of sadness and resentment, but it got the job done faster than Compton’s attempt to do the same.

As they finished, the Fates jabbed their sticks at the symbols on the ground. The area began to glow with a white light, and Compton let out a shriek. Kat was forced to look away from the brightness, and when he did turn back… Compton was still standing there. Looking stunned. And the only Rose and Fate in the area were lying on the ground, unconscious.

Fearing the worst, that their opponent had withstood the attack, Kat closed the distance to Compton, pulled back his free arm, and clocked the short man hard in the jaw. Compton crumpled to the ground without resistance, joining everyone else in the land of unconsciousness.

Well, almost everyone else.

“We win,” Beam chirped, from where she was still crumpled, unmoving, on the ground. “Now what. Are the chances. I could get. My own copy. Of Rose. To bring home. With me?”

Firestorm laughed. Kat’s communicator crackled back to life seconds later.

“This was probably not the dinner you envisioned,” Kat admitted.

Alijda smiled at him from across the table. “It’s not the location that matters. It was more about getting to know each other a little better.”

They had spent the last hour or so catching up on things in the Epsilon Station’s small cafeteria. This after having spent a couple of days completing paperwork after the mission, not to mention undergoing some tests to ensure there wouldn’t be any lingering issues after the mystic shockwave.

Firestorm had offered to take charge of dealing with Compton and the police down on the planet, once Fate (aka Destiny) had made it clear that she wasn’t planning to remain. In the end, Firestorm had decided not to ask more questions, deciding the more he knew, the more trouble he’d be in.

Fate had then helped Alice do a sweep of Compton’s business, confiscating anything dimensional from his records, under the rationale that his memory of such things would be sketchy anyway. It would have been like leaving matches in the hands of a toddler.

They hadn’t located records of anyone else who had once been abducted. And after years of living on the planet without finding anyone herself, Fate reasoned that randomly removing people who believed themselves to be natives might cause more harm than good anyway.

“Right,” Kat agreed. He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t see how this can work though. I’m in the military. I can’t simply disappear.”

“I could,” Alijda said. “Except it’s probably against the rules, plus someone needs to take care of Alice. I’m guessing she’s the one who volunteered to dress as a maid and serve us today?”

“Oh yeah,” Kat agreed. “Have you heard of the anime ‘Kaichou wa Maid-sama’?”[1]

Alijda shook her head. “No, and don’t even start. Back to you. Now that your decades long search for Fate is done, what will you do?”

Kat leaned back in his chair. It was a good question. “I guess I’ll stay hooked into occult matters. Still lots of pretty girls out there I can… not date?” A frown tugged at his features.

Alijda chuckled. “You sound like me when I realize I’ve blithely talked about killing myself.”

“Old habits,” Kat said dryly. “Like anything else, I guess we go forwards one step at a time.”

Alijda nodded. “I guess we do.” She seemed about to say something else, when Fate walked into the room.

Fate had cleaned up nicely, and was wearing a casual shirt and slacks, having pulled her long, blonde hair into a side ponytail. Without looking up from the book in her hands, she called out, “Hey, Alice. Bad news. The– oh, sorry, the computer said Alice was in here.” She seemed a bit chagrined once she took in the scene.

“Hmph. Thank you, Ziggy, thank you VERY much for that,” Alice sighed, popping up from behind the cash register with a sigh. She was still dressed in the maid outfit.

Alijda snapped her gaze over towards her roommate. “You were SPYING on us?”

“I was quietly counting the receipts down here after serving your dessert,” Alice said, leaning her elbows onto the counter with a grin. “And for the record, I can take care of myself, thankyouverymuch.”

“Uh, Alice? This station exists outside of space and time, there should be no receipts there,” Kat pointed out.

Alice nodded sagely. “So I gotta make sure none randomly appear. Cuz that’d be weird.”

“Hey, great news,” Beam said, entering the room behind Fate, dragging Rose along with her. “My lesbian friend here no longer has the desire to lick at my neck whenever she sneezes!”

“Ahem. She means that the police smell tracking thing has worn off,” Rose said, her freckles getting a bit washed out by her reddening cheeks. “So I’m probably clear to leave.”

Beam grinned. “Can I joke about tasting, and which of us is sweeter, as a call back to your comment on the day we met? Or is that out of bounds?”

“Don’t say it in public,” Rose advised, the roll of her eyes implying Beam’s attitude was no longer getting to her quite as much. “Moreover, there’s been no side effects from my using math powers on that planet, and Alice said that the ability shouldn’t carry over to my normal reality. So yay?”

“Hey, that’s great,” Kat said, giving her a thumbs up. “But guys, me and Alijda were kinda in the midst of…"

Alijda laughed. “Oh, Kat, it’s fine. I think we were pretty much done. Besides, with Rose departing, I’m kind of curious as to who will end up being left in charge.”

Kat double-checked Alijda’s expression, noting her sincerity, before looking back to Rose. She was already looking at him. He nodded slightly at her; they’d had a brief conversation that morning about her possible selection.

Rose took in a deep breath. “Right. Well. Since there might be issues from higher goddesses if I pick either Alice or Beam, I decided that…" She turned. “Fate should be in charge. But, I mean, the others can stick around here to keep her company, and to make sure she doesn’t go crazy or something. If they want. This is okay, yes?”

Fate’s pencil slid out of the spine of her book and fell on the floor. “Oh. I… I was wondering how I’d return home after all this time. So I suppose this… as a transition… that is… I’m honoured.”

“Ooh, I have no problems being under a woman like Fate,” Beam said, her eyes twinkling.

“It’s Fate’s Wide Wheel[2],” Alice mused. She eyed everyone in the room, then face palmed. “Quantum Leap song. From Glitter Rock. Get WITH it, people, sheesh.”

Kat chuckled, then looked back at Fate. “Congratulations. I hope this means we can still keep in touch.” Fate nodded back at him, smiling a bit nervously.

“As to the bad news?” Alijda remarked, pushing her chair back from the table.

Fate blinked. “Oh! Yes. Well.” She tossed her book on the table. “It’s as I always suspected. Compton Senior? He didn’t come across his dimensional knowledge by accident. It was somehow fed to him. By someone else.”

Alice’s expression turned serious as she came around the counter. “That’s impossible. No one on that planet could have had the knowledge.”

“I know,” Fate said. “I didn’t say it was from someone on that planet.”

“Something to do with where the arm came from then?” Rose asked.

Fate shook her head. “Unlikely. The arm appeared later. Possibly as a result of Compton Senior’s efforts. His awareness had to precede that. Somehow, there was a space-time breach, and this Station didn’t know about it. As if the abduction thing wasn’t already a clue to it’s fallibility.”

“So we have a mystery on our hands,” Kat said, frowning.

“One that me and Alice will need get to the bottom of,” Beam decided, crossing her arms. “Now that Fate’s going to be handling the daily station duties.”

“Huh. Will you need our help with any of this?” Alijda wondered.

Fate picked her pencil up off the floor. “Time will tell,” she remarked, tossing it onto the table. “Only time will tell.”

[1] Have a “Maid-Sama!” OP. [2] Here’s a Doctor Who video with Scott Bakula singing.

END OF STORY 4: EPSILON DELTA

Preferred POV character from Story4? (* means ‘voted on at the time’) OPTIONS:

VOTING WILL LIKELY REMAIN OPEN (like the end of every full story)

EXTRA ASIDE:
Thanks for reading! I’ll likely do a “behind the scenes” separate post later, maybe with some stats, and then in 2018 we’ll head into “Virga Mysteries”. Still every two weeks, as there are edits, and I need to devote some time back to my math comic. There’s a Discord comic chat coming up for it in February and I want it to see new material. I’m also now writing monthly for the Time Travel Nexus. So I’m keeping busy.

EPSILON DELTA, PART FIFTEEN: ROSE TO THE OCCASION

Rose watched Alijda as the older brunette woman considered their next move. At last, Alijda stood and moved off of the tarp, rubbing the areas where she’d been tied up. “Well, Firestorm is the resident of this planet,” she concluded. “Might as well go with his plan.”

“Really?” Rose said, surprised. It wasn’t that she had anything against the idea of fire bombing Compton’s supply tent. She had simply expected a plan with more finesse to come up.

“Unless someone else has an objection,” Alijda clarified. “Plus I suppose you are technically still in charge of the Station, Rose. Are you good with us doing this?”

“Oh.” Well, her plan had been kind of shot down by Alice. “Uh, yeah, I suppose.”

“Then I’ll spread the word,” Alice chirped over the communicator. “Because we’ve got to get on this fast. Beam turned on her communicator after Alijda left, so I’m now tuned into the happenings of Compton’s tent. FYI, Ned’s on his way to tell the others that Alijda escaped. He also beat up Beam a little.”

“He did WHAT?” Rose shrieked, one hand clenching into a fist.

“He hath attacked your lady love,” Alice clarified. “Give ‘em hell, Rose.”

ROSEMARY THORNE
Commission from Lia[/caption]

Rose spun, staring towards the clearing. She couldn’t see it through the underbrush, but knew where it was. In part because Firestorm was sending up balls of fire, and Kat was making them burn up in the air as a distraction, one which was easy to spot in the darkness.

Presumably, the two of them would now start to smash their fire down into the clearing. Destroying Compton’s plans, while sowing enough confusion for Alijda to teleport Fate and Beam to safety. And as they did that, Rose would… watch.

After giving the order, all she could do was watch.

Her hand fell open. “I have no powers. I guess I’ll fold up the tarp here.”

Alijda cleared her throat. “Actually Rose, as much as I don’t want to have to do that blind teleport a second time, it would be good to keep the tarp here. Just in case.”

“Awesome. Means I’m zero help.”

Alijda reached for Rose’s hand, and Rose turned to see the older woman giving her a reassuring smile. “Oh, Rose. You’re the one who got us here. By sniffing out Beam. That helped.”

Rose shrugged. “Except anyone could’ve done it,” she pointed out. “If they’d been the one stamped by the police instead. But it’s cool,” she continued, before Alijda could speak up again. “You’re older and more experienced anyway. Go give ‘em hell on my behalf.”

Rose forced out a smile. Alijda still seemed to hesitate, until Alice’s voice came back over the communicators.

“Beam’s getting clear of the tent,” Alice announced. “Kat and Firestorm are starting their run.”

“Hell incoming,” Alijda assured Rose. She dashed off towards the clearing.

Rose nibbled on her lower lip. She activated her communicator. “Alice, can you let me know when Beam is all safe and sound? I mean, along with everyone else too. Obviously.”

“No problem,” Alice assured her. “If you want, while you’re waiting, you can think about who should take this station back from you. Once the problem’s been dealt with.”

“Oh, right,” Rose groaned. “Can’t it just be Beam again? Or you?”

“The all-knowing dimensional God could object,” Alice reflected. “But then, they might not have a leg to stand on. Given how Beam bringing you in did save the station, and me coordinating here now proves that I would still be an asset.”

“Gods might not even have legs in the first place,” Rose mused.

“They move in mysterious ways,” Alice affirmed. She then continued to hum, “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s all right. They move in mysterious ways.”

Rose ran her fingers back through her hair. Perhaps almost as important as who she chose for the job would be who she did NOT choose. Because what would Alice or Beam do if they weren’t working on Epsilon? For that matter, was there even anyone else to choose? Alijda had already said she wasn’t interested. What about Kat - or could having him be in charge cause problems for Alijda, putting their relationship into a chain of command.

“Oh, don’t pick a guy to run the place,” Alice added, as if reading her thoughts. “That’d be vetoed. I mean, can you even imagine a male administrator patrolling the multiverse? Ha! Men’s egos can be so fragile. Things would get seriously screwed up.”

Rose chuckled. “What’s that a quote from?”

“Not quoting, it’s just a truism. Oh, hey, hold on. These power readings are spiking, that shouldn’t be…" The humour vanished from her tone. “Everyone. Get out. Get out now, NOW, N–"

There was a blast of feedback from the communicator, making Rose wince and hold her arm out to the side. At the same time, the Earth shook. Moments later some sort of shockwave was projected out from the vicinity of the clearing, knocking Rose back on her ass.

Then things were eerily silent.

Rose did her best to shake it off, though she felt queasy. When she reopened her eyes, she saw a number of leaves and pine needles all around her on the ground, shaken free by the blast. For a moment, it seemed like there were even more trees surrounding her too - until Rose realized she had double vision again. She closed her eyes, counted to three, and when she looked once more, the problem had resolved itself.

Rose scrambled to her feet and ran for the clearing.

She nearly tripped over the blonde woman in the dark, but managed to sidestep her in time. Going down on one knee, Rose quickly felt for a pulse, only to realize that the woman was breathing.

Also, it wasn’t Beam. So with that hair, and more to the point that plain looking dress, it had to be Destiny. Or rather, Fate, the local potion master and Kat’s childhood friend.

“Hey, are you gonna be okay?” Rose asked, gently tapping at the woman’s cheek.

Fate moaned. “Today I’ve been kidnapped, tortured, and caught in a magical explosion, what do you think?” she grumbled. She cracked an eye open. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Rose Thorne,” the redhead said with an uncertain smile. “With Team Beam, trying to take down Compton and save you.”

“Oh, YOU’RE Rose,” Fate muttered. She tried to push herself up.

Rose wasn’t sure how to take that. She glanced back towards the clearing - it was now close enough to be seen through the trees, in fact some of those trees had been bent away from the area - and decided that, for right now, the stranger in front of her had to take precedence over her team. She helped support Fate into a seated position.

“I am indeed,” Rose agreed. “Can I help you?”

“Gimme a second.” Fate pressed her palm against her head, squinting at Rose through the darkness. “Huh. You don’t look like the most amazing lesbian anyone would ever meet, but then me and Beam didn’t have tons of time to talk while Compton was setting up camp.”

“Ah. Well, y’know, I’m not sure how many other lesbians Beam has really met,” Rose said. She hoped she wasn’t blushing foolishly.

Fate chuckled. “Ah, young love. Those were the days.”

Rose rubbed her neck. “So, um, did you get blown back here by that explosion?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“No,” Fate admitted, lowering her arm. “It was that teleporting woman. She pulled me away from Compton, we appeared here, she said she’d be right back, then she vanished in a purple cloud. Moments later, boom, and I’m on the ground. What happened, did Compton’s tent blow up or something?”

“I think so? At least, that was part of the plan,” Rose admitted. She tapped at her communicator. “Alice? Alice, what happened?” There was no answer.

Fate coughed. “Okay. So, bright side, Compton can’t use his fireworks and other explosives to force open a dimensional portal. Nor can he use his potions and other magical items to force open a dimensional portal. But, down side, I think those two things interacted in a negative way as they were taken out. Hopefully not in a way that opened a dimensional portal.”

“Dimensional portal bad, I get that,” Rose affirmed.

“Bad in the hands of Compton’s damn family is all,” Fate clarified, taking in a long breath.

Rose nodded. “Right. Well, give me a moment, I’ll go see if I can tell what happened.”

Rose began to push herself back to her feet, only to have Fate reach out and grasp her leg. “Wait, let me come,” she requested. “Sounds like you’re cut off from your friends, and I might be able to help diagnose the situation.”

Rose hesitated. Fate was bound to slow them down, but still, the woman had a point.

She reached her arm out. Fate grasped it, and Rose hauled her up to her feet. Fate smiled. “Thanks, Rose. So, do you have a thing for older women at all?”

Rose flinched. “What? No. That is, damn, I’m sure you’re a nice person and all but I didn’t even know you were–"

“Trying to lighten the mood,” Fate finished, interrupting. “Because you seem tense as all get out. Though I suppose the situation warrants tension. Sorry, it was a bad joke, let’s get a move on.”

“Right. I knew that, not really,” Rose said.

Apparently Fate had a weird sense of humour. Meaning she’d get along just fine with the rest of the Epsilon team. Actually… what if Fate were put in charge of Epsilon? Could that be a thing? Or would the trauma Fate had suffered here be a deterrent to being in charge? Rose made a mental note to ask Kat about it in private.

Assuming Kat was still okay after the mystical explosion.

The two of them crept closer to the clearing.

The first thing Rose saw was the bodies. Since the clearing was still magically lit, they were hard to miss. She started to charge in closer, only to have Fate grasp her shoulder, preventing the motion. “That can’t be good,” she muttered.

Rose turned to see what Fate was looking at. That’s when she saw what had to be Compton.

The short man with the scruffy beard was standing and whistling some distance away from the bodies, with one hand pointed at the ground. His other held Beam up by the ear. The blonde hologram was slumped on the ground, her eyes open, but seemingly blank. Rose’s hands had curled back into fists before she realized it.

Yet charging in was the wrong course of action. Rose shrugged off Fate’s grip, gliding behind the nearest tree, peering around it to get a better look at the situation.

The bodies she’d seen were those of Alijda and one of Compton’s henchmen. She now saw that Kat, Firestorm, and the other henchman were also lying prone on the ground. Before Rose could ask herself if they were okay, Compton turned to look down at something, and Firestorm was moving.

The cloaked man sat up, thrusting his arm forward and letting out a humming noise. A fireball appeared in the air, streaking towards Compton.

It bounced off an invisible wall, flying back in the direction it had come.

“Damn it,” Kat said. Rose watched as Firestorm rolled away, with the fireball striking the ground and quickly burning itself out as Kat stared at it.

“Oh, you thought I had to be watching you to bounce your attacks back?” Compton snarked, ceasing his whistle. “How wrong you are. No, no, this power, awakened in me by that explosion, you have no chance of defeating it. Not with such pathetic attacks. And soon, I’ll have bled out enough energy from this strange one” - he jerked Beam’s head by the ear - “to gain full mental control over this mystic doorway.”

“Well, that’s bad,” Fate muttered near Rose’s ear.

Compton turned to look at some trees. “You hear that, Destiny, wherever you are? You’ll rue the day you crossed me, make no mistake.”

“That’s worse,” Fate added. Compton resumed whistling.

Rose turned to face the older woman. “Can you work some of your symbol magic to stop him?”

“Hmph. If he were unconscious, maybe,” Fate said. “Seems like he’d resist most anything right now. I don’t suppose you have magic abilities that would knock him out?”

Rose shook her head. “I have zip all for magic. Unless you count the tracking spell the cops gave me.”

Fate frowned. “Oh? That’s bizarre. The police would only have given you that ability if you already had major magic potential. And even if it was dormant, that blast wave would have triggered something for you, since it also did for Compton… Rose, did you feel anything after the wave hit?”

“Nauseous,” Rose said. “And I also saw double for a bit, but that happened after I got stamped in the police station too. Oh, and earlier, in your place. I’m probably overexerting myself or something.”

“I don’t think so,” Fate said, her eyes widening. “Were you in the presence of strong magic each time you saw double?”

“Uh, I guess?” Rose realized. The protection spell, the tracking spell, and the explosion did make three for three. “Why is that important?”

“Because it means the magic inside you is resonating with your surroundings,” Fate explained. “I’m pretty sure it’s the same sort of resonance which allows for my occult symbols to work more tangibly on this Earth. In fact, if you’re not careful, the magical backlash could lead to you feeling kind of drunk.”

“Oh, now someone warns me,” Rose muttered.

Fate grasped her by the shoulders. “Rose, this is great. If you’re seeing double, you might actually have the power to double the things you see, be it temporarily, or as an illusion.” She frowned. “If only we could somehow coordinate your ability with my symbols…"

“Ha ha! I can feel it happening,” Compton shouted in delight. “Control over this mystical gateway. Soon, I will be unstoppable.” He began to whistle louder.

Rose snapped her gaze back towards the clearing. It looked like Kat had crawled over to Alijda to check on her. Perhaps hoping that her teleport ability would be able to get to Compton, but she remained unconscious. Firestorm was pushing himself to his feet, but he looked unsteady. And Beam, poor Beam looked catatonic.

With still no word from Alice, it was up to Rose. Rose, and her doubling ability. Which honestly, she should have recognized sooner - after all, she had once been Algebra, capable of multiplying emotions. Was this so different?

Rose turned back to Fate. “Could I also duplicate living matter?”

Fate blinked, lowering her arms. “I don’t know.”

An idea was forming. “Tell me how to activate my magic here.”

“It’s different for everyone. But it is sound based. Humming, whistling, even the sound of a sneeze can trigger something under the correct conditions.”

Sneezing, that would probably just turn her nose on. But vocal notes, as a choir member, Rose knew all about those. She thought back to the scream she’d used when rushing into Fate’s home, the first time she’d experienced her double vision. It would do.

“Okay, Fate. If this works, just tell one of me how to coordinate with your symbols. If it doesn’t, um, avenge me.”

“One of you? Rose, what–"

Rose evaded Fate’s outstretched hand, dodging around the tree trunks to emerge into the clearing, jogging towards Compton.

“Hmmmm, what have we here?” Compton said, again ceasing his whistling as he turned to look at her.

“Rose, run away,” Kat shouted.

Rose stopped and stood her ground about five metres away from Compton. She could now see that the hand he had pointing down was directed at some sort of stone circle, which was engraved with a clover.

“Here’s your only warning,” Rose said, raising her own hand to point, while wishing her arm wasn’t shaking. “Stop what you’re doing, and let your hostage go.”

Compton smirked back. “Or else what?”

Rose drew in a breath, tried to envision multiplication, and screamed at approximately a middle C. As expected, Compton reacted as he had with the fireball, and bounced her spell back. At least, she assumed that’s what had happened, as she felt not only her vision doubling, but everything else about her as well.

She took a step to the left, as she simultaneously took a step to the right.

Both Roses felt a little queasy at that, but she immediately screamed again, to take advantage of Compton’s confusion.

“What trickery is this?” Compton demanded, as Rose became four. Apparently sensing that he had an actual fight on his hands, he released Beam’s ear, throwing her aside as he took a step closer to one of the Roses.

Rose began to circle left, even as she circled right, each version vaguely aware that only the Rose second from the left had any real permanence. Yet her other selves knew they didn’t feel like an illusion, so for as long as they were around, well, perhaps it was time to test out their self defence courses.

“You’re about to find out,” the Roses chorused as one.

A faint giggle came from the ground as Beam’s eyes refocussed. “Ooooh. You. Pissed. Off. My. Girl. Friend.”

Four sets of Rose cracked their knuckles.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Who will be taking over the Epsilon Project? OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES NOON EST SATURDAY DECEMBER 16th

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED:
The double vision cauldron of Part 7 was a throwaway item for me to use anywhere, if I wanted. For all I knew then, it was specific to the item, or the location. But when Part 9’s vote picked Rose to be deputized, and the double vision returned in Part 10 (“see deuce”), Rose’s specific brand of magic became all but inevitable. The oracle did not prophesize Rose doubling herself here, but hey, whatever works.

EXTRA ASIDE:
I’m pretty sure we’re down to one last instalment, which will be posted over the holidays. Then we’ll go into whatever got selected out of this post, because it doesn’t make much sense to have a runoff vote now (most everything is tied). So, go vote again on your fave? It renews every week. In other news, “Time & Tied”’s rerun has finished on RRL, and there were some character votes there, if you felt like contributing or seeing results in the final post. Thanks as always for reading here; I’m blown away by there being 7 votes for a second time running.

EPSILON DELTA, PART FOURTEEN: TIED AND TRUE

“Wondering about Kat?”

Alijda looked up at the remark by Rose. While waiting for Kat to return from his scouting mission, Alijda had taken to leaning back against a tree, her arms crossed. She fired off a reassuring smile at the redhead. “I’m sure he can take care of himself just fine.”

“Oh, I know,” Rose said, clasping her hands behind her back. She leaned forwards a little. “I said wondering, not worrying.”

Alijda felt her smile becoming more of a smirk. “Ooh. First Alice, now you, huh?” she remarked, more amused than anything else. “Fear not. The two of us are possibly doing dinner, so there’s nothing more for anyone to wonder OR worry about.”

“Possibly doing?” Rose prompted.

Alijda shrugged. “We literally do not live on the same Earth. Makes reunions awkward. The weird thing is how, despite knowing that, I haven’t been able to simply forget about him. So I guess we’ll see what happens.” She gave Rose a pointed look. “Something you may want to consider regarding Beam.”

Rose seemed to pinken, though it was difficult to be sure now that the sun had set. “Nice deflection, but I hadn’t planned on forgetting about Beam.”

“You just hope to forget about the relationship issues she sparked.”

Rose pulled back and looked away.

Alijda quickly moved to grasp the young girl by the shoulder. “Hey, not judging,” she said. “Not by a long shot. Goodness knows I don’t know how to react to anyone who shows an interest in me, romantically or otherwise. It’s only, heads up, Beam is something you’ll need to deal with before this is over. And you might not have a lot of time to decide on a path, depending on how things play out. You know that, yes Rose?”

She sighed. “Yeah. Plus I’ve got to pawn off this Station Commander role onto someone else too.” Rose crinkled her nose. “Do you think, if I gave it back to Beam, that she’d be able to email into my dimension or whatever? Because I could see having her as a pen pal going forwards. If she doesn’t hate my guts after that rant I gave her.”

“Hm! That’s not a bad idea,” Alijda reflected. “Even if Beam’s not in charge, I might be able to hack something together.” She wiggled her eyebrows as she pulled her arm back. “All you’ll need to do find a way to explain to your girlfriend why your new blonde pen pal keeps emailing you images of herself in sexy lingerie. I’ve heard that’s a tradition where Beam’s from.”

Rose’s eyes went wide. The mixed look of fear and confusion on her face gradually morphed into one of chagrin as she saw Alijda’s expression. “Oh. You’re joking. Um, right?”

“Mostly,” Alijda said. “Just remember, Beam’s ways are not your ways, plus she’s a hologram to boot. Don’t be afraid to set ground rules.”

“For sure,” Rose agreed, rubbing her neck.

“If you two ladies are done chit chatting, I can hear Kat coming back,” Firestorm remarked dryly, walking past them.

“Oh golly, we’ll swap makeup tips some other time then,” Alijda deadpanned. Rose let out a quick laugh. Firestorm didn’t seem to notice.

The three of them walked over to meet Kat as he approached through the underbrush.

“So Compton and Co are up to something,” Kat concluded after giving them a quick rundown of what he’d seen at the clearing. “The question is, how do we stop whatever this guy is up to, while also spiriting Beam and Fate out of there safely.”

“You’re sure the Destiny woman was your Fate?” Alijda verified, searching Kat’s expression. His voice had caught when describing her. Would his personal stake in things become an issue?

“I’m sure,” Kat said, clenching his jaw. “We’ve got to save her.”

“Should that be our priority though?” Rose asked.

Kat rounded on her, his body tensing, and the young girl shrank back in surprise. Alijda reached out to touch Kat’s shoulder.

“Please clarify?” she asked gently, looking at Rose.

Rose cleared her throat. “Um. Just, seems like this Compton guy feels he has something to prove. What if removing Fate, his key source of information, drives him into doing a boneheaded thing later on instead of backing down?”

“In which case I’d hope your plans don’t involve you simply waltzing away,” Firestorm grumbled.

“You’re right, Rose,” Alijda agreed. “We do need more information before we act.” She released Kat’s shoulder as she felt his posture relaxing. Though his jaw remained clenched.

“Do you know anything more about Compton’s intentions?” Kat asked, looking at Firestorm.

“No. I’m not the font of knowledge you seem to think I am,” the planetary resident insisted.

“We need to talk to Beam,” Rose put in. “I mean, wasn’t her whole plan to learn more? She doesn’t know we’re out here now, worried. She might have real good ideas, if we can get to her, as she’s seen this guy up close.”

“Another good point,” Alijda yielded. “The question is, how can anyone get to Beam when she’s in that tent, without causing Compton to overreact?”

They exchanged glances. Kat sighed. “I have a thought,” he admitted. “But I don’t like it, because it involves putting someone else in danger.”

“Let’s hear it anyway,” Alijda said.

When Alijda teleported into the clearing, she made a point of trying to arrive near the spot that Kat said Compton had been pointing at earlier. That helped her to see the stone circle on the ground, two steps away, with some sort of engraving on it. Possibly a four leaf clover? Interesting.

She didn’t have much time to think about it though, because her presence in the purple cloud of smoke had attracted everyone’s attention in the area. She raised her hands into the air as Compton’s security guy pointed a gun at her.

“Oh, golly!” Alijda said, trying to put a quaver into her voice. “What happened? However did I get here? What’s going on?”

Compton, the shorter man with the beard, had been in the process of doing something with a potion, looming over Destiny, who was on the ground. Or rather, Fate - Alijda supposed she should start thinking of the woman that way. They hadn’t been sure what Compton had been trying to accomplish from the edge of the clearing, but Alijda saw it now. He’d been cutting Fate with a knife, then applying a healing potion, as some sort of torture technique.

Alijda hated the guy immediately. She forced her expression to remain neutral.

Compton pulled Fate back to her feet, pointing at Alijda. “How is this possible?” he demanded of her. “How can people be coming through that thing before I’ve fully opened it?!”

“I still don’t know, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” Fate said tearfully. She spat at his feet.

Bonus points to Fate. Alijda took a few steps forwards, her arms still up, to help pull everyone’s gaze back to her. “Can you send me back now?” she asked. “I’d hate to be late for my CyberArm class.”

Only Alijda noticed Fate’s eyes widen slightly. She the woman gave a hopeful smile in response.

“Stop where you are,” Compton’s man said, waggling his gun to arrest Alijda’s forward motion.

“Hey, Ned,” Compton called out at the same time. “Bring more rope out here, we’ve got another one.”

In less than a minute, Ned had emerged, and Alijda had had her arms bound behind her. She was then pulled towards the tent. “I can walk,” she said, petulantly.

“You can shut up,” Ned countered. He pushed her inside and she nearly fell on her face.

The tent was big enough to fit four people comfortably, and contained a few rolled up sleeping bags, implying that Compton had planned on camping out for a while. Granted, that could be due to his coming into the area from another town. The open container of potions and what looked like a supply of fireworks was a bit harder to explain away. Compton had a plan, but what was it?

“Oh!” was Beam’s only exclamation as Ned marched in behind Alijda, pushing her over next to the holographic girl.

Alijda fired off a smile at Beam as Ned got busy tying up her legs. “Hi again. Rose is worried about you,” she remarked.

Beam looked away. “No,” she sighed. “Rose hates–"

“–being drunk,” Alijda finished. “It makes her say silly things she regrets. Gotta get used to us humans being irrational, Beam.”

Beam turned back, a hopeful look on her face. Ned stood up and brushed off his hands. “Do I have to gag you, girlie? Or will you shut up?” he asked.

Alijda glared at him. “Do I have to spell out the fact that we know each other and obviously came from the same place? Or does your boss not care to have that information?”

Ned glared back. He looked from her, to the front of the tent, and back. Then he reached into a nearby pack, pulling out a towel. Stuffing one corner of it into Alijda’s mouth, he then turned and walked back outside.

Alijda gave his back a nasty look. She turned back towards Beam, glancing down at the towel which was protruding from between her lips, which she couldn’t easily spit out. Beam leaned in close, grabbing the material between her own teeth, and she pulled it free. Alijda tried to spit out the aftertaste.

“At least these guys are idiots,” she said.

CHIBI BEAM
Commission from Gen Ishihara

“Which is bad,” Beam insisted. “Very bad, considering what they know and what they’re attempting.”

Alijda caught the undercurrent of fear in Beam’s tone. “Okay. I’m all ears, and ready to teleport away again with the information,” she said.

Beam glanced towards the tent flap.

“Don’t worry, Kat and Firestorm are ready with a distraction to buy us more time if we need,” Alijda insisted. “What have you found out?”

Beam nodded. “Right. Well, you’ll need the backstory. I learned it when they left me and Destiny together while they were setting up camp. She told me it all started with Compton’s father. A man who abducted people from other worlds, recruiting them to work here, for him.”

Alijda flinched. “Wait. So Destiny - who is Fate, by the way - was abducted?”

Beam nodded again. “Compton Sr. had some way of scrambling people’s minds, giving them false histories so they wouldn’t want to go back home. But it didn’t work on Dest– Fate,” Beam corrected herself. “Possibly because she carried her own ward of protection. She even escaped from him. Tried to get local authorities to go after Compton Senior, but her story was too fantastical, and he was too influential. Plus the guy was smart, shutting down his activities when she began pointing fingers.”

“Damn. So he was a successful businessman largely due to illicit abductions from other magical worlds,” Alijda reasoned. “Did he take items as well as people?”

“Probably. So, this left Fate resigned to living out her days here, because it didn’t seem like anyone knew of other Earths at all. Of course, she did try to find people living here who might be like her, creating her club of people with powers not-quite-right for this world. But she never told them her history, fearing they might simply be locals with quirks.”

Alijda frowned. “But then why would Compton’s son now be–" It came to her. “He inherited everything when his dad passed away. He must have found information in his dad’s records, and wants to start this whole portal thing back up. To become a success story. Hoping Fate can fill in any missing pieces towards re-activating it.”

“Bingo. And he got to Fate using that Ned guy,” Beam added. “Managed to get him on her list, then boom, abduction.”

“And the cyber arm?” Alijda wondered.

Beam made a shrugging motion. “Fate found it in the clearing one day. After all, this apparently IS a dimensional weak point. She didn’t want to leave it around for anyone else to find, but hoped that despite removing it, it would phase back into her world at some future time. Hence the symbol she placed on it.”

Alijda nodded, and was about to ask another question, when there were a couple of shouts from outside the tent.

“Damn, we’re almost out of time,” she realized. “Beam, do you know how best to stop Compton?”

Beam shook her head. “All I know is he’s planning a ritual, and we can’t underestimate him. He knows things through whatever his father left behind. The only reason he’s waited to act on the stuff outright is out of a fear that he’ll end up trapped on some other world. Hence his nabbing of Fate. But if he’s cornered, who knows what he’ll do.”

Alijda nodded. “Pity we’ve still got Firestorm with us, or we could just portal everyone here up to the Station and sort it out from there.”

Beam snickered. “It amuses me that you think Epsilon has that much power,” she said. “But even so, Compton’s two friends still think he’s a bit nuts. We don’t want to give his stories more credence. I kind of regret claiming that I appeared from another place as it is, and am kind of hoping we can claim to be part of a joke that Compton himself set up for them.”

“Mmmm.” Alijda glanced towards the front of the tent as the shouting got louder. “Once I’m out of here, can you go holographic?”

“I’d need to be able to touch my earring,” Beam admitted. “Also, physical objects on my person phase with me, so I’d still be tied up. Even assuming my power reserves are enough to do it.”

“You want to come with me then?”

Beam shook her head. “I won’t leave Fate with them. Underneath it all, I’m still a hologram. Even if they cut me, my blood isn’t real, so better me than her.”

Alijda imagined that while Beam’s blood might not be ‘real’, it’d still hurt like hell, given how the blonde girl’s reactions had been programmed to mimic that of humans. But there wasn’t time to argue, plus maybe Beam could phase, once freed.

“I can at least help with your hands,” Alijda reasoned, given her ability to decide whether to take objects with her on a teleport or not. “Show me the ropes. Alice, it’s time to check in with Rose!”

“Roger wilco,” came Alice’s voice. “Apologies to any pilots listening in who are cringing and want to smack me.”[1]

“You kept the comms open,” Beam realized. “Smart. Sorry I couldn’t activate my own communicator once they got me.” She flipped over to present her back to Alijda, her arms bound tightly together behind her.

Alijda edged down towards Beam’s bottom, closing her mouth over the end of the rope and closing her eyes. She visualized the predetermined area in her mind, and that she wanted to be there with with the ropes.

Gods, but she hated teleporting blind. Even with live surveillance cameras, there was always the chance that something would turn up at just the wrong moment, or that there was some nigh invisible wire that would end up perforating her body, or…

“Rose says you’re good, Alijda,” came Alice’s voice.

‘My life’s in their hands,’ Alijda thought. She teleported.

With her eyes closed, she didn’t experience any visual disorientation, but there was a bit of motion sickness as she fell the half metre onto Firestorm’s tarp, the one Kat and his group had used earlier for his communication ritual. They’d set it out earlier for this very reason.

Alijda spat Beam’s ropes out of her mouth after she landed - seriously, she could use some mouthwash after this mission - and drew in a huge lungful of air. She seemed to be alive, if still trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Blinking her eyes open confirmed that she had made it to the prearranged failsafe location.

“She’s here,” Rose’s voice said from behind her. “Uh, you want me to untie you, Alijda?”

“Please,” Alijda rasped. “I’m a little too shaken up to teleport out of these at the moment.”

She heard Rose’s feet approaching on the tarp, and then the redhead was looming over her, fiddling with the ropes binding her hands. “Alice passed on most of what she heard to us,” Rose assured. “But the only real plan we have remains Firestorm’s preference for launching fireballs at their tent.”

Alijda chuckled. “Well, that would set off the fireworks they have in there, so it’s sure to mess up whatever their goals are,” she remarked. “But that’s risky.”

“Even given Kat’s ability to control fire?”

“Hmmm, point. Still, our best bet might be subterfuge,” Alijda decided. “They’re not that smart. We could make Compton think he’s awakened some sort of dimensional gods his father had offended. Scare him away for good. I think Fate would play along.”

Then again, as she said it, she realized that might only add credence to his beliefs. The very thing Beam had hoped to avoid.

Rose sat back as she pulled Alijda’s ropes free. “There’s no way the Project could simply shore up this dimensional spot then?” she asked. “Making all of Compton’s efforts totally moot?”

“Oh, we could totally do that,” Alice’s voice offered up through the communicator. “The problem is it’d take time, and the process further weakens the forces, much like how waves pull back from a shoreline before a tsunami. Do we really want to risk that when Compton might know how to drive a wedge in?”

Alijda chewed on her lower lip as she considered the options.

[1] When I looked up the phrase, I learned “roger” means ‘received and understood’ while “wilco” means ‘will comply’, making both words together rather redundant.

OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES NOON EST SATURDAY DECEMBER 2nd

EXTRA ASIDE:
I had another medical appointment a couple days ago. Life’s stabilizing, I think we’re back on a two week schedule here. In other news, I wrote a post for the “Time Travel Nexus” about a “Back to the Future” comic book, and my NaNoWriMo for “Time Untied” has reached 25k (though Carrie’s still only on day three of University). It’s going to be an undertaking; I’ll keep poking away. Thanks for reading here - wow, and 7 votes last time!

EPSILON DELTA, PART THIRTEEN: SEARCH AND RE-SKEW

They had soon left the vicinity of the village entirely, Rose continuing her enthusiastic jog through the fields, occasionally pausing to sniff the air once more.

“It’s been over fifteen minutes,” Kat mused to Alijda as they kept pace. “What’s the range of this spell I wonder?”

Alijda shrugged. “Maybe Rose isn’t homing in? If she’s tracking Beam, could be we’re simply retracing her route. And as a hologram, Beam could move pretty quickly.”

“I guess,” Kat yielded. He sighed. “If only I’d had Rose wait outside the police station.”

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Alijda retorted.

Kat chuckled. “I seem to recall using that argument on you once.”

“Hmph,” the brunette said. “Bear in mind that you’ve also been fortunate - or possibly unfortunate - enough to have been placed in an advisory role to the people who are actually in charge twice now. Namely me and Rose. There’s a good chance you couldn’t have changed Rose’s mind about something any more than you could have changed mine.”

“I’ve gone rogue before. Hallucinogenic gas,” Kat reminded her.

“Oh, well, you’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you.”

“Not everything.” Kat wondered about filtering his next thought even as he spoke it aloud. “Not you.”

Alijda didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I haven’t made that easy. Did I even properly thank you for saving my life last mission?”

Kat hesitated. “In your own way.”

Alijda winced. “Meaning no. I was mostly focussed on Chris, and myself. So thank you. And know that I have been working on being less negative, and some of that is thanks to you as well.”

Kat eyed Alijda, remembering what she’d been saying right before Rose had regained consciousness. “I was getting that vibe. That’s good. But don’t feel you need to do it for me.”

ALIJDA VAN VLIET Commission from Shirochya[/caption]

They fell silent again, climbing over a fence as Rose continued her tracking. At last, Alijda spoke up again. “Kat, do we have a thing?” she asked, without looking at him directly. “Or, that is, might we have a thing? A together thing? If I don’t sabotage it? Or am I imagining things?”

“Hey, I have already seen your underwear,” Kat remarked, before he could stop himself. He rolled his eyes, pushing off from the ground a little harder than necessary on his next stride. “Sorry. Bad time to joke.”

Alijda didn’t answer.

“We might have a thing,” Kat granted after a few more paces. “Though this Destiny/Fate situation has me more than a little mixed up right now. Also, remember how I’m not the most mature person as far as relationships go. You think you can deal with that?”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Alijda said after a bit. “Am I hearing you’d be willing to give an actual dinner with me a try sometime though? Assuming Epsilon allows it?”

“Dinner works,” Kat agreed. “Do you like Thai food?”

Alijda finally looked over at him, offering up a small smile. “We can negotiate.”

He fired a smile back at her, and the two of them resumed their jog after Rose.

As they were coming up on more of a forested area, the young redhead tripped and went sprawling, letting out another sneeze. She managed to roll and come up on one knee, only to let out a whimper. “Oh noooo, it’s GONE.”

“What’s gone, the scent?” Kat asked, coming up next to her. She turned to look up at him and nodded.

“A sneeze to turn tracking on, a sneeze to turn it off?” Alijda hypothesized as she joined them.

“Oh, that could be,” Rose realized. She stood and turned to look at the closest tree, only a few paces away. “I feel like I was getting close too. Should I tickle my nose to turn it on again? Or would that intoxicating smell convince me to run into some kind of trap?”

“It’s starting to get dark, and we wouldn’t want to lose track of you in there,” Kat added. “Let’s have a quick look around first. See if there’s signs that anyone’s come this way.”

The group started to walk along the tree line, looking for a path or obvious entry point into the underbrush. It wasn’t long before Kat heard some noises. An animal? He held up a hand and flattened himself against a tree trunk, Alijda and Rose following suit nearby.

Something was definitely approaching their position. And as much as it had made sense for them to come down without weapons, that did feel like an oversight now. All they had on hand was Beam’s jeans. Then again… Kat reached into his pocket for his matchbook. He could manage something with fire, in a pinch.

Fortunately, it didn’t turn out to be necessary. Even in the fading light, Kat recognized the human figure as he jogged out into the open a few paces away.

“Firestorm,” Kat called out.

The redhead spun in place and nearly fell over. “Don’t DO that,” he accused, brushing off his robes before shaking what looked like Destiny’s diary in their direction. “You’re as bad as your blonde companion for sneaking up on people.”

“Beam?” Rose said, stepping forward. “Do you mean you’ve seen Beam?”

“Yeah, sure, we teamed up,” Firestorm said, lowering his arm.

“Then where is she?” Rose asked, turning to look at the trees.

“Caught by the enemy,” Firestorm said, shrugging.

Rose’s gaze snapped back to him. “WHAT?”

“Look, that wasn’t MY decision,” Firestorm sighed. “But Beam figured being intentionally caught would provide her with useful information. I was just on my way back to tell you guys what had happened.”

“Why did you even run off in the first place?” Alijda asked.

Firestorm peered. “Who in blazes are you?”

“Time out,” Kat sighed. “I think we need a moment here to get caught up.”

After a quick introduction to Alijda, Firestorm answered her question. He explained that he’d seen mention in Destiny’s diary of a “dimensional weak point” with occasional activity “around sunset”. So he’d headed off to check out the area, not wanting to miss the time frame. Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to find the clearing that she had described.

“What I DID stumble onto,” Firestorm concluded. “Was Compton and two of his friends, with Destiny in tow, all tied up. They seemed to be looking for this dimensional thing too.”

“You haven’t mentioned Compton before,” Kat accused.

Firestorm snorted. “Not much to mention. His father was a big shot a few towns over, because he managed to become a pretty successful businessman. Guy passed away a couple years back, and Compton inherited everything, but he is pretty clueless. Both in business and in interpersonal skills. I sure wouldn’t have figured him to resort to kidnapping.”

“So what would motivate kidnapping Destiny?” Alijda wondered.

Firestorm rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe he wanted her for her potions, stumbled into whatever you guys are looking into, and is now hoping that Destiny has dimensional knowledge he can use to make it big? Honestly, I’m not even sure how he pulled off the abduction in the first place. Maybe he was coached?”

“Or there’s something bigger going on here,” Kat cautioned. “What did Compton say to you when you ran into him?”

“Whoa, whoa, I didn’t let myself be seen by that guy,” Firestorm protested. “Just heard his crew stumbling around in the underbrush and hid, to see what I could learn. And what I learned, I’ve already explained. It’s as I was backing away from them, figuring I might need backup, that I ran into that Beam woman again.”

Rose leaned forwards, looking worried. “Oh yes?”

“Yeah, she just seemed to be running right through, uh, everything. That’s a hell of a power, by the way. I made motions to flag her down, lest she freak out Compton and initiate an unfortunate chain of events. She came to her senses long enough to listen to me, and we decided to team up to help free Destiny. Beam apparently wanted to ‘do something right for a change’, whatever that means.”

Rose winced, as Firestorm paused, eyeing the rest of them. “And that’s when Beam proposed getting herself caught. To learn more. And given her ability to pass right through stuff, it didn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“Except it turned out to be a bad idea?” Kat said dryly.

“Eh, maybe? I’ll let you be the judge,” Firestorm decided. “Beam marched out to attract Compton’s attention while I hid and watched. She pretended like she’d come through a portal and wanted their help to know where she was. Compton was intrigued at first, but freaked the heck out once he realized she was some sort of ghost. Screamed at his friends to tie her up.”

“Oh no. And Beam didn’t run away at that?” Rose said, clasping her hands together.

Firestorm shook his head. “She doubled down, saying ‘I can be corporeal if you want’ even as Compton screamed at her to ‘Get on the ground’. She must have turned her magic power off too, because one of Compton’s guys was able to tie her hands behind her back. And after Beam wouldn’t explain to them what part of the forest she’d come from, she was gagged too. That’s when I figured I should hightail it back to Destiny’s place, to get you for backup.”

“So Beam’s been with them for a while and might have useful information by now, we simply can’t get to her,” Kat reasoned.

Rose’s palms separated into fists. “Well, he’s messed with the wrong girl. One sneeze, and I’ll have us back at Beam’s side in no time. As long as Firestorm being here doesn’t mix me up.”

“Um, I’ll try not to?” Firestorm said, scratching his head.

“Hold on,” Alijda said, crossing her arms and leaning against a tree trunk. “No need for us to charge in. This is kind of perfect, actually.”

“Perfect?” Rose gasped. “Alijda, how can you say that?”

As a response, Alijda reached down to tap at her communicator. “Hey, Alice?”

“Hey Abbott![1]” Alice’s voice chirped in response.

Alijda rolled her eyes. “Remember how you were wondering how to abduct a person who is insubstantial?”

“Ooh, doing six impossible things before breakfast down there, are you? I hope one of them was talking to Kat.”

Alijda coughed, as Kat let out a quiet chuckle. “Fo-cus, Gods Alice,” Alijda said. “Beam’s become less holographic. Meaning not only is she caught, but you should be able to pick up her communicator now.”

“Oh? Gimme a second, I’ll check.”

“You figure we can track her,” Rose realized. “Maybe even listen in on what’s happening.”

Alijda nodded. “And more than that, if Beam’s been kidnapped, this becomes an Epsilon mission again. We’re within our rights to interfere.”

Kat rubbed his chin. That seemed like a bit of a reach, given how Beam had created the situation herself. But if it helped them to pursue the goal of getting Destiny back, he wasn’t about to object.

Firestorm threw his hands up into the air. “Okay, seriously, who ARE you people?”

Kat looked over at him. “I don’t think you really want to know the answer,” he remarked. “After all, your imagination can probably dream up something far more interesting than reality, and we’ll be leaving soon enough anyway.”

Firestorm looked Kat up and down. “So you’re some sort of magical special ops unit? Looking into these portals?”

Alice’s voice came back over the comm. “If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…"[2]

“Alice, do you have a fix on Beam?” Alijda interrupted, palming her face.

“Yup, got that,” Alice confirmed immediately. “At least, I presume it’s Beam, I don’t know what else this signal could be. She’s about a kilometre away, in some sort of clearing within that forest region.”

Firestorm grimaced. “So Compton and his buddies found the clearing.”

“Is that bad?” Rose wondered. “What did Destiny’s diary say about it?”

“Not much,” Firestorm admitted. “Just that she’d used some of her occult tricks to pinpoint it, yet had no idea how to open an actual portal.”

“Could be how Destiny got the cyber arm,” Alijda mused. “If it came through there?”

“Maybe,” Kat said. “Though given her tendency to ask travellers about objects, maybe she traded for it or something.”

“Either way, we need a plan to get Beam and Destiny out of this Compton’s clutches,” Rose broke in. “Alijda, maybe your teleport…?"

“Limited to one person at a time,” Alijda said. “Meaning the first retrieval would tip them off.”

“Not if we arrange a distraction,” Kat remarked.

“Hold on. Once you get your people, what then?” Firestorm protested. “You just leave? What if Compton’s doing something illegal, are you just going to let him get away with it and prosecute him later?”

Kat exchanged a glance with Rose and Alijda. They couldn’t really interfere with that - except what if it was dimensional? “Firestorm’s got a point. Maybe Alijda should try to get more information before springing them. Beam might even be able to do something from the inside, even goad Compton into spilling the beans on his plans, if he hasn’t already.”

Alijda let out a breath. “Careful, Kat. How much of this is our fight?”

“We won’t know until we have more information,” he insisted.

“Information that we might get at this clearing,” Rose supplied. “If it looks like Compton’s setting up weird ritualistic rocks or something, that could tell us everything we need to know.”

“My fellow redhead has good advice,” Firestorm remarked. “One thing at a time. Now, do we have to walk there, or do your supernatural abilities allow for a more instantaneous transportation?”

They walked. Even if power had been fully restored to the Station, Kat knew that providing Firestorm with even more evidence of what they might be capable of could only be problematic in the long run.

As they got close, Kat offered to scout up ahead. He had a certain amount of experience through his military training, and while Alijda could vanish faster with her teleportation, the purple smoke she left behind was a dead giveaway. Even if it was dark by now.

On the one hand, a quick surveillance of the clearing showed that Compton and his men weren’t doing anything obvious that might involve creating a portal or otherwise affecting the dimensions. However, they’d set up a tent, added perimeter lighting using some sort of spell, and one of the guys seemed to be keeping an eye out for anyone watching them, implying suspicious behaviour.

Kat was just about to retreat when he saw her.

Compton - it had to be him based off of Firestorm’s description, a shorter man with a scruffy beard - pulled her out of the tent. Destiny. Her long blonde hair trailed behind her as he muscled her over to a part of the clearing and pointed at the ground. Kat couldn’t properly hear what they were saying, but he was more fixated on Destiny’s features. Her mannerisms, even with her hands tied behind her back. And he couldn’t be certain, not a hundred percent, but on some level, he knew. He knew.

After years of searching, he had finally located Fate Wallace-Wray. His childhood friend.

[1] From “Abbott and Costello”, parodied here. [2] …the A-Team. (Or this crew, I suppose.)

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES NOON EST SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18th

EXTRA ASIDE:
I’m leaving the vote open for two weeks, as I indicated in this post, which gives me time to deal with report cards as I return to work from medical leave. Plan is to have another part up for the last weekend of the month. Thanks for sticking with me. In other news, I’m doing a sort-of NaNoWriMo on Time Untied. We’ll see how that goes. Consider a TWF vote for Time & Tied? Thanks.

Sorry everyone. No “Epsilon Project: Epsilon Delta” update today, or for the foreseeable future. After over 3 years of keeping to a schedule, I have finally met my match. I cannot teach a completely new course at school (namely Computer Science, a subject for which my qualifications are 10 years out of date) and hope to have any sort of other life. Which is a problem, because other things are happening in said life.

To cope, I started clawing back social events in late September. They’re pretty draining anyway. Then it was extra curricular efforts at school. More recently, earlier this week, I completely dropped social media in the hope that it might give me time to write an entry here. Nope. (Spent time dealing with the damn course.) I can’t keep up. We’ve reached the point of actual panic attacks at work. I’ll be seeing a doctor in the foreseeable future.

I tend to be “off” or “on” - I’m switching to “off”. Serial, off. Math comic, off. Recreational writing, off. Mental health thing. I’ve been here before, just not for this particular brand of misery. (I’m used to being down on myself, not down on my job.)

I don’t know how this will play out. I do know the following:

-If I end up with some sort of stress medical leave, the first thing I “resume” writing will be some reviews for the “Time Travel Nexus”. Because they’ve recently extended a branch, and that’s an incredible opportunity, and something I really want to do. It also gets me back into time travel, hence closer to “Time Untied”. So it’ll be a while for my personal blogs.

-I will post some sort of update here before the end of November. My HOPE is that it’s the next “Epsilon” entry, and if so, I’ll keep voting open for a couple weeks and gear back into it gradually. See, I know WHAT I want write I just have NO TIME. Also, everything’s a misery because of the millstone around my neck. I do really want “Epsilon” to be done before the annual horror that is late January though, so that I can start into pre-written material (blogged about here, voting still open). Again, we’ll see how this plays out.

-Related, if you follow my comic, the plan is to resume there only once “Epsilon” finishes here. Running the both of them at once was crazy, each of them takes me about 6-8 hours to do, effectively an entire Saturday every two weeks. I can’t spend my weekends doing things I enjoy any more. Not feasible.

-If I can, I’ll probably poke a stick at NaNoWriMo next month, using it as a vehicle for coaxing myself out of the deep well of computer-related anxiety I’ve found myself in. I knew last month I’d have no hope of 50k, report cards being a thing. I now wonder if 10k is even feasible. A draft of “Time Untied” probably won’t see the light of day before 2019 at this rate. But again, we’ll see.

-This is key: There’s another EXCELLENT interactive serial out there, “Redwood Crossing”. I’ve actually been able to almost keep up with reading it these past six weeks (to the exclusion of other blogs). Many cute girls. You should check that out in my absence, kaleidofish is good people. Voting’s still open to the end of Sunday.

-The other thing you can do if you like is keep tabs on this Facebook Author page I have for tracking purposes. To know when I’m back. Or find me as “mathtans” most everywhere on the web, since FB doesn’t like to update people on my existence.

Thanks for reading. To the four or five people who actually vote, my extra thanks. I hope you’ll be back in a month, or six weeks, or next year, or however long it takes to get joy back into my life. Peace out.

EPSILON DELTA, PART TWELVE: Non Scents

“The next move… should be yours, Rose,” Kat remarked.

Rose listened as Kat and Alijda caught her up on what had happened since she’d fallen unconscious. At one point, she had to force herself to focus on their words, rather than listen to the inner voice that was screaming at her about how any decision she made here would mess things up again. The way she had messed up with Beam.

When they finished explaining, Rose rubbed her nose, wondering idly if it was going to be perpetually itchy now that she was the vessel for some magical tracking spell.

“O-Okay.” Rose bit on the edge of her tongue, trying to swallow the quaver in her voice. “Okay,” she repeated, closing her eyes momentarily. There was only one right thing to say here. She turned to Kat. “So, we go after Firestorm.”

Kat crouched down in front of where she sat on the bench, to better meet her gaze. “Rose, are you sure?”

Rose let out a quick laugh. “Oh, heck no. I mean, I think the Destiny thing might lead us into a trap, so that’s out. But while my heart says to patch things up with Beam, my head says Firestorm. And in the end, he’s closer to the mission here, right? Get the diary back, figure Destiny out. So, we track him. Beam will find her own way back to the Station. She doesn’t need me.”

Rose held Kat’s gaze levelly until he nodded, and turned to look up at Alijda. “You have Firestorm’s note?”

“Mmm hmmm,” Alijda responded. There was a silence then, to the point where Rose had started turning her own head to see what the older woman was doing. “We’re not going after him though,” Alijda finished.

Kat stood back up. “Alijda…"

“Come on, Kat. We can’t,” Alijda said. She pointed at Rose. “We’re not going to leave this poor girl to wonder for months about how her situation might have turned out better, if only she’d made a different decision in this moment. Because I know what that’s like. Both given my history, and given… I mean, listen, it’s even more terrible when this is filtered through Epsilon, because you can’t simply call up someone you’ve wronged. Not when they’re in another multiverse. So, I’m contacting Alice, to send something of Beam’s down. We’re going after Beam, and that’s all there is to it.”

Rose tried to smile bravely. “Alijda, that’s not necess–"

“Don’t care, doing it anyway.” Alijda spun on her heel and walked a couple paces away, tapping at her communicator.

Rose stared at Alijda’s back, then slumped to look at the ground. So she was screwing it all up regardless. Damn it. She ground her palm in against her freckled nose. It didn’t help with the itching.

A moment later, Kat sat back down next to her, and reached out to pat her shoulder. “Alijda does have a point,” he soothed. “This mission, it’s becoming more about feelings than logic. Given how the logical thing would have been to leave as soon as we’d figured out Beam’s memory loss. Right? But I want to connect with Fate. The same way you want to with Beam. So let’s follow your heart, and let Beam lead us to Destiny.”

“Hah. Me, connect with Beam?” Rose scoffed. “I told the poor girl to go away forever. Because of how I’m attracted to her. Which is my issue, not hers. It’s not even the same attraction as my Paige-love, with Beam it’s this… this… ugh, it’s so confusing. I don’t even know what I’ll say to Beam now. It’s all so… agh.”

Rose slid her palm from her nose up across her eye while turning her head to the side.

“Kat, you ever wanted to be someone else?”

Kat reached his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing. “Not really? I mean, the pyrokinesis took some getting used to, but I’ve accepted it as a part of me.”

“I ask because, see, I wanted to be Paige,” Rose clarified. “After I met her. It took a while, but eventually I realized that what I truly wanted was to have Paige as a constant presence in my life. Like, to always be surrounded by Paige’s pleasant demeanour, by that cute French accent, and oh God, by those long, gorgeous legs…" Rose felt her heart rate increasing. She pulled her brain back on track.

“The thing of it is, the more I learn about Beam, the more I want to be her too,” Rose admitted. “Her attitude of, oh yeah, I’m a lesbian, I know what I want, and rawr, girl power all the way - it’s like, that’s sexy. Or at least, it’s a goal of mine too. So there’s an attraction there, but… well, is it a surround me with that kind of attitude desire? Because I’m acting like it’s a surround me in a sexy way desire. Which is supposed to be my Paige feelings. I think I’m defective.”

Kat chuckled softly. “Rose, you’re not defective. If anything, this explains why you resent so much how Beam was able to turn off her sexual feelings towards you. You want to do that with her, so it’s yet another aspect of Beam that you wish you had yourself.”

“Meaning you also think those feelings are there.” Rose looked back at the ground, wishing her nose would stop itching. “What bugs me is, while I couldn’t turn my feels off with Angie back in high school, I could at least rationalize them away. So why is it so much harder now? I mean, sure, I’m more hella gay, but I’m also older and wiser. So how can I possibly see Beam as being attractive when I’m already dating someone else?”

“Honestly? How could you not see Beam that way,” Kat said. “She’s a cutey.”

Rose frowned. She turned her head back to check his expression, but he didn’t look like he was pranking her. “So you think I’m a horrible cheating bitch. Great.”

Kat sighed, and shook his head. “No, Rose, you’re not. But you are still young, and thus figuring out what love means for you personally. Consider that there’s a difference between appreciating feminine beauty, and actually following through on feelings of attraction to someone. It’s a philosophy I kind of adhere to, actually.”

“What, looky’s fine, nookie not so much?” Rose scratched her nose. “Thanks, but I’m not adopting that philosophy. I mean, if Paige was drooling over every redhead we passed in the street, I’d be hurt. Even if she didn’t act on her desires. This is the same thing.”

<img src=" width=“181” height=“300” alt=""> KAT CONWAY
(Commission from Jakface)[/caption]

“You think?” Kat leaned back on the bench. “Okay, Rose. Two comments, prefaced with the remark that I DO have a tendency to romance any woman who looks to be in my wheelhouse, while making it clear to them that I’m not looking to settle down. Not unlike Beam. So I might not be the best person to give responsible relationship advice.”

Rose gestured towards him. “Yeah, well, I’m a teenager. I may not be the best person to take responsible relationship advice. So it works out.”

“All right. First thing, more of a question, do you drool over every blonde you see?”

Rose glared. “Don’t be silly. My drooling remark was exaggeration to prove a point. Even one drool is too much.”

“But there are blondes you don’t drool over, yes?”

She had to grant him that point. “Duh.”

“So you don’t have a wandering eye. Also, remember, we’re in a highly charged situation here. You said it yourself, you’re lost and scared. Adrenaline is high, and when coupled with how pretty Beam is, it’s only natural that you might want to get in one last fling before the big goodbye. It’s the fact that you’re torn up about those feelings, rather than simply acting on them, which speaks volumes. Don’t you think?”

Rose felt forced to give more ground. “I’ll grant this isn’t a normal situation. But I’ve been in tight places before, and my thoughts didn’t trend towards pre-death sex.”

“Bringing me to my second point. Some of this IS Beam. She made blatant advances towards you earlier. That’s hard to shrug off. But you have no control over that, so tell me, would your girlfriend truly think you were being unfaithful merely because another girl was flirting with you? Accidentally or otherwise?”

Rose squirmed. “Maybe?”

“If so, that seems rather controlling. But even setting that aside,” Kat continued before Rose could interject, “what if we flipped this situation around? What if Paige came to you tomorrow, and said that she’d been in a near death experience, and that in the heat of the moment, she’d kissed another girl. Would you forgive her?”

Rose stood up, balling her hands into fists. “How dare you say that. You don’t even know Paige.”

“Maybe Paige was receiving mouth-to-mouth. Work with me here, Rose. Hypothetically, could you forgive?” Kat crossed his arms and looked up at her.

Rose squared her jaw. It was a stupid question. Her perfect Paige would never do such a thing! Moreover, CPR was CPR. … Then again, French people did kiss each other on the cheeks when they met. So what if Paige did that with an ex-girlfriend? And what if someone’s head slipped? …

Well, so what? Rose had made a point of saying that she wasn’t the possessive type. Hell, there was also that little voice inside, speculating that it was only a matter of time before Paige realized she could do better… whoa, okay, check that thought. Paige thought that Rose was already the best girlfriend to date. For whatever reason. … Why was that again?

Maybe that was part of the problem here. Rose had no practical experience with girls being attracted to her, outside of Paige. And given how she was still processing Paige’s feelings, throwing Beam into the mix as another suitor… someone Rose hadn’t even been trying to flirt with…

Fine. It was true, she could forgive Paige kissing an ex, depending on the circumstances. Meaning Paige could forgive her for getting flustered about Beam. As long as nothing happened. And nothing would. If only Beam weren’t so aggressively cute in the ways she expressed herself? But Beam couldn’t help that, any more than Rose could help finding it a-dork-able.

Rose flexed her fingers back out, then ground the palm of her hand in against her nose, hard, trying to stop the damn itchy feeling. “Kat, when do relationships get easier?”

He chuckled again. “They don’t. They only get different.”

“Figures.” Rose sat back down. “Okay. I see forgiveness as a thing. Here’s hoping Beam can forgive me too. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Any time.”

Rose angled her head. “So, speaking of flipping situations around, how about you? Assuming we do find this Destiny, and she’s Fate, will you be hooking up with her again, relationship-wise? Alternatively, will you cultivate whatever’s happening between you and Alijda? Or will you just keep hitting on random cops for all time?”

Kat flinched back, his eyebrows going up. “Uhm?”

Rose felt like it was her turn to cross her arms. “C’mon Kat. That decision HAS to have occurred to you. I saw how Alijda was looking at you earlier.”

“Euh, I think Alijda feels badly over how she acted on our last mission together,” Kat explained. “So she wants to make it up to me here. That’s it.”

“That’s it, suuuuuure.” Rose quirked her eyebrow, to emphasize that things weren’t as clear cut as he was trying to make them.

Kat looked away. “Look. Alijda and I, we haven’t known each other that long.”

“No? It’s been something like six months on her end, hasn’t it?”

Kat grimaced. “Well, yes, but I haven’t… that is, we were hardly communicating back and forth during that time.”

“Okay. So you don’t think you could date Alijda.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What about this Fate then, your communication with her has been even worse lately.”

“That’s different,” Kat said sharply.

Realizing she’d jabbed a nerve, Rose quickly lifted her hands up, palms out. “Whoa, sorry. Just, you did tell me this mission was all about feelings, right? So you might wanna do some advance thinking on that front yourself. Because if you’re all about Fate, or at least more about Fate than Alijda, then she should know sooner rather than later. Yeah?”

Kat looked at her sidelong, tight lipped. Then slowly, he nodded. “Point taken. Thanks, Rose.”

Rose offered up a partial smile. Before she could properly reply though, there was a large puff of purple and black smoke, and Alijda appeared before them. She held a pair of jeans out towards Rose. “Here you go. These are Beam’s.”

“Alijda? Did you just teleport up to the Station to get them?” Kat demanded, even as Rose accepted the clothing. “That was hardly safe.”

The brunette woman shook her head. “No, no, not depressively suicidal at the moment. I merely had to go to a convenient doorway outside the park so Alice could pass them off to me, after which it was faster to teleport back to you.” Alijda smiled wryly at Rose. “For the record, Alice wanted to root through Beam’s lingerie drawer. I talked her out of that, since we’ve already had enough comments about underwear choices today.”

It reminded Rose of the first conversation she’d overheard between Alijda and Kat, only a few hours ago. As Rose watched Alijda’s gaze flicker towards Kat, Kat cleared his throat, turning to look at Rose instead.

It was true, relationships really didn’t get easier with age.

“Okay,” Kat said. “So, let’s get to the tracking. Rose?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Rose stared at the jeans in her hands. So she was supposed to just… sniff them? Yeah, hey, that wasn’t weird at all. She slowly brought them up towards her face and, trying not to feel self conscious, gave a quick inhale.

Nothing happened. Her nose still felt itchy.

“Longer, maybe?” Alijda suggested.

Rose lifted the pants again, wafting her free hand towards her face, inhaling, trying to pick up a whiff of… whatever this spell was looking for. Beam pheromones? Did holograms have pheromones? Ones they could leave on jeans? Beam HAD said she could get hot and bothered, with a body that reacted in the same ways as a human. But right now, Rose couldn’t even smell denim, let alone Beam sweat.

“Beam isn’t from this world,” Kat remarked. “So maybe it won’t work.”

Screw it, Rose decided. She smacked the jeans right in against her face and gave a long, deep sniff. Not once, but twice. Let it not be said that she hadn’t been trying.

It did nothing but make her want to sneeze.

“Maybe Beam hadn’t worn those much,” Alijda confessed. “I could ask Alice for something else.”

“No. Know what? Just give me Firestorm’s letter,” Rose decided. She smiled, and for once, found that she didn’t have to force it. “I mean, the important thing is that we tried. Right? I feel better for having done that, so… so yeah. Back on mission. We’ll figure out the Beam stuff later, this is a sign that it’s time for us - for me - to move on.”

Alijda and Kat exchanged a glance, and Alijda seemed about to say something, only to think better of it. “Okay, Rose.” She pulled out Firestorm’s letter. “I, uh, hope this doesn’t smell more like me now, or the tracking will be pretty quick,” she realized.

“I’ll try to tune into male smell more than female smell,” Rose quipped. “Despite my obvious preference for the latter.” Never mind that she had no idea what that even meant.

Rose took the letter. She first sniffed the middle of the page, then around the outer edge. Much like the jeans, she couldn’t pick up anything. For the second time, she stifled a sneeze.

“Maybe Rose needs to be where the note was found for this to work?” Kat suggested, lifting his hands into the air. “The police form I signed really wasn’t clear.”

“Firestorm would likely return to Destiny’s house too,” Alijda remarked. “So we might as well go back there. In the meantime, I’ll contact the Station. They should have more power restored, and maybe Alice can spot something on surveillance for how this tracking is supposed to work?”

The three of them started heading back out of the main area of town. Based on how much lower the sun was in the sky now, Rose judged that it was probably dinnertime. At any rate, even fewer people were around them now. No one approached. And Alice simply said she’d get back to them, following Alijda’s request.

It happened as Rose was grinding her palm in against her nose for at least the twelfth time. She felt a tickle, and before she could stop herself, she sneezed. In an instant, the itching sensation was gone, replaced with the very faint smell of… of something wondrous.

“Bless you,” Kat said.

Rose moaned. That scent, it was so good. Where was it coming from? She sniffed in a breath, turning in a slow circle. Yes, that way.

Alijda’s hand landed on her shoulder before she could take a step. “What is it, Rose? Nose suddenly behaving?”

“Oh yeah,” Rose huffed. She started to walk, sniffing the air as she went. Ohh, more of that smell, yes please.

Alijda’s grip tightened slightly, slowing Rose’s pace without forcing her to stop. “Are you picking up Firestorm? Or Beam?”

“I dunno. It’s…" How did one even describe it? “It’s the scent of fresh cut flowers. Of homemade baking. Of the air after the rain has fallen. Of… oh, of all that and more, Alijda. It’s just so good, please, we gotta get to the source.”

Alijda glanced at Kat, then nodded. “Okay then. Just make sure we can keep pace.”

Rose nodded back and resumed her tracking, no longer caring about the scenery around her, totally focussed on her goal. On the scent.

As she began to jog, she heard Kat remark, “Neither Beam nor Firestorm smelled like cooking. So we may not know who we’re tracking until we get there, huh?”

“Guess not,” Alijda’s voice agreed with him. “It does make me wonder though, would we be smelling the same thing in Rose’s place? Or would I be picking up aftershave or alcohol or something?”

Rose didn’t know. All she knew was, she wanted more of what she smelled now. Granted, she kind of hoped the source was Beam, not Firestorm, given how much she wanted to sniff at the target for a while after arriving, which felt wrong with a guy. Actually, no, it felt wrong no matter who it was. No wonder this spell was regulated by police. She hoped she’d be able to control herself.

Ohhh yeah. The aroma was stronger in this direction, Rose was sure of it.

(Heads up, Beam and Firestorm will be found in close proximity. WHAT’S NEXT?)

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY OCTOBER 14th

EXTRA ASIDE:
The first 1,000 words of my story about Rose (“The Girl Who Speaks with Algebra”) actually placed in the Top 10 of the “Ink & Insights” writing contest for 2017, out of over 150 entries. There’s a page here looking at the other winners. My link simply directs back to this site, but it’s prompted me to update my story catalogue. And as long as we’re talking about eyes on this site, consider a TWF vote for Time & Tied? Thanks.

EPSILON DELTA, PART ELEVEN: TRAIL MIX

Alijda stared at the station’s computer output. Despite the clues pointing to Kat’s childhood friend Fate being mixed up in whatever was happening on the planet, there was no sign of any anomaly. Human or otherwise. Meaning this mission was over. Meaning… Alijda clenched her jaw, and turned to her companion. “I’m going down.”

Alice flinched. “To the planet?”

“No, for limbo practice. Yes, to the planet.”

“Alijda. Sorry, but no.” Alice began to dance nervously from one foot to the other. “Army’s been deactivated. These scans show no further technology is present, so Beam’s mission is done. Protocol dictates that we get everyone back up to the station and vamoose.”

“You don’t work for Epsilon any more,” Alijda pointed out. “Why enforce their rules?”

Alice added hand wringing to her dance. “To atone for my sins? To keep Beam from getting in even bigger trouble? To get everybody home in time for lunch? C’mon Alijda. We can’t interfere with planets that are simply doing their own thing. That’s wrong, and we both know it.”

Alijda looked away from Alice’s pleading gaze. She didn’t like that her friend was making sense, because she didn’t want to be talked out of her decision. “You once told me that signing up for this Project meant we’d get help,” she stated. “If we ran into problems. Well, I think Kat needs help.”

“The deal was, you’d be helped within your personal multiverse,” Alice said. “Not out here.”

“How is out here so different? Either way we’re getting external help.”

Alice poked her head back into Alijda’s field of vision. “Look. Even if this Destiny woman Kat mentioned IS Fate from his world, the only reason she wouldn’t show on our scans is if she breached the barriers herself. Thus not our problem. Moreover, she’s obviously started living a life down there. We can’t simply abduct her away from that, there would be repercussions for anyone who knows her.”

“This project abducted me. Twice.”

Alice stamped her foot. “That’s different, and you know it! Stop bending the rules to suit your narrative.”

Alijda spun away from her roommate a second time. “Why? That’s what I do, right? I’m questionable morals woman with enough l33t h4x0r skills to enforce my choices on others.”

Alice sighed. “Alijda, think. We don’t know anything about this Destiny. What if it’s all some sort of trap? To catch the original owners of the cyber arm?”

Alijda ran her fingers back through her hair. “Fine. We call Rose first - she’s technically in charge. If she feels like Kat’s behaving irrationally, we pull them up. Otherwise, I’m going down to help.”

“To help with what, reprogramming the local abacuses?”

Ignoring Alice’s little jab, Alijda paged Rose. They’d restored communications nearly half an hour ago, but Alijda had wanted to be sure there was no chance that they’d missed something on scans before making contact. To avoid being the bearers of bad news.

When Rose didn’t answer, Alijda wondered if that had been a mistake. “I’ll try Kat,” she decided.

Kat answered. He quickly brought them up to speed, in terms of Rose having been rendered drunk and unconscious from a magical police stamp, and Beam running off after having been screamed at by Rose in that state.

“It’s my fault,” Kat concluded. “I told Beam to act like Rose was a male lesbian, then paid little attention to issues arising from that decision. Worse, I prolonged the mission and brought us to the police station, instead of waiting for you to resume contact.”

“You meant well,” Alijda said, rubbing her forehead.

“Did I?” Kat challenged.

“Eh. Better than I probably would have under the same circumstances.”

Alice spoke up at last. “All three of us are kind of bad for breaking rules, aren’t we,” she reflected. “Hold on, I’ll see if I can pick Beam up on sensors.”

“The good news?” Kat offered. “According to the papers I signed, the magical tracking effects will wear off of Rose within a day. Two at most. I’ve pulled her off the main streets, we can lay low until she regains consciousness. And Beam might come back here in the meantime.”

“That doesn’t solve the question of this Destiny woman,” Alijda pointed out.

Kat was silent for a moment. “No,” he admitted. “It doesn’t.”

“I can’t pick up Beam anywhere around you,” Alice remarked. “Could she have been teleported away?”

“Seems unlikely, unless that’s another trick she had up her sleeve,” Kat said. “She did go insubstantial. Maybe that blinds her to your sensors?”

“Or Beam was abducted too,” Alijda said. “Making this an Epsilon mission, meaning I should go down to help with the search.”

Alice cleared her throat. “How can someone abduct a person who is insubstantial?”

Alijda resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Look. We can’t just stand here and do nothing while they’re in trouble down there, can we?”

“Can’t we? It is hard. Doing that. Isn’t it?”

It was Alice’s tone of quiet sadness that made Alijda flinch more than anything. Because, of course, that’s the reality Alice had been faced with many times - sending people away and doing nothing, or the bare minimum, to help them. A boundary that Alice had ultimately overstepped. One which had gotten her fired.

Even now, there was no malice in Alice’s expression. If anything it was a searching, a pleading, a longing for confirmation of some feeling she had somehow never fully managed to articulate.

“Yeah,” Alijda agreed. “It’s hard. And… and there’s no need to put you through that again, Alice. How about you go down to help Kat out and assess the situation. I mean, it would seem to call for a level headed woman to put things right, and you’d be more objective about it than I would be.”

The two roommates stared at each other.

“Kat?” Alice said after a moment. “One of us will whirlpool down to the previous coordinates we used. Can you give us directions to your present location from there?”

“I can, but do you think having more people here might make things worse?” Kat said.

“Let us worry about that,” Alice stated.

Kat told them how to reach his position, adding that it might be a good idea to pick up Firestorm from the occult house on the way. Alice then closed the channel. The two women continued to stare at each other in silence.

Just as Alijda was about to ask Alice if she’d need anything, the younger woman spoke up.

“You can go down,” Alice said. “If you tell me why you want to go.”

It took a moment for Alijda to formulate her argument. “Think about it, Alice. Why would this Destiny woman magically give a cyber arm some ‘desire’, which included accessing computer records, and pulling Kat onto the Station? Why have the arm cause another crisis as soon as Kat left, then spout ‘Fate’ from a computer program? Between that and the symbols, there must be some connection to him. To his world. This might even be a cry for help, from Fate. We need Destiny, and we need Beam, and me going down can help us get them back as fast as possible.”

A smile tugged at Alice’s features. “No, you silly. Tell me why YOU want to go.”

Alijda frowned. Slowly, her eyes widened as she realized what Alice was getting at. She pursed her lips. “B-Because Kat’s an amazing guy and I screwed it all up with him once so I want to make that up to him?” She hoped she wasn’t blushing or anything so ridiculous.

Alice clapped her hands. “We now fail the Bechdel test, but as long as you’re AWARE of that issue, I’m okay with being the one staying behind. Let’s get you a communicator.”

Alijda stared. “Are you truly okay staying here? Really?”

It was Alice’s turn to look away, as she tucked some hair back behind her ear. “Old habits die hard. Besides, I need to think of a good way to incorporate initials for Rose and Beam into my pin design. This’ll give me time to do that.” She turned back, and winked off Alijda’s nonplussed look. “You know, the pin I made for Epsilon, based off Steins;Gate? I showed it to you a couple months ago.”

Alijda shook her head. “Oh, Alice. No matter what I might say about how weird you are, never change.”

“Same, honey.” Alice reached out, then seemed to think better of it, turning the movement into a stretch.

Alijda stepped forwards and grasped Alice, pulling her into a quick hug. “Thank you.” She pulled back, holding Alice by the shoulders. “Now yes, let’s get me a communicator.”

Firestorm was gone. All Alijda found in the house that Kat had directed her to was a note, left on the table, reading ‘Onto something, can’t wait’. There was no sign of Destiny’s diary.

“Sorry, Kat,” Alijda finished, after explaining. They had met up near the police station, in what passed for a park. The unconscious Rose had been laid out on a bench, Kat leaning over her, to monitor her condition.

Kat shrugged. “No need to apologize, doesn’t sound like you scared him off. We probably shouldn’t have left Firestorm alone. That’s another thing I’ve messed up planetside.”

Alijda put her hands on her hips. “Oooh, don’t you even start.”

Kat frowned. “Start what?”

“I’m a depressive. I know all about the spiral down, pinning extra blame when it’s not really warranted. I mean, if you’d left Beam behind with this Firestorm, her memory might have glitched again, or Firestorm might not have read something important, and so we’d still be in some sort of trouble. So don’t dwell.”

Kat shook his head. “Alijda, you forget, I’ve trained for off-planet missions. The repercussions of messing up in these sorts of situations…"

“Still lie in our future. We can salvage this situation, so for now we focus forwards. Okay?”

Kat chuckled. “Oh, very well. But only if you take your own advice. Particularly with respect to whatever you were doing in your six months away from me, versus my six hours.”

Alijda let out a quick breath. “Fine.” He was pointing out a conversational door there, one related to them, but this hardly felt like the time. “So, now three missing people and no way to track them. Beam’s habits we know, more or less. Tell me about the other two.”

Kat filled in the information about Firestorm easily enough, Alijda pacing back and forth as he spoke. Kat then gave what cursory information they knew about Destiny, before visibly hesitating. A few people had wandered through the area during their conversation, but there was no one there now, so Alijda knew it had to be about her.

She stopped in place, turning to face him. “If you don’t want to tell me about Fate, you don’t have to.”

“It might be relevant. It’s just…"

“It’s not on your business cards, as you said. I get it.”

Kat shook his head. “No, it’s more like, I’ve never really gone in depth with anyone about it before. So I’m not sure how to do it now. But…” He came around the bench and leaned against the side, near Rose’s feet. “Okay. Fate was my first serious relationship. Could even be why I don’t take them seriously now, you never know when the other person’s going to up and disappear.”

“Meaning you took relationships seriously before Fate?”

Kat seemed about to reply, only to rub the back of his neck, sheepishly. “Hah, okay, no,” he admitted after a moment. “But I was a teenager, and with a name like ‘Katherine’, it was all about being as manly as possible. That said, Fate was the first rejection in high school that truly bothered me. She said she was upset that I was wasting my ‘gift’. It was only by looking into her occultish things that made me realize, she’d somehow sensed my ability for fire control. And it was only by proving a genuine interest in learning more that got me into using that ability, which led to us hooking up.”

“So Fate was the first girl you actually cared about,” Alijda realized. “As far as relationships go.”

“Huh. You may be right there,” Kat said. “We went to prom together, but our paths diverged in post secondary. What with my Dad wanting me at military college. For a time, Fate and I corresponded back and forth, but then it suddenly… stopped. Fate’s parents thought she’d gone out west. I wondered as to an occult connection, but there were so few leads. I’ve searched for her, on and off, ever since.”

Alijda chewed briefly on her lower lip. “Guess I’ll just ask this then. Kat, could Fate truly have breached dimensional barriers by herself?”

“It’s possible,” Kat granted. “She was always deeper into occult things than I was, and she never told me what her gift allowed her to do. I just always figured she’d been recruited for something top secret, the way I was with the ‘Doorways’ program.”

“Did Fate have any interest in potions?”

“Like Destiny, you mean? Not really. But she could have grown into it, using that rare skill to maximize her chance of meeting someone like her elsewhere on the planet.”

“And you have no idea where Destiny might have been taken?”

“Not off the top of my head.” Kat shook his head. “It’s funny, now that I think about it, Fate did tend to wear a lot of black. Kind of like how you do. I wonder, could it be I have a different attraction to a certain type of woman?”

“Meaning you think Fate could have black, suicidal thoughts, like me?”

“Whoa. Whoa, no,” Kat protested, jumping back to his feet. “I didn’t mean… it’s only… yeah, I’m not sure why I said that. Sorry.”

The man had been pointing out how he’s attracted to you, dumbass, Alijda realized moments later. And you had to go and turn that into depression. Sabotaging the conversation, and yourself, like always.

“Hah, no, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Alijda said quickly. “I’m just terrible, in how my mind interprets…" She also needed to stop putting herself down. “I mean, not always, but my default it’s, er…" Still talking about herself. “Whereas you, uh…" Oh, just say you like him already. “See, I failed the Bechdel test with Alice.” Damn it.

Kat’s eyebrow arced up, but before he could say anything, Rose let out a gasp. The redheaded teen’s eyes snapped open, and she jerked herself up into a sitting position, breathing fast.

Kat and Alijda moved to sit on either side of her, to prevent her from slumping back down, Alijda reaching out to touch the young girl’s arm.

“Rose? Rose, you okay?” Kat asked.

“Feel all funny,” Rose wheezed. “My tongue, my eyes, my ears, my fingers, my…" She sniffed in a long, deep breath through her nose. Only to wince and reach up to touch it. “My nose. Ack, now all the weird tingles are zeroing in on my poor nose.”

Alijda met Kat’s gaze. “That signed police form, giving Rose tracking powers. Did it mention turning her into some sort of bloodhound?”

Kat considered it. “You mean, allowing her to track someone or something by scent? Yeah, it could be interpreted that way.”

Rose poked at her nose. “That’s non-scents. In fact, my nose is feeling more and more stuffed up. Like it’s waiting for the right thing to smell, or something.” She looked around. “Hold on. When did Beam turn into Alijda?”

“This means we need to give Rose something of Destiny’s to sniff,” Kat decided. “Let’s get back to her place.” He started to rise, then sat back. “Unless, should we track down Firestorm instead, using that note he left? He knows the terrain, has the diary, and might already be onto something.”

“Do either of you have a tissue?” Rose asked.

“Hell, maybe Rose should track Beam,” Alijda suggested. “Using some item of hers from the station. Alice had noticed upgrades to the sensors that she didn’t understand. If Beam could get those working, and if Destiny is Fate, and if that means the Station can pinpoint her, we’d be able to go into the situation much less blind.”

“Beam,” Rose gasped. Her hand slid to her mouth. “I told her… I said she was… oh no. Oh NO, I’m HORRIBLE.”

“That was lots of ‘ifs’, Alijda,” Kat said, looking troubled. “And what if we track down Beam only for her to tell us it’s time to leave the planet, by the book?”

Alijda shook her head. “If Rose finds Beam, it shows she cares. And I doubt Beam would shut down a friend in need after that.”

“Wait, what is going on?” Rose looked back and forth between the two of them. “What’s the next move here?”

WHAT’S NEXT?

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY SEPT 30th

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED:
Subtle decision from the Part 9 vote: When Firestorm was left behind, it meant no tech would register on the Epsilon scans, as revealed in this part. (After all, Rose being deputized has kept them tied to the planet.) Had Firestorm been the one deputized, there WOULD have been signs of a tech component, as a reason to stick around and not turn everything over to Firestorm. Thanks for reading and voting!

EPSILON DELTA, PART TEN: SEE DEUCE

“Okay, good idea,” Rose decided, nodding at Firestorm. “See what you get from the diary, there could be something in there about where Destiny’s technology came from.” She glanced to Kat. “We could use the techno tech know, you know?”

Kat seemed to hesitate before nodding. Rose chalked it up to the possible invasion of Destiny’s privacy - but they needed every angle here, right?

ROSEMARY THORNE
Commission from Lia[/caption]

She was second guessing her decision within five minutes of leaving Firestorm at Destiny’s house. True, he had given them the information they’d need for dealing with the police, including the location of the station, but what if something unexpected happened? Maybe the only planetary resident they knew should have come along. Rather than leaving him to snoop. Then again, maybe they had the Station for backup by now?

Rose tapped her communicator. “Rose to Alice, are you up there?”

Kat reached out to seize Rose by the arm, though he stopped short of actually touching her. Still, Rose flinched at his sudden movement.

The tall man cleared his throat. “What’s wrong, Rose? Anything I can do?”

“I wondered if they’d managed repairs up there yet, I guess,” Rose admitted. “But I probably shouldn’t disturb them, huh? They’ll call us?”

“Probably,” Kat said, smiling wanly at her. “Don’t worry, Rose. I can handle talking to the police.”

“Yeah. I just… yeah.”

“It’s just, you’ve been abducted from your Earth and are feeling a little out of sorts. I get it.”

Rose let out a long breath. “Don’t forget, I’m also in charge somehow. If this goes pear shaped, it’s on me.”

“Oh, Rose. Oh no,” came a soft voice from her other side. Beam reached out and touched Rose through the shoulder, with her incorporeal hand. “It’s on me. Because I’m the one who pulled you into this. I’m so sorry it’s distressing you.”

Rose turned to look at the blonde hologram, and immediately had to look away. That tender, apologetic gaze… Rose wasn’t sure if she was more irritated at the sense of being pitied, or more rattled by how her first instinct had been to give Beam a reassuring hug. Her feelings for the pretty girl were still rather mixed up.

“Let’s all talk about something else,” Rose suggested. “Your previous missions, maybe? Were any of them as screwed up as this?”

Kat spoke first, as they walked down the dirt road. He offered up some highlights of his only previous Epsilon involvement, where he, Alijda and a personified parabola - Rose idly wondered if this “Para” was in any way related to “Sine” - had come together to look into dimensional tears on a scaled-down world. It had apparently led to Alice being fired.

Though the way things were going here, Beam might end up fired too, so that wasn’t entirely comforting.

Then Beam launched into a tale of her first Epsilon involvement. She had been pulled onto the station, where some higher entity had communicated to her through the computer. They had provided her with the station’s mission, requesting equipment repairs at first. After Beam had agreed to and accomplished those, there had been the actual prospect of a retrieval mission.

“It’s like it had been hand picked just for me too,” Beam remarked. “Very tech world, but with a magic amulet. Which had been buried in a lava flow, so the Station couldn’t get a positive lock until it was uncovered by an archaeologist centuries later. So, fine, I devised a clever plan. I appeared shortly after said archaeologist found it, pretending like she’d released me from being confined in said amulet. After rewarding her for my freedom, I left with the artifact, mission accomplished.”

“Rewarding her?” Kat asked. “Does the Station have money?”

“Oh, no, no. She swung my way. I was the reward.” Beam raised a finger to her chin. “Interesting thing is, she tasted spicier than the women of my world.”

Rose stumbled and nearly face-planted into the dirt.

“I mean, sure, every female tastes different,” Beam chirped, without breaking stride. “And it’s connected to diet and all that, but sometimes I wonder if it was that Earth? Or maybe being an archaeologist contributed to her–"

“BEAM,” Rose cut in, wide-eyed. “TMI!”

Beam turned to her. “The Michener Institute what now?”

“Too. Much. Information. Ix-nay on the Issing, ‘kay?!”

Beam glanced from Rose to Kat, where she saw his eyebrows were up, and then back again. “‘k-kay. I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to overstep. I really haven’t had occasion to socialize much since leaving my Earth. Except with the Epsilon computer.”

“We know you didn’t mean anything by it, Beam,” Kat soothed. “But don’t forget, Rose was a tad conflicted about you, particularly on that sort of subject.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” Beam nibbled on her lower lip. And it was cute, and Rose had to look away again. She took a moment to take in the village (town?) that was now around them. They had covered a fair bit of ground during story time.

The three of them were still on the dirt road, but there were now other roads crossing it, and wooden or stone structures surrounding them, versus having houses appear only every so often. There were a few people about too, though they were not paying much attention to them.

Well, aside from the occasional sideways glance at their outfits - their lack of cloaks might be making them stand out. But the residents themselves seemed more intent on getting to wherever they needed to be.

It was probably close to dinnertime. Or maybe, on a magic world, you simply took things at face value and didn’t ask too many questions.

Rose also noticed that the tavern that Firestorm had told them to be on the lookout for was up ahead. The police station would be down on the cross street, not far away. Making it easier for the cops to get to refreshments whenever the work day ended, the fire mage had griped.

“R-Rose…?"

Suppressing a sigh, Rose looked back at Beam. “Yippers?”

“Clarify. I’m used to talking about - um, let’s say kissing of girls - with both girlfriends and guy friends. But I gather that’s a bad topic for girls who are friends? Or is it more a case of too soon?”

“Yes. That is, maybe. That is…" Rose paused to press the heel of her palm to her forehead, before sliding her hand down over her face. “Flûûûûûûûte.” As she said it, Rose realized something. The mild french swear word was becoming a way for her to feel closer to Paige. Her girlfriend. A multiverse away.

With effort, Rose swallowed away the lump in her throat.

“Look, Beam,” Rose began. “You said all girls… taste different?” Damn it, normal girls didn’t talk this way when they got together. Did they? Beam simply nodded back. “Well, girls as friends have different tastes in conversation too. Meaning for me, right now? Sexy time talk is a no-no, and that qualified. But maybe the next girl you befriend will be different. That make sense to you?”

Beam nodded again. “It does. I guess I’m just hoping some universal truths will come up. Ones which will always apply for your new subclass. Like how the male subclass is all just kind of ugh.”

“Oh, thanks,” Kat remarked, a hint of amusement to his tone.

“Oh no, I mean, you’re nice enough. It’s only, men are lousy lovers,” Beam clarified.

“Thanks again,” Kat said. He apparently couldn’t resist adding, “you know our anatomy is the basis for how your toys are shaped?”

“Pffft, it’s not about anatomy,” Beam scoffed. “It’s about the five senses. For instance, compared to a man, ooooh, the scent of a woman, that’s so…" Beam paused, hands partially clasped, looking sidelong at Rose. “So totally a movie. Yippers, on some Earths ‘Scent of a Woman’ is the name of a movie.”

Rose wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the conflicted expression on Beam’s face. She settled for lifting her finger and pointing, to change the subject. “There’s the tavern. We’re almost to the police station here. Destiny awaits?”

“Right,” Kat agreed. “Let’s get to it.”

Rose felt a tingle as she walked through the doorway into the police station. Shaking it off, she held the door for Beam, so that the hologram wouldn’t need to phase through the wall. Kat walked up to the main counter before them.

The station itself looked like a small time police department out of a TV show. A female officer was looking over some sort of newspaper as Kat approached. There were a couple more male individuals in the back, one reading, another looking at papers he’d taken out of what Rose took to be a filing cabinet. A door in back led to where they presumably had a jail cell or two.

“Take a number,” the desk officer said, before Kat could speak.

Kat looked around. “We three are together though,” he said. “And there’s nobody else in here.”

“I’m on break. More people might come,” the officer said, not looking up from her news article.

“Okay, well, crime waits for no one,” Kat said. “So maybe you could take a break from your break?”

She looked up, irritated. “Why, are you about to go commit a crime?”

Kat smiled. “Heeey, only if it’s a crime for me to look this good. Though I will grant that, next to you, I pale in comparison.”

Rose considered gagging. Until the officer folded up her newspaper and smiled. “Well played. I can appreciate an ego that rivals my own. What’s the trouble?”

Kat gave a quick rundown of their situation. They used the angle that Firestorm had recommended, saying they had come in from out of town to find Destiny missing. As the story came out, the interest of the desk officer gradually faded, and neither of the cops in the back paid them any attention. Soon, the woman was reaching back for her newspaper.

“Fill out an initial report form, then come back in a couple days,” she said.

Kat winced. “Isn’t there anything that a charming and intelligent woman such as yourself can do for us in the meantime?”

She eyed him sidelong. “Fishing for special dispensation? Fine, fill out the waiver form.”

Rose had already noticed the various forms in the slots near the door. Grasping the one they needed, she took it over to Kat, placing it on the countertop. He grasped a pen and filled it out as Beam paced back and forth, occasionally looking over their shoulders.

The desk officer scanned over the form after Kat pushed it at her. “Hmph. I guess this is in order,” she sighed. She reached underneath the counter and brought out some sort of stamp.

It happened quickly. Before Rose could react, the cop had seized her by the wrist and brought the stamp down onto the back of her palm. There was a chiming sound. “Hey!” Rose protested, jerking her arm away.

Now she was seeing double. Much like how she had seen two cauldrons after charging into Destiny’s place. It was making her nauseous, so she closed her eyes and fell to her knees, judging that to be more dignified option versus falling on her ass.

“What the hell?” Kat’s voice was saying. “I’m the one who filled out the form, lady! What did you just do to Rose?”

“This isn’t our first rodeo,” the officer answered. “You know magic potential gets scanned as soon as you walk in here. That girl’s is the strongest, so she leads the search. We’re not going to let you file a complaint as if we didn’t notice that.”

“What?? But Rose doesn’t do ANY magic. And I’m the one who handles fire.”

“Oooh, good for you. Look, either fill out a rescinding form, or get out of here.”

Rose reopened her eyes. She was still seeing double, so it looked like Beam’s concerned gaze included four pretty blue eyes and two sets of kissable lips. Whoa, no, no, bad thoughts again. “Bye bye bad thoughts, go away now,” Rose gasped.

“Rose, are you okay?” Beam asked.

Rose hiccuped, then giggled, despite trying to suppress the urge. She smacked her palm over her mouth. “Oh, ah feel shooow gooood,” Rose cooed. “‘Cept mebbe ah’m too shexhy for dish magicks.” Wait, she was saying that aloud?

Rose pulled her hand back, glaring at both her right palms, as if they were to blame for letting those words escape.

“No,” she accused them. “Bad hand. Ooo, filtersh, filtersh, come back brain filtersh… ah neeeed youuuu… ah neeed yoooouu lik a lite houshe needs a coasht…"[1]

Rose had no idea why the lyric of that hokey country song had suddenly come to mind, and she dissolved back into giggles. It was just too FUNNY, that a song she’d heard maybe ONCE would come back to her now, in the presence of a seductive lesbian hologram while on some alternate magical Earth.

By the time Rose was able to stop laughing, she’d been helped outside, Kat leaning her up against the side of the building. He was saying something, but Rose wasn’t entirely clear on what.

“Youse haff two hedds,” she pointed out to him. Granted, they were sort of focussing themselves into one, but they didn’t seem to want to stay that way.

Kat said something else while waving six fingers in front of her face, as if that would help anything. Rose closed her eyes, turned to the side, and reopened them. Beam was standing there. Oh no, pretty lesbian.

“Rose…" Beam began.

“Nooo,” Rose yelped, trying to step back, and only succeeding in flattening herself against the wall. She hiccuped again. “Know what? You my anti-Angie. Shtay ‘way, anti-Angie!”

Beam frowned. “Auntie Angie?”

In a flash, Rose realized what the root of her problems was. And she couldn’t stop her stream of consciousness from running out of her head via her mouth. “Angie. I liked her ’n high schewl. An’ she pulled back, an’ so I diden go deeper, an’ so I diden figger me out. But now’n I know, wif me an’ girls, an’ here you are.”

Rose took in a deep breath. “An’ Beam, you go thuther way, instead of no deeps, you want ALL the deeps, Beam, ALL the deeps, an’ I canna take it. I canna, cuz I wanna wif Paige, but ’m lost n’ scared here, ’n you is pretty, ’n you lead me to titillation, and you don’ deliver me from evil, and thine is a kingdom, an’ power n’ glory, uh…"

Rose steered her thoughts back on track. “Yis, so Beam, you an anti-Angie cause jest like wif Angie I wanna, but I DON’ wanna, cuz it’ll mess all life up. Which, okay, we deal wif it, maybe? Until you TURN LOVE OFF. Is NO FAIR BEAM, I no turn it off, not wif Angie, or Paige, or you, an’ then you make me all confuzzled about friendships. Why you do this to me, Beam? Why?? DAMN it, I HATE you,” She was almost screaming by then.

Beam flinched back. “Rose, stay calm. Okay? Y-You’re being affected by that police stamp. You d-don’t really mean you hate me, right?”

“I DO. I hate YOU, an’ I hate bein’ in CHARGE, an’ I hate my head’s HURTIN’ now, an’ somehows I gots magicks so I canna even flee to Station no more,” Rose sobbed. “So know wha? YOU, Beam, I wan YOU t’go ‘way frum me.”

Beam reached out, so Rose lifted her arm to point for emphasis. “NO. Go ‘WAY, y’hear? Go ‘WAY Beam, you an’ your cutesy love off switch. Mk? JEST GO FAR ‘WAY FRUM ME F’REVER!”

“Rose, stop, that’s enough,” Kat said sternly, grasping her by the shoulder. She swatted his arm away. Alas, the movement unbalanced her enough that she felt herself sliding down the wall and onto the ground.

The last thing she saw before closing her eyes again was a sideways view of Beam sprinting away as fast as her legs could carry her.

The last thing she heard before falling unconscious was the sound of the Station communicator on her wrist.

[1] “I Need You”, Tim McGraw featuring Faith Hill.

WHAT’S NEXT?

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY SEPT 16th

EXTRA ASIDE:
There was a post last week with information and a poll about where to take this site in 2018. Also, voting for the time travel story never hurts… this site just had two consecutive zero view days in a row (plus nine spams).

Number four! This site’s first two “Behind the Scenes” talked about how I fit writing the first Epsilon serial into my busy teaching schedule. The third such post, from the third Epsilon serial, talked about a rough patch in April (third busiest teaching month of the year).

I won’t really be talking about writing timelines here, but with this being the start of September, and being at roughly the midway point of Epsilon Story Four (when I would normally do a “Paths Not Taken”, which is now integrated into the posts), I figured it was time for another one. To keep you up to date on things. The TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) is at the bottom.

First of all, I’ve finally decided to consolidate my writing on a Facebook Page. My “Epsilon” updates, my “Any QBars” math webcomic updates, and any non-fiction writing I’ve been doing, I’ve been posting up there for the past month. I’m pretty sure Facebook’s algorithm sabotages any attempt to see it in a FB timeline, because I don’t pay, but it’s there, at any rate. That said, twitter (@mathtans) tends to be the first place I post.

Second, I went a bit crazy at ConBravo 2017 this year with commissions. (After not being sure if I would go.) You should have noticed the new pictures for Beam and Kat, featured in recent “Epsilon” updates. I also got art for two characters for “Time Untied”, Sherlock (seen briefly in the Book 5 Teaser) and Peaches (you haven’t met her). I plan to include those images in my ConBravo recap, which will be flagged on the aforementioned FB/Twitter.

CHIBI BEAM
Commission from Gen Ishihara

Third, I’ve just launched “Any Qs” (my personified math comic) on Tapas. So if you don’t know what that is, and want to follow that storyline along from the beginning, you can check it out here. (Alternatively, binge on my other blog site.)

Finally… where is this site headed?

A LOOK AT 2018

The last couple “Epsilon” have aimed for 16-18 parts, meaning we have 8 or 9 remaining (it will depend on pacing from voting, etc). Continuing every two weeks is extremely likely, because I’ll be back in the classroom for the first time this year, and teaching a new course on top of that.

This takes us to late(?) December 2017, which works out well. It means I can rerun content in January, the second worst month of the whole year. (Seriously, there is zero turnaround between marking exams and second semester, yet report cards still magically have to be completed.) What will I post in January? Well, I’m going to toss that option back at YOU, my readers. There is a poll below. Note we’re not setting anything in stone yet, it’s just to get a sense of what I should be cleaning up over the next couple months.

I am also not certain whether I’ll shift back to weekly posts or not in 2018. It will depend a lot on my mood in four months’ time, along with how well this site (and my writing) is doing generally. At any rate, here are the options.

OPTION 1: ROSE ORIGIN STORY

Rose seems to have become the lesbian darling of the latest “Epsilon”, which is impressive considering she’s less than a year old creatively. She’s part of a 90,000 word novel I wrote in Nov-Dec last year, “The Girl Who Speaks With Algebra”, which I re-edited in April. It’s a 31 part story that blends a mathematical fantasy land (and math facts) with Rose’s coming to terms with liking girls during her first year at University. It’s written in first person.

On the up side here, more Rose. On the down side, at 31 parts, I’m probably going to split it. I’d run 16 parts (which could mean 32 weeks, into summer), take a break for another “Epsilon” story, then run the last 15 parts. Well, unless a majority of people think that’s a terrible idea generally. I also suspect it means Rose won’t feature in that middle “Epsilon” story, because yes, she’s a-dork-able, but I don’t want there to be too much of a good thing. (I might bring back Chartreuse instead.)

OPTION 2: VIRGA MYSTERIES

Back in 2003, I created the character Melissa Virga, an upper year University student who is also a witch and who takes on supernatural cases in her spare time. The story is written from the (first person) perspective of James Conway (no relation to Kat), a first year student who ends up rooming off campus with her. So effectively Watson to her Holmes. I wrote three cases, each of which splits into 4 parts, meaning it would run 12 (or 24) weeks.

MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley

On the up side, you get to see some new characters - and in fact, there was a SEQUEL, written in 2012, that we could then tackle at some point further down the road. (The sequel is “Rose Origin” levels in length, as it takes place as James graduates, and he has to decide whether to stay with Melissa’s agency or not.) In case it’s incentive, selecting this also means Rose is more likely to return for the next “Epsilon” (even meet Chartreuse). The down side? Well, supernatural might not be your preference, there’s no math, and the writing is less polished than Rose’s story.

OPTION 3: OLD FUSION FANFIC

This option will take some explaining. One of the first stories I ever wrote involved taking the characters from “Sailor Moon” (specifically its second season), the plot of the anime “Marmalade Boy” (and its relationship polygons) and fusing them together. I wrote 13 parts over the span of four years (1996-2000). Then last month, August 2017, I wrote two more parts to complete the series. Meaning “Marmalade Mercury” would run for 16 parts (there’s a backstory entry too).

The good news for you is how it DOES bug me when things are incomplete (I’ll discuss more T&T below), and this would be an interesting window into some REALLY old writing of mine… along with what happens when you revisit a story 20 years later. On the down side, if you’re expecting action and magical girls, sorry - again, I used the plot of a relationship-heavy anime (in fact, “Marmalade Boy” was relicensed this year). Meaning this is more Rose levels of angst, played out with Ami Mizuno and her friends. (Melissa Virga would have been your magical option.)

OPTION 4: OLD PARODY STORIES

Back in University, I used to write for the campus math newsletter (and even edited a few terms). This included the serial “General l’Hopital” (5 entries in 1997, 6 in 2001) a soap opera parody full of every math pun that exists, the serial “Quantum Loop” (6 entries in 1998, 6 in 1999) a parody of “Quantum Leap” which was somewhat more mathematically educational, and “Sine Field” (4 entries, sporadic) a sendup of “Seinfeld”.

This option is the most flexible. We could run all the “QL” for 12 parts, leave for an “Epsilon” story, then come back for “l’Hopital”… or not come back at all. Or do one of each for 12 parts, to see which one you might want more of. Or we stick “Sine” on the end of 12 parts to make 16 parts. Or not. If this is selected, there would likely be a sub-vote to gauge preference (meaning you’ll have some input, even if your top choice wasn’t picked). On the down side, these stories are shorter, and rather silly.

So there are your options. I’ll simply leave this poll open for a while (so if you REALLY can’t pick, come back in a couple weeks and vote for your other preferred choice). In December, I’ll do some sort of runoff vote (of the top two choices?).

CURRENT WRITING

As far as “Time Untied” goes, I have a file of key characters, and my work from a couple years ago. I actually submitted “The Girl Who Speaks With Algebra” for a critique, which has helped give me a sense of where to take my writing in general. My HOPE is that, by November, I’ll be enough on an even keel with the teaching, and have enough of a buffer in my comic, to start tackling Carrie again in a NaNoWriMo sort of way. But anything can happen in two months.

I am pretty sure “Time Untied” won’t start a blog run until 2019 though. The in-universe timelines for it are… messy, to say the least. Fabulous, but messy.

Also, know that for the last six months, I have been putting “Time & Tied” on the RoyalRoadLegends (RRL) website, daily. It hasn’t changed too much, aside from edits to remove extra exclamation marks, tighten dialogue, and remove instances of ‘mama’ so Carrie doesn’t sound like a Southern Belle.

However, I did change the “Woodlands Detour” segment to place it at the end of Book 3, which I think I like better. There were a few changes to make that work. Also, I streamlined Book 4 so that each part didn’t have it’s own title. In case anyone wants to check that out (it has some character polls too). It’s currently on pause after ZERO comments through Book 4. Like, I think people gave up reading entirely.

I’ve put in a timeline for my RRL rankings at the bottom of this post.

And then, of course, there is “Epsilon”. I imagine my habit of banging out a new episode whenever I feel like it from Sun-Fri will need to change, what with the teaching. I do have the new graphic for Story 4 though! It’s usually around the halfway point when enough has happened to crystallize an image in my mind. What do you think?

On the plus side, we see the Epsilon Station for the first time. I had very vague sketches back with Story1 - the reason the main room was called the “Hub” was because the station was circular. I’ve now fleshed it out. There’s a vague “Deep Space Nine” vibe which I noticed after the fact. (Also, Beam’s appearance gives me a Carrie vibe, but wow are they different personalities.) On the not-so-plus side, the ONE guy (Kat) gets centre stage. But I do see him as the link between the lesbians on our left, the ladies to the right, and the problems on the station below.

It’s also occurred to me that I do put a fair bit of thought into the poll options that I create, which might not be obvious to anyone but me. I bring it up here in case anyone might want to try this sort of story themselves. For example: in the previous vote? I mentioned that Rose would be the person who would be deputized by police. Yet I wondered, was it wise to do that, or should I have kept it vague? Because I could just as easily have had it be Kat, or Beam.

I chose to mention Rose, because (as I said earlier) she’s kind of the lesbian darling character, and as such it might sway some people into picking that option, which they wouldn’t have otherwise. By the same token, I needed to match the Rose choice with a consequence (leaving Firestorm behind), so that it wouldn’t be picked out of hand and feel like railroading. A lot of my thinking is trying to create balanced options.

In fact, I probably overthink some of these vote choices. Only the readers can tell me if I’m succeeding in crafting something that makes them pause to think before they click “vote” though.

STATISTICS

It wouldn’t be a “Behind the Scenes” post without some mention of statistics. As you can see from the monthly graphic below, August fell short of scraping to 300 views. Because of the less frequent posts, maybe? Well, the last time we had a month below 300 was November 2016, a couple months after I shifted to twice weekly posts. So I really have no idea. Nothing I do seems to have much permanence.

You can see peaks where I guested on other sites though. July 2016 (technically end of June), December 2016 (somewhat coincidental), and May 2017. May is also when I got a boost from Tartra’s review at WFG. (I think that’s it; I peaked. It’s all downhill now.) There was also April 2017 (the April Fool Swap), and February 2017 (guest post on a time travel site)… these apparently helped preserve status quo more than anything.

As far as the “RoyalRoadLegends” site goes, RRL allows overall rankings (max 5 stars), review+ranking, and full ranked reviews in categories (for character, plot, etc). I began posting on February 23rd with Part 1a. At the end of the month (6 days later), February 28th, I was ranked #8430 with no followers or ratings. From there:

-March 2nd: First rating (5 stars) which ranked me #4250. -March 3rd: First full review (all categories) by someone with “free time on their hands”, which put my average at 4.75 and ranked me #2688. -March 26th: Over a month in. Third rating, which overall ranked me #2213. -April 1st: Guest post (Apr Fool) at Fantasia, at a time when I had 7 followers. Also applied to “Order of Phantasmal Architects” (went nowhere).

-April 6th: Having briefly peaked at 12 followers, dropped back to 10. A poll on Part 23b managed 3 votes (one came via Fantasia). -April 16th: Into T&T Book 2. Still only 3 ratings, rank down to #2275. Only one person commenting semi-regularly. Had never posted much in their forums, soon stopped monitoring altogether. -April 25th: Two months of daily posts. Rank #2328, no new ratings or favourites for April, average Rating 4.83. -May 1st: Existing rating was revised higher, jumped to #1942. -May 2nd: Second full review, jumped to #1230.

-May 15th: Fifth rating, jumped to #1155. -May 31st: Into T&T Book 3, halfway (three months) produces A SECOND favourite (first was in March), now 17 followers. -June 9th: A THIRD and FOURTH favourite, rank having slid to #1208. -June 14th: Sixth rating, jumped to #1004. -June 15th: Existing rating revised, jumped to #905. 21 followers. -June 19th: Third full review, jumped to #611. -June 20th: Eighth rating + review, plus a message, jumped to #511 at four months in. Average Rating 5. It’s downhill from here.

-July 8th: Existing rating revised down, slid to #676. -July 16th: Into T&T Book 4. Ninth rating, boosted back up to #599. -July 31st: A FIFTH favourite, now at 25 followers. Five months in, I’d started automating posts by this point. Average Rating 4.94. -Aug 1st: A SIXTH favourite, 26 followers, rank #613. -Aug 8th: Tenth rating, rank back to #605. -Aug 24th: Cannot seem to maintain 30 followers, keeps sliding to 29. Average Rating 4.9, rank #624. Most recent poll (July 12) has only 1 vote. Only 1 comment in the last 30+ posts/days, on an early post; nothing about Book 4. The post from Aug 1st has 36 views.

At that point, with twelve days worth of posts remaining, I stopped posting daily. Then I stopped posting altogether, saying if anyone actually cares to see the edited finish, just leave some kind of comment, anything really. The “mathtans paradox” (term from grishnax, for if a consistent writer is never noticed) may be in effect. I can’t market. The T&T story isn’t normal fare for the RRL site though.

So, I’m kinda depressed! But that’s standard fare for me. Though this site has only been going strong for three years, I think you need ten before anyone’s talking about you? To close things off on a SLIGHTLY brighter note, the song parody I did for the cubic formula is up to 900 views (as of Sept 1) on YouTube, after 14 months, which is unprecedented considering my holiday videos can’t even claw their way to 100. So something I did is getting traction.

Thank you for reading to the end! This post got away from me a bit. O.o

TL;DR: Math comic’s on Tapas, T&T isn’t forgotten, vote for 2018 content, and new “Epsilon” in a week. Spread the word.

EPSILON DELTA, PART NINE: DESTINATION: DESTINY

Kat suspected that his brain was trying to interpret what he saw as double vision. But what surrounded him was actually overlapped images, and he wished his head would figure that out already. As it was, he was trying to focus on the Epsilon Station by targeting the people there, largely because they tended to be the things speaking and in motion.

Still, when Alijda stepped back, overlapping with Beam, who was rocking back and forth on her heels… the one person passing back and forth through the other person forced him to close his eyes and shake his head to readjust.

When Kat reopened his eyes, all he saw was Destiny’s house again. He snapped his attention over towards Firestorm. “Hey! Turn that back on!”

“I’m surprised the spell lasted as long as it did,” the robed magician grunted. “Never tried communicating in quite that way before.”

Rose coughed. “The place is kind of smoky now, can we go outside?”

Kat took in the scene that now surrounded him. He was standing in the middle of the room, on Firestorm’s fire-resistant tarp. The wood in the circle around him had been burned down to ash. Beam stood to one side, monitoring, unaffected by the fire owing to being insubstantial. Firestorm was at his other side, holding up some magic symbols. Rose was halfway across the room.

“No, listen, I just needed another minute or two,” Kat insisted. “Find something else to burn.”

“That was all the firewood, and we’re not burning Destiny’s stuff,” Firestorm objected. “In fact, I’m starting to think you weren’t talking to someone on the other side of the country at all.”

“Maybe the communicators will work soon?” Beam suggested. “Now that the others know you need to talk?”

“And what was up with your muttering about Alijda building an army?” Rose asked. “Also, can we go outside?”

Kat pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to remain calm. If Destiny really WAS Fate, from his world, she’d apparently already been here for a decade or more. Another few minutes wouldn’t change things. Would they? Well, he’d at least give Alijda and Alice some time, in order to avoid interrupting them while they stabilized the station.

“It wasn’t an army, it was the arm they were catching,” Kat explained. “And before we go outdoors, we need to figure out if Destiny left her home voluntarily. Because if they can’t track her from the Station, we’ll need to track her ourselves.”

“Swell,” Rose said, coughing again.

“Would you like a soothing massage, Rose?” Beam said brightly. “Once I can touch things again? Or can girl friends not do that without it getting sexy?”

“Oy,” was Rose’s only comment, looking sidelong at Beam.

Firestorm cleared his throat, setting aside the pages with the symbols on them. “Kat, you really think Destiny would have left her place looking like THIS if she’d left by choice?” He made a shooing motion in Kat’s direction.

“For misdirection, sure,” Kat retorted. Realizing what Firestorm wanted, he moved off the tarp, to allow the man to start retrieving it.

“Oh, hey, the front door,” Rose remarked, walking towards it.

“Yes, fine, Rose, I get it,” Kat sighed. “If the smoke’s bothering you that much, we’ll catch up with you out front.”

“No,” Rose said, pointing at it. “I mean it was locked. Beam had to muscle her way in. Isn’t that a clue?”

Kat again tried to keep his emotions in check. “Good point, sorry Rose. Firestorm?”

Firestorm nodded. “Yeah, if it was police cracking down on Destiny for spell casting, they would have busted that thing down. So she wasn’t arrested. Or if she was, it wasn’t here.”

Kat nodded. Firestorm had explained to them that magic was highly regulated on this world. That was the whole reason they’d had to perform the communications spell indoors, to avoid detection.

“But if Destiny locked herself in, why isn’t she still here?” Beam wondered.

“I locked the door,” Firestorm said, shooting her a look as he swept the last of the ash away. “After your unauthorized access earlier.”

“Oh. That,” Beam said, nibbling on her lower lip.

Rose turned away from the door. “Firestorm, can you maybe explain what happened the first time Beam arrived? We’d like to, uh, hear it from your point of view.”

Firestorm looked towards the ceiling. “You people… but very well.” He continued to speak as he folded up his tarp. “I was supposed to meet with Destiny tonight. As it turned out, I got a lift into town, so I came by early. The place looked like this when I arrived. I’d barely had a chance to start looking around when blue-eyes there,” he jerked his thumb at Beam, “appeared in the doorway, saying she had ‘come for the technology’.”

“I was polite about it, yeah?” Beam asked.

“You acted as if I knew what the hell you were talking about,” Firestorm said, shooting her a look. “We argued, I made a fireball, you did some freaky acrobatic jumping moves, I grabbed the fireplace poker to defend myself, and you used it as some conduit for a lightning attack. Which knocked me out.”

“Again with the lightning? How did I…" Beam’s eyes widened, and she reached up to touch the side of her head. “Oh no. No, no, did you hit my hairband with that poker? Or my earrings?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Girls and their trinkets."

“They’re my control mechanisms,” Beam snapped. Her hands fumbled over her hairband, touching it and tapping at it. She didn’t pull it out to look at it though. Actually, Kat recalled, hadn’t the hairband popped up from her head, to let them power her up? Perhaps it was a part of her. If they removed it from Beam’s hair, might Beam herself vanish?

“Major systems all functional,” the holographic girl muttered, seemingly to herself. “If I had been damaged, I’d have rebooted after self-repair. The mission would still be in short term memory. Or I might have contacted the Station… but it means I was already partly damaged when I returned with the arm… what if I’m prone to blackouts now?"

“ANYway,” Firestorm said pointedly, ignoring the rambling blonde. “When I came to, alone, I locked myself in here. Took a closer look around, found the diary, and was reading that when you all showed up again.”

Rose had approached Beam by now, reaching out to touch the troubled hologram on the shoulder. Of course, her hand passed right through, but it got Beam’s attention. She turned and fired a grateful smile at the younger girl, pulling her hands away from her hairband off Rose miming the action.

Kat decided to refocus the conversation back on his original question. “Firestorm, during that closer look around, did you see anything that might have explained what happened to Destiny? I mean, you know her better than we do. Does this seem more like the results of a struggle to you, a search, something staged…?”

“She’s a fighter,” Firestorm said, tucking his tarp away in his robes. “But her opponents wouldn’t be able to use spells in here, unless they were on the list. I’m inclined to say a search. But I don’t see her that often, so I don’t know what ‘technology’ she might have had that everyone’s obsessing over.”

Kat rubbed the back of his neck. “Would that have been the target though? I mean, they left before finding it. Didn’t they?”

He looked to Beam, who seemed to have calmed back down. She shrugged. “I didn’t know what I’d find here,” Beam answered. “There could have been more than the arm, if it was removed before I arrived. All I know is, Destiny couldn’t have had too much, or the initial reading would have been bigger.”

“Maybe there’d be information in Destiny’s diary?” Rose suggested.

Kat frowned. “Yeah. I’m hesitant to read that without permission. She kept it hidden, it feels like an invasion of privacy.”

Firestorm grinned. “I didn’t care about that.”

Kat shot the man a glare. “I noticed.”

Firestorm seemed unfazed. “You want to know about what I read, or not?”

Kat waged a brief internal battle between his morals and their mission. “Fine.”

Firestorm’s gaze became smug. “Destiny started it by saying she was ‘resigned to living out her days here’,” he said, picking the book up off the table and holding it aloft. “There’s a bunch of stuff near the start about our customs, and her symbol magic which ‘works more tangibly here’, which is why I wonder if she was originally one of the fae or something.”

Firestorm paused, as if hoping that one of them might confirm or deny his belief. When no one spoke, he continued on.

“She mentions deciding to specialize in potions, because it’s the best way to encounter people from all over. And she’s right about that. It’s not a simple trade, people travel to find potion masters. And speaking from personal experience, I know Destiny liked hearing stories or seeing objects related to the unusual, things outside the norm.”

He paused again.

“Things like you?” Beam said in the ensuing silence.

Firestorm shot her a look. “I’m not that unusual. Not everyone on her list has unusual beliefs, okay?”

“Yeah, hey, what is the story of this list?” Rose wondered.

He peered closer at her. “Don’t you know? Aren’t all of you ON the list?”

“Actually, Rose isn’t. Yet,” Kat said quickly. “She came with us in order to join. We were reluctant to give her the details, but now that Destiny’s gone, maybe you should tell her…?"

“Oh, sure. Just tell strange people ‘on the list’, who never saw Destiny in person, about that list.” Firestorm looked back and forth between them. “Ah, hell, you might be playing me, but at this point it’s probably in the diary anyway.” He adjusted his robes. “We’re the few mages who can imbue objects with powers. Meaning we’re able to use Destiny’s ‘occult’ symbols, as she calls them.”

“Anyone who can do that ends up on the list then?” Rose asked.

“No, we have to be vetted, directly or indirectly,” Firestorm said. “Destiny didn’t want this going to our head, leading to us trying to take over a city or anything. It was a way to spread the word though, in an urban legend sort of way.”

Kat rubbed his chin. “That symbol on the arm,” he mused. “That desire. It could have been a desire to connect up with others who know the symbols."

“And your symbol knowledge would be in the Epsilon database,” Beam remarked. “How DID you end up on the Station, Kat?”

“Alice thought it was a glitch,” Kat said. “Because I left right after her, so when she was pulled in… but maybe…” Could his being here be more than random chance? His hands curled into fists. “We have to find Destiny.”

“Well,” Rose put in, “if we assume Destiny let people in the front door, or was lured out, it had to be by people she knew. Probably either occult-list people, or rare-potion people.”

Kat nodded. “They subdued her, and then searched the place for… that list?”

“The list wasn’t physical,” Firestorm said. “Or at least, I didn’t think it was.”

Rose looked at Firestorm. “If we check out the storage-and-potions room, do you think you’d notice anything out of place?”

Firestorm hesitated, then shrugged again. “Maybe.” He headed towards the other room, Rose falling into step ahead of him. Kat moved to follow, only to have Beam step in front of him - he almost walked right through her.

“Kat?” the hologram said. “I am on the cusp of a logic error.”

Kat blinked. “Related to damage on your hairband?”

Beam shook her head. “No. This mission. Because it’s over. The station is safe, it sounds like the women have secured the cyber arm, and I know what happened with my memory. There is no reason for us to remain here.”

“No reason?? Beam, DESTINY–"

“Is internal to this world. Not our problem.”

“Not if she’s Fate.”

Yet again Beam shook her head. “No. This Fate may have breached the dimensional barriers herself, without external interference. That’s also not our problem. The Project cleans up rogue anomalies, it does not correct for human error.”

Kat felt a hand closing around his heart. After the years of searching, of wondering, it felt like he was suddenly so close. They couldn’t take that away from him. “The… there might be other technology,” he blurted. “Taken by whoever took Destiny away.”

Beam nodded. “That is the loophole I am holding onto. But you should know that, if further technology is not the case? I will advise Rose that our mission is over.” She glanced down at his communicator. “As such, I’m not certain how eager you should be to hear from the others.”

Kat flinched, one hand automatically covering the wristwatch device. He swallowed, and pulled both hands back to his sides. “Understood. Thank you for the warning, Beam.”

Beam nodded, her more serious expression dissolving back into a smile as she pivoted on one foot to follow after Rose and Firestorm. They met the two of them right outside the storage room, as Firestorm was emerging.

“Healing potions are gone, as are a few of the more powerful ones,” the redheaded man remarked. “But it could be Destiny simply sold out. Her permit’s not there though, her storage permit, that’s weird. Her permit for manufacturing, which she likely would have hidden, might explain the search. Rose may be onto something with her potion people abduction theory.”

“But it could still be technology,” Kat put in quickly, before he could stop himself. He bit down on the edge of his tongue.

Firestorm shrugged. “Hey, all we can do is theorize. I almost hate to say it, but maybe we should go to the police station, open an investigation? They might grant us special dispensation to use search-and-tracking magic, assuming there’s anything here to track.”

“Wow, seriously? They’d just give that kind of power to random civilians?” Rose asked.

“Sure. Because they can always revoke it, and then they’re able to say that the early interference makes solving the case unlikely,” Firestorm grunted. “Holier than thou jerks. Hence my hesitation. Thing is, police won’t investigate directly until Destiny’s been missing for a couple days.”

They couldn’t wait a couple days. Kat knew that much. Either the Epsilon Station would locate Fate - or rogue technology - probably within the next hour or two… or it would all be over. Unless they somehow ingrained themselves more into what was happening on this world, such that they couldn’t simply step away.

“We’re off to the police station then,” Kat decided. Belatedly, he looked at Rose. “Er, if that’s okay with you. You’re still in charge.”

Rose let out a long breath. “Well, is there any real alternative?”

Firestorm shrugged. “I’m cool with staying here and reading more into the diary, maybe I’ll stumble on something more concrete about Destiny’s stranger associates in her more recent entries.”

Rose pursed her lips.

WHAT’S NEXT?

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY SEPT 2nd

EXTRA ASIDE:
If you hadn’t noticed, I like grabbing throwaway things (like Beam breaking down the front door) and twisting them to be significant. If it now feels like “kidnapping” was always in the cards, then I’m probably doing my job right. Had “arrest” been chosen, I’d have obviously gone a different direction with that. Is this a skill? I don’t even know. Anyway, thanks for reading. Voting for the time travel story never hurts, August has been the worst month for views in 2017.

EPSILON DELTA, PART EIGHT: The Arm of Fate

“Wait, wait, I want to hear more of the cute girls flirting,” Alice pleaded. But it was too late. Even as she spoke, Alijda was tapping the button turning off communications to the planet. Alice made a pouty face at her. “You’re no fun.”

Alijda sighed. “Alice, sweetie, roomie, we’re trapped on a space station with a freaky magical cyber arm. Priorities?”

Alice crossed her arms. “Alijda, doom and gloom, also roomie, one of my priorities is staying sane. Pretty girls who want to kiss? It’s a sanity branch, showing me love can survive in a screwed up multiverse.”

Alijda matched her pose, not backing down. “You DO realize Beam’s attention makes Rose uncomfortable, yes?”

Alice couldn’t help but smile. She liked how Alijda challenged her opinions. It had been like that since their first encounter. Actually, no, what she liked even more about Alijda was how the teleporting woman would challenge, up until the point she realized that Alice wasn’t going to budge, then back off. There were even times when Alice yielded to logic. On occasion.

“Two girls can be good friends and share sexual pleasure stories without being actual make-out girlfriends,” Alice fired back. “Look at us.”

Alijda’s cheeks tinged a shade darker. “That’s different. Rose is half our age, she’s still figuring herself out. Also, I maintain that I really didn’t need to hear that vibrator story.”

Alice’s smile widened. “Ohhh, yes, you did. You were whining so much that afternoon about how you chase all the good guys away, how you were never going to find anyone, and how you’d never know the pleasures of a relationship again. You needed SOMETHING to take your mind off of it.”

“Most women would have suggested a day at a spa!”

“Most women didn’t find themselves alone on a space station for soooo looooong. Did you even try using one that way?”

“Oh, for–" Alijda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, and seemed about to turn away, when her posture straightened. “Wait. That’s it.”

Alice also liked when Alijda surprised her. “Really? Should we find you a–"

“NO. Stop, Alice, those images, Gods. I meant, you know this station. You know where to go to evade the sensors, yes?”

Alice shrugged. “I used to simply turn off the ones in my bedroom when I wanted–"

Alijda grasped her shoulders. “Please focus. Fo-cus. If this arm is smart, it’s going to be hiding somewhere. In a place where, even if we get all the sensors working, it’ll still be shielded from detection. Possibly even from force field confinement. Where would that be?”

Alijda’s line of thinking clicked. “There’s a few places that would work.”

That’s when the station vibrated, some red lights lit up on the console, and a warning klaxon sounded.

Alijda glanced around, then back to her. “Does one of those places also let the arm do something like that to us?”

Alice nodded. “I know exactly where it is.”

Their first major stop was auxiliary control.

“I should be able to pull something together here that’ll neutralize both the Army’s tech parts and its magical occulty parts at once,” Alice remarked. She dumped all the items they’d picked up en route onto the floor.

Alijda sighed. “Can you not call it ‘the Army’? It’s one cyber arm, not a platoon.”

ALICE VUNDERLANDE Commission from Cherry Z[/caption]

Alice grabbed the nearby toolkit and sat down to begin sifting through the assemblage of parts. She’d had something in mind ever since discovering that magic and science were blending together on that world of scale, her last Epsilon mission. She’d never thought she’d get the opportunity to build the thing.

“Army needs a name,” Alice countered. “Do you have a better one?”

Alijda’s grumble implied she didn’t. She turned towards Mr. Smith instead. “What’s the situation with these new alarms?”

“Automated,” came the computer’s reply. “Orbit is now decaying due to internal interference. I’m prioritizing the stabilization systems over everything else, save necessities like life support, so communications are down. You have approximately ninety minutes to regain control.”

“Of course. Any clue as to why the Station wants to kill us again?”

“Unknown.”

“Never easy,” Alijda mumbled. She looked back at Alice. “Can I help you build?”

It had been months since the vague blueprints had been a thing in Alice’s mind. But now that she was focussed on it, she found she could pick up where she left off. Much like remembering the next line of dialogue in “Back to the Future”, once given the right prompt. That was simply how her mind worked.

“Sorry Alijda, hardware thing here, not a hacker thing,” Alice said. “Would take longer for me to explain than to simply do it.” She snapped on a pair of goggles and began to solder. “We could talk about Kat though, that’d help.”

Alice wasn’t looking up, but she suspected that Alijda rolled her eyes. “No.”

“Totes serious,” Alice insisted. “I can work better if I’m not consciously thinking about what I’m doing. I’ve had Ziggy or Smith play music to me in the past, but the computers are kinda preoccupied right now. So come on, what did you two talk about when getting the power for Beam?”

“Nothing.”

“Ooh, yuh huh, sure, a ‘nothing’ that’s got you all bitter about relationships again. What, did you hope Rose would pick me to go to the planet? Giving you two more quality time together? You shoulda described me better than ‘walking encyclopaedia’, that’s not really a selling point.”

Alijda let out a breath of exasperation. “I was trying to sum up your skill set as best as I could. I was NOT trying to– look, don’t even start with me, okay?”

“Okee dokee. If you’re sure?”

Her roommate remained silent, but now it was the sort of silence that felt uncomfortable enough to warrant a follow up. Maybe? It took a couple minutes, but at last Alijda continued with, “It’s just… Alice, am I an egomaniac?”

Alice started splicing the necessary wires together. “I didn’t notice any huge, framed pictures of yourself on the walls of your home.”

“I don’t mean like that,” Alijda grumbled. “I mean, in how I make things about me. Because of how I shut other people out. Doing that, all I have is me, so everything becomes about me, and that shuts people out even more. A feedback loop of me, me, me.” She stamped her foot on the ground. “Damn it. I’m an uncaring bitch who should have died years ago.”

Alice spat the paperclip out of her mouth and looked up. “WHOA. Back up. That’s the depression talking. You do care. You jumped through a doorway to be with me, up here, now. You didn’t have to do that.”

Alijda shrugged, looking sullen. “Yeah, well, maybe I’m trying to find new, more exciting ways to die. It’s been all downhill since plummeting into the Thames on my first Epsilon mission.”

“Oh, stop. I’ve never been keen on black humour, and that silly show ‘A thousand ways to die’ is fiction. I hope you’ve never watched it.” Alijda didn’t even react to the random reference. Thrown off by that, Alice looked back down at her work. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to send you to the dark places.”

“I know. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too.”

“Remember, deep down, I don’t think you want to die, Alijda. You want to stop hurting. Totes different. We’ve had that argument before, yes?”

“Yeah, yeah. Things are always an argument with us.”

Alice looked back up. “Oh no. No, honey, they’re really not,” she countered, with a sincere smile. She hoped.

This, Alice granted, was something she was lousy at. Appropriate reactions and proportional response. Maybe she should have quoted Monty Python there. Maybe adding ‘honey’ had been stupid. She hoped she didn’t sound glib. Please, her friend had to know by now when she was being serious. Right?

Alijda simply smiled back. There was another protracted pause. Unable to gauge the uncomfortableness of it all this time, Alice kept working, glancing up every so often.

Alijda finally crouched down. “I’m reminded of how you’ve read Kat’s info file.”

“Yuppers. Yours too.”

“And you remember everything you’re exposed to.”

“More or less. Junking a lot of my hell dimension memories helped free up space.”

“Then tell me, what do you know about Kat’s childhood friend, Fate?”

Alice shrugged. “Aside from her vanishing? Not much. Why, did he tell you about her?”

“Sort of. In passing.”

It felt like there was more to say there, but Alice wasn’t sure how to prompt. More to the point, she was finished building. She banged the last piece into place. “Done. We have an EMP.”

Alijda blinked. “You’ve been making something that generates an electromagnetic pulse?”

“Nope.” Alice shook her head, then flicked her hair off her shoulder with a wink. “This’ll create an Electro-Magical Patch. Press this end against Army, hit the trigger, you’ll render our target inert in both sparks and spells.”

“Meaning it needs to make direct contact.”

“Well, yeah. That’d be where your teleporting comes in. Also, we have the cliche one shot only, so make it count.”

“Right. Okay, let’s get to it then.” Alijda pushed herself back to her feet. “Lead the way.”

Alice nodded, holding out the EMP device. Alijda took it, then reached out to touch Alice on the shoulder as she walked by. “Also, thank you. Really. I mean that.”

“Sure,” Alice said, blinking in surprise. After all, it was just a tech gizmo, nothing to get overly dramatic about.

The ventilation systems on the Station weren’t large enough for a person, and there were very few sensors there. But, Alice reasoned, Army could fit in many of the ducts. And while the vents could be closed off to impede it, there was a manual override.

Army had to be near that room, the override room. The terminal there could be configured to manipulate other overrides on the Station, affecting their orbit. Thus, their plan was to shut the ducts, and when Army went to trigger the override and escape, nail it.

Unfortunately, she and Alijda had needed to waste time setting the commands up, because if Army was tracking their location on sensors, being direct could tip their hand, while splitting up might equally allow it to keep them separated. Fortunately though, they were able to route the necessary shutdown to a room near Army, meaning Alijda wouldn’t have to teleport into a live video feed. She was never a fan of doing that.

“I’ve been thinking,” Alijda said slowly as they finally approached their destination.

“Do tell,” Alice encouraged.

“Something Rose said, about the Station stabilizing once it had us. Yet now it’s in trouble again. Maybe that’s because some of us went to the planet? It has to be more than coincidence.”

“Ooh. Working theory. Maybe Army’s got internal memory, and you can hack it to learn if there’s something to that. You ready?”

The two women were now strolling nonchalantly past the override room. Alijda nodded.

Alice took a right at the next doorway, tapping the code she’d set up into the terminal there. Alijda vanished in a teleport cloud of purple smoke, back down the hall.

Alice then quickly ran back after her, to cut off any chance of escape if Army somehow got past Alijda’s teleporting by not using the vent. She saw Alijda run inside the room. Moments later, Alijda let out a shriek.

“What? WHAT?” Alice gasped, half expecting Army to jump out at her as she closed the distance, her stun grenade at the ready. The purple smoke of Alijda’s teleport dissipated enough to allow for visibility.

Alice peered around the corner. Army didn’t launch itself into her face. Instead, she saw Alijda lying on the floor of the room, with Kat standing over her. Kat?! It couldn’t be! Had Army learned to project holograms??

“OW,” Alijda said, rubbing near her bottom. “A little warning next time?”

“Communications are down,” Image-Kat said. “Or I would have.”

Alice caught herself up. “Magical projection from the planet,” she realized. “Using a variation of that spell that the Chris woman did on your last mission. Smart.”

“Thanks,” Kat said, glancing her way. “Listen, you two need to scan for–"

“Where’s Army?” Alice interrupted, looking to Alijda.

Kat flinched, looking over his shoulder. “You’ve got an army…?"

Alijda pointed up at the open grate in the ceiling. “Vent. Kat appeared between us as I was reaching out. Which made me scream and flinch back, so the cyber arm managed to trip the override… I jumped to hit it as it was trying to escape though. So I don’t think it got far?”

Alice looked up. “Leaving us with inert Army stuck in the ventilation. Good times.”

“Also a station falling out of orbit, so let me see if I can’t fix that,” Alijda remarked, pushing herself up off the floor and moving to the nearest computer keyboard. She began typing, as Kat returned his attention to Alice.

“You’ve been busy,” Kat observed.

“Nah, not really,” Alice said, firing off a grin. “Scan for what now?”

Kat shook off his confusion. “People. A person on the planet. Someone who’s not supposed to be down here, the same way that cyber arm wasn’t supposed to be here.”

Alice pursed her lips. “What, you mean you think someone fell through the multiverse cracks along with the arm? That’s not very solo-missiony. Are you sure?”

“We found a diary,” Kat explained. “Supposedly written by a women here who calls herself Destiny. Thing is, I recognize what’s in it. Not just the occult symbols, but some of the shorthand the writer was using.”

Alice peered closer. This scenario was a bit too weird. Was the image of Kat speaking to them under duress? “Blink twice if you’re being held captive.”

“Alice, I’m serious. I think that, somehow, it’s–"

“Oh my God,” Alijda gasped. She turned to them. “The computer. It’s…" She took a step back, pointing at the screen. “There was already a program in active memory to fix our orbit. I gave it a quick scan for viruses, then ran it. Look at what else it’s doing now.”

Alice took a few steps closer and leaned in to get a better look. One single word was typing and retyping itself, filling the screen with a single word, over and over.

Fate. Fate. Fate. Fate. Fate.

WHAT’S NEXT?

What happened to this Destiny woman?

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY AUGUST 19th

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED:
The section for events you indirectly voted on returns. The “Fate” connection (misdirection?) was locked in place with Vote 3, “Beam’s memory is damaged” (focussing attention on the artifact). That’s why Part 4 had to close off Kat’s loose plot thread of “Fate” on his home world, and why I had him recognize the symbols. It’s ALSO why Rose’s decision of who to bring down to end Part 5 was KEY, thus why I felt I couldn’t break that tie, and got so crushed at the low vote total. Anyway. All out in the open now! More or less. ;)

EXTRA ASIDE:
Heyyy, we’re back to zero view days over this three-year-old site’s 247 posts (we’ve had two empty days in the last ten). A weekly vote for T&T still helps to get eyes on us… though really, better than that is sharing a link out to anyone you think might enjoy interactive fiction. No pressure though, I’m happy you’re still here, voting and morphing the story. Ciao for niow.

EPSILON DELTA, PART SEVEN: Goodness Gracious

Rose stared at Kat. He, in turn, stared back at her.

“It’s your call, Rose,” he said after a moment. “You wanted to come down to the planet.”

“What?” Rose flinched. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Uh, I guess I just… I figured… yeah.”

I figured, you’re the one fixing my relationships here, Rose thought to herself. Hell, I’m the youngest one on this team, what idiot would even put me in charge in the first place? Only a crazy person. A crazy blonde hologram person.

With that thought, her gaze slipped to the side, to Beam’s eager expression. No doubt eager for more than Rose’s opinion on how this mission should go. As there was also the question of how to properly make small talk with another girl that you really wanted to mack on, but were now trying to see as only a friend instead.

Gods, how was it that this hologram could be blonde, like Paige, and experienced, like Paige, and yet somehow be even more innocent than Rose herself? It made Beam way too adorable. And not necessarily in a sexy way, so Rose found herself wondering why she was now feeling some disappointment over Beam no longer seeing her as a potential sexual partner. Especially since, being undesirable, that’s what Rose had ASKED for, right?!

“Oh, flûte it,” Rose grumbled, pushing those thoughts away and shifting her attention over towards the house.

Kat was right, she had to maintain her focus down here. The sooner the mission was done, the sooner the Beam stuff would become a non-issue.

“Let’s go investigate.”

Rose pivoted, heading towards the structure, Kat falling into step right behind her, and Beam trailing after them. It had to be about the house. It had a symbol, like the arm. Plus she’d suggested investigating there, so if she didn’t stick with that choice, she might look indecisive.

Rose had to go up on her tiptoes in order to properly see in the window, in part because the glass itself was dirty. And not merely dirty on the outside, as the wiping of her palm on the surface revealed. Still, she could see the outline of the objects in the large room. A table and chairs, maybe a kitchen area with pots and pans, nothing out of the ordinary. Except for how the items had been tipped over and strewn about, as if there had been a search, or a struggle.

“Could be a tornado ran through the place,” Rose remarked.

“A wind spell gone wrong?” Beam suggested.

“Dunno,” Rose mused. “Wouldn’t a protection symbol be trying to prevent rampant spells?”

“We’re still lacking the necessary context for those occult symbols,” Kat reminded them. “It may protect against detection of a person inside, not the structure itself.”

Right. So maybe she should have called Alijda after all. Rose pursed her lips, but as she turned away, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. She peered back inside. “Ooh, wait, someone’s there. At least, I think it’s a someone. Not a something.”

“What do you see?” Kat prompted.

“A filthy window. Maybe one of you can boost– aww, fiddle mix.” Rose ducked back down out of sight. “I think the whatever saw me.”

“Are you sure?” Beam wondered.

“The head of the thing was looking to the window, then it dashed back out of view,” Rose admitted. She looked to Kat. “Is there a military procedure we should enact now to keep it from getting away?”

“Well, I’d suggest you and Beam burst into the front, making a lot of noise, while I circle around to the back. I’ll grab the whatever if it tries to run, and if it doesn’t, I’ll sneak up behind it.”

Rose nodded. “I like it. Good plan. Beam, let’s act on this good plan.”

“But what if the something is a robot with still one functional cyber arm?” Beam asked. “Isn’t that possible?”

Rose winced. “Okay, yeah. Not the best time to point out that we should have come down armed. That is, armed with weapons, not with actual arms.”

“Seeing weapons might antagonize this thing even more,” Kat remarked, as he moved off to circle around the house. “Also, it’s a magic world, not a tech world, so a robot’s unlikely.”

“Let’s hope it knows that,” Rose muttered.

“Rose, don’t worry, I can kung fu,” Beam assured. “It’s only, a part of me thinks that you should be the strong one protecting me. Not the other way around.”

“Then screw that part of your program, I’m good with being protected,” Rose said, smiling half-heartedly. “Though, I have been taking self defence courses too, yeah? And those can teach a girl more than just how tasty floor mats can be. So I’m not totally defenceless these days. Don’t count me out yet.”

Beam extended her arms for a hug, then seemed to think better of it. “Right. Let’s do this, girl friend.”

The awkwardness of that phrase nearly made Rose cringe, but Beam was already turning away, so Rose simply hurried with her over to the front door. She saw Beam gently try to turn the handle, but the door seemed to be locked. Beam looked back, shrugging up one shoulder.

Rose nodded. “On three,” she whispered, holding up three fingers. That’s how they did it in movies, right? She curled her fingers, one by one. As the last finger came down, Beam threw her weight in against the door. It popped open.

“Noooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise,” Beam shrieked as she charged into the residence.

On the one hand, it was a silly thing to yell, but on the other hand, Rose hadn’t thought of what noise to make herself. “Eeeeeeeeeeee,” she was screaming before she could think about it. Though being an alto and not a soprano, she felt it lacked the proper effect.

Her gaze swept across the room as she entered next to Beam, stamping her feet for what she hoped was added intimidation. The place looked much like it had through the window, just less indistinct. No one was there. Curiously, the cauldron on the floor vibrated unexpectedly as she screamed towards it, giving her double vision.

Perhaps due to that, the sound of a humming noise failed to draw her attention right away, and she only saw the danger coming from out of the corner of her eye.

“Rose,” Beam gasped.

Rose felt herself get shoved to the side. She stumbled, falling forwards onto the ground, quickly spinning over to look back. To confirm what she had feared. There had been a sensation of increased heat. Now there was a great big ball of fire where Beam was standing. Burning her up.

“BEAM,” Rose screamed back.

“Ha ha, I got you first this time,” came a new voice, a male voice.

Rose snapped her gaze over to the source. A doorway towards the back of the structure. There was a red haired man standing in it, wearing what looked like a monk outfit, with his hands on his hips.

“What have you dooooone??” Rose cried out, pushing herself off the ground and charging towards him.

Caught off guard, the man lifted his arms again, Rose belatedly processing he might well be about to throw a second fireball into her face. But this could be their only shot at taking him out. She closed her eyes, turned her face to the side, and bent her body lower, but didn’t cease her charge.

It was a bit of a surprise when she connected solidly with the man’s midsection without feeling a blast of heat, and then both of them were driven backwards and down to the ground. Rose used him a mat to cushion her landing. She quickly moved to try and pin the guy’s arms down on the ground, hoping he needed them to channel magic. He didn’t resist.

“How did you DO that?” he man demanded, glaring.

“Adrenaline helps me run faster,” Rose breathed.

His eyes rolled. “No, no, how did you manipulate the fire? I heard nothing.”

“It’s actually me,” came Kat’s voice. Rose looked up to see him standing next to them. She had propelled the monk-man into the room at the back of the house, where Kat was holding his arm out and grimacing as he looked back through the doorway. Following his gaze, Rose saw that the fireball which had encompassed Beam had moved to the middle of the room, and was burning itself out.

“Beam,” Rose gasped. “Kat, she was hit, go see if you can still save–"

CHIBI BEAM (scan)
Commission yesterday from Gen Ishihara

“Hi hi,” Beam said, stepping into the doorway and wiggling her fingers in a wave. Incredibly, she looked completely undamaged. Rose felt her jaw drop.

“It’s fine,” Beam explained, smiling at Rose after glaring at the man on the ground. “I turned myself insubstantial right after I pushed you.”

She reached out, swiping her arm right through the wall next to the doorway. Unable to drop her jaw any lower, Rose tilted her head to the side instead.

“You can do that, huh, Beam?” Kat grunted. He closed his hand into a fist, and the fireball in the other room disappeared.

“Hologram, remember?” Beam said, as if that explained everything. Only to add, “The transition is a serious power drain though, and I did it without thinking. Switching back will be the same issue, so I think I’d better stay this way until we know whether or not you need me to interact with anything.”

The only reason Rose managed to pull her attention away from Beam’s still quite solid-looking and unblemished form was that the man beneath her tried to move.

She renewed the pressure on his upper arms while looking back down. “Just stop. Ooh, you are SO lucky you didn’t hurt her, or we’d have you on trial for murder.”

“Hurt HER?” the man grumbled. “You’re the ones breaking in. And your blonde friend already knocked me out once today. Who are you people anyway? You shouldn’t be able to cast in here. The building is protected against that, unless you’re on the list.”

Kat crouched down, resting his palms on his knees. “Well, here’s the thing. You want to know about us, and we want to know about a cyber arm. Any chance we could all simply have a nice chat over some tea?”

The man shot Kat an incredulous look, but upon seeing the irritated expressions Rose and Beam were sporting, he gave a resigned sigh. “Why not. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened today.”

The man’s name was Firestorm, or at least that’s the name he gave them during a round of introductions. Firestorm assured them that no one else was in the house, but Kat asked Rose and Beam to take a quick look around to be sure. The place turned out to have four rooms in total.

The main room in the front seemed to be the kitchen, slash meeting room, slash whatever else room… it was all a bit of a jumble, what with the furniture and pots and pans strewn about everywhere. The smaller room in the back was the structure’s bedroom, or at least it had a comfortable mattress there, plus a dresser.

Then there were two smaller rooms off to the side, one a storage room for a mop and numerous potions, and that what seemed to be a washroom, implying some form of indoor plumbing. Beam used her insubstantial form to push her head through the doors before Rose opened them, to check for traps or other occult symbols.

“It’s no good if the room is totally dark,” Beam remarked as she did so. “But enough light’s filtering in through the cracks.”

“Except, uh, how does that even work?” Rose asked. “To see the world around us, light needs to hit our eyes, so if your eyes are no longer in phase with the world…"

“My eyes are also light now,” Beam said, turning back with a smile. “I don’t sink into the ground very much either. Don’t think too hard, Rose. I know I don’t.”

When they got back to the main area, Kat was finishing setting up the chairs from where they had fallen, as Firestorm peered in the cupboards. “Destiny’s out of tea,” he remarked. “Do you want macaroons?”

“Let’s just compare notes,” Kat suggested. “How long have you known Destiny?”

Rose frowned. She almost spoke up to ask about the name ‘Destiny’, but then realized what Kat was doing, and bit her tongue. It stood to reason that if Destiny was the true owner of the place, Firestorm might think she’d authorized them to be here. Admitting they didn’t know this Destiny woman could mess that up.

Firestorm turned, adjusting his robes before leaning back against the counter. “Several years now. And she’s never mentioned you.” He focussed in on Beam again. “Why did you knock me out?”

“I was after a cyber arm?” Beam answered.

Firestorm sighed. “Is that the technology you were talking about before? When I said I didn’t know what you meant, and told you to leave, you instead knocked me out with some lightning attack.”

“I did?” Beam rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess I didn’t want you in my way as I searched.” She glanced around the room. “Wait, I didn’t mess this place up, did I?”

“No worse than it was already, when I got here this morning,” Firestorm said. “I’m worried that something’s happened to Destiny. At first I thought you were involved in taking her away, but if you were, why would you come back? Twice? Particularly after finding whatever you’d been looking for.”

“So that cyber arm WAS being kept in here then,” Beam said, her eyes lighting up. She moved to lean in against the table, but of course passed right through it, and ended up sprawled on the floor. “Derp."

Firestorm rolled his eyes. “Could be? When I came to, I discovered someone, presumably you, had pried up part of the floor. There was a secret storage place down there that I hadn’t known about. Thanks for leaving behind the diary, by the way, it gave me something to read after I regained consciousness. And it helped me realize that I didn’t know Destiny as well as I’d thought. Which brings me back to, who are you, and how long have YOU known Destiny?”

The question was addressed to Kat, but instead of answering it, he shifted his attention to Rose. She wasn’t sure if he was deferring to her being “in charge” for the more pointed question, or if he was trying to give her some sort of signal that he wanted her to be a distraction, but Firestorm was now looking at her instead.

Rose squared her shoulders. “We’ve never met Destiny in person,” she said, figuring truth was the way to go, even if only a partial truth. “But we know things.”

“Is that the diary?” Kat asked, pointing to the book on a corner of the table as Beam pushed herself to her feet. She ended up standing in the middle of it.

Firestorm shrugged. “Yeah. Recognize it?”

Kat walked over to have a look, Beam moving out of the way. He flipped the book open, and frowned at whatever he saw there. Then he picked the book up, scanning the passage closer. A haunted look came into his eyes, and he grabbed for his communicator watch. “Alijda? Alijda, are you there? Alijda, come in!”

There was no answer.

Kat looked to Rose. “Try yours.”

Rose looked down at her wrist, and attempted to open a communications frequency. “Hello? Alijda? Alice?” Again, there was no answer.

“Mine won’t work unless I switch back,” Beam remarked. “It’s phased with me.”

“Well, we need them to do a scan,” Kat said. “An in-depth scan, NOW.” He jerked his gaze over towards Firestorm. “You! Do you know any communications spells?!”

WHAT’S NEXT?

We’re going back to the Station, probably for an Alice POV since she’s been used already, but if anyone would prefer Alijda, feel free to comment. The vote is for how communications get restored. OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY AUGUST 5th

EPSILON DELTA, PART SIX: SHE LOVES ME NOT

Kat was the last to arrive out of the transportation whirlpool. He tucked his body and rolled on the field of grass as he landed, looking up in time to see the vortex shut behind them. He first looked over to where Beam was helping Rose up to her feet, then tapped at the watch device on his wrist.

“Alijda?” he asked. “Any problems your end?”

“Aside from having a magical cyber arm stalking us? No, no, we’re good,” came Alijda’s voice.

“How’s it look down there?” Alice asked.

Kat stood up, brushing off his pants as he looked around. They were in a field of grass, by a dirt road, with a cluster of houses not very far away. Logically, that village had to be the origin for the arm, as the three of them had been transported to the planet at the same coordinates Beam had used for her first visit. It seemed to be late afternoon here, based on the location of the sun.

“Civilization’s nearby,” Kat reported. “We’ll go check it out. I figure we’ve got to hit something within twenty minutes, since Beam had less than an hour to come down, get the arm, and return.”

“Might take you thirty minutes,” Beam spoke up. “My top speed is a bit faster than that of a normal human.”

Rose tilted her head. “So do you sweat like us when you run?” She immediately smacked her palm over her mouth, as if she hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

Beam clasped her hands behind her back, wiggling her eyebrows and letting out a giggle. “Ooh, Rose, yes. Every time I get all hot and bothered, my body reacts JUST like yours does. Thank you for asking?”

Once again, some of Rose’s freckles began to wash out as her cheeks darkened.

“I heard just enough of that to not want to hear any more,” Alijda remarked. “Be careful down there, Kat, okay? We don’t have the power to pull you back yet.”

“Understood,” Kat said. “Signing off.”

“Wait, wait, I want to hear more of the cute girls flirting,” Alice’s voice came, right before the connection ended.

Kat shook his head, then looked over at his two companions. They were standing side by side, though Beam was leaning in towards Rose, looking hopeful, while Rose was staring down at the grass. Or rather, sidelong at Beam’s legs. He sighed.

“Alice makes a good point, if accidentally,” he remarked. “Rose? Beam? We really can’t afford to have you two making eyes at each other right now, not if there’s someone or something dangerous lurking down here.”

Rose snapped her gaze up towards him. “What? Oh, Kat, I wouldn’t. I mean, I’m not. I mean, I have a girlfriend, a wonderful girlfriend. I would never cheat on Paige. No way!”

Kat crossed his arms. “And I believe that. But you DO seem to be affected by Beam somehow, whether it’s curiosity, something physical, or because this situation has turned her into a damsel in distress. I know I’ve fallen for a few pretty girls under that sort of circumstance.”

Rose visibly swallowed. “Well, yeah, I want to help Beam. B-But I would never cheat on Paige,” she repeated softly, before looking away, towards the settlement.

Kat looked to the blonde hologram. “Also, Beam, you’re not helping. For now, can you modify your algorithms, or set Rose as unattainable or something? She is, as she points out, taken. Not to mention very possibly your superior officer.”

Beam leaned back away from Rose, her smile disappearing as she focussed on Kat. “Apologies. Under these circumstances, I cannot help but flirt with Rose.”

Kat lifted his eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

Beam sighed. “Honestly? Rose is now more than a run-of-the-mill cute, funny, intelligent redheaded girl. Because she has saved my life, as it were. Meaning I owe her. And by default, I am programmed to repay such debts to women in a very specific way. By cozying up to them, until such a point that I can reward them with–”

“Space?” Rose squeaked, cutting Beam off.

“–kisses,” Beam finished regardless. She eyed Rose. “Kisses… everywhere.” Yet even as she generalized, her gaze wandered south for just a moment. “All very commitment free. Whenever you’re ready to accept.”

Rose let out what Kat interpreted as giddy laughter. The teenager began to backpedal. “Wow! Okay, so, I’m sorry Beam, that’s not happening. Like, ooh, I’m sure you’re awesome and good at what you do, but not only am I off the market, I’m sure no parts of me taste sweet at all. Besides, mission. Big mission here! We gotta get back on track, right Kat? Time’s a-wasting, we gotta get going here, we gotta–"

As Kat raised his hand, palm out, Rose stopped a few steps away. “Rose, wait. Please. Remember, you wanted me along with you? Not Alijda, who might have tried to ignore this relationship, or Alice, who probably would have encouraged it. I think we need to put it to bed.” He frowned. “Though, bad choice of words.”

“Kat, I wanted you along since you recognized the occult symbol,” Rose mumbled. Though she did stop, executing a series of such rapid fire toe-taps on the ground that the tip of her shoe began to make an indentation.

Kat peered closer at Beam, who was now looking at the ground with a pouty expression. Almost like she was a young twenty something who wasn’t being allowed to borrow the family car. It WAS sort of adorable - but surely that too, had to be programming.

“Beam?” he said. “I’m sorry if this sounds indelicate, but I’m not sure how else to put this. Were you created to be some sort of high-tech prostitute? Is that part of the problem here?”

Beam’s pouty lower lip started to quiver, as if she was upset. From the corner of his eye, Kat saw Rose smack her hand over her face - while still peering out between her fingers. For a moment, he was worried she’d jump in and say something to deflect before Beam could speak up, but Rose held her tongue.

“I do not know,” Beam answered at last, her expression becoming more neutral as Rose failed to object. The hologram again scrutinized Kat. “I can tell you this. I have experienced memory loss before. My first memory ever is waking up in an alleyway on my Earth, with no idea as to how I got there. At the time, I knew little more than my name, and my basic programming.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I like to think that my creator, whoever they were, had honourable intentions, and was sadly forced to leave me behind on that day. But it is equally possible that I was discarded there by a creator who became disgusted by my lesbian settings, and was unable to reformat me. Which, yes, might make me nothing more than someone’s off-the-market high-tech sexual plaything.”

“Ohhh, Beam, you poor–” Rose froze in the process of reaching back towards the holographic woman, leaving her fingers twitching in the air. Apparently, her desire to help out was still battling with her fear at being seduced by the pretty hologram.

Kat found he wasn’t entirely surprised by Beam’s answer. Granted, he’d thought that maybe the holographic girl’s reluctance to give Rose space was due to a different sort of boot-up imprinting, but… “Then did a redheaded woman take you in on that day, and treat you nicely as you coped with your memory loss?”

Beam shook her head. “No.” She looked sidelong at Rose. “But your thinking does match my own here, Kat. For while the woman did not have red hair like Rose, I repaid that debt in much the same way I want to here. She was even funny, in a similar way to Rose.”

“Ah ha ha, funny looking, you mean,” Rose muttered.

Beam smiled. “Oh, no Rose. Have I mentioned yet how much I love seeing your shirt?”

Rose pounded her toe into the dirt. “Don’t even. I hope they’re still growing. That is, oh, DAMN it, you meant the pun there, huh?”

Lia even drew the shirt
Such a good commission[/caption]

Beam giggled. “I did. You can handcuff me whenever you want. To whatever you want. Commitment free, Rose.”

Kat had been vaguely wondering about the meaning of Rose’s T-Shirt, which sported a squiggle leading down to the single word ‘YOU’RE’. With Beam’s remark, it suddenly clicked - the squiggle was music notation for a quarter rest. Rose’s top read: YOU’RE, under a rest.

Rose again buried her face in her hands, turning away. “Should I die now? Because under the circumstances, I think dying of embarrassment is the only proper thing for me to do. Solves everything. Give my love to Paige. Not literally.”

“Ohhh, Rose, you poor–” Beam froze in the process of reaching back towards the other girl, leaving her fingers twitching in the air. Kat wondered whether the blonde was mimicking Rose’s earlier actions deliberately, or instinctively. At least she seemed to know enough not to hug Rose just then.

He sighed. “Beam. Listen. You have GOT to scale it back, for Rose’s own sake if nothing else. Is there any way you can just… reclassify Rose as less your saviour, and more one of your girl friends?”

Beam turned to look at him, lowering her arm. “I could. That would stretch out the time frame for intimacy, though not remove the compulsion.”

“I meant, your friends who are girls,” Kat added quickly. “Not girlfriends as in girls you might one day end up sleeping with.”

Beam canted her head to the side. A puzzled look crossed her face. “Honestly, I’ve never been clear on that distinction.”

“Girls that you simply get along with,” Kat pressed. “That you don’t sleep with, who aren’t into you sexually. Heterosexual girls, for instance. Rose’s preferences aside.”

Beam shrugged. “On my Earth, the default is that people feel they are compatible with everyone, regardless of gender,” the hologram explained. “That’s partly what made my programming so unique, its inherent rejection of the unfairer sex. It’s why I had to remain in hiding, why my existence was looked down upon by most men, and even some women. It’s also why I saw my recruitment to this project as a form of escape, rather than as an abduction.”

Kat shook his head. Beam had surprised him at last. “Wait, no. You’re from some free love society? Where every female on your Earth is open to any gender, no exception?”

Beam tilted her head the other way. “It is the same for the males.”

Kat swallowed. “But then, you’ve… with ALL your female friends? But that’s impossible.”

”Impossible?” Beam half smiled. ”Do you really want me to answer that?”

”What about marriage?” he objected.

“Marriage unites one woman with one man, for procreation, but she is still welcome to have as many female partners as she requires for pleasure. As is the man with other males. Cheating doesn’t apply with the same sex.”

Kat let out a low whistle. “Huh, unique. So you really… like, you mean ANY girl you’ve met, you eventually kiss and… damn, really? Seriously?” Kat said, starting to feel flustered himself at Beam’s penetrating, yet increasingly inquisitive look.

“If I meet a pretty woman in the grocery store, no,” Beam admitted. “Yet if I have become friendship bonded with a female who is old enough to understand, the next step is quite natural.“

“Even if they give you a hard ‘no’?“ Kat said, feeling he was grasping at straws.

Beam crossed her arms. “Do not misunderstand. I will not initiate when a partner is not ready. But in the interim, having established compatibility, I cannot help but flirt. Thus, for now, it must continue until Rose is no longer my lesbian friend, or my life debt is repaid.”

Rose had dropped her arms to her sides and was now staring up towards the sky. “Ohh, yup, Lesbian Rose Thorne is now dead of embarrassment,” she sighed. “So, we gonna have an open casket funeral for the poor dear, or just a big ol’ girl love orgy in her honour, ooooh, choices, choices…"

Kat rubbed the back of his neck. There had to be a way out of this. “Can’t you make some new off limits classification for Rose?”

“I would need a point of reference. I am still desperately trying to compute your distinction between lesbian girlfriends and friends who are lesbian girls. Because I…” Beam bit down on her lip. “I don’t want to lose Rose’s friendship. I feel that would hurt my heart.”

Rose turned her head, eyes widening. “You have a heart too?“

Beam looked back at her. “It was a metaphor, but I can simulate having one. If it would please you.“

Rose sighed. “Ohh, Beam… would it help to lie to you about my preferences? It’s just, I spent so long lying to myself…”

Kat clapped his hands. “Wait, that’s it. Beam? Classify Rose as a male friend.”

Beam gasped. “Oh. OH. Of course, it’s so simple.”

Rose shifted her wide-eyed gaze to Kat, then let out a moan as she dropped to her knees, placing her hands back over her face. “Y’know what? I can’t even tell if I’m offended or relieved. But know that Lesbian-Boy-Rose is ALSO DEAD. He/she/we are all dead, dead, stone cold dead from being too embarrassed. Uhh, as long as that’s doesn’t categorize me in a fetish way instead, Beam? Cuz if so, I’m only mostly dead. Also, ew.”

Beam let out a soft cooing noise. “Oh, Rose, don’t worry. I could never truly see you as male. You’re too curvy, not to mention adorable. But overlaying my feelings for men onto a new subclass of girl could make you my first real girl… friend. If that’s acceptable?” Her look was hopeful again, her body faintly quivering with excitement.

Rose looked back upwards through her fingers. “Why do I feel like I’ll be in charge of teaching boundaries to a hot lesbian hologram?”

Beam clasped her hands together, silently pleading.

Rose pulled her hands down. “Um, okay, acceptable.”

Beam blinked a few times. Then she squealed in delight. “Oh, ROSE, is this how you see ME?”

Beam knelt down next to her, grasping Rose in a sideways hug. Only to immediately pull back slightly. “Hugging, I can mean it non-sexually, right?” Rose nodded mutely in response, only to be pulled back even tighter into Beam’s bosom. “Oooh, it’s so weird and different, but I feel like I really get your reluctance now.”

“Urk. Yeah, uh, so I guess Rose lives again?” Rose wheezed. “She needs to breathe though. Beam, please let Rose breathe?”

Kat found he could only shake his head in wonder. And as Beam released Rose and then tried to engage the stunned redhead in a discussion of sports and beer, he realized that long term, he had probably only served to trade off one problem for another.

The first two houses they passed on the road, which were spaced a few city blocks apart, looked unremarkable. They continued on, Beam practically skipping along the dirt road, all smiles, as Rose trailed long looking sheepish. But, Kat suspected, secretly relieved.

Kat extended his arm as they came up to the third house, bringing the two girls up short.

“I see it too,” Rose remarked. “Another occulty symbol, on the wall there.”

“That’s no desire symbol though,” Kat revealed. “It’s used for protection.”

“So is it protecting someone who’s inside the house?” Beam wondered. “Or is it keeping something in there from getting out, like a freaky homicidal robot who’s short one cyber arm?”

Kat could only shrug. “I don’t know. We could call Alijda for an update, see if maybe they have the arm, or can get something from the station’s database about how common these symbols are on this world.”

Rose expelled a breath. “Well, it’s only a one story building, and I’m feeling amazingly brave given all my resurrections of late. We could at least look in the window.”

Beam pointed down the road. “Or, look, someone’s in the street, closer to the heart of this village. They’re coming this way. Could be a local. Or maybe they saw me here last time? We could always talk to them before messing with the spells in the area.”

NEXT?

What should they do about this symbol? OPTIONS: 

VOTING CLOSES NOON EDT SATURDAY JULY 22nd

Everyone’s changing, I stay the same, I'm... A solo cello, outside a chorus. I’ve got a secret, it’s time for me to tell That you’ve been keeping me warm.

History repeats itself.

The short version: I’m going to shift “Epsilon” updates to being every two weeks. The long version is, as usual, rather more complicated. Feel free to read on, or not.

I’ll start by admitting that I’m not sure if this marks the beginning of the end. That’s certainly how it was with my personified math serial. The good news is, after 14 months of deep slumber, that did return from the ashes (as a webcomic). Similarly, “Time Untied” continues to percolate through my mind, and there is liable to be something there eventually. (Whether that story reaches completion is another issue entirely, as is how this site continues in the meantime.)

What kills me about this situation is just how similar it is back with the math serial. Then, Audrey was reading my backlogs just as everything imploded. This time, I’ve got Steve S following regularly, and people commenting, even as the situation seems to force me to scale back. I feel kind of bad about that.

Shouldn’t what little I have be enough? Why isn’t it enough? Maybe on some level I want to sabotage myself?

Thing is, I know my writing is niche. That solo cello, constantly playing its refrain of time travel, mathematics and multiverse insanity… in a fiction world of superheroes, YA romance and RPGs. I didn’t expect to gain an audience overnight. So why am I feeling the weight of it more now?

IN, STALLED

In the previous week, the week of June 25th, there was also a tie (2-2-1) on the Wednesday. (Also overall my lowest week for views so far in 2017.) I tweeted out, anyone want to break that. I got two more votes, resulting in a come-from-behind victory (2-2-3; in a way, that’s another reason I’m hesitant to break the tie myself). Despite that, this week, when I tweeted out the tie (1-1-1)… nothing.

I tossed out a Twitter poll a bit before midnight on Wednesday, asking should I wait a day? A week? (Give up entirely?) I got four responses, with the majority saying wait a day. So here we are, Friday noon, still a three way tie. I fail. Though, of course, there’s a bit more to it when placed in context.

Rewind to a year ago, “Epsilon Story3” routinely got between 3 and 5 votes. This year, we’d started “Epsilon Story4” with 5 to 7 votes. That felt like an improvement. So to drop back to 3 votes? And to stay there, despite me tweeting out “Hey, it’s a tie, yours is the swing vote to personally influence my writing!” and get nothing? That’s, frankly, kind of crushing.

The writing mind wonders. Maybe people went on vacation? Maybe the only three people voting now are the ones who had their choice picked last time? Maybe I can’t hold anyone’s interest week to week. Maybe people hate the characters. Maybe people are only humouring me for this story. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead. One tries not to listen to certain inner voices but the spiral does go down.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Despite that, somehow, I’m right back where I started a year ago. On this site, days with over 20 views across all 240+ posts is an oddity, not the norm. (There’s been seven in the last month.) Add to that how I can’t even push past 3 votes on a story which is meant to be based on audience votes. Despite k-fish linking back at me. (From a voting serial story about girl love, Redwood Crossing, check it out in the side links.)

[caption id=“attachment_1967” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] JUNE INTO JULY 2017[/caption]

And the voting period is longer now than ever before! I picked Thursday morning figuring that gives me Thursday to consolidate and outline in my head, Friday to write (it takes me around 6 hours to crank out 2,000 words), and Saturday to edit. Last week, I pushed the envelope to do it sooner because Saturday was Canada Day, and I also wanted to submit a short story elsewhere by June 30th, and after all that effort…

We’re at the next Friday and I don’t even have the votes. So I’m writing this post instead. I should probably be marketing, but I’ve had 52 Weeks of fail there. Not only with this blog, but Wattpad too, and I just dropped in rank on RRL. My math comic, now in year six, also had two consecutive days of zero views last week.

I’m tired.

I’m teaching a new course in September.

Technically it’s not new, but they’ve redesigned the Ontario curriculum since I last taught Grade 10 computer science. That’s going to suck up more time during the summer, as I haven’t even done any computer programming in 10 years. Meaning I’m being pulled away by my job, and I don’t seem to have the foundation here to keep me from being uprooted.

I don’t know, maybe it’s good that I didn’t get the fourth vote on Thursday. Sending me back towards the thing I get paid for in money, rather than in enjoyment. Because being overlooked in a participation piece isn’t that enjoyable anyway. And I KNOW I’m niche, but to be back here, after a year of making the effort?

Still, as I said at the start, I’m not quitting, only scaling back to every other week. Hell, when I scaled UP in September, posting twice per week instead of once, my overall views WENT DOWN. (So does that mean by posting less often now, my views will go up?) I swear, anyone who says as long as you push out content regularly means you will eventually have an audience find you is a damn liar.

NOW WHAT

The plan had been to rerun an old story once we’d finished this “Epsilon” story entry, and that’s still the plan, it’ll just take longer to get there. Though that one might go weekly. Maybe I’ll put things to a vote. We’ll see. I really don’t know what September’s going to do to me.

Also, as long as I’m talking the audience (preaching to the choir), I noticed last week that someone’s still voting for T&T at Top Web Fiction. Thanks for that. I still get hits from there, which likely keeps us from plunging to zero views. (The person from Australia reading T&T Book 2 this past week also helped there.) Thanks also for those who have participated in weekly votes, who ReTweet, and for all comments over the past two months. I know I’m not a big part of your life out there, but I’m glad we can share that time together, no matter how brief. It makes me feel like it’s somehow worthwhile. :)

With no new fiction, I’ve leave you with this little AMV that Rose might enjoy watching, were Rose to know much of anything about anime.

Don’t tell me you have to go... In the heat of summer sunshine, I miss you, like nobody else. In the heat of summer sunshine, I thank you. I guess we’ll see where this goes.

EPSILON DELTA, PART FIVE: Holo Victory

Rose repeated the “hand squeeze of support” with Beam once more before releasing her, rising to her feet at the same time as Alijda. “If the planet already knows we’re here, they know more about us than we do about ourselves,” Rose pointed out. “We need to fix that fast. So, we scan them. Which will also tell us if there’s still an artifact to be retrieved.”

Beam blinked up at her. “Rose, you already know that much about Epsilon’s missions?”

Rose nodded. “Alice explained. Collecting stuff or people which are drifting between the multiverses. She did some solo missions when she started out too.”

“Yuppers. Never send others to do things you haven’t already tried yourself,” Alice remarked. “But in the end, this place REALLY needed maintenance. Plus some artifact stuff is a lot harder to pinpoint without ‘boots on the ground’. Ergo, recruiting.”

“Except, Rose, can’t we check containment here to know if an artifact was retrieved?” Kat insisted. “That would also tell us whether any prior artifacts have gone crazy.”

“We could,” Rose admitted. “But we’d probably have to split up then, plus that won’t help Beam’s memory loss. Fixing Beam is our priority now.”

“Oh?” Alijda said, raising an eyebrow. “Why, so that she can take control of the station back from you?”

Rose frowned at Alijda. “No. So that we’re all on the same page, and not making the same mistakes twice with whatever’s on the planet.”

“I don’t think Rose or I will be allowed to retain control anyway,” Beam murmured, lying back on the floor. “Not after bringing Alice back in.”

BEAM (Approx)
A modified Haruki

Alice winced. “Geeeez, Beam. You’re making me feel like I killed kittens while I was in charge here.” She eyed the others. “I didn’t, for the record.”

Alijda glanced from Rose to Kat and back. Then she stepped to the side, gesturing at the computer. “Well, you are technically in charge, Rose. Scan away.”

Rose blinked. “What? Er, I mean, right.” She exhaled. Why had she insisted on taking this stand?

To help Beam. Yes, that was her cause now, Rose decided. And not merely because the two of them were the youngest, or the only ones into girl love, or the most inexperienced with whatever was going on as compared to the others. It was because Beam had asked for her help, so damn it, she was going to stop acting like a scared teenager, and start doing more to provide that help.

Rose interlaced her fingers and pushed her palms forwards, cracking her knuckles. “Right,” she repeated, staring at the computer. The problem being, Paige was techno-girl, not her. Hell, pretty much everyone in this room was more tech savvy than she was. Too bad the interface wasn’t a piano keyboard.

Rose chewed on her lower lip. She looked back at Beam, then extended an arm down towards the other girl. “Let’s have you do whatever it is you would have done here, as if you were first arriving at the planet,” Rose suggested. “I’m guessing that would include a scan, and it might trigger a memory for you.”

“My memories may have been deleted, versus being rendered inaccessible,” Beam murmured.

Rose shrugged, keeping her arm extended. “Won’t know until we try.”

“I guess.” Slowly, Beam’s smile reappeared. It became hesitant as her gaze drifted back over everyone else in the room, but finally the blonde hologram looked back to Rose, and took her hand. Rose pulled the other girl to her feet.

Beam turned and stared at the computer. Seconds ticked by.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Rose encouraged.

Beam nodded. “Just a moment. Normally I interface directly, but I believe it’s better for you to see what I’m doing in human time. Also, the station is actually in synch with, and orbiting, the planet. Not usually something we do. Adjustments are needed.”

“Truth,” Alice observed.

“Oh. Okay. So just tell me if I’m being a moron then,” Rose said.

Beam turned, still smiling. “Oh, you’re not. You’re very sweet, Rose.”

“You haven’t tasted me, how would you know I’m sweet?” Rose shot back.

She immediately wished she could rewind the last five seconds. Rose spun away, pounding her fist into her forehead. Damn it! Bad Rose. Do not make sexy jokes at the pretty holographic lesbian.

Rose heard Beam giggle, and saw Alice mutter “Adorbs” towards Alijda. Kat seemed to take a sudden interest in the computer hardware. Before Rose could recover by saying ‘tasted my cooking, I meant my cooking’, Beam was speaking again.

“I’ve now mentally run through everything I would do prior to a scan,” the hologram said. “Having the computer execute another one seems like the best plan now.” Beam reached out, tapping at the computer interface. Images began to appear on one of the monitors.

“First, it’s a magic pure world,” Beam said.

Alice let out a sigh of relief. “That means less stuff in orbit for us to possibly be crashing into,” she explained off Alijda’s look.

“But it means they probably won’t have the technology we need to restart the station’s systems either,” Beam pointed out.

“Sooo computers can’t run on magic, huh?” Rose asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Hmmm,” Kat said, rubbing his chin. “Rose raises an interesting point, given how that small world we visited had been trying to find some sort of fusion.” Rose arced her eyebrow back at him.

Alijda clasped her hands behind her head. “That also tells us the artifact Epsilon wanted from that world is technological, yeah? Tech being the sort of thing that would stand out as wrong on a magic world.”

“Correct,” Beam confirmed. “And I’m not reading any such signs now. Either the tech is being magically shielded, or I already brought the artifact back.”

“My money’s on that,” Rose said, pointing. “You brought something back, and that tech is what messed up the station tech.”

“Or maybe the tech messed with Beam’s tech, and her tech transferred it to the station tech?” Alijda mused.

“Oooh, technobabble,” Alison purred.

Alijda rolled her eyes. “Anyway, this would explain why the virus wasn’t in the communication logs.”

“Hold on. Is the entity up here some sort of sentient computer virus then?” Kat wondered.

“Perhaps I should access the transport logs,” Beam decided. She continued to type. “All right. It looks like I whirlpooled down to the planet, and returned less than an hour later. There is no record of any entity accompanying me.” She frowned. “There is also no record of me checking in a new artifact afterwards.”

“So this problem hit pretty fast,” Alice remarked. “Since that’s the first thing you should do upon retrieval.”

“I know that,” Beam said. “Could be my programming was already glitching by then.” She sighed. “I wish I could remember any of this.”

Rose turned from the monitor displaying the planet. “This is the station of creepy oversight, right? Couldn’t we see a video of your return, Beam?”

Beam blinked. “Oh, yes, of course. Let me pull up the last activation time.”

Everyone clustered around the monitor as Beam tapped the necessary keys. “Uh oh, looks like a lot of the feed is unavailable,” she remarked. “Could have been damaged or blocked off, as has been done to me. I do have something from one camera though, here we go…”

Beam paused, her fingers over the ‘Return’ key. “Rose? Your idea, and you’re in charge, you want to do the honours?”

Rose opened her mouth, but before she could say ‘No, do the thing’ she saw Beam’s eager expression. “Oh. Uh. Sure,” was what came out instead.

She reached over. Her hand brushed against Beam’s. Before she knew it, she was staring into Beam’s eyes, and Beam was staring back, and it’s like the hologram was searching her for something. For some deeper connection, maybe…

Alijda cleared her throat behind them. Rose quickly tapped the key and turned back to the monitor, inwardly cursing herself for getting flustered. Again.

The image of the room they were in appeared on the screen, with a big blue whirlpool in the centre of the floor. Moments later, Beam was spit out into zero gravity, floating towards the top of the monitor screen. She appeared to be carrying something.

Alice let out a low whistle. “What is that, like Cyborg’s arm or something?”

Then things began to happen quickly. Rose’s attention was on the floor irising shut over the whirlpool, so it wasn’t until the others gasped that she looked back up. In time to see the arm device jet away from Beam, the holographic girl in the video letting out a rather human shriek.

“What? I missed it, what did that?” Rose asked.

Alijda held up a finger, as if to say ‘wait a moment’. They continued to watch, as the Beam in the video said, “Computer, normal gravity.”

Beam plunged back down towards the now sealed whirlpool, Rose wincing in anticipation of the impact - but Beam managed to land on her feet without injuring her legs. In fact, she bent her knees and pushed off, running in the direction of the computer banks. Right. Holographic legs, Beam likely had no bones to break. So then why give her anatomy that… Rose pushed that thought aside.

“No, no, no, NO,” came Beam’s voice from off the screen. There was a zapping sound, and then Beam’s body flew back through the slice of the room visible to the camera. Sparks were flying from her hairband. Again she was gone, there was a smacking sound, then a dull thud. Then the picture cut out entirely.

Rose licked her lips as she glanced at the others. Alice looked surprised, Alijda looked wary, Kat looked worried, and Beam was simply wide eyed.

“You gonna be okay, Beam?” Rose asked. Beam cleared her throat. (A human mannerism, programmed in? Did Beam even eat with that throat? Why did she keep thinking about this stuff, Rose wondered.)

“I’ll be fine,” the hologram said. “That even explains a few things. Namely, me regaining consciousness in this room, learning of the station’s problem, and hooking myself into the system to summon you, Algebra. Um, I mean Rose.”

“Beam, can you rewind to when that symbol appeared?” Kat asked. “And pause?”

Beam nodded, turning back away from Rose to reach for the controls.

“That was a magic thing then, right?” Alijda said. “That symbol on the arm?”

“I’d say so,” Alice agreed.

“Sorry,” Rose apologized. “I missed it. A magic symbol on the cyber arm what now?”

“Pretty much just that,” Alijda said. “Somebody booby trapped the tech artifact with magic.”

Rose tilted her head. “But why would someone do that?”

“Good question,” Alice grumbled. “Want another good question? How could anyone down on magic planet even know to magically program that tech to go and mess with other tech like our tech, when tech down there is not technically a thing?”

“Oooh, technobabble,” Alijda murmured, half smiling. Alice stuck out her tongue.

“Maybe someone figured out what Beam was, in the time she was down there?” Rose guessed. “And thought she was part of some advance strike force?”

“I’ve got the symbol up,” Beam remarked.

Rose looked back at the screen. She saw it now, glowing white on the cyber arm Beam was holding. For all she knew, it was a Chinese character. Yet Kat’s worried expression had shifted to alarm. “You know it?” Rose asked him.

“It’s an occult symbol I recognize,” Kat said. “Someone imbued that arm with a… desire, that’s the best way I can put it.”

“A desire to screw around with advanced technology?” Alice said.

Kat shrugged. “No way to know specifics unless we find the caster.”

“I guess we’re going down to the planet then,” Rose decided. “That’s where the caster would be.”

“No way,” Alijda asserted. “We’re going to figure out where on this station that damn cyber arm is now. If it gets to Mr. Smith? We could be done for.”

Rose put her hands on her hips. “Exsqueeze me? What happened to me being in charge? The station self corrected, remember. The arm might have screwed things up by accident. And Beam’s answers are down there, not up here.”

“Sorry Rose, I have to agree with Alijda,” Alice said. “I mean, there’s probably enough power now to make a whirlpool down once, but then you’d be stuck on the planet with no backup for at least an hour of recharge time. Whereas Kat, if we found the arm, could you reverse engineer something occultish to find this caster’s ’desire’?”

“Uh? Well, maybe,” Kat said. Rather unconvincingly, Rose thought.

Beam latched onto Rose’s arm. “I’m with Rose. My answers are down there, with my past. You three can stay up here if you like, but the two of us are going.”

Rose smiled at Beam, glad for the support, while simultaneously worrying that she was somehow giving off all the wrong signals.

Alijda rubbed her forehead. “Oh boy. Look, Rose, Beam, if you’re dead set on going, please bring one of us along? Because I can teleport people out of trouble, Kat seems to know something about that symbol, and Alice is a walking encyclopaedia. Whoever’s left on the station can search for the arm.”

Rose pursed her lips. “I guess that’s fair.” This way, she and Beam could have an experienced chaperone.

NEXT?

Who should Rose and Beam bring with them? OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT THURSDAY JULY 6th

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED:
New section. This will chronicle events you voted for indirectly. (For instance, the firing of Alice in Story3 occurred after a vote, not to fire her, but to have her break the rules.) Here, the fact that Beam was voted to have a memory loss, followed by a Rose point-of-view? Means we’re getting more of Beam than we would have had with any other combination. To the point of me hunting for a reference picture. I am totally fine with this, but it was unexpected.

EPSILON DELTA, PART FOUR: Turnabout

Kat Conway made his decision before arriving at the auxiliary control room. He would let Alijda resume the conversation between them, assuming there was even a conversation for them to have.

She barely addressed him as they reunited. Their group of four then headed back to the large cylindrical arrivals room, looking for Beam. He ended up sidelined with Alijda as Alice and Rose discussed the unconscious blonde holographic woman, and Alijda still said nothing. Then Alice asked the both of them to get a power pack, back in the auxiliary control room.

“I can just do a series of teleports to get there faster by myself,” Alijda pointed out.

“Oh good, so we’ll do the horror movie trope of splitting up after all?” Alice said, smiling and clasping her hands together.

Alijda glared. “Sarcasm isn’t a good look on you.”

Alice shook her head. “No, seriously, I’m curious if something will try to pick us off, and you’re the best equipped of any of us to get away from an attack.”

Alijda sighed.

“Maybe Rose should go with Alijda instead,” Kat suggested.

Rose stood from where she had crouched next to Beam. “If you like?”

Alijda looked from Alice, to Rose, to Kat. She shook her head. “No, that’s silly. Rose, you keep learning more about the station from Alice. Kat, you’re with me.”

Kat nodded, and he allowed himself to be teleported back into the hallway. They walked from there. He continued to wait to see if Alijda would resume a conversation.

It wasn’t until they’d hooked the power pack device into Mr. Smith to recharge that she finally spoke up, and even then, it was without turning to face him. “So. Kat. You were gone less than a day, huh?”

Kat Conway
Never commissioned art for him, but he looks a bit like Colin Ferguson.

“Yeah,” Kat answered. “Gone just long enough to be disappointed by what I learned.”

There was a brief silence.

“I’ll bite,” Alijda yielded, still looking at the power pack. “What’d you learn?”

He found himself wondering what Alijda would make of it. “I’ve been searching for this girl. Er, woman. Well, childhood friend,” Kat explained. “Named Fate. She’s the one who first got me into the occult, only she disappeared after high school. I’ve been searching for her, off and on, for over fifteen years now. I finally thought I had a lead, a phone number I’d snared right before I was abducted by this station for the first time. In fact, that’s why I was keen on getting sent back to my Earth when we first met.”

Kat paused, wondering if Alijda even cared to hear more. She continued to stare in the other direction. He waited.

“False intel?” she said at last.

“Not exactly,” Kat elaborated. “There was, indeed, a woman named Fate trying to organize an occult group in the town I went to. Once I left this station, I wandered, returning to my hotel room only after 8pm, in order to phone the number. This Fate didn’t know what I meant, seemed to be the wrong age, and had no other useful information. She invited me to her meeting though. I was just heading out to it when I found myself back here in zero gravity instead.”

“Oh.” Alijda finally turned, biting down on her lower lip. “Kat, you must think I’m terrible.”

Kat lifted an eyebrow, trying to connect the dots that had led the brunette woman to make such a statement. “Actually,” he pointed out, “I’ve called you attractive on more than one occasion. Despite your protestations of being ugly on the inside.”

“Except I didn’t know any of that about you,” Alijda said, her gaze slipping to the side. “We had an entire mission together and I didn’t know you’d lost a childhood friend. Even now, you’re hesitant to tell me about her.”

That at least helped to number the dots for him. Kat shrugged. “I don’t put it on my business cards. Anyway, you said it yourself back then, we were going our separate ways once that whole shrinking mission ended. Why talk about ourselves?”

“Because we talked about me. And now that our ways didn’t turn out to be so separate…”

Alijda looked back at him. Then she turned and gave a side-kick into the wall. “This isn’t FAIR,” she hollered. “I’ve had six months of thinking about you, on and off, wondering about what-ifs and might-have-beens. You’ve had six hours, if that! Now you’re back, and I have another chance, and all I can do is act like a stupid tsundere from one of those animated Japanese shows Alice likes.”

Kat smiled, catching the reference. “To be fair, I think you push everyone away, and it’s regardless of any feelings you have towards them.”

Alijda snapped her gaze back over to him. “Did you just mansplain tsunderes to me??” She gave the wall another swift kick.

Mr. Smith made as noise as if he was clearing his throat. “Alijda, if you could avoid potentially damaging–"

“Oh, shut the front door, Smith,” Alijda shouted.

“The front door is not open, or we’d be exposed to the vacuum of space.”

“Damn it, I meant I don’t need you butting in on top of my angst with Kat on top of my writer’s block issues from before I even got here today!”

“Ah. Very well,” the computer said, falling silent again.

Kat managed not to laugh at the exchange. “If it makes you feel better, Alijda, I’m sure all of the information about my connection to Fate is in whatever file this station has on me,” Kat said. “I remember how you didn’t read it, feeling that would be unfair. So points in your favour.”

“That doesn’t help.” She drew in a deep breath. “Kat, it’s your turn.”

Kat blinked. “My what?”

“Last time we went on about me. My shrinking, my depression, my hacking, my friggin’ issues. I need to stop with the ego trips. Your turn now. It’s only fair.”

“What makes you think I even have issues?”

Her gaze softened. “Kat, I overheard you, that time you mentioned to Para about your mother dying in childbirth. And Alice has told me about the fire manipulation you can do. Now we’ve got a lost childhood friend in the mix. Granted, I don’t know whether any of that stuff necessarily connects to your hormonal interests towards anyone wearing a skirt, but you have issues. Unless your issue is that you don’t see your issues.”

This time it was Kat who felt like he couldn’t look Alijda in the eye. Part of him wished she’d kept ignoring him. “Okay,” he said, after a minute of scrutinizing one of Mr. Smith’s keyboards. “I suppose I don’t take relationships seriously. And I might have female abandonment issues.”

“Did you join the military so that you’d be able to form bonds with men?”

He laughed, despite himself. “Alijda, I’m not gay. Not by a long shot.”

“Didn’t mean to imply you were. But people with abandonment issues, they sometimes cling to close friendships or bad relationships. In the military, you’d get more of the first and less of the second.”

Kat realized he was now clenching his jaw, and he forced himself to stop. “I went to military college because my dad felt I needed more discipline in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good relationship with him, but he was pretty lax with me. Particularly when it came to my hanging out with occult people all the time.”

“Were any of the occult girls pretty?”

“I really don’t want to talk about my sex life.”

“Hmmm. That escalated quickly.”

“DAMN it, Alijda…" He rounded on her, only to see an expression of genuine concern. There were no hints of a self-satisfied smirk. He looked away again. “We need to focus on the mission here.”

“That’s an excuse. Besides, right now, all of us getting along and making peace with ourselves kind of IS the mission,” she pointed out. “Because whatever’s out there, manipulating the situation? It’s probably been able to access our files. So it’s liable to go after our weak points, to try and fragment us.”

Kat found he had to grant her that. Whatever faults Alijda had, being timid was not among them. “I guess. Though you’re assuming that whatever put this station in danger will be actively targeting us.”

“Until we get more information, I figure we might as well assume that.”

Mr. Smith made a throat clearing noise. “Then would now be a good time to mention that your power pack is fully charged? Meaning more information is possible?”

Alijda sighed. “There would never be a good time, Smith. So sure, now works.”

Kat heard Alijda approach him, then felt her hand on his arm. “Kat, let’s leave our talk at, I do want to get to know you better. Okay?” She pulled back. “After all, one thing I’ve realized after six months with Alice is that I need to have more well rounded friends. Ones who aren’t inclined to run through the entire ‘Back to the Future’ movie for me, from memory.”

“Right. Okay,” Kat said, turning back to her. He smiled. “And hey, look on the bright side. At least Alice only quotes, she wouldn’t act that movie out for you at the same time.”

Alijda seemed to deflate a little, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Kat did a double take. “She didn’t. Did she?”

“Never give that woman alcohol,” was all Alijda would say as she turned to retrieve the power pack.

Soon, Kat was watching as Alice hooked some cables from the power pack into the hologram’s hairband. Or what had obviously been made to resemble a hairband - it had now been popped about an inch up from her hairline, exposing what looked like a number of ports and lights beneath. And while Kat was pretty technically minded, he didn’t recognize this technology, and had no idea what Alice was doing.

At least Mr. Smith had managed to restore the proper lighting to the room by now, so Kat could watch, in case he needed to do this himself later.

“Uh, so how do you know that setup will work?” Alijda asked Alice, apparently having similar reservations.

“I don’t,” Alice said brightly, dusting off her hands as she seemingly finished up. She looked up from where she was crouched. “But from what Rose has told me, I’m pretty sure all this holo-girl needs is some power. And plugging the pack into her hairband seems the best way to juice her up.”

“Oh no, no no, Alice, don’t put it that way,” Rose moaned. “Not after what you did earlier.”

Alice grinned at the redhead. “C’mon, we had to check her body for other ports. And you were wondering, you know you were.”

Alijda looked back and forth between the two of them. “What ports? Wonder what?”

Kat cleared his throat, having realized what they were getting at. “So, this Beam is anatomically correct?”

“Ooh yes, she seems fully functional,” Alice purred, waggling her eyebrows. “And if she’s an artificial life form anything like Star Trek’s Data, she’ll be programmed in multiple techniques. Lesbian ones, to boot.”

“ALICE,” Rose said, her face getting red enough to start washing out some of her freckles.

“I’m sorry I asked,” Alijda sighed.

“Oh Rose, don’t be like that,” Alice assured the younger girl. “I’m not saying you should cheat on your girlfriend. But there’s nothing wrong with talking, yeah? Swapping techniques? Knowing that this Beam might have felt first hand whatever she–"

“Alice, maybe you should drop it?” Kat interrupted. “Rose looks very uncomfortable.”

“But…" Alice paused, as she looked from Kat to Rose, and then the ground. “Okay. It’s just, I hate how Rose got pulled into this. I… I want her to get SOMETHING out of it, at least.”

Alijda reached out to touch Alice on the shoulder. “She is getting something out of it, Alice. New friends.”

Alice looked back up and smiled. “D’awwwww, Alijda. See, Kat? She really is a softie underneath it all.”

Kat saw Alijda’s grip tighten on Alice’s shoulder. “You need to stop pushing your luck, friend.”

Alice nodded, without losing her smile. Then Rose was smiling too, looking back and forth between the two other women.

That’s when the new voice came, slightly higher pitched than any of the other females present. “Reinitializing.”

Kat turned his attention to the blonde hologram, as Beam blinked her eyes open. One of her palms reached up to touch the cord that was running up to her hairband interface. “Power source. Confirmed.”

It idly occurred to Kat that he was becoming increasingly outnumbered as far as gender went.

Rose reached out to grasp Beam’s free hand. “Beam? You back? You okay?”

“I am. Unsure.” Beam blinked her eyes several times in rapid succession. “Resynchronizing. Time stamp. Confirmed. Congratulations. Are in order. Restoring. Full power. To communications.” Her hand squeezed back at Rose. “We’re not dead, and the station’s still here. Oh Rose, you were successful.”

“Uh, not exactly,” Rose admitted. “Also kinda brought in the first string team to help.” She gestured over towards Alice and the others.

Beam’s gaze followed the motion, the holographic woman freezing up as she saw Alice. “Oooh. We are so fired.”

“Eh, I was fired too. It didn’t take,” Alice chirped.

Alijda joined the other women in crouching down beside Beam. “Beam, I hate to impose on you right away, but we think there’s an entity on board. Because the station’s problems somehow self corrected. I don’t suppose you can confirm that? Or offer any alternative reasoning?”

Beam blinked twice. “I cannot.”

Alijda glanced up towards Kat before looking back at Beam. “Well, anything more you can tell us about what happened would be helpful.”

Beam opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “My memory is damaged.”

Alijda palmed her face, sliding her hand down and off her chin.

“It’s never easy,” Kat remarked.

“No, you misunderstand,” Beam said, squeezing again at Rose’s palm. “That’s helpful. I run occasional diagnostics. Everything was in order prior to my coming to this planet. Whatever damaged me, it must relate to my mission here.”

“Or it’s due to some artifact you were storing here, on the station,” Alice said, standing and bringing her hands to her hips.

Beam’s gaze tracked over to Alice’s shoes. “That is possible,” she admitted. “Containment could have been breached during the time of my memory loss.”

“So we scan the planet for more information about Beam’s mission,” Rose decided.

Kat cleared his throat. “Ah, except shouldn’t we check on Alice’s artifact containment before potentially alerting said planet to the fact that we’re up here?”

“Kat?” Alijda met his gaze. “We’re in orbit. They might already know.”

NEXT?

What should the group do? OPTIONS:

We were overdue for Kat point-of-view. Now what?

VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT THURSDAY JUNE 29th

EPSILON DELTA, PART THREE: State of Confusion

“Ziggy,” Rose said. “Initiate that recall teleport thing from the last time Alice was in charge of computers here. Authorization code, uhm, Paige-Paige-Paige.”

“Initiating, Rose,” came Ziggy’s resigned voice.

Moments later, the lights went out. Rose closed her eyes, biting down on her lip again. It was fine. Alice would fix things, and they’d all go home. She reopened her eyes as the lights came back on.

She remained all alone in the room.

But it had worked, right? Alice wasn’t in auxiliary control, she was somewhere else in the station? Rose shifted her weight forwards and back, until she couldn’t take it any more. “Alice?”

“Your phone conversation terminated when Ziggy went offline,” the large wall computer codenamed ‘Mr Smith’ advised her.

Rose swallowed. “But is Alice here? Like, not HERE here, obviously, but up here with us?”

“I do not have complete access yet. However, Alice is likely one of the life signs that I am picking up in the arrivals room.”

The sense of relief that Rose felt was quickly washed away as she parsed that. “One of? Oh, flûte! Is Alice being attacked there by whoever wanted to crash this station??”

“Unknown.”

“Does she need my help?”

“Unknown.”

“Are there even weapons I can use in this room?”

“Unknown.”

“Oh my GOD, why don’t you supercomputers ever KNOW anything??”

To her surprise, Mr. Smith let out a sigh. “Rose, I am sorry, but it’s taking me some time to figure out how to activate all the station’s backup systems. It is much like you trying to work out how to control a third arm.”

“Huh.” Rose frowned. “This project has a habit of growing extra arms for people?”

“No. I was merely trying to find a human analogy.”

“Oh.” Rose ran her fingers back through her hair. “Did you want me to shut up?”

“You are not slowing down my processing abilities to any great extent. I simply do not yet have the answers you require.”

“So you want me to shut up.”

“That is not what I said.”

“Well, I want me to shut up.”

“If so, that would seem to be something under your control.”

“You’d think so, right? Except I’m nervous.” Rose bounced on her heels. “This is why I don’t spend much time on social media, you know? I can’t stop myself from saying dumb spur-of-the-moment stuff.”

“Rose, you seem overly self critical. Would it help to hear that, in your own way, you are becoming as interesting to me as Alice was?”

“I hope that’s a compliment?”

“It is an observation.”

“Right. Well, okay, let me know when you’re able to see all the station or recalculate our impending deaths or something then, I guess?”

“Of course.”

Rose tried to figure out if she felt more like curling up into a ball in the corner and crying, or running around the room with her arms in the air screaming. She decided to split the difference, and resumed pacing in a circle with her lower lip quivering.

The appearance of purple and black smoke in the doorway, with a woman seemingly in the middle of it, might have made Rose shriek on any other day. Except by this point, she was adjusting to the absurdity of it all, so fell into an approximation of a fighting stance instead. Thank goodness for her self defence classes.

“You won’t take me alive,” Rose declared.

Curiously, the brunette smiled at her. “Rose?”

Comprehension dawned. “Alice!”

Had to be, right? Rose ran towards the teleporting woman, her arms outstretched. Only then did she wonder if a hugging approach might give the wrong signals for a first meeting. Maybe station commanders here were always about the girl-love? Rose was already in a relationship. She stopped one step away, her arms still spread wide. “Are you a lesbian too?”

A curious sequence of emotions played out on the older woman’s face. Rose fancied that the initial look of comfort became confusion, dismay, then resignation, before finally settling on wariness. “I’m Alijda. Me and Alice, it’s not like that. How is our housing situation even relevant?”

“I dunno.” So this woman was with Alice. But not that way. Rose lowered her arms as she looked her new companion up and down. Decent dress sense for someone who didn’t expect to be on a death trap of a station, though the all black clothing was giving her a funeral vibe. Also, brown hair. “For the record, I prefer blondes and rainbows anyway.”

ALIJDA VAN VLIET
Commission from Shirochya

“Good for you? Rose, you’re not hallucinating me. I am here.”

“Oh, I was pretty sure of that. Like, me hallucinating Beam I could maybe buy, but you’re kind of old to be a fantasy of mine.”

“Oh, ha ha. I can still date, you know. Men in my age range. It’s just, I’m depressive and occasionally suicidal, so it never really works out. Okay?”

That explained the funeral vibe, if not the defensiveness. “Well, okay then. I guess you can go sit in the corner.”

“I can…" Alijda tilted her head. “What?”

Rose tilted her head the other way. “What? Didn’t you just say you came here to die?”

“No, no, I’m here to help save us. But what is this about needing to be a lesbian to gain access to the room?”

“Uh, nothing?”

Alijda’s hands went to her hips. “So then why ask if…” The woman caught herself, shook her head a couple times, and switched to, “Look, never mind, just let me at the computer interface.”

Rose stepped aside, gesturing vaguely in the hopes that Alijda knew where that was. “Go for it.”

Alijda marched into the room and vectored towards some sort of terminal. “Great. Rose, I’ll need access to all station communications logs. If I can spot when a computer virus got on board here, we should be able to do a backup restore from a time before the infection.”

Shoot. Where would the logs be?

Fortunately for Rose, Mr. Smith spoke up. “I can make that information available, Alijda. Incidentally, a course correction will be necessary within the next eight minutes.”

“No pressure,” Alijda muttered. She glanced sidelong at Rose. “Can you check in with Alice? She’s probably grabbed one of the Epsilon communicators by now.”

Rose cleared her throat. “Yes, ah, Mr. Smith, can we patch in a link to Alice? Please?”

“We can. Link established.”

“– still can’t believe it’s been six months for you, compared to my few hours. That’s amazing,” came a male voice. A male voice? At this point, Rose figured she’d best keep rolling with it.

“Hello, Alice?” she called out. “Did you bring your boyfriend along?”

“Oh, hi Rose,” came Alice’s bright, cheery voice. “Great, I’d hoped the individual communicators could be patched in until allcomms are restored. No, this is Kat with me. He wouldn’t work as my boyfriend, he’s been asking allllll about Alijda.”

“Whoa, whoa, hey, I was asking about both of you,” Kat’s voice protested. “I mean, not in the bits about Alijda dealing with her depression, but I was sort of including you in the rest of my questions, Alice.”

“He’s probably hoping to score with me now,” Alijda sniped, from where she was typing at a keyboard. “Having had a look at my panties.”

“Alijda, please,” Kat said. “Would you have preferred I didn’t say anything to you?”

“You didn’t have to make fun of me in front of my housemate.”

“That wasn’t my intent. In fact, part of me feels like you would be complaining no matter what I said.”

Alijda hit an enter key on her keyboard with what Rose judged to be more force than necessary. “You haven’t changed a bit, Kat.”

“No kidding. For me, it’s been less than a day since I saw you.”

“Right. So you didn’t even miss me. Fine, then.”

“Alijda, for what it’s worth, I did miss you. To the extent that I could. I didn’t miss all this defensiveness though.”

Rose wondered if Alijda’s cheeks were getting redder, or if it was her imagination.

“Too bad that’s all part of the package deal that is me,” Alijda asserted. “And as I’m sure Alice told you, still a depressive. So there.”

“We all have our flaws, Alijda,” Kat fired back. “They help make us what we are. Now come on, it’s not like I told Alice what colour they were.”

“Oh, how NICE for you. Alice already knows I don’t always wear black EVERYwhere.”

“Oh, uhm, I didn’t know that,” Rose offered, raising her index finger into the air.

It had seemed only fair, to remind them of her presence. Except, Rose reflected, maybe she’d mistimed that. Her interjection had simply created an awkward sort of silence. Rose noticed that Alijda’s cheeks were definitely redder now, as the woman resumed typing.

The redhead slowly lowered her arm back down.

“I wonder,” came Alice’s voice over the communications link, “were you two like that all through your last mission too? Because it’s sort of adorable, in a Sam Malone and Diane Chambers kind of way. Of course, let’s hope things work out better for you than it did for them.”

Alijda’s posture seemed to tighten, and she started to turn her head.

“Alice?” Rose broke back in quickly. While this relationship angle was sort of interesting in a soap-opera-esque way, it really wasn’t their priority. “Have you figured out what’s causing us to plummet to our deaths yet?”

“Hmmm? Oh, that, right. Nope,” Alice said, sounding far too chipper for Rose’s tastes. “The most likely places for physical damage look fine so far. We may all have to cram into the station’s escape pod. It’ll be cozy, but we’re already swapping underwear stories, so it should be fine.”

“There’s an ESCAPE pod?” Rose gasped. Beam could have at least mentioned that.

“Yuppers,” Alice affirmed. “Thing is, while that saves us, lots of people might die if this station actually crashes into a planet. So let’s keep at it for as long as we can, okay? Alijda, any luck?”

“No,” Alijda said, still typing. “Nothing obvious in the logs yet. If this problem is a computer virus, it’s arrival was well hidden. Or it’s been here since the station was first built.”

“Mr. Smith?” Rose said, looking back to the computer. “How much time do we have?”

“About fifteen minutes,” the computer advised her.

Rose frowned. “Uhhhh, no. Wrong. We were at less than eight minutes a short time ago.”

“Braking thrusters have fired,” Mr. Smith explained. “We are gradually vectoring into orbit. If this continues, we may end up out of danger entirely.”

“Wooo, well done Mr. Smith,” Alice whooped.

“It was not me,” the computer noted.

“Wooo, well done Rose.”

“I’ve just been standing here,” Rose admitted. “Must be something Alijda did.”

“Wooo–"

“It wasn’t me either,” the brunette interrupted, turning away from the computer.

“And while I’d love to say I did something,” Kat remarked, “I’ll have to make the confusion unanimous.”

“Wooo boy, that’s weird,” Alice concluded. “Mr. Smith, anyone else on the station?”

“Not according to main sensors,” came Mr. Smith’s response. “Someone could be hiding. In fact, without Ziggy, we’ve only made staying hidden easier for them.”

“Maybe Beam reactivated?” Rose guessed.

“A what now?” Alijda asked, approaching her. “Some laser beam?”

“No, no, the automatic hologram who was in charge before me,” Rose explained. “I guess she was a light beam, oh, hey, that’s a very clever pun…”

“A hologram in charge? I never heard about this,” Alice protested. “Are we talking hologram Rimmer style? Or more Doc from Voyager style?”

Rose shrugged. “Lesbian hologram?”

“Hmmm, a Hatsune Miku style hologram then,” Alice decided. “I mean, there’s nothing official, but I’ve wondered about those vocaloids in their off hours."

Alijda rolled her eyes. “Focus, please, Alice.”

“Oooh, you’re one to talk, Miss Miracle Romance.”

“Hey, I can type and snipe at the same–"

“Mr. Smith?” Rose cut back in. “Anything on this Beam?”

“No. Your hologram woman never activated me,” the computer apologized. “Only Ziggy would have that information.”

Alijda turned back to Rose. “Where did you last see this Beam?”

Rose shrugged. “In that big cylinder room, where I guess people arrive. She was plugged into the computer. See, Beam was trying to save the station as much as the rest of us, until she lost power. So maybe a backup kicked in, then she figured something out?”

“I can double back and look for her,” Kat offered.

“Great idea, Kat,” Alice said brightly. “Splitting up is definitely what we should do if we’re re-enacting a horror movie on a space station.”

Alijda palmed her face. “Look. Alice, Kat, come here first, both of you. We’ll all go together. You can meet Rose that way, so that she knows what we all look like.”

“Roger, Alijda. On our way,” Kat said. It was followed by a chirp, as the connection was cut.

Rose offered the older woman a smile. “Thanks. Were you once in charge of this place too?”

“Oh, heck no,” Alijda said, pushing some hair off her forehead. “This place sucks. The couple times I’ve been here, I’ve been angling to shut it down. Their whole oversight thing is real creepy.”

Rose sighed in relief. “That’s what I thought too. Glad it’s not just a me thing.” She paused before asking, “What brought you back here then?”

Alijda’s gaze slipped away. “Yeah. Uh, Alice? I guess? She’s a bit helpless. Or sometimes she is. I felt I couldn’t let her do this alone, that’s all.” She looked back. “I didn’t know Kat would be here. And me and Alice, it’s a friend thing, not a romance thing. Seriously.”

Rose laughed despite herself at Alijda’s expression. “That’s fine. In fact, it’s nice of you.” Rose smiled hopefully. “You know, Alijda, you’ve got a real great ‘take charge’ attitude. If I get the chance to, um, hand off all this authorization stuff to someone, maybe you could be the one…"

“No,” Alijda asserted. Her tone was firm, while her expression was apologetic. “Sorry Rose, I’m not running this station. Once this problem is fixed, if the project’s even still running at that point, you can give control back to Alice and her God.”

Rose winced. “I’m not sure I can authorize Alice. The main computer didn’t even want me to call her.”

“Oh. Well, we’ll figure something out,” Alijda decided. “Don’t worry.”

“Right. Don’t panic, still my motto.”

“For now, back to the original problem,” Alijda said, crossing her arms. “Rose, maybe you can help me to think things through. Why would this station be put in danger, only to be somehow saved hours later? Could it be that we’re dealing with two separate warring entities on board, and shutting down Ziggy somehow turned the tide?”

Rose thought about it. “Maybe. Or it could be one single entity, which now has what it wants,” she suggested.

Alijda blinked. “How? What does the station have now, that it didn’t earlier?”

Rose swallowed. “It has us.”

NEXT?

What’s the deal with Beam? (Also connects a bit to that entity talk.) OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT THURSDAY JUNE 22nd

PATHS NOT TAKEN:
Software problem would have been Alijda’s point of view. She’d have restored an earlier Ziggy, and they’d have had to track down the origin of the virus. Hardware problem would have been Kat’s point of view. He’d have helped Alice, and they’d have then turned their attention to the planet. We got Rose’s point of view (by a wide margin), with the problem solved by unknown means, and on we go. (Alice’s above links this time are all musical, by the way.)

EPSILON DELTA, PART TWO: How Far She’ll Go

Alijda’s home universe included Time Lords. For whatever reason, as Alice dashed back to the house that the two women now shared, that was the thought at the forefront of her mind.

It’s not that Alice thought the fact would be of any particular use. Rather, it simply meant that this universe, which she was presently in, had no “Doctor Who” episodes. Since the mythology of one universe tended to only be reality somewhere else, even if it was still debatable as to whether myths formed from other realities, or vice versa.

As a result, Alice was behind on watching that series, and so returning to the “Epsilon Station” aka “The Hub” might give her a chance at catching up. “Behind” itself being a misleading term. Given how the Station had access to all of space and time, one could theoretically watch episodes that hadn’t yet been produced in a specified “present”.

But given actor fluctuations across realities, Alice had tacitly settled on a stream of continuity not far off from her own universe. From before her Earth had been pulled into that hell dimension, at any rate.

Of course, Alice hadn’t even known about real Time Lords being an issue until that “cease and desist” letter from the BBC, which had come after running her first major populated mission. Oh well, at least Alijda’s universe did include the TV show “Wynonna Earp”.

None of those thoughts would help the Rose Thorne girl.

ALICE VUNDERLANDE
Commission from Cherry Z[/caption]

Alice sighed, wondering if her tendency to have a unique thought process would one day manage to target itself into whatever configuration it was that supposedly “normal” people had on a daily, good, there was the house, home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Alice burst through the front door. “Honey, I’m home,” she called out, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.

The large living room area was visible from the front door. It took a moment, but an arm came into view on the top of the leather couch, followed by Alijda’s head. The brunette thirty-something stared at Alice in silence for a moment. “Laugh track quieted down in your head yet?” she said at last.

Alice beamed. “Yes, thank you.”

“Great. I notice you did not, however, buy bread,” Alijda noted, her gaze falling to Alice’s empty hands.

Alice closed the front door. “Because I got a call from the Epsilon Project. They need me. Us.”

Alijda’s gaze returned to Alice’s face. “So you’re being pranked?”

“Pranked? Alijda, who on your Earth would even know about it?!”

The brunette’s eyebrow went up. “Anyone you’ve talked to in the six months you’ve been here? You can’t seem to stop yourself. Hell, even though I’m not actually sitting in on your job interviews, I have my suspicions there too. I’m pretty sure the reason you can’t get stable work is because, when people ask you to clarify your prior work experience, you go on about monitoring alternate realities for anomalous events.”

Alice pushed out her lower lip. “It’s not like I can talk about being the secretary for an Angel from back on my own world. That’s even crazier. And I have no references here. Haters gonna hate.”

“I hacked out a false trail on our internet for you,” Alijda reminded her. “You can claim you were the secretary for a movie studio. Not to mention employed by the same guy I used when I was under my fake ‘Alison’ alias.”

“I know. I can lead with pride, I can make us strong, I’ll be satisfied if I play along. But the voice inside sings a different song. What is wrong with me?”

Alijda’s stare became an eye roll. “Oy, I should have smacked you when we first met. You’re still dealing with our lunch.” She dropped back out of sight to lay on the couch.

Alice’s smile returned. “I love you too, friend.”

Alijda let out a grunt. Alice walked into the room, now noticing that her housemate was staring at a laptop computer on the coffee table. Probably back to writing another of her stories.

Her writing really wasn’t that bad. In a sense, the stories were more than a way of Alijda coping with her own depression, they could be seen as a way of helping others who had similar problems. Alijda had a certain dry wit about her.

If only she wouldn’t push people away so much. Or wear black dresses all the time. One of these days, Alice swore she would get the woman into a pair of blue jeans.

“What?” Alijda asked, without looking up again.

“Alijda, please, I’m serious. The Epsilon Station made me an offer I can’t refuse. It’ll crash into a planet without help.”

The brunette met her gaze again. “Alice, you’re a dear, but face reality. The whole project got shut down when we left. Okay? It’s done. And even if we assume it wasn’t, and this isn’t some stupid joke, their whole oversight thing? That was creepy as all hell. So if the new idiot in charge wants it all to crash and burn, fine, I’m in favour.”

“Rose didn’t want it, Alijda. She sounded scared. And young. Even younger than I was, when I started.”

Alijda reached out to smack her laptop shut, muttering something indistinguishable under her breath. “What the hell is wrong with your random God, recruiting the inexperienced?”

“Mistakes were made,” Alice intoned. “Truth be told, I messed up a bunch even before recruiting you for that first in-person mission. Please, Alijda.” She leaned in against the side of the couch. “This girl’s frightened. She’s inadequately prepared. You want me to say ‘I need you’? I need you.”

Alijda sighed. “How is it that I now know when you’re quoting something, even if I have no idea where it’s from? Fine. When is this Epsilon thing supposedly happening?”

Alice felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans. “Now?”

Alijda rolled off the couch. “Damn multiverse whatevers are never simple. Let me grab my meds.”

Alice answered her phone as Alijda headed for the bathroom. “Hello,” the former Epsilon caretaker announced. “Know that your call is very important to us.”

“When this is all over, you’ll have to tell me what your actual voicemail is,” came Rose’s voice. “For now, please, I’m in the spare control room, how do I get at this Mr. Smith??”

“Am I on some kind of speaker phone?” Alice asked.

“Beats me, but your voice is coming from all around.”

Alice nodded. She took in a deep breath, and called out, “Mr Smith! I need you.”

She heard the musical fanfare start to play in the background. The difference in ‘need’ quoting between Captain Picard and Sarah Jane Smith, it was all in the inflection. Come to think, Sarah Jane was probably the reason she’d had Time Lords on the brain.

“Greetings, Alice,” came a deep male voice. “You seem to have become a redheaded teenager since I was last active.”

“Hi, Mr Smith,” Alice chirped. “That’s Rose in the room. We need to get me back up there to fix things. Trouble is, Ziggy may be infected with something. Can you tell if that’s the case without interfacing?”

“That would take some time,” Smith mused.

“I’m going to die in less than 30 minutes,” Rose shrieked. “Also, a talking computer coming out of the wall what now?”

“Rose, your motto is don’t panic,” Alice reminded. “Mr Smith, can we get you to reroute a teleport, done by Alijda? To get us up there?”

“If Rose creates an interface by patching in the necessary circuits, yes.”

“Meaning no,” Rose asserted.

Alice chewed on her lower lip. Interfacing might simply infect Mr. Smith anyway. She needed more data. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that the planet you’re crashing into is the one I’m on now?”

Ziggy’s voice broke in. “It is not your world, Alice. I know that much.”

“Right.” Alice smacked her fist into her forehead. There had to be a way. She turned her attention towards sifting through the limited data she already had.

Fact 1: Ziggy still had the ability to retrieve, given how Rose was somehow there, but the main computer lacked the power. Mr. Smith had the power, but lacked the ability. Their systems ran independently, for obvious reasons.

Fact 2: Rose lacked the understanding to interface the machines, assuming it was even safe to do so. She also wouldn’t be able to program them. Meaning whatever they came up with here, it was going to have to be something automated.

Automated. The failsafe.

“Ziggy,” Alice said, spinning around. “Hypothetical. If you were to be completely shut down, would Mr. Smith take over operations? Now that he’s active?”

“Affirmative. But he would not have my scope. Access to teleportation systems would be–”

“He would automatically attempt to complete a teleport if it was in progress and putting lives at risk.”

A pause. “The teleport might abort instead,” Ziggy suggested.

“Not with Rose in danger too. Okay, Ziggy. Initiate a recall teleport based on my prior departure, relative to the months I’ve spent on this Earth with Alijda, using this cell phone signal as a beacon. When you go dead, Mr Smith will pull us in the rest of the way.”

“I have never attempted that before,” Mr. Smith pointed out.

“Agreed,” Ziggy said. “I can find no guarantee this will work. I cannot authorize it.”

“We’re out of options! Do it!” Alice asserted, falling back on a quote by Picard from the TNG episode “Heart of Glory”.

“Alice, I bet I can authorize this,” came Rose’s voice again. “Except… are you sure? As scared as I am, I don’t want to order something here that might hurt you.”

Alice decided she liked this Rose girl. “It’s okay, I installed failsafes.” Mostly. “I’m sure they’re still in place.” There was no way to know. “It’ll be fine.” This was risky as all heck. What WAS wrong with her?

“Alice?” Alijda said, narrowing her eyes as she reentered the room. “Alice, what’s with that expression? Who are you talking to and what are you telling them?”

Alice flapped her free hand up and down to try and shush Alijda.

“Ziggy,” came Rose’s voice. “Initiate that recall teleport thing from the last time Alice was in charge of computers here. Authorization code, uhm, Paige-Paige-Paige.”

“Initiating, Rose,” came Ziggy’s resigned voice.

Alice ceased her arm flapping, looking to Alijda. “Change of plan. I’m headed up. I’ll bring you later.” She turned and sprinted for the nearest doorway.

“Alice? Alice, damn it, don’t you dare do reckless and foolhardy things on your own.”

As Alice began to pass through into the next room, she felt the disorientation of a teleport taking place - and Alijda’s hand seizing her wrist from behind. A dangerous and potentially suicidal act. So not exactly out of character for Alijda. Being unable to shake her off, both women ended up falling through the doorway together.

And then the house was empty.

Alice felt herself spinning through a dark void. She slammed into a wall, and a rush of air was expelled from her lungs.

“Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” came Alijda’s voice from somewhere else in the darkness. Above her, maybe? They’d become separated upon arrival.

Alice managed a giggle as she worked to stabilize herself in the zero gravity. “Actually, that’s a misquote. Laurel and Hardy use the phrase here’s another NICE mess in dialogue. The name of one of their films was ‘Another Fine Mess’.”

“Oh, well, I beg your pardon,” Alijda mumbled.

“Uh, did something go wrong?” came another voice. A male one.

A dim red lighting finally switched on, giving partial illumination to the large cylindrical room. Alice turned her head, spotting Alijda floating a short distance away… as well as Katherine “Kat” Conway, the military man who had been part of their last mission together.

“Kat?” Alijda sputtered. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He scratched his head. “Beats me. I thought I got back to my hotel just fine, but now I’m back here a half hour later.”

“It’s the recall feature,” Alice realized. “Because Kat left AFTER us, remember, Alijda? He wanted to make sure all of us ladies got off the station okay.”

“So you mean him leaving after we did pulled him back in before us this time?”

“Right. Could be a glitch, could be the recall order to Ziggy wasn’t specific enough to exclude him. Technically, he was the last person to leave when I was in command.”

“So chivalry isn’t dead, it simply gets you killed,” Alijda remarked.

“A ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking - on my part,” Alice sighed. “Though it occurs to me now that Kat’s chivalry is possibly the only reason Ziggy even had my phone number, since I told her to call me once Kat himself had left. So there’s that.”

Kat cleared his throat. “I feel out of the loop here, ladies. Granted, that’s somewhat par for the course when I’m with you, but still.”

“Oh, the Epsilon Station’s gonna crash into a planet real soon,” Alice offered. “I’ll head to auxiliary control now to find Rose, and see if there’s something I can do about that. I kinda hope there is.”

“No,” Alijda corrected. “I’LL head to auxiliary control. I’m the hacker, Alice,” she continued, before her housemate could protest. “I can whip almost any system back into shape. You’re the one who knows this station backwards and forwards, so you need to check to see if any physical connections are out of place. Kat? You stick close to Alice.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Kat said, lifting his eyebrow. “Though if I might make a request?”

“What?” Alijda asked, looking down at him.

“Stop giving your orders from directly above me? I mean, I am resisting the urge to continually stare right up your skirt, but you don’t seem to be aware I even can.”

Alijda’s eyes grew wider as her hands moved to grasp at the material of her dress, trying to bunch it back between her legs in the zero gravity of the room.

“I keep telling her, jeans,” Alice couldn’t resist saying.

“Shut it!” Alijda snapped, her face a bright red - though that was largely due to the lighting in the room. “I’ll be with that Rose girl.” Moments later, she vanished in a puff of purple and black smoke, as she teleported herself up to the doorway in the ceiling.

NEXT?

What is the nature of the mystery damage? (This will also impact a new point of view, if you think about it.) OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT THURSDAY JUNE 15th

If it had been Alijda’s world, they’d have teleported up instead of using the recall, so Ziggy would still be active. If it had been Kat’s world, he would have been kept planetside for now, perhaps contacting Rose from there. We got what we got. (Do people prefer prior vote result info here, rather than compiled in a later post? Does anyone even care?)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 94-96

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 12, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -Chartreuse’s time car talk had been more cryptic (stone skipping) -Convention of “young Carrie as Buffy, adolescent as Betty, adult as Liz, old as… Eliza?” (totally dropped) -Laurie and Tim briefly flickered out of existence too -Carrie thought of gassing the control room, not Glen -Elizabeth was going to give up sooner, and send the others back -Buffy’s second appearance with the apple (was recall only) -Carrie somehow blew up the Miami time car by thought alone -Buffy’s final battle had her as “Betty” (adolescent) -Carrie made a case for inevitable victory, being part of her own past -Elizabeth/Buffy forgiving Glen and Carrie (simply knocked them out) -Timeline branching! (was cutting the time loop, restoring in present) -Elder Carrie being temporally frozen (had been in imploding building) -Chartreuse having a battery (had merely grabbed gun from Tim) -Lee knocking out guy with dictionary (had been fly bar inside bldg) -Julie and Corry were at library, Corry getting stabbed -Chartreuse now in hospital with Carrie (had been Corry) -Hank Waterson had asked Carrie about his wife/her mom (she initiates now) -Chartreuse’s work with Beth and “vision plus” (had been all Carrie) -Carrie’s quip she could appear with a new gun, apple-style (gone) -Laurie as valedictorian (hadn’t been specified)

4. Additions of note: -Elizabeth now interacting (briefly) with future resistance people -Tim and Laurie got middle names! -All talk of Theresa/Mindy’s fate and her role in things -All talk of resistance forces (including lockdown references) -Brief physical fight was added (before Carrie flinging time energy) -Foreshadowed timeline branching, using wall circuits -All scenes with middle name people during battle (including Glen knockout) -New inner dialogue of Elizabeth’s powers pushing back at her -Chartreuse explaining to Luci & Lee before firing the gun -Carrie/Chartreuse girlfriend banter was new -Talk of the alien artifact as being a fixed point

MAY DAYS

[caption id=“attachment_1932” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] Begins May 4th, 2 views. (Comments includes Pingbacks.)[/caption]

The first, a review written by Tartra for Web Fiction Guide on May 6, 2017. That led to a new max page view count (143 on May 7th) as someone from Hungary binged through the entire archive. Her review also prompted something else - a massive revision on my part. Some of the feedback I get, I can only nod and shrug at (“Carrie’s a bitterly unlikeable protagonist”). Other feedback makes me realize changes are necessary (using ‘mama’ makes Carrie sound like “a Southern Belle from Texas”).

Along with the ‘mama’ issue was fact that there is “no reason why they all sound like they’ve been academically peer-reviewed”. Huh. Yeah, I am bad at synonyms. There truly IS no reason for Laurie to be using a word like “transcript” or Clarke suggesting they “circumvent” things; it doesn’t fit their personalities. Blindingly obvious in retrospect, but it flew under my radar. And once I knew, I couldn’t just let that sit… if it was disrupting Tartra’s reading experience, it was surely doing the same for others.

Starting May 13th, I went back to do a massive overhaul from the beginning. My energy started to peter out late in Book 2, but even so, ALL parts up to 47 have now been revamped, a number of them for the first time since their initial posting. It doesn’t fix everything. Frank gets a free language pass, as he’s supposed to be socially awkward, and so did Julie, trying to be a CEO. Corry and Luci (as their foils) also got latitude, to keep it manageable. Everyone else? Smacked with a thesaurus… in their dialogue, not in narration. Is it any better? We may never know.

The second reason for the viewing spike last month was a Guest Post at Drew Hayes’ site. His “Super Powereds” story is in the top 10 at “Top Web Fiction” with over 150 votes. He posted in the WFG forums about being away in late May, two months in advance, giving me plenty of time to think about what to write. (And I thank him for accepting me, despite how I knew my serial would be winding down.) I considered doing another story prior to “Book 3”, like I’d done with Jim, as well as something after the Epilogue, in the summer. That likely would have involved Carrie doubling up an artifact to prevent some sort of fireworks explosion, and at once point was even tentatively titled “Minute Waltz”.

It never quite gelled. Then, in late April, I had the thought of building to the main characters through some secondary characters. I felt they’d need to still be in high school for that. Azure was the natural choice, and with that, everything else came together within a few days. Using a bank robbery was a bit cliche (Jim did one in his guest post too), but I didn’t want to go with a mugging. Hence, a part in between the hospital scene and the graduation. There was the thought process behind that writing.

The day after my post on Drew’s site, my maximum page views leapt from 143 to 458. The Thursday also saw a count over 250, before things settled down to about 100 in a day (still way above normal). It’s usually trivial to see when one or two people are going through the archive (like it was last December). Now, for the first time, with a number of people in different places, I honestly wasn’t sure how many there were. There were 131 referrals in within a week, and I think at least a half dozen people made it to “Book 2”.

It’s a nice note to go out on. Another thing I now recognize is that my writing is pretty clinical and structured, and likely needs more emotional resonance. Something I’ll need to work on, assuming I’m able to fix it. (I really am very structured in my thinking.) So yeah, I’m still a bit in the “I suck” phase, hopefully the new “Epsilon” shows promise. One last shoutout now, to Rev Fitz, who reviewed the site on May 21; there was a slight bump before Drew’s post, which I’ll credit to him.

And a few final notes before we get into the last of the T&T Analysis: -I have six 2017 coins, quarters and nickels, and have had them for over a month now. I think part of the reason is it’s Canada’s 150th “birthday”, prompting the earlier rollout, but I’m still sure there was a year I got two current pennies back in February. Anyway, it can happen before summer. -A few interesting related news articles that I found but never linked to: The idea that the Future Can Affect The Past (related to observational states), how Befriending Your Future Self is good for your health (literally what Carrie does), and Physicists With a Model for a Time Machine (it needs exotic matter). -“The innumerable possibilities…” line, spoken by Frank to start what is now “Respite II”, is in fact a call back to the SHUFFLE! game OP, which you may recall was music I’d decided might fit in with my “Season One” opening sequence. It all comes full circle. (The next “Shuffle!” theme to use might be “Really? Really!”. “There is one more possibility…”) Carrie’s response to Frank is a much vaguer callback to Steins;Gate.

SPOILER SECTION

As far as pacing goes, if we’re talking “3 act structure” (meet in act 1, tear up life in act 2, resolve in act 3), I like to think Book 4 works… except, of course, Carrie isn’t even THERE for most of the “tearing up” part; Chartreuse and the rest have to deal with Theresa being Mindy. (Also, a number of characters entered into act 1 already “broken”.)

Does it work, having the main character GONE for such a large part? And with call-backs to earlier books? I hope so? Certainly the plot as a whole feels like it works for me, temporally. It may help if you envision Future Carrie as being the present, what with Mindylenopia going back sparking the entire rewritten history, and hence why “our Carrie” became “Elizabeth”. Related, I suspect Tim’s new middle name subconsciously came from the “Piers Anthony” books on my shelf, while Amelia is from “Doctor Who” (Amelia “Amy” Pond).

Speaking of characters, let’s switch over to them. To make it interesting, I’ll list the twelve mains in my personal preference from least to greatest. Feel free to speak up in the comments, about my order, or any differences you have on my personal takes.

TIM: He never fully gelled for me. I never even settled on a medical condition. Very underused in Books 1 and 2, because there wasn’t much linguistic going on (the lawyer connection helped keep him involved). His arc in Book 4 basically involves him fitting in without being taken advantage of, knocking out Glen being the cap on that, but that was a late addition.

GLEN: Kind of a slave to the plot, plus has this unhealthy obsession with Carrie, who is all but a confirmed lesbian (something he’d know in the future). I didn’t want him to be an overt villain, but despite sticking to his internal morals, I feel that’s what he was reduced to in the end.

CORRY: The antagonist for Julie, meant to be a decent guy deep down, but we never saw a lot of that. Which itself is fine (and he is a self aware jerk) but when the school plot finished, basically, his plot did too. He became a catalyst for Laurie. We got some insight into his past with Book 4, but that was only because the original writing for him there didn’t work.

CLARKE: The conscience to Julie, and in a way, he suffers the same fate as Corry. We don’t get much of him unless Julie’s involved. His Julie fixating was handled (I hope), in the conversation before their work on the car, but while I felt like the relationship angle did tie up decently? There’s not much more to him, aside from being a nice guy.

MINDY: Another jerk-style character, but with a better conscience than Glen or Corry. Her time as Theresa helped with that, but even Future Mindy displayed some perspective on her role. Possibly the first character I’m truly satisfied with (which holds for the ones below too).

LEE: The satellite member of the group, his arc peaked early, when he willingly became involved to help with the chip. Which Carrie messed with. Still, his immunity kept him relevant, his family is interesting, and despite his penchant for nicknames, he cares for the others and follows through on that with actions.

LUCI: I’m a bit surprised she’s not higher, but the adoption and ties to Frank ended up defining a lot of her character (we never even see her parents). I wish I hadn’t given her the extra sexual trauma, but didn’t know what else to use as I did edits. Still, over the span of the story, she came to terms with her emotions, with failure, and it felt plausible that her Future version managed to keep her life together.

JULIE: She wants to do the right thing. In Book 1, she thinks the right thing is winning her parents at any cost. In Book 2, she thinks vanishing completely is the necessity. In Book 3, she tries to help her friends, the only way she knows how. Now in Book 4, I feel Julie’s finally grappling with her own fate. With not being manipulated, overtly or otherwise, and admitting to Phil about their relationship. And while Future Julie was mean, her actions did come from a place of caring; I put her through a wringer. She makes it into the Top 5.

LAURIE: Laurie, sweetie, you managed to surprise me at every turn. A naive and sobbing counterpoint to everyone in the early drafts, you started to take control with every revision, and ended up literally kicking ass in a new addition. Your babbling became passionate speeches, and somehow, despite the insanity around you, you never compromised your principles. You are truly a Veniti (as well as a valedictorian). I foresee a different, brighter future for you in the new timeline.

FRANK: The only male character to rank highly, I will admit he is a bit of a self insert. So maybe the blinders are on. While most of his arc towards getting along with people was back in the first Books, the biggest setbacks he faced were in Book 4. One could argue he was forced into the hard situations, like mediating between Future Luci and Future Julie, or telling Mindy about her inevitable death, but even if his options were limited, he stepped up to the plate. In some sense, he ended up as the glue holding everyone else together.

[caption id=“attachment_1933” align=“alignright” width=“203”] Carrie Commission (2014)
By Kai-Shii[/caption]

CARRIE: For all her flaws and inconsistencies (including apparently being a tsundere), I do like her. In Book 1, she was out for herself, lashing out physically. In Book 2, she accepted she wasn’t the centre of the world - even as events showed she was. In Book 3, she was beaten down, and pushed into a journey of personal (and sexual) discovery. In Book 4, she tried a Julie-style sacrifice, and when her friends wouldn’t let her, she found a better way. Her speech at the end, about coming to terms with mistakes she made and will make, to me, that’s key, and is what this whole story is about.

CHARTREUSE: Like, ohmigawd. She got herself a girlfriend, the hard way, via the hospital. Grappling with temporal theory on the way. So many of the new scenes involved Chartreuse somehow, and even in edits she stepped up to fix plot holes, left, right and centre. All my guest posting incorporated her, and heck, there’s probably a reason I put her into Epsilon even before all of this went online. She’s also the mystic and fantasy entry into a mostly sci-fi world. And she makes me smile. Well done, Chartreuse, you came far from very humble beginnings.

Do you agree with my choices/reasoning?

The plan for “Time Untied” is to keep those last two together, but have Carrie at the University of Ottawa and Chartreuse at Carleton University, in the same city. Because I wanted Chartreuse, but didn’t want her and Carrie too close; their interests are different, plus being forced apart will allow their relationship to grow (or falter) as needed. Also, the only other city with two universities I know well, Waterloo, is more tech-oriented… Frank’s liable to be there, and I do want to pull away from him.

Speaking of the sequel, I mused through a few other titles before settling on “Time Untied”, including “Time Release” and the related “Time Re:Leased”. If you read the bonus post from last Friday, you’ve seen that it will involve the existence of at least one OTHER person who has powers like Carrie. (Hey, it’s a second timeline, after all.) That’s why the whole story needs to be pre-written, later elements are SURE to impact earlier parts (much like Book 1), and it needs to be internally consistent.

At the same time, if you squint, there’s other details that were never really explained. The pocket watch Elaine had, which somehow seemed to synch up with time travel. The relevance of Mr. Veniti doing genetics research in the past. Why Frank only gradually faded from existence in that Timeline Three. All threads that have vague explanations in my mind, which may or may not be pulled on in the sequel as needed. (You’re welcome to hypothesize by commenting here, in advance.)

Anything else? Well, quick shout-out to the guy in the future control room being called “Walter”, a reference to “Stargate SG-1”. Also a shout-out to Mez, since my first revision of Part 96 removed all references to Carrie’s mom, and it was his comment on the earlier part which prompted me to put some of that back in. And a final thanks to Scott Delahunt, John Golden, and Chris Burke, for their support over the years (giving us Principal Dell Hunt, Julie’s psychologist Doc Golden, and the teacher Mr. Burke).

Maybe this universe will be back. Time will tell.

Parts 94/95/96 were originally “Endgame” which became the title of 95a. Remember you can still VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction”, any time, so that others might find the story. Thank you for reading.

Coming This Sunday: “Epsilon Project” continues. The vote in Part 1 is still open!

EPSILON DELTA, PART ONE: Beam & Me, Up

Rosemary Thorne tried not to panic. After all, this wasn’t the first time she’d been thrust into a bizarre situation lacking proper context. Except this time, as she looked around herself, it obviously wasn’t a beach. It didn’t feel like some fantasy math dream either.

No, she was in a cylindrical room with high ceilings, which as she looked around the circumference, contained a view screen, an area with a table and chairs, a large computer system, and a walled off area. Although the table had been tipped over, the electronics were sparking, and alarms were blaring as a red light strobed on and off.

ROSEMARY THORNE
Commission from Lia

Rose took off her headphones, and the noise of the alarm got louder. Tucking them away in her jeans pocket, she pulled up at the shoulders of her T-shirt and cleared her throat.

“Hello?” she called out. “What’s going on?”

“Sixty minutes until planetary collision.”

Rose jumped at the sound of the female voice. Looking around, she was unable to pinpoint it’s origin. “Oh, great, well, that gives us a little time, huh?” Her tone was more joking than sarcastic.

“Algebra…"

That second female voice was weaker, and seemed to be coming from the vicinity of the computer system. Walking closer, Rose finally spotted the pair of legs sticking out, over by the far console. She began to run, soon finding a woman leaning up against the hardware. Rose knelt down to get a better look.

Well, Rose mused, the woman didn’t seem too different from her. Roughly the same height. For clothing, they were wearing a white blouse, blue pleated skirt, dark stockings and blue shoes with a bow… which, admittedly, was quite different from her own T-shirt, jeans and running shoes. Also, they had long blonde hair, instead of a mess of shoulder-length red hair. And she looked older, like the blonde might be in her early twenties.

Okay, Rose mentally amended, maybe they weren’t so alike. Particularly given how a cable seemed to be running from a port in the side of the computer, to one in this woman’s blue hairband.

Was she hurt? Was she even human?

Rose reached out to poke the blonde in the shoulder. At that, the other woman’s blue eyes snapped open, and her head turned, focussing on Rose.

Rose flinched again, but forced herself to continue to not panic. So far, that strategy seemed to be working out for her. “Uhmmm… hi?”

“Algebra. You must. Recalculate trajectory,” the blonde said, her tone clipped, sounding somehow artificial.

Rose cleared her throat again, and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Rose Thorne. You are?”

The blonde blinked back. “Beam.”

“Beam, cute name. Are you hurt?”

“I am. Depleted. I used. My energy. To summon you.”

Rose pulled her hand back and eyed the cable running out of Beam’s hairband. “Okay. So you’re an android or something?”

Beam shook her head in a jerky motion. “Autonomous. Hologram. I run. Epsilon station. Now.”

“Right.” Rose exhaled. “Am I back in the math fantasy world?”

Again, Beam’s head shook. “No. But you. Have their knowledge. So I locked on. To you. You must. Recalculate trajectory.”

Rose eyed the increasingly earnest blonde hologram. “Okay, first? I’m not the math girl, my girlfriend Paige is the math girl. Second? Even assuming that me and her know some math, we’re not taking any ‘fix station trajectory’ courses at university. And third? Uh, well, there is no third. But bad news comes in threes. So there you go.”

Beam blinked at her. “You. Are not. Algebra?”

Rose winced. “Kinda sorta? But not really. I only talk to personified math. And I haven’t lately.” She frowned. “Wait, how do you even know about what I went through there?”

“Multiverse. We monitor. Fixing. Inconsistencies.”

“Ah. When you’re not busy crashing your station, you mean.”

Beam’s impassive expression became a smile. “Yes.”

Rose raked her fingers back through her hair. “You know that monitoring thing sounds real creepy, right?”

Beam tilted her head to the side. “I do. Now.”

“Uh huh. Might explain why you’re in trouble, maybe you peeked in on the wrong person. So, how do we fix your station then?”

“Recalculate. Trajectory.”

“Yeah, tried to say I don’t know how to do that. What’s our next option?”

Beam seemed to think about that for a moment. “Crash.”

“Bad plan. Next plan?”

Beam seemed to think again. “I do. Not know.”

Rose exhaled, wiping her palms on her jeans. “Then can I at least bring in Paige, in order to die in her arms?”

“There is. Insufficient power. To teleport.”

“Well, of course. Good thing I was kidding about dying.”

“Humour?” Beam’s smile returned. “Rose. I think. I like. You.”

“Yeah, well, sorry. I don’t know you well enough to die in your arms instead.”

Her smile slowly faded. “A shame.”

Rose eyed the blonde woman on the floor. She seemed genuinely depressed now. “Don’t act so broken up about it. I’ve been trying to imply we’d better live through this, right? Sorry if my implier seems to be broken.”

The smile returned. “Rose. Like you. I prefer. Girls. You are. Cute. Funny. Someone I. Would gladly. Die with.”

Rose glared. “Except I’m taken, and we’re not gonna die. What, are you saying you’re actually a lesbian automatic hologram?”

“Autonomous.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“I am. Yes.”

“Flûte.” Rose ran her fingers back through her hair again, tugging this time. “And we are SURE I’m not trapped in some new, warped aspect of my own personality?”

“Yes. I am. Sorry, Rose.”

“Great.” She glanced over her shoulder. “So, about our new plan. What happened to all the other techs here?”

“It is. Only me. On the station. No others. No techs. Only me. Now.”

“And there’s no power left here to bring in ACTUAL techs.”

“Correct. You were. My last chance.”

Rose turned to scan the room again. “What even happened here?”

“Unknown.” Beam licked her lips. “Possible. Sabotage.”

Rose shuddered. “Except you just said you were the only one here.”

“I should be. But sabotage. Would explain. Power loss. And computer. Malfunction.”

“Great. Your station DID tick off the wrong people.” Rose got back to her feet and looked around. “So now it’s up to two lesbians to save the multiverse or something. Thank goodness this all happened at around five in the afternoon, if it was before nine in the morning, I’d be half asleep and we’d be SO screwed.”

“One.”

Rose turned back. “One what?”

“One. Lesbian.”

She stamped her foot. “Damn it, Beam, you JUST told me that you–"

“Computer,” the blonde interrupted. “Transfer control. Of station. To Rose Thorne.”

The urge to panic clawed at Rose again. “Oh no. No, no, nononono.” She bent back down, reaching out to grasp Beam by the shoulders. “No, Beam, no.”

“Acknowledged,” came the disembodied voice that had first warned of the planetary collision. “Provide authorization code.”

Rose shook the blonde. “Beam, no, please, I’m not quite twenty years old yet. I can’t handle this alone. I don’t even UNDERSTAND this. That’s why I’m joking around.”

“Authorization. Janeway Pi. One One Zero,” Beam stated. The computer chirped, and Beam’s eyes focussed on Rose again. “I am. So sorry. Rose Thorne. Perhaps I. Should have. Brought… in…."

Her blue eyes closed and her head slumped to the side.

“Beam? BEAM?”

Rose shook the holographic girl again, but she remained unconscious. Or unpowered. Or whatever caused holograms to no longer interact with their surroundings.

Before Rose could stop herself, she had let out a scream. She quickly buried her fist inside her mouth to silence the noise, sat back on her behind, closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten, rocking back and forth.

When at last she reopened her eyes, and found that she was still in the cylindrical room, she decided she was going to have to do something about that. She stood back up.

“Computer?” she called out, after pulling her fist from her mouth.

“Acknowledged, Rose. Welcome to command.”

“Thanks, we’ll bake me a cake later. Do you have a name?”

There was a pause. “I was once called Ziggy.”

A weird name, but good enough for creating the illusion that she wasn’t truly alone in this completely insane situation. “Ziggy, hi. Why can’t YOU recalculate our trajectory?”

“Necessary functions are offline.”

“Darn. How do we get them online?”

“Unknown.”

“Great. Well, who had Beam been talking about bringing in just now?”

“Unknown.”

“I guess there’s no power anyway. Do you even have a user’s manual for me?”

“Unknown.”

Rose stamped her foot. “Damn it, Ziggy, why is everything I desperately need to know unknown?!”

“Unknown.”

“Yeah, yeah, figures.” Rose began to pace the length of the room. “Tell me something known, just for variety.”

“Forty seven minutes until planetary–”

“NOT that,” Rose admonished. “Something happy.”

There was another pause. “Our missions have been reasonably successful up until now.”

“Okay. Okay, missions, let’s focus on those. Has Beam been the only person or hologram or whatever who led these missions?”

“The Epsilon Project has recruited from across the multiverse.”

“Great. Could any of your OTHER employees get us out of this? Unknown,” she answered herself, in tandem with the computer. “Fine.” Rose decided that, instead of pacing back and forth, she would pace in a circle around the large ring in the middle of the room. “How about this. When did Beam become your primary tech?”

“Time in the multiverse is relative.”

“Okay, well, I guess I don’t even care about that, my real question is did anyone work computers on this station before Beam?”

“Yes. Alison Vunderlande.”

“Good. Now, is this Vunderlande woman the same one who caused the sabotage? Unknown,” Rose again chorused the word with Ziggy. “Could she fix our problems? Unknown. Can we at least give her a call? Unkn–"

“Her number is on file.”

Rose spun. “Ziggy? Phone. Her.”

“Alice poses a security risk. She interfered with an important mission. Friendship cannot take precedence over–"

“Ziggy?” Rose interrupted. “Am I in charge here?”

Again a pause, as if the computer had to double check. “You are.”

“Further, isn’t it likely that Beam had been thinking about bringing in that Alice to help, and only grabbed me instead owing to your stupid security whatevers?”

Pause. “It is possible.”

Rose made a point of clearing her throat. “Ziggy? Phone. This. Alice. Now.”

“Acknowledged. Connecting to the appropriate world line. Please wait.”

Rose hoped the lack of a pause that time was a good sign. She marched over to the section of the huge room with the chairs, grabbed one, and hauled it over towards the computer banks. Instead of sitting though, she leaned against the back of it, gripping the wood tightly between her hands as she stared at the machine. This would not be the last thing she ever saw. It wouldn’t be. COULDN’T be.

“Connection established,” Ziggy asserted.

“Hello! Know that your call is very important to us,” came a bright, cheerful voice immediately after.

An answering service. Rose bowed her head, worried that if this kept up, she might soon lose her mind. “Alice, when you get this message, PLEASE call back. Otherwise I might die alone on some mystery space station.”

“Oh, this isn’t my voicemail, your call is simply important.”

Rose snapped her head back up. “Alice?”

“Speaking. Mystery science theatre what now? I heard they’d returned.”

Rose circled around the chair, looking for a working video screen and not finding one. “I’m talking to Alice, Alice of the Epsilon Station, that Alice?”

“Um, I was kinda fired from there, but yeah.”

Alice sounded a little flaky, but Rose figured she was hardly one to throw stones there. “Alice, my name is Rose Thorne, and your former station’s gonna crash into some planet in a little over half an hour and I don’t know what to do about it. Help! Mayday! Emergency!”

“Oh? Wow. Um. It’s been a while. Can you transport me up to have a look? Is that allowed?”

“I can probably allow it but we don’t have the power. Can you talk me through trajectory calculations or something?”

“Uhh, Ziggy can’t do that for you?”

“Apparently not.”

“What about Mr. Smith?”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Mister who?”

“Mr. Smith. When you’re this big, they call you Mister. Oh, right, I shut him down, but he runs independent of the main computer system. So if you reactivate him, he might be able to run the calculations. Once you explain the situation to him.”

“That’s good, except I don’t understand the situation myself.”

“No?”

“No, I only got here, like, twenty minutes ago. Now somehow, I’m in charge.”

“O-kaaaay. Can you at least get to auxiliary control, where Mr. Smith is? He should have a useable power supply to patch into the grid for a teleport.”

Rose looked at the ceiling. “Ziggy, can I get to auxiliary control?”

“Affirmative, I can direct you.”

“Alice, I can get to–"

“Heard that. Okay. While you do that, lemme get to Alijda. If the power thing doesn’t pan out, maybe she can teleport us to you somehow. Don’t worry, Rose!” Alice added brightly. “As the guide says, don’t panic.”

“Yup, that is pretty much my motto right now,” Rose sighed. “Do I call you back when I get there?”

“Call me,” Alice agreed. “On the line, call me, call me any, anytime, call me.”

There was a click as the line went dead.

“Curious,” came Ziggy’s voice. “Is this sensation what it means to have… missed someone?”

“Ziggy, if you don’t show me auxiliary control pretty darn fast, you’ll end up missing me too,” Rose asserted.

A doorway in the ceiling irised open, and gravity cut out, allowing Rose to flail her way up towards it.

NEXT?

What planet is the Station currently aimed at? (Curiously, this will also decide how the rest of the cast gets there.)  OPTIONS:

What POINT OF VIEW comes next? (I won’t always give this choice.) OPTIONS:

VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT THURSDAY JUNE 8th

ɛ PROJECT

WB (Writing Bufferless) presents…

STORY 4: EPSILON DELTA

Every Epsilon story can stand alone. That said, in Story 3, the Epsilon Project ended by shutting down, after the unintended consequences of a vote meant Alice broke the rules. So how can it be back? Well, according to last week’s vote, by being in trouble.

Story 4 of ???

STORY #4:

The Epsilon Station is in trouble, resulting in the reunion of a number of former characters. What is the cause? How can they fix it, assuming they even want to? Is this really enough of a plot, or is this intro going to be rewritten after a few votes? Let’s find out.

CAST:

ROSEMARY THORNE (aka “Rose”) … A musical teenager with Algebra connections

KATHERINE CONWAY (aka “Kat”) … A military man with Pyrokinesis

ALISON VUNDERLANDE (aka “Alice”) … A pop-culture woman with an Eidetic Memory

ALIJDA VAN VLIET (aka “Alison”) … A female hacker with Teleportation

BEAM … A lesbian hologram who somehow became a main character

EPISODE INDEX:

1. Beam & Me, Up  (June 4)

2. How Far She’ll Go  (June 11)

3. State of Confusion  (June 18)

4. Turnabout  (June 25)

5. Holo Victory (July 2)

6. She Loves Me Not (July 9 July 16th?)

7. Goodness Gracious (July 30)

8. The Arm of Fate (Aug 13)

9. Destination: Destiny (Aug 27)

10. See Deuce (Sept 10)

11. Trail Mix (Sept 24)

12. Non Scents (Oct 8)

13. Search and Re-Skew (Nov 5)

14. Tied and True (Nov 26)

15. Rose to the Occasion (Dec 10)

16. Fate’s Wide Wheel (Dec 24)

Story #4 is Concluded.

Congratulations, you’ve found the Season 2 bonus. (The Season 1 bonus was “Arc 2.4 Outtakes”, if you missed it.)

What follows is an excerpt from the 10,000 words that were written back in 2015, when T&T was first launching on this site. It involves events taking place during Carrie’s first term at University. Will I continue the story from here? I certainly have ideas, but it depends on reader interest (let me know if you want more), and my writing time (I resume teaching in September). The earliest we’d see anything is in 2018.

I CAN say that, if and when I continue, it won’t be called “Time & Tied Book 5”. I’ve learned that people will invariably want to go back to the beginning of any series - my efforts to launch “Book 3” as an entry point failed. And T&T starts slooooow, doing a poor job of hooking readers. Comparatively, the story of Carrie at University starts faster, has a new main cast, and should be able to hit the necessary backstory early on. Hence “Time Untied Book 1”. (Like a spinoff, maybe?)

So what more could possibly happen in the T&T (aka TU) universe? Read on, and let me know if you like it. I’m skipping the bit where Carrie first arrives at her University of Ottawa dorm, and meets Kat.

***

TIME UNTIED

PART 00

“You should NOT be able to move,” Carrie gasped, now registering the figure in the cloak who was standing at the door. She tensed to jump again, but now that the element of surprise seemed to be gone, the figure was simply standing there.

Carrie ran a quick mental check. Partly to allow her mind to catch up to her own small temporal alteration, which allowed her slight headache to ebb away. Partly to see if her freezing effect was, in fact, working after all. To that end, she glanced sidelong at her new roommate.

Katherine - Kat - did seem to have been temporally suspended mid-shriek. Moreover, her new roommate’s unmoving body seemed substantial once again. Implying that Carrie herself was no longer in imminent danger. Unless Kat’s lack of transparency was some side effect of the temporal freeze? Carrie grimaced. She was in uncharted territory here.

“Every time,” the figure with the gun mumbled.

Okay, so the gunman was not frozen. Damn. On the bright side, he - it was a male voice - still hadn’t fired, despite the fact that the gun itself was outfitted with a silencer. Meaning there was a good chance no one else on the floor would even hear the shots.

Others might hear Kat yelling though – and would the danger of more people make this guy hesitate? Or back off? With a twitch of her finger, Carrie unfroze time again. After all, it obviously hadn’t bought her the advantage she’d expected, plus it was taxing to maintain.

“Shut up,” the cloaked man said, turning his gun in Kat’s direction while continuing to look at Carrie. The shrieking noise that had resumed at Carrie’s act now died past Kat’s lips. “Good girl.”

He turned the gun back on Carrie. “Carrie Waterson. I believe I finally have an offer you cannot refuse.”

Carrie heard Kat take a couple deep breaths. “F-Finally? C-Carrie, who…?”

“Don’t know,” Carrie answered, leery of taking her eyes off the guy for more than a second. Honestly, she had the same question. Presumably, like Kat, this was someone else she’d encounter in her future, but for him, it was the past.

Carrie’s frown deepened, not liking the idea that the future was again affecting changes to her present. She thought she’d dealt with that whole mess once and for all back in high school!

She had to figure this guy out. Which meant, keep him talking. “Okay Cloaky, what offer you got?”

“Either you let me kill you,” the man began. “Or…" He fished a cell phone device out of his cloak pocket using his non-gun hand. “Or I use this to detonate an explosive, killing dozens of innocent people on campus.” He took a step closer. “So, who will it be? You or them?”

Carrie narrowed her eyes, ignoring the gasp from Kat. Okay, his no-nonsense tone implied this was even bigger than she’d originally thought.

Which pissed her off, because why couldn’t the two future warring factions confine their activities to, you know, their own damn present? She had no intention of living her life like some bad temporal cold war episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise”. Though she supposed it only took one idiot like this guy to want to experiment with the “Terminator” option.

Yeah, Frank’s televised time travel marathons weren’t really helping her out here.

“I’m the future tipping point,” Carrie said, as if that explained everything.

Which it did. She had to survive. She was the nuclear option. Dozens of innocents in the present? Inconsequential, when compared to what it was she had to be around for. Her fingernails dug into her palms. Except, she really didn’t want people getting hurt on her account. Not any more.

“You’re not the only one.”

Carrie shuddered. What the HELL did he mean by that?

Okay, keeping the guy talking was officially a BAD plan - he obviously knew more than enough to keep her unbalanced. She had to get the upper hand some other way.

Perhaps, Carrie mused, if she sped up her own personal time, she could unmask him? Or at least get that cell phone trigger away? Carrie readied herself for a temporal burst of speed… and Kat whimpered. Carrie froze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her roommate had gone slightly transparent once again.

Carrie quickly banished the plan from her mind. Kat’s form became solid. Carrie did her best not to stare with wide eyes. Her roommate was acting like a divining rod into her future! Into their future! Because if Carrie died here, now, before saving Kat - her roommate wouldn’t exist.

Well, that was beneficial,  given how messing up and tracking back along one’s own timeline to erase mistakes had a number of costly drawbacks. Assuming necessary alterations were even possible. The question was, had Cloaky noticed what had happened to Kat?

“You’re spending too long thinking about this,” the figure decided. “So, in ten seconds, I’ll detonate this device – and pull out another!”

It seemed he hadn’t seen, but now she had another problem. “Wait,” Carrie requested, still hoping for an angle. “I’m not the threat you think I am. Maybe I can help you in your cause! Let’s discuss things before you do something rash.”

A Temporal might not be willing to bargain, but if the guy was a Mundane… “No deal. Seven seconds.”

Damn! Why was it that her freezing hadn’t affected this guy? Had they invented countermeasures in the future? What if she tried unleashing something a little stronger from within her core? Like temporal banishment! No. Kat’s slight hyperventilating, as the redhead’s body shimmered yet again, indicated to Carrie that deeper powers would only increase the chances of her being killed.

“You or them? Four seconds.”

But if her powers were of no use, what could she do, other than allow this explosive to detonate? She might be able to loop back and undo it later. Evacuate the location or something. Because the needs of the many in the future outweighed the needs of the few here. Granted, this also meant that her own singular need for survival was being placed above the survival of these few innocents! Was that irony?

“Last chan– AGGHHHH!”

Carrie gaped. With his focus on her, apparently the guy had all but forgotten about Kat being in the room. And her new roommate had, in that final second, seen fit to lunge at him, jamming some device at his closest hand, electricity arcing out of it. Carrie hadn’t even been paying attention to how the redhead had been inching towards her desk to grasp it.

Cloaky’s momentary spasm caused him to lose his grip on both the cell phone and the gun.

Kat was making a dive for the former, so Carrie made a move for the latter. She immediately realized that the figure was going to be able to grab the gun first. So instead she reached to the side, grabbed Kat as she touched the phone, and time jumped.

Sherlock tried not to sound disappointed when the cute redhead turned him down for dinner. Though, she’d seemed to be busy with something, so he reasoned that perhaps he could try again later that week. When she wasn’t so preoccupied. After all, he’d probably see a lot of her, given how she was rooming right next door.

At least, he rather hoped to see more of her. Given that she had to be not only pretty, but also intelligent, having gotten into the University and all. The glasses also helped with that look. And the British accent. So, as long as she didn’t have an abrasive personality, perhaps the two of them could…

His thoughts trailed off as he turned around the corner of their floor, and saw the redheaded girl again. Except this time she looked to be unconscious, and another girl, a blonde one, was trying to drag her into an elevator.

His eyes met those of the blonde. He pointed back down the corridor. “Isn’t that the same girl I was…?”

“STOP,” the blonde said, authoritatively. He returned his gaze to her, having been about to retrace his steps down the hallway.

“Get in,” she continued with a sigh, jerking her head at the elevator she was entering.

Sherlock shrugged. “Okay.”

After all, it wasn’t as if she could knock him out too, her hands were full. And if this redhead was in distress, perhaps he could help!

“Ground floor,” the blonde requested. Obligingly, he pushed the button as she continued to keep the unconscious girl’s body from sliding to the ground. “You know Kat?” she continued once the elevator doors had closed.

“Not by name,” Sherlock admitted, even as he took note of it. “Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine.”

Sherlock nodded. “Is she also a twin? Because I could have SWORN that I was talking to her a moment ago. In the room next to mine.”

“It’s… complicated,” came the girl’s response, coupled with a grimace.

Kat stirred then, her green eyes blinking open. She reached a hand up to her face, nearly dislodging her glasses. “Wh-what? Where…”

Her body jerked as she tried to regain her footing, nearly pulling both girls down onto the elevator floor. “The bomb! The gun! Why are we in the lift?! Were YOU the one in the cloak?!?” she accused, jabbing her finger in Sherlock’s direction.

“No!” he answered. He lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you like cloaks?”

With a ‘ding’, the elevator doors opened on the lower floor, revealing two new girls and their luggage waiting to get on.

“Agh, damn it,” the blonde snapped. “Where is there any privacy – both of you, come with me!” she ordered, grabbing Kat’s arm and pushing past the others in the dorm’s lobby.

“Come with me if you want to live?” Sherlock joked, following after.

“I think so,” Kat said to him. For the first time, he registered the very frightened look on her face.

***

CARRIE and KAT

What do you think of that? Should I continue it, or write something else instead?

NEXT: Final T&T Commentary posts next Tuesday. “Epsilon” starts Sunday.

PREVIOUSLY: Everything. Including this guest post.

PART 96c: RESPITE II

“The innumerable possibilities are now in your hands,” Frank remarked, coming up to stand beside Carrie.

“Ah, yes. Here we are, in the world with an unknown future,” the blonde mused. She spun the graduation cap she was holding, finally turning away from the school library. “Where really, my hands are no more important than anyone else’s.”

Frank jerked his head back towards where she’d been looking, in the process dislodging his own cap, which he caught. “Were you just thinking about the van crash, the timelines, and Mindylenopia?”

“Yeah,” Carrie admitted. “And not only her sacrifice in the past. I’ve realized she’ll likely still be a part of our future.”

Frank frowned. “Wait, what? Carrie, our paths are all un-predestined here. Especially for us, two people who never graduated high school in that alternate timeline.”

“Meaning we can change this timeline, Frank,” Carrie asserted. “ONE timeline. We didn’t change the nature of the universe. So while our lives will be different, that alien artifact that your Future Luci mentioned? Something tells me that’s a fixed point for us as well. Meaning there will be time travel. Meaning Temporals. Meaning a new Mindylenopia could be born into this future, with a new Glinephanis, and new interferences.” She smiled. “It’s how we HANDLE all of those events, that’s what becomes the real difference.”

“Right,” Frank said. He smiled back. “You’re getting good at this temporal theory stuff. And you can peek a few days ahead with your power too, so that’s an advantage if there’s trouble.”

Carrie snorted. “Yeah, but no. One thing Chartreuse and I have kinda decided is to leave future vision scrying to her. I mean, even setting aside the ‘me seeing only pre-destined things’ problem, if I’ve resolved not to randomly poke my fingers into my own past? Then I should have the courtesy to not to do it to my future self either. Or anyone else’s future selves.”

“So you’re renouncing your powers?”

Carrie shook her head. “I didn’t say THAT.”

“So it’s merely that you prefer to think about… other things whenever you’re with Chartreuse?”

“I didn’t say that eith–" Carrie eyed his waggling eyebrows, then reached out to smack him in the arm with her graduation cap. “Seriously? Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Frank chuckled. “Sorry. It’s just, ever since it became official around the school, you’re both so cagey about how far you’ve actually–"

“And you KNOW I’ll smack you again if you keep on that topic, right?”

“Okay, okay, back to time travel. Carrie, what if by not using your powers, you end up making an otherwise avoidable mistake?”

“Oh, I’ll make mistakes.” Carrie idly pulled some strands of hair into her fingers, twisting them about. “After all, you only truly learn by messing up, and then correcting things. Assuming you can. Because the alternative? Being told ‘hey, you have to do this now’? That’s not learning. That’s damn annoying. Whether you’re being told ‘what to do’ by a future version of yourself or not.”

Frank grinned. “Wise words. For the record, I voted for you. For valedictorian.”

Carrie chuckled. “Thanks. But I’m glad Laurie won instead. I think she’s come further than anyone else did in our four years here. Well, in terms of the stuff normal people get to know about.” She dropped her hair and sighed. “We should get going to our designated grad rooms. Keep in touch next year from university, and all that?”

“For sure,” Frank agreed. “I’ll message you whenever I’m doing my mathematics homework.”

“Ha!” Carrie rolled her eyes. “I said I was considering a MINOR in maths, so that I’m not completely out of the loop on time travel theory and whatever. Kinesiology, that’s where it’s at for me.”

“No, I mean I’ll want someone with cool temporal stories to tell, who can remind me why I’ll want to keep studying this stuff.” Frank grinned, then began to walk away, only to pause and gesture. “After you, O Temporal One?”

Carrie shook her head. “Don’t inflate my ego. Let’s simply head towards the uncertainties of the future together, okay?”

With a shared nod and a smile, the two teenagers clasped their hands and walked down the school hallway one last time.

END OF TIME & TIED

CARRIE MAY RETURN IN... TIME UNTIED

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?

• The story of Chartreuse continues in "Epsilon Project"'s second story, "Wish Fulfilment", if you would like to read more about her in the summer after high school.
• This site will continue with "Epsilon Project"'s fourth story, that you can vote on here until the end of May (tomorrow). It will publish Sundays, with weekly votes.
• Time Untied. Yeah. If you haven't been reading the commentaries, the saga of Carrie was once envisioned as being five seasons, aka ten books. We're not even halfway. That said, not much else has actually been written. But this Friday, I will post an excerpt from Time Untied that I wrote in 2015, including an explanation for why I'm not calling it Time & Tied Book 5.
• There will be one further Commentary posted in a week (next Tuesday), with behind-the-scenes for the last parts, some more site stats talk and character analysis.
• You can go back and read "Time & Tied" from the beginning if you like, it's been recently reformatted. Related, I'm rerunning it daily on Royal Road Legends (we just hit Book 3), where there is the occasional character poll. (You can also comment here about your faves.)
• I run a personified math webcomic too. If that is in any way your thing.
• There are a number of links in the sidebar to other serial sites with similar material (time travel, voting, etc).
• There are a number of other good serials on "Top Web Fiction", which you can easily access by clicking here: Vote for T&T ;)
• Maybe someone will comment with another suggestion...?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie/Elizabeth forked the timeline. This allows her to become a Temporal God in the timeline she created.

PART 96b: RESOLUTION

Chartreuse counted to ten before following Frank and Beth around to the front of the library. She watched as the time trippers piled into the time car and, after Frank grabbed the briefcase from the trunk, finally pulled away from the building.

She then ducked down as the gunman who had fired in their direction ran down the front steps of the library, waving his weapon. The guy managed to prevent a vehicle that had been pulling out of the parking lot from leaving. It was as the guy climbed into the passenger seat, pointing his gun at the driver, that Chartreuse knelt down in the snow, to open the trombone case she was carrying.

She pulled out the temporal gun. Along with one other item.

As the gunman’s hijacked car drove out onto the road, there was a flash of light. The driver swerved to avoid hitting the glasses-wearing teenager who had appeared. The car hit a patch of ice and spun out, slamming into a nearby telephone pole. The passenger door was wedged shut in the impact; for the moment, there was nothing to worry about there.

Chartreuse attached her item onto the recharge port of the gun. She then moved to get herself a good bracing position at the bottom of the staircase, kneeling down, pressing the bottom of her boot back into the concrete pillar. She knew the kickback from the gun would be a problem.

A second blond man ran out of the library, followed closely by Lee and Luci. The guy dashed down the stairs, and got about three steps further before being clocked in the head by the dictionary Lee had thrown. Their adversary went face first into a snowbank. Not that far away from him, another familiar person appeared from out of nowhere.

“Tim?” Luci gasped. She took the stairs down two at a time, pausing at the bottom. “Chartreuse? What are you doing?”

“Preparing,” she muttered back. She took aim across the parking lot.

Luci blinked. “When did you end up with the temporal gun? And why is the safety off?”

Luci reached down for it, and Chartreuse slapped her hand away.

“Chartreuse!” Luci said. “You’re being reckless - and what do you have on the recharge port?”

“A battery.”

Luci’s eyes widened. “WHAT? You CANNOT be thinking of charging that thing while you’re firing. That’s INSANE.”

“So is she,” Chartreuse whispered.

A short distance away, Laurie appeared.

Luci now reached down with both hands, and so Chartreuse shoved her friend back, out of the way. Luci fell into the snow. “Luci, I’ll, you know, explain later, there’s no time now!”

“Why not? Chartreuse, what is going on?”

Chartreuse looked back at the asian girl, and then at Lee, who was helping her stand back up. In that instant, Chartreuse wondered, what if she died here, and never got to explain?

“Okay, fast version? The day after we, like, talked to Mr. Waterson, I had a vision of today. Looking into it more led me to this experience ten minutes ago, where I used a set of paired relaxation crystals to tell our Carrie to, you know, nudge Mindy’s time car. And now I know that in, like, a few seconds, I’ll have my only chance at saving her.”

Chartreuse looked back across the parking lot. Which was when the blonde teenager appeared, her maniacal laughter echoing eerily around the whole area, her feet starting to lift off the ground as temporal energy sparked all around her, originating at her fingertips.

Chartreuse fired.

Energy lanced out of the gun.

The cackling blonde girl absorbed it. At first.

Chartreuse never moved her finger off the trigger. Even as her own body was driven back into the concrete post behind her, she continued the sustained burst. Tears sprang to her eyes as she felt an ankle give out with a snap, but she kept the gun up and on target. The battery on the port chirped… and the energy blast continued. Across the parking lot, Carrie stopped laughing.

“Chartreuse, stop!” Luci shrieked.

“I’m not losing her again,” Chartreuse cried. “Carrie! Carrie, I love you! CARRIE, COME BACK TO ME!”

“Chartreuse, the gun’s overloading!” Luci reached out again, only to have Lee pull her back, twisting his body around and using it as a shield.

The temporal gun exploded in Chartreuse’s hands.

But not before Carrie’s head had snapped back, her body falling into the snow as the golden light in her eyes faded away.

Carrie listened to the voices around her for a minute or two. From the sound of things, she was again in a hospital. And… geez, had the entire temporal group come to pay her a visit? She cracked open an eyelid.

“Carrie’s awake now,” Luci said immediately.

Opening her other eye, Carrie was able to make out… well, Luci, Frank, Clarke, Julie, Corry, Laurie, Tim, Lee, and even her own father. But not… “Char-treuse?” Carrie croaked out, through dry lips.

Laurie clasped her hands together. “Carrie immediately wants her girlfriend. The one who saved her soul. Oh my God, all the squee!”

The people closest to the head of the bed moved away, and as Lee did so, he made an elaborate gesture towards the next bed over. Carrie followed his motion, where she saw…

“Hi Carrie,” Chartreuse chirped. “I’d, you know, give a thumbs up, except…" She held up her arm, which had been completely wrapped up in bandages.

“She’ll be fine,” Clarke broke in, as Carrie found herself unable to avoid looking horrified. “Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, in fact we originally came here to see Chartreuse,” Corry remarked, crossing his arms. “We didn’t know when you’d wake up. So don’t get a swelled head, Waterson.”

“Speak for yourself,” the older Waterson objected.

Carrie licked her lips, her gaze shifting over to her father. “Dad. Gods, I’m sorry, I never meant to leave you alone in the present for so lon– geuh, I… I mean…"

“He knows about the power,” Frank reminded Carrie. “There was this whole thing where you had a double named Beth wandering through the school last month? So we kind of had to fill him in?”

“Oh. Right.” Carrie brought her hand to her forehead. Last month? “What day IS it?”

“January second,” Tim supplied. “H-Happy new year.”

“I really hope having no coins means we’ll get a few months before we see more time travellers,” Julie observed.

Carrie exhaled. “Yeah, there… there won’t be any more of that happening. Not now. We’re on a parallel time track now.”

The people around her bed exchanged glances. “Carrie,” Frank began. “Based on the temporal theory that a Future Luci explained to me, it’s highly unlikely that multiple time tracks–"

“TRUST me,” Carrie interrupted. “Our Luci’s path itself could be different going forwards. We can talk theory later, but for now, even if anyone from the revised future does try to rewrite us? Believe me when I say I know how to divert them out of our timeline.”

“In a SAFE way, yes?” Chartreuse piped up. “Because I don’t want a rerun. Even setting aside the, you know, temporal gun blowing up on me, I had to stick close to Beth last month in order to get a read on her majorly displaced temporal energy. That way I could, like, use it, in order to forecast my way further into the future than I ever have before. And that sort of ‘vision plus’? Featuring Insane Carrie clarifying the library events I’d seen? Not my, you know, happiest place.”

“I’ll find a safe way of dealing with time travellers,” Carrie assured. She checked herself. “Actually Chartreuse, we both will. Together.”

Chartreuse beamed.

Carrie’s gaze shifted back to her father. “Thing is, in this timeline, I can’t bring Mom back. I’m sorry. If it means anything, she was alive, in the future of another timeline… maybe that’s why some part of you felt like Mom never died?”

Hank Waterson flinched. “Oh. Well. Was she happy there?”

“I… I don’t know. Damn it, I didn’t even check.” Carrie’s head hit her pillow. “I’m sorry. I should have. Hell, maybe I could have even brought her too, I had all that power, it’s just I didn’t even think, I was so focussed on the separation. Dad, I’m so sorry…"

His hand reached out to squeeze hers. “It’s okay, honey. Let’s assume she was happy, and focus on the present. Because Carrie, you’re what’s important to me right now.”

She squeezed his hand back, and found that she was able to meet his hopeful look with a smile.

Lee cleared his throat. “Uh, hate to interrupt a moment, but we already DO have two other time travel guys? Arrested at the library?” He jerked his thumb towards the window. “Do we worry about them?”

Carrie frowned. “No, I wouldn’t. If they were trying to disrupt the awakening of my full potential, it didn’t work.”

“I’ve filed a police report there anyway,” Mr. Waterson added. “Along with what happened at the library, they’re being charged with the attempted kidnapping of my daughter. Never mind that it was technically that Beth girl at the time.”

“So, like Shady, they’re going to end up in the justice system,” Luci mused.

“S-So what’s next for us then?” Tim wondered. “Anything?”

“No,” Carrie groaned. “I pass on doing ANYTHING for the next while. Well, aside from schoolwork, which I guess I’m massively behind on, since my leaving during the talent show.” She looked towards Laurie. “Meaning guess what? You’re still in charge of the cheerleading. In fact, if you’re willing, it’s yours for the rest of our senior year.”

Laurie blinked. “Golly. Thanks.”

Carrie smiled. “Just because this new timeline has me staying in town, that’s no reason to take your future away from you.”

“But Laurie’s behind in her schoolwork too,” Corry protested. “She left for her fake art camp right after you vanished, Carrie!”

“So I’ll work hard,” Laurie said, crossing her arms in imitation of her brother. “Plus I have lots of friends who can help. I’m not letting Carrie or the other cheerleaders down, bro!”

“Ooh, watch out, Power Cad,” Lee said, chuckling at Corry’s sigh of resignation. “Double V here might end up running the school with the Cross One. Instead of it being you and the Rich Witch.”

Clarke frowned. “Witch? Lee, you might want to consider updating–"

“No, no, it’s fine, Phil,” Julie interrupted. “After all, those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. The only thing that matters to me right now is how the two of us could work on the time car together. To kind of… find ourselves again.” She fingered her rose brooch before leaning into him with a smile. Clarke grinned back, raising his arm to encircle her shoulders.

Frank turned to Carrie. “That reminds me. We didn’t spot the car anywhere in town. Did you send it back?”

Carrie pressed her hand to her head. “Oops. No… I forgot. Didn’t want to do a global removal, or we’d likely have ended up with our Glen again. He’s a headache I don’t need. It’s probably for the best though? No time machine, no time gun, no Temporals, just us, and our normal, everyday lives from this point on.”

“No car and stuff?” Laurie moaned, her arms uncrossing. “Golly, I really hope alt-future-Laurie enjoys using my art supplies.”

Mr. Waterson cleared his throat. “Well, as much as I’m enjoying learning more about recent events, unless there’s anything else that’s urgent, I think my daughter and her girlfriend could use their rest.”

Carrie’s eyes went wide. “Oh. My. God. Dad, NO, do NOT say girlfriend yet, we haven’t really officially - oh NO!” She jerked her gaze back over to the adjacent bed. “Chartreuse, you said you had to get close to Beth? Are you saying you two have, like, kissed the way we did, and that the whole school now knows about… about…"

“No,” Chartreuse gasped. “Carrie, you’re, you know, the only one for me. And if you want, no one outside of this room has to, like, know that.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” Carrie let out a breath. “I mean, others can know. I just need a few days here, minimum.”

“Confirming it IS a relationship?” Luci said, winking.

“She did say kissed Beth ‘the way we did’,” Corry remarked.

“Plus there was that whole soul saving they did,” Julie observed.

Carrie felt her face getting warm. She pulled her bedsheets up over her head. “My Dad said it’s rest time. Goodbye now!” There were a few chuckles, followed by a shuffling of feet as people started moving away.

She gave it a good ten seconds, then pulled the sheets back down to her neck. “But before you leave? Thanks. For everything. I mean it.” She made a point of meeting each of their gazes with a smile, as they looked back at her. “Because I wouldn’t be here now. Not if it weren’t for each and every one of you.”

NEXT: Respite II, an Epilogue of sorts. Please stick around.

ASIDE: Part of the reason for splitting the last entry at this point is for site transition time back to Epsilon Project. (You can vote for that plot here.) But it’s ALSO because Drew Hayes was taking guest posts this week on his site. Read my post here, which in continuity, takes place a few months after the events above. Then consider sticking around on Drew’s site to check out his material, and the other guest posts.

With “Time & Tied” wrapping up on Tuesday, May 30th, this site will transition back to “Epsilon Project”. For those who were not here prior to July 2016, that’s a serial I write on the fly, based on YOUR VOTES. Each week I’ll crank out another 2,000 words or so, leaving off at a decision point. Voting will be open from Sunday through Wednesday, at which point I take the most popular option, and continue the story.

The story concept in brief? I have a lot of characters (from role-play sessions, old stories, etc), and they come together to solve problems on Earths in a MultiVerse. Every story stands alone, on a new Earth, but there is a thread running through them - that of the project itself. Chartreuse appeared in the “Epsilon Project” story “Wish Fulfilment”, if you would like to read a prior effort featuring a “Time & Tied” character. (I can also claim that story to be canon, since I own both universes…)

Chartreuse (commission)

What plot shall we pick this time? VR/RPG game stories are popular these days, and I have a vague idea in mind. The Station having problems will likely connect to Alice being fired (see Story 3) and the one who replaced her. The Project Member in trouble would likely be Alijda, but I don’t want to pin myself down yet, so it’s generic. What’s best? Voting will remain open until the end of the month (May 31st).

What characters will be involved? I want to bring in Rosemary Thorne, a lesbian university student from a recent story, because I find her fun to write. Katherine “Kat” Conway won the preferred character poll at the end of Story 3, so we’ll have him back. (I know Chartreuse won the poll in Story 2, but I need a bit of a break from her. Also, only 3 votes total on that poll, Kat had more. Those who like Chartreuse, I think you’ll like Rosemary too.)

Alice (commission)

Do we add a third character? I’m going to toss this one out at the rest of you. Alice just got kicked off the “Epsilon Project” - do we bring her back? (For those who don’t know, Alice has a great memory, though it trends towards quoting scifi and fantasy shows.) When we left off, she was staying with Alijda - do we bring her back too? (For those who don’t know, Alijda has the teleport ability, and takes medication for depression.)

Of note, if “neither” of them is chosen, yet “Project Member in trouble” becomes the plot - and if I can’t think of a better alternative in the next week - the likely result will be one of them disappearing. (Hence in trouble, but not directly in the story. Which one? Likely whoever was higher after “neither”.)

Thank you for voting! I hope you’ll return to vote again after the first part comes out on Sunday, June 4th.

Know that if you like the idea of voting on serial outcomes, Redwood Crossing is a serial which does this every week. (They also have a lesbian main character.) Check them out. If you really dislike my plan, but liked “Time & Tied”, know that I plan to tool about with the sequel, “Time Untied” for as long as motivation lasts. (Comments can help motivate.) It won’t be out until 2018 at the earliest, so my current plan is to re-run an old serial after “Epsilon”. Hope you at least come back for that?

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment if you have any questions or additional suggestions.

POLLS WILL CLOSE AROUND 11pm ON MAY 31st, EDT.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 96a: THE ULTIMATE PARADOX

“Missed me,” Elizabeth shouted as she charged through the fog, getting near to where she imagined Carrie would be.

“I’d rather not have even more memories of being in hospital, but I will if I have to,” Carrie shouted back - with a voice that was far too close.

Elizabeth back-pedalled, and carefully began to generate a temporal attack in her palms. A blast that she hoped would freeze at a distance, and not be the temporal freezing that required transmission by touch. “You will be banished,” she shouted, hoping to continue to keep Carrie’s attention on her, and off Buffy.

“I can’t banish myself, stupid,” Carrie snarked back. “I’m immune!”

“I mean you will be banished from being my future. Ha!” Elizabeth retorted. “Because even if you ARE good looking, you’ve got a lousy attitude.”

Something cut through the mist towards her. Elizabeth dropped towards the ground, firing off the charge she’d been generating. Energies collided, spiralling left, and there was a booming sound as they blew out (in?) another part of the wall. Well, that had been pointless. She probably wasn’t going to win this with temporal energy either.

‘Not unless you create a larger charge!' a part of her insisted then. ‘Just give yourself over to it, time is everything, it’s the humanity holding you back… let it go…’

Elizabeth grit her teeth, and pushed herself back up onto her feet. “Yes, fine, you’re part of me, but I remain in control,” she asserted, saying it aloud to put more force behind the thought.

“No, I’M in control,” Carrie’s voice came again. “Because I’ve now worked out how to deal with there being two of you here.”

“Oh yeah? Kinky, but no thanks,” Elizabeth shouted back. She back-pedalled again, knowing every time she spoke she gave away her position - and she nearly stumbled into the wall. Damn it, the mist was disorienting her now.

“The reason I can affect memories,” Carrie continued, as if she hadn’t heard, “is because they’re formed by the passage of time. Meaning, of course, if I can reach into someone’s past and disrupt the particular time when those memories were stored? I can erase, or with a bit more finesse, even alter them.”

Elizabeth tried firing off another blast towards the sound of Carrie’s voice. Carrie simply laughed.

‘You can do better than that. You need to let yourself go.’

It felt like the temporal side of her was starting to pulse within. Elizabeth did her best to ignore it. She couldn’t fight a war on two fronts. “You going somewhere with this?” she hollered.

“Of course.”

Carrie’s voice had come from right behind her! Elizabeth spun, but Carrie had already grabbed hold of her arm, twisting it, even as her other hand pinched in at Elizabeth’s chin.

“Because here I am, RIGHT here, RIGHT now, and I’m about to make both of our pasts an absolute misery unless you surrender. So, do you surrender? Well, Elizabeth, my pathetic defeated teenage self, DO you? Because it’s not too late for us to have a few genuine, happy memories, you know…”

It occurred to Elizabeth then that Carrie was probably homing in on the sound of her own voice, at which point she would jump back in time a few seconds in order to get Elizabeth into this undignified position, and thereby allow herself to home in. Well, wasn’t that clever.

‘Two can play at these games… let it happen…'

“I’m not surrendering,” Elizabeth gasped. “Not to you, nor to my temporal demons…"

“Then you’ve already lost,” Carrie said. “Really, Elizabeth, see sense. Allow me to tweak your memories. That way you won’t realize that when you go back and become your other self in this room? You’ll be working for me. And everything you’ll do will lead us to an outcome here where I am the victor… where you both gave up…"

Elizabeth brought her heel down as hard as she could on Carrie’s foot, twisting free of her counterpart’s grip - and feeling like she was out of time. She was getting angry, and scared, and confused - soon, if she did much more than jump back to become Buffy? She might indeed lose control. Which she couldn’t afford, her prior self needed the keycard tucked in her waistband. She reached for it - it was still there. In fact, yes, it was time.

“Know what, Carrie? I forgive you,” Elizabeth breathed. “Now pardon me as I…"

She time slipped back.

Carrie growled, as she reached out for Elizabeth a second too late. “Fine,” she declared, spinning around to face the mist. “That merely makes it one-on-one again. All too easy.”

“Or not,” came a response from somewhere ahead of her. “Because our paradox - I’ve finally figured it out. In fact, it’s not even a paradox at all.” The sound of footsteps drew nearer. “Though if it’s any consolation, you were right about one thing.”

And seventeen year old Buffy - or rather, the most up-to-date version of Elizabeth - stepped out of the fog. With her eyes a bright gold, and her blonde hair flowing in waves around her, despite the lack of any wind. “I did end up having to surrender to something.”

When the words ‘accept incoming call?’ appeared on the main screen, Bernard reached out to acknowledge. “Who is this?” came Lee’s voice. “Turn on a video link.”

“Um, it’s Bernard? That is, a friend of your resistance,” Bernard clarified. “Er, no video available?”

“Huh. Okay. Let me know when Megan’s team gets there?”

Bernard eyed the other feeds. “If you mean the resistance forces, I think they’ll reach the control room in a couple minutes. Looks like there’s no one else left to stop them any more.” He turned to Amelia. “Come to think, we’d better prop the door back open, so they can get in.” The redhead nodded, moving to replace the mop.

“And what’s the status on Carrie?”

“She’s down in the displacement room. Hopefully incapacitated,” Bernard said.

“Hopefully? Can you maybe sound a little more certain?”

Bernard didn’t answer. He couldn’t - he’d vanished from the room.

“Amelia!” Anthony gasped. “Bernard’s–" The blonde boy disappeared too.

Amelia turned from where she’d propped the door open. “Uhm… guys?”

The control room remained empty, save for Glen’s unconscious body, until Megan Falls walked in three minutes later.

Carrie fired off a temporal blast at Elizabeth. And to her shock and confusion, Elizabeth seemingly absorbed it. How? This teenaged version was too young to know how to do that.

“See, I figured out what I was trying to tell myself,” Elizabeth said airily. “With the apple.”

Carrie readied another blast, a bigger one.

“I was actually trying to remind myself of the discussion I’d been having the first time I ever pulled off that little trick. Last year for me, ages ago for you.”

Carrie fired off her second blast, one that would bump Elizabeth several minutes into the future, rather than a few seconds. Again, incredibly, Elizabeth absorbed it.

“It was a talk with Frank about self-consistency,” the teenager continued blithely. “Versus multiple time tracks. By which I mean timelines that can branch off from the main one, looking much like the way that circuit burned out into forking paths on the wall there - do you remember that talk at all?”

“This isn’t POSSIBLE,” Carrie screamed. She began to form an even bigger charge in her hands. Yes, it was all about power. Power, a power that she had, which her younger self didn’t.

“Wrong,” Elizabeth countered. “This IS possible. What’s really incredible about this whole future is that, despite all of the arguments we made back then… in the end, you latched onto the temporal model of self-consistency? Seriously?”

“No, NO, you can’t,” Carrie said with mounting horror. A horror that came from an increasing awareness of what Elizabeth was saying. She tried to make her charge even bigger. “I’ll freeze you and reprogram you. You won’t be able to absorb this. Never in my past have I have EVER been able to absorb something like this!”

“Let me tell you a secret.” Elizabeth took a step forwards and leaned in closer to Carrie’s ear. “Not. From. Your. Timeline,” she whispered.

It happened the day Frank died, saving Luci’s life. After her consciousness had become trapped inside him. What had allowed that event to become a temporal lynchpin?

Mindylenopia! Oh God, Mindy was the key. By inserting herself into the timeline, Mindy had forced Carrie to power up faster. To learn a technique like banishing sooner. Mindy had moved her abilities along at an accelerated rate - in fact, Glen likely wouldn’t have revealed himself two weeks ago, if not for Mindy! Surely, Mindy’s involvement meant that Elizabeth/Carrie had it somewhere within her to undo this.

Moreover, she had told Luci/Frank that she would fix things, one way or another. She had meant that.

And there WAS a way. She saw it now.

“Go to hell, other me,” Elizabeth gasped. Her eyes flashed golden. She felt like she was being torn in two…

And Carrie gave up. Glen guided her towards the stairs, out of the Dijora house, and out of town.

And they never returned.

And Carrie grew up to hate herself even more.

And later she went back in time and abducted her own pregnant mother.

And Theresa, after receiving a mysterious mental message about her mission, bided her time through history, ultimately joining the resistance, to ensure that Mindylenopia could go back, so that the split would occur.

The split that resulted from the fifty year old Carrie facing off against her seventeen year old self.

It happened the day Frank died, saving Luci’s life. After her consciousness had become trapped inside him. What had allowed that event to become a temporal lynchpin?

Mindylenopia! Oh God, Mindy was the key. By inserting herself into the timeline, Mindy had forced Carrie to power up faster. To learn a technique like banishing sooner. Mindy had moved her abilities along at an accelerated rate - in fact, Glen likely wouldn’t have revealed himself two weeks ago, if not for Mindy! Surely, Mindy’s involvement meant that Elizabeth/Carrie had it somewhere within her to undo this.

Moreover, she had told Luci/Frank that she would fix things, one way or another. She had meant that.

And there WAS a way. She saw it now.

“Go to hell, other me,” Elizabeth gasped. Her eyes flashed golden. She felt like she was being torn in two…

And Elizabeth pulled away, vanishing into the time streams.

And Frank’s life was saved.

And shortly thereafter, Elizabeth decided to save her mother too.

So Theresa revealed herself, and the time machine was reconstructed in a car, and her friends came after her, only to have Mindylenopia sacrifice herself back in Miami.

And from there, Elizabeth was dragged back into the future, to seal the split and reunite the timelines - except they would not be reunited. Could not be reunited.

Not once Elizabeth had seen a way to defeat her fifty year old self.

“STOP!” Carrie howled. “There can be only ONE timeline. MINE!”

“Lynchpin moments are a bitch, aren’t they?” Elizabeth remarked, stepping back. “Turns out I can do more than simply overwrite when I target one. It’s fine, I’m building up to a timeline separation here, so you’ll have your own future back soon enough. For all the good it will do, given how the resistance is closing in.”

“NO!” Carrie continued to charge up the insane amount of energy in her palms. “You can’t. I mean think about it, if you do this - your mother, she’ll be trapped in THIS timeline. Where I dragged her, out of our unified past. Our mother will be in what you’d call an Alternate Timeline Four. You’ll NEVER see her again.”

Elizabeth stared. She nodded. “I know,” she said, sadly.

In one last ditch effort, Carrie brought her palms up, and released all the temporal energy that she’d been generating, right into Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth simply boomeranged it.

Carrie fell back onto the ground, her body locked in temporal suspension, her mouth frozen open in an ‘o’ of surprise.

Elizabeth stepped forwards. “You’ll get our mom, and an extra teenaged Glen in this alternate timeline. Good for you. As for me?” She looked up at the ceiling. “I get my future back.”

The blonde drew in a huge lungful of air, increasing her concentration. Her mental message back through time to this timeline’s Theresa had been sent. She’d shoved her friends back into their present, into the other timeline. Her timeline. What was becoming the true timeline. The only thing left to do was… separation.

The Earth began to shake all around her.

It was like that time she’d planned on channelling the destructive force of Shady’s bomb into the time streams, except the sensations felt a hundred times more amazing. For while this alternate future timeline could continue on as it liked, with Megan’s forces in control of the building, Elizabeth/Carrie would be able to rewrite the future of her true timeline. Everything from this point of her life onwards? Would be a complete unknown.

As such, the Earth around her could be moulded in her image.

Everyone would have to bow down before her.

Bow down, because she was a cosmic force.

No, more than that, at this point she was A TEMPORAL GOD.

Unyielding. Unbeatable. Unstoppable.

Carrie Elizabeth Waterson threw back her head and laughed in an insane euphoria. It was time to return to her present.

NEXT: Resolution

ASIDE: So that’s… good? Two posts left, as I split the last section. Voting for T&T can still be a thing. Also, Rev. Fitz, who wrote our latest April Fools Entry (with the Elder Carrie) has been examining serial sites this month. He just recently looked at Time & Tied. So check out his thoughts, and if you haven’t yet, his serial too!

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 95b: CARRIE VERSUS HERSELF

They barely got three paces inside the room before Glen was pointing a gun at them. “Freeze!” he said. Elizabeth’s companions froze in place. She realized then that he’d used his mental power.

Except while Glen sounded confident, Elizabeth noticed that he looked worried. He obviously hadn’t expected their mad rush into the control room. Then, looking around, she realized something else. Elizabeth quickly reached out, grabbing the mop that Anthony was still holding, tossing it back behind them. Keeping the main door ajar.

“Move back.” Glen waggled his gun, and Elizabeth, Bernard, Amelia and Anthony all stepped backwards, towards the wall. “I don’t know how you managed to gain access,” Glen remarked. “But this facility DOES have an armoury, and we WERE prepared for that unlikely eventuality.” He gestured at the floor, where there were at least a half dozen other gun-style weapons, along with a small box of what Elizabeth assumed were bombs.

“Unbelievable,” Elder Carrie remarked from behind Glen. “To think that I was once that insanely stupid. God, I hate myself.”

“Come over here and say that,” Elizabeth challenged.

“Don’t even bother with them,” Glen said to Carrie. He rose from his chair and began to advance. “The only question now, Elizabeth, is whether we send your friends here back to their present as they are now… or whether you force us to do it with them a little more… let’s say, wounded?”

Bernard turned to look at Elizabeth. “A version of you actually picks this guy over us?”

“I know,” Elizabeth sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m working on it.”

Glen stopped a few paces away. “Funny. Come on now, this will be SO much easier if you simply accept your destiny."

“That’s far less interesting.”

Glen spun at the unexpected voice. He found himself unable to bring his gun to bear in time, Buffy having followed her remark up with a sprint inside the room, and a full body tackle. With the redhead on the ground, his gun bouncing away, Elizabeth shifted her own attention towards Carrie.

The fifty year old Carrie stepped towards one of the other weapons on the floor, then seemed to think better of it as Bernard made a similar dive. For a moment, Elizabeth sensed her future self trying to establish a temporal freezing field. She nullified Carrie’s efforts.

With that, Carrie charged out of the nearest available exit. The one that led down into the displacement room below. “What, are you trying to escape?” Elizabeth shouted. “If you think you’re so superior to me, PROVE it!” She chased after herself.

Buffy beat her fists into Glen’s side, smacked him about the head, and tried to knee him in uncomfortable places. “Why?” she shrieked. “Why didn’t you make me into a better person? WHY?!”

“Stop! Carrie, I’ve been trying to help,” Glen answered, trying to protect his body while simultaneously attempting to push her off of him. “Besides, that’s still in our future, I haven’t even done anything yet. Stop, I haven’t done it yet!”

“Eliz– err, Buffy, we got this,” Bernard said.

Buffy stopped herself, breathing hard, and noticing that Bernard was now holding a gun on the both of them. Amelia was rounding up the rest of the weapons, moving them to the corner, out of reach, and Anthony was approaching with some rope.

Buffy pushed herself back, rising again to her feet. “Right.” She eyed Glen. “I forgive you too. That said, you try any more of your mental tricks here? Things will not end well for you.”

Anthony began to tie Glen up.

Bernard inclined his head towards the exit. “Buffy, go help yourself.”

“Just a second,” Buffy said, straightening her blouse. “You’ll need the code to turn off the lockdown here, so the resistance can get in.”

“I’ll never give that up,” Glen assured them.

“You won’t have to,” Buffy noted. “Seeing as you entered it into the system, in this room, maybe five minutes ago.” She allowed the time streams to coalesce about her, and after carefully anchoring herself in the present, she slid back to see what the necessary computer input was.

Elizabeth supposed that she should have expected her future self to ambush her as soon as she charged through the sliding door into the displacement room. And yet, she hadn’t anticipated it, and as such she had the wind knocked out of her as the two of them then fell on the ground in a flurry of arms and legs. Elizabeth tried to kick out at her counterpart, but the fifty year old had the advantage of leverage - and of course, a future her would knew most of her moves. Or her expected moves, anyway.

Elizabeth reached out and yanked hard on Carrie’s long hair.

“Yeow!” Carrie screeched. “What, are you in grade school?”

“I was going to say the same,” Elizabeth shot back. “Why won’t you let me play in your sandbox?”

“My God, I’m so immature,” Carrie groaned.

Carrie still seemed temporally weak, but Elizabeth fast realized that where Carrie was holding onto her, her arm was going numb. The feeling was spreading up and into the rest of her body. That wasn’t good. But Elizabeth couldn’t seem to squirm free, she couldn’t seem to… oh. Wait. Duh.

Her eyes flickered to gold, and she slipped back in time thirty seconds. After rolling to the side, she then rejoined the present, in time to see Carrie face plant into the floor as her prior self disappeared. Elizabeth quickly pushed herself back up onto her feet, rolling her shoulder to try and regain the feeling in that arm. There was no point in her tackling the prone Carrie - this battle wasn’t going to be won physically.

Sure enough, Carrie had soon risen to her feet as well. “I guess I should be glad that I’m finally displaying half a brain,” she remarked.

“This won’t be like it was in Miami, Carrie,” Elizabeth declared. “I’m no longer that vulnerable girl. I’m ready for you.”

“Ha! Sure you are. Considering less than an hour has passed for us since then, I’m hardly shaking in my boots.”

“Weirdly enough, it feels to me like mama’s disappearance happened a lifetime ago. Despite you being the old maid here.”

Carrie snorted. “Oh, stop. You must know you cannot possibly win?”

“I don’t know that at all.”

“I’m YOU!”

“And yet… you seem unsure.”

“While you seem weak.”

Carrie brought her arm up, and Elizabeth realized too late that her future counterpart had been readying a charge of temporal energy. It hit her with enough force to launch her back into the far wall of the room, and it was all she could do to avoid getting herself pushed out of the present, and a few seconds into the future.

Carrie could have prepared a finishing blow in those few seconds.

Elizabeth slid to the floor, ending up in a seated position. “You know,” she wheezed, “I should really look into this masochistic streak I seem to have.”

“Stop talking,” Carrie said. Her eyes flickered over completely to gold, and she fired off another blast of energy.

Elizabeth snapped her arms up. She’d anticipated Carrie’s move this time, but all she’d been able to think of as a counter-move was to try and freeze time in her immediate vicinity. Rookie mistake - the blast was still moving for her, albeit much more slowly, and now she’d never be able to speed up her own time to dodge it. Not without releasing the freezing field and being hit.

Carrie laughed. “I am such a…”

Elizabeth never found out what Carrie thought she was, because right before the temporal blast could reach her, it was struck from the side by a counter-blast of temporal energy, sending the whole sparking assembly careening off to the side. It impacted the wall, a chunk of the panelling vanishing completely into the streams of time.

“Sorry I’m late,” Buffy said from the doorway, lowering her arms. “Bunch of things cropping up at the last moment. You know how it is.”

“Not as such, but I guess I’ll know soon enough,” Elizabeth said. She pushed herself back to her feet. “Thanks, Buffy.”

“No problem.”

Carrie jerked her gaze back and forth between both versions. “At least you’re making this interesting,” Carrie acknowledged. “But even with two of you, you still have only a primitive understanding of our power."

“We’re fast learners,” Elizabeth noted. She allowed the power to wash over her then, tentatively embracing the sensations, knowing that her own eyes were flicking to gold - and yet allowing it to happen. After all, she would become Buffy, right? She would maintain control.

“Fine,” Carrie snarled. “Let’s do this. But first, I’ll make sure we have no interference from your friends up there.”

She fired off two more pulses of temporal energy. Two wall panels were temporally banished in their wake - along with whatever was behind them, if the sparking was any indication. A klaxon sounded briefly, and the door to the room slid closed, along with blast shields slamming down over the observation windows above.

Elizabeth frowned, as a burn mark also appeared on the wall, spreading out from one of the missing panels. And whereas at first, the dark scorching had looked like it would follow a single path, it very quickly radiated out, looking more like a trident or a tree branch. Multiple paths. For some reason, that felt significant.

Elizabeth was so distracted by the image that she didn’t even notice the huge tree trunk that came hurtling at her moments later.

“Damn. We’re cut off,” Bernard remarked, as the blast shields dropped into place, blocking their view of the three Carries down below.

Anthony glanced sidelong at Bernard. He was now holding the weapon on Glen, as they had determined that it was an energy pulse set to stun. So it’s not like he was about to fill the Temporal full of holes if Glen tried anything. “Can y-you undo that?”

Bernard shook his head. “Doubt it. Carrie probably fried the hardware.”

“Wouldn’t there be sensors in that room or something?” Amelia guessed.

“Maybe,” Bernard yielded. “But I don’t know how to turn them on. So aside from having shut off of the lockdown, there’s not much more I can do. Aside from watch the progress of the resistance, which is what Glen had calibrated the system for.”

“I won’t help you,” Glen said.

Bernard sighed. “No one even asked you for help.”

“You’re only making this harder on yourselves,” Glen continued. “And harder on Carrie too. You need to surrender now, it’s the only way that girl can have a happy childhood! That’s her ONLY chance, you understand me, you Mundane morons? The ONLY way that you can still live out your dull, pathetic lives, is to give up. So that we can fix Carrie’s mind, retrain her, such that she doesn’t remember how one day she will–"

Anthony fired, and Glen slumped to the ground, out cold.

“Tim!” Amelia gasped.

He looked over at his friends and smiled weakly. “It occurred to me that he might be using his mental power more subtly. To w-wear us down. W-We’re all tired of being manipulated, yeah? W-We didn’t need him conscious… right?”

Bernard grinned back. “Good point. Wish I’d thought of that myself.” He turned back to the monitors. “I think Luci’s forces will be here in less than five minutes. They can help us out.”

“Weirdly enough, I don’t think Elizabeth has that kind of time,” Amelia sighed, looking again towards the blocked windows.

Buffy tackled Elizabeth in the nick of time, the tree trunk flying over their heads and slamming into the wall. Elizabeth snapped her gaze over towards the huge object. “Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?” she gasped.

“When the hell,” Buffy corrected breathlessly, continuing their roll across the floor. “Reverse banishment, that was a something Carrie knew about, which could be manifested from somewhen.” A mist began to appear within the room, making it harder for them to see. “Takes hella energy and concentration though, so I’d say we’re good for at least another ten seconds.”

“You will become me!” Carrie shrieked from within the growing fog. “I’m starting to feel these events in my past now.”

“Not good.” Buffy swallowed. “Look, Elizabeth, this is where we part ways. I need to strategize.”

“Oh. Pity. It’s been fun,” Elizabeth said weakly. She pushed herself back up off the floor. “I don’t suppose you can come up with a way of dispelling this mist first?”

“Actually, I’m creating it,” Buffy admitted, her golden eyes glowing. “So that it’s harder for Carrie to target. Remember from geography, the foggiest place on Earth, just off Newfoundland?”

Elizabeth blinked. “We’ve already figured out how to reverse banish?”

“Kinda? I’ve had some time to consider, since I told myself about the ability, and fog’s basically air. I really want to turn my concentration back to our Ultimate Paradox though. Okay?”

“Understood.” Elizabeth clasped herself by the shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Thank YOU,” Buffy said. “You’re the one who will soon give yourself the key card, after all.”

Elizabeth chuckled, then pulled Buffy back down as another huge tree flew through the fog towards them. “Right, that’s got to stop.” She exhaled. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

Launching herself forwards, Elizabeth charged through the fog towards her future self. And, to the increasing annoyance of the temporal powers she tended to keep locked away, away from her destiny.

So her powers began to push back.

NEXT: The Ultimate Paradox

ASIDE: It all ends with Part 96. Maybe you see how at this point? I’ll be splintering the end of Book 4 into three posts, for a couple reasons. One of them is to give me a transitional week, as the site returns to “Epsilon Project”. Until then, the usual vote for T&T, if you please?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 95a: ENDGAME

“What are you doing?” Glen asked.

“Preparing to isolate myself,” Carrie grumbled. The fifty year old pulled the small bomb out of it’s container in the armoury. “This ought to do it.”

Glen shook his head. “I’m still not following.”

She turned to glare at him. “The only reason younger me - hell with it, let’s call her Elizabeth - is able to function here in the future, and wherever they are in this building, is because of whatever her friends are now telling her. Yes?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“So, if we eliminate them, Elizabeth becomes an easier mark. And a bomb is a lot more efficient for doing that than a bunch of separate temporal banishments.”

Glen rubbed the back of his neck. “Ignoring the historical ramifications for the moment, the fact that they’re unlikely to split up? Means that if you blow up Elizabeth’s friends, you’ll blow up your past self too.”

Carrie nodded. “Hence I go after the others before they got here.”

“Except they already ARE here. So… how does that work, exactly?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’ll make it work,” Carrie asserted. “I’ll destroy them before they arrive, and let that ‘bleedthrough’ effect thing sort the rest out.”

“Um, Carrie? You don’t experience ‘bleedthrough’,” he reminded her. “You’re the cause, not the effect. You get saddled with the memory headaches. Ergo, even assuming you can pull this off, what if it merely leaves you with a massive migraine, unable to act at all?”

“Then at least Elizabeth will be similarly affected,” Carrie snapped, feeling her patience slipping away again. “Look, Glinephanis, there must be some way I can change things in the same manner as Mindylenopia did. But to succeed, I’ll need to know everything I can about how to identify that ‘time car’ back in Miami. That way, as soon as my connection to the time streams fully kicks back in, I can go back to destroy her friends before they get here.”

Amelia looked from Elizabeth, who was now holding an apple, over towards Buffy, standing in the doorway of the janitor’s closet, and then back to Elizabeth. “I don’t get it,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” Anthony chimed in.

“I might,” Bernard said, looking uneasy. “Except I still don’t like it. It violates the law of conservation of mass, among other things.”

“Show them,” Buffy suggested, stepping into the room and gesturing towards the door.

Elizabeth looked down at the apple she was holding, pursed her lips, and then marched back out of the janitor’s closet. She pulled the door closed behind her. There was a brief silence.

“So… now what?” Amelia asked.

Bernard crossed his arms, looking over at Buffy. She was now holding her palm against her temple, and grimacing. “You just went back in time, came back in here, and tossed that apple at yourself, right?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. Meaning I’m back to being Elizabeth again, by the way.”

“Wait, s-so where did Elizabeth get that apple f-from?” Anthony asked.

“From Buffy,” Amelia said, with a shrug. “The real question is where Buffy got HER apple from.”

“That was from being Elizabeth,” Bernard said dryly. “You’re both asking valid questions, you see. There never was an apple - and yet it was once here.” He rubbed his eyes, beneath his glasses. “She’s done this once before, WAY back when we first discovered the time machine. It’s a Catch-22, and I never did work out how she pulled it off.”

“I think it’s simply something I can do,” Elizabeth admitted. “I even did it with the time machine once. I assume I’m using it here to try and tell myself something. Maybe that’s also what Liz tried to do with Carrie.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I have to keep picking the path of temporal headaches.”

Amelia stared back at the door. “Maybe Buffy is about to walk back in, not carrying an apple, but instead carrying the ultimate weapon to use against her future self?”

Again, there was a brief silence.

“So, n-not that,” Anthony concluded.

“Damn it, I’m trying to tell myself something,” Elizabeth repeated. “Subconsciously. But WHAT?”

“An apple a day keeps the Carrie away?” Amelia suggested.

Bernard leaned against the nearby shelf. “Maybe you’re trying to hint that this is something Carrie can’t do,” he decided. “That it’s something she’s never mastered. So if you can nail it for her, you can change her mind, make her realize that your path is the better path forwards.”

Elizabeth gave him an uncertain look. “And I demonstrate this bizarre power in some definitive way to Carrie… how, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Bernard said. “But I’m starting to feel like we won’t find out by staying here, in defensive mode.”

“For the record, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Glen remarked.

“For the record, I don’t care,” Carrie shot back.

They had purged the remaining knockout gas from the generator’s control room and then returned there. It was a position they could easily fortify, and even use to draw in reinforcements if necessary, given the proximity to the displacement room.

“We’ll release the lockdown for at most ten seconds,” Carrie insisted. “That will drop the temporal dampening field, and allow me to jump back to Miami, despite my current weakened condition. Once I’ve planted the time bomb in their car, I leap back here to reap the rewards.”

Glen eyed the monitors that he’d pulled up. “It looks like the resistance incursion is stalled at level two. All right. When you’re ready, give me the word.”

He supposed he should simply be happy that he was finally dealing with a Carrie who could embrace her powers, even if she seemed to have become a bit overconfident about them. That was the Carrie he’d met when he was young, before going back to when she was a teenager, so it was nice to finally be back with ‘his’ Carrie.

“Go,” Carrie stated.

Glen dropped the alert. Carrie disappeared in a flash of light. Glen began to count in his head, one-onethousand, two-onethousand, three-onethousand… and Carrie was back. He reinstated the lockdown. “Well?”

She glared at him. “Well what? Do you still remember Frank shooting me with the weapon and all that?”

“Yup,” Glen affirmed.

She glared out through the observation windows. “I rushed that. Maybe they split up. Or a couple of them escaped the blast. You didn’t mention they had another means of time travel available to them.”

Glen shook his head. “They didn’t. Or not that I know of.”

Carrie rubbed her chin. “Perhaps they saved key circuits. Rebuilt a device. I should have lobbed the bomb at them, instead of setting it in the car.”

“It’s not like you can’t try again,” Glen remarked. He gestured at the floor. “We looted the armoury, we have more bombs.”

“Right. Hold on, I’ll see if I can track their actions after the airport affair a little more carefully…"

“I’ll keep trying to pick them up in the present on internal sensors,” Glen offered. He began to tap at the keyboard again.

Anthony peered out the door. “You’re r-right, Elizabeth - they must have dropped the lockdown. The r-red lights are…" The corridor lighting changed again. “…back.” He quickly re-closed the door.

“Is the resistance breaking through?” Amelia wondered.

“No,” Elizabeth said, pressing her palm against her temple again. “No, I should have realized this. If I were in charge here, I’d have tried retaking the control room. Damn it! They must be there now, with Carrie doing experimental time jumps. Maybe they can even bring back future reinforcements. I need to start thinking strategically. To start thinking like… ugh, like that Carrie.”

“So what d-do we d-do?” Anthony asked.

“Well, Bernard’s right,” Elizabeth sighed. “We can’t keep playing a defensive game. There’s only one way I’ll be able to stop a single-minded Carrie from harming anyone else - no matter the cost to myself.” She looked around at them. “Know that you don’t have to come along.”

“Still not leaving without you,” Amelia reminded.

“Right.” Anthony reached back for the mop. “After all, s-someone’s got to deal w-with Glen as you face yourself.”

“So you’re stuck with us,” Bernard agreed.

Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you. I don’t deserve… actually, hmm. Know what? On second thought, strike that. Maybe I do deserve friends like you.” She looked towards the closet door. “More to the point, maybe I even deserve friends like Buffy.”

“Um, friends like yourself?” Amelia asked.

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. Yes, because you know what? THAT’S Carrie’s weakness. How she hates herself. How, I hate myself.” She smiled. “Think about it. Nearly every time I’ve met another incarnation, I’ve argued, I’ve tried to beat myself up, I’ve hoped to change my own experiences… I’ve never seriously tried to work WITH myself. To accept my flaws, and my future… and consider that maybe they’re not so terrible after all.”

“Um… except f-for how this f-future kind of is terrible?” Anthony said, gesturing around them.

“Oh, well, this future is terrible, sure. But for the first time, I’m starting to wonder if I can accept that MY future destiny ISN’T.” Elizabeth straightened her posture. “Or rather, that it won’t have to be, not once I truly deal with myself.” She stepped towards the door. “Meaning it’s not only time for the final battle between Carries…” She pushed the door open. “But that it doesn’t have to be one-on-one.”

“This is ridiculous,” Carrie said, her eyes flickering from yellow back to blue. “When I centre on them, all they’re doing is moping about Miami. But when I jump ahead a few days, I can’t pick them up at all.”

“So track them more gradually,” Glen said idly.

“Even ignoring how I’m not at full strength, and the fact that watching a minute back then is the same as a minute in the here and now, it’s SO BORING,” Carrie moaned. “I am narrowing it down though. I think something happened on their third day there. Damned if I know what. Where are Elizabeth and her friends in the present, have you spotted them?”

“Yeah. They’re approaching our position.”

Carrie blinked. “Wait, for serious?”

Glen nodded. “Yeah, but I’ve locked and re-keyed the ID on the door here to a random sequence. We’re secure. I’m more worried about these resistance forces. They’re not giving up. Maybe you should pop up there and scare the hell out of them, make them retreat?”

Carrie gestured. “Fine, fine. In a little while, I’ll time travel back to now, and do that.”

“Right.” There was a brief silence. Glen cleared his throat. “Thing is, you haven’t appeared to them yet, implying that in the future you might not–"

“Glinephanis?”

“Yes, Carrie?”

“Shut up, I’m busy.”

“Okay then.”

She resumed trying to pinpoint whatever Elizabeth’s group of friends had been doing in Miami. Instead of focussing on Elizabeth herself.

“Slight problem,” Bernard remarked. Again, he reached out towards the ID reader. Again, he tapped the access card that Faye had provided, back when Walter had first arrived to program the temporal generator. And again, nothing happened. “This card isn’t working any more.”

“Carrie’s in there though," Elizabeth murmured. “I can sense it.”

“Maybe they’ll open the door if we knock?” Amelia said hopefully.

“No,” Elizabeth said slowly. “It’s time. Give me a moment. As long as I believe in myself, and believe that I can… that I AM going to survive this encounter… I… I will be able to…"

“…give myself this,” Buffy finished, appearing in a flash of light. She seemed scared and out of breath, her eyes flickering between blue and gold, but she nevertheless extended her hand to her double. It held a new key card.

“Nice! You got the card off of Carrie,” Bernard said, grinning.

Buffy drew in a long breath, then turned to him, smiling weakly and rubbing her temple. “Nope.” Her eyes settled on blue.

“Okay, so, key cards are our new apple,” Elizabeth remarked. She reached out to accept it, turning it around in her hands as she looked Buffy up and down. “Thanks. I’m guessing I’m more on offence this round?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. And I’m afraid when I left I still hadn’t figured out how to resolve our ultimate paradox. Namely how we can accept becoming her, and yet somehow NOT become her.”

“That is a puzzler,” Elizabeth agreed. “Keep working on it, okay future me?”

“Oh, you bet.” Buffy dusted off her hands, becoming increasingly more chipper. “After all, I think I will have been getting close soon, knowing what I will have to be seeing a short time ago while I have drawn her fire like you already will.”

Anthony rubbed his forehead. “Okay, that sentence right there? That’s where Temporal ends up being a better language than English.”

The two blondes glanced in his direction. “Sorry,” they chorused in unison. They then looked back at each other and let out simultaneous giggles.

“That is somehow cute, and yet scary as hell,” Bernard observed.

Elizabeth smirked. “If you think that’s scary?” She brandished the new key card, moving in closer to the reader. “Just wait until we’re both fighting our future incarnation.”

The reader pinged, and the door unlocked.

NEXT: Carrie Versus Herself

ASIDE: I’ve been watching the anime “Steins;Gate” this month. I think that, if you enjoy this serial, you’d enjoy it - and vice versa. (Both are slow to start, and get convoluted.) I’ve been blogging about my experience watching it, if you’re curious.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 94b: BUFFY’S RETURN

Carrie Elizabeth Waterson looked around at her time travelling companions. “Don’t all talk at once.”

Timothy Anthony Whitby cleared his throat. “What about Mindylenopia’s weapon?”

Frank Bernard Dijora held it up. “Drained. I already used it to take down Future Carrie, that’s why she’s not breathing down our necks.”

Anthony nodded. “L-let me have a l-look then. M-Maybe I can see how we m-might recharge it?” Bernard handed it over.

“Related, how much longer is that one shot going to keep Future Carrie out of it?” Elizabeth asked.

Bernard shrugged. “No way of knowing.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Perfect.”

Then again, she reasoned, if they kept using the gun, there was an obvious defence. Whenever Carrie regained consciousness later? She could theoretically jump back to right after she was shot. Negating the effectiveness. Good thing her future self wouldn’t have tried that already. “The gun’s hardly a permanent solution anyway.”

“Permanent?” Laurie Amelia Veniti gasped in horror. “You’re saying you want to kill future you?”

Elizabeth jerked her gaze towards Amelia. “Whoa! No, no, I want to… to… I don’t know, fix her. So that I have something to look forward to, something that isn’t… isn’t HER.”

Bernard leaned in. “That reminds me. I did overhear Carrie talking to, um, an even more Future Carrie…"

“Liz,” Elizabeth offered.

“Sure, to Liz. They were saying that the only method Carrie had for dealing with a future self was to overwrite bits of her own past. To remove the need for Liz to interfere with herself in the first place.”

Elizabeth raked her fingers back through her hair. “Okay. Except I’m not about to change the events that brought me here. Especially the truth about my mama. I won’t deliberately hide that from myself. I can’t. Because as long as I know about it, I also know that I don’t want to become the sort of person who would do it.”

“I get that,” Bernard said. “Thing is, Liz was wondering if there was another way. She didn’t give details.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “So maybe Liz sensed something, but it’s a thing she needs a younger self to do? I don’t suppose she passed along anything helpful, like a note.”

“I was insubstantial at the time, I don’t think the Carries even knew I was listening. But even if Liz had, her existence is being overwritten here.”

“Hold on.” Amelia gestured out towards the observation windows. “Aren’t we sitting in a huge time machine here? Can’t we use that to our advantage?”

Bernard adjusted his glasses. “Fair point. I guess I was mostly watching when Walter set the controls, and as such might be able to do something - but when would all we travel to?”

“Back to our present,” Amelia asserted. “Or, well, your present,” she amended. “A few weeks ahead of me, whenever you left to recruit me.”

“Carrie would only follow us back,” Elizabeth countered.

“So we’ll set a trap for her,” Amelia insisted.

“I can see through time,” Elizabeth sighed. “So we have to assume that Carrie can too, and that she’s better at it. She would look before she leapt, then pop in before we could come up with the trap. Or worse, find a way for us to spring it on ourselves. No, we’ve GOT to deal with Carrie in the here and now, before she regains her full strength.”

“It was a good thought though,” Bernard assured Amelia, off her crestfallen look. “Actually, in a similar vein, maybe we can use the information in the building’s database? The future knows more about Carrie than we do…"

As Bernard walked over to the main board, there was a flash of light over by the exit. “Sorry, but we’ve got to get out of here, now,” the newest arrival asserted, pulling the door open.

Elizabeth did a double take, recognizing another seventeen year old version of herself. “Uhm, yeah, okay ‘Buffy'…"

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, there’s going to be a–"

“Lockdown. Lockdown,” came an automated computer voice. “This building is now in lockdown.” A red light on the wall came on, strobing, as half the overhead lights switched off.

“And they’ll start to pump knockout gas into this room momentarily,” Buffy concluded. “So get a move on.”

“Okay, n-not a fan of gas,” Anthony decided, hurrying to the door. Amelia ran over after him. Which was when the lock on the door clicked - but as Buffy was holding it open, there was no problem.

A hiss of air came from some overhead vents, and vapours began to pour out. “Damn. Glen must be in some auxiliary control room,” Bernard reasoned, hurrying after the others.

Buffy followed them out… shutting the door in the face of a surprised Elizabeth.

“Buffy,” Amelia shrieked. “You locked yourself in!”

“No. She’s about to realize she has to travel back to give you the warning,” Buffy assured the redhead. A puzzled look began to form on her face. “Meaning I’m Elizabeth again.”

Bernard lifted an eyebrow. “You know,” he remarked. “Maybe we should be trying to figure out a way to use your time travel abilities as our weapon of choice.”

Glen tapped at the holographic keyboard that had allowed him to interface with the building. It looked like he hadn’t been able to gas the main control room in time - and now he wasn’t sure where the other time travellers had gone. With the whole place in lockdown mode, he didn’t have complete access to the sensors any more.

Still, once he’d been notified of the external resistance forces closing in, initiating the lockdown had been the priority - along with getting their internal forces to mobilize in response. He wondered why security had been decreased throughout the building; what few personnel they had here would now have their hands full. New regulations following his departure, perhaps?

Oh well - on the bright side, he hadn’t seen the Theresa version of Mindylenopia on the monitors yet. And surely he and Carrie could take care of the rest of those idiotic teenage Mundanes by themselves.

A groaning noise brought his attention back to the fifty year old blonde woman, laid out on the floor nearby. He turned away from the computer systems, crouching next to her. “Carrie? Are you conscious yet?”

“What. The. Actual. F–"

“Somehow, Frank managed to get here ahead of us,” Glen interrupted. “With some sort of energy weapon. He hit you with it. Are you okay?”

Carrie blinked her blue eyes open. “No,” she snarled. “No, I am NOT ‘okay’. Somehow I’ve been cut off from the time streams.”

Glen frowned. “Seriously?”

“You think I’m lying? I can’t–" She broke off, as an attempt to push herself up merely made her eyelids flutter. She nearly hit her head as she crashed back down onto the ground.

“Maybe you should take it easy for a bit,” Glen suggested. “Frank and the others from your past, they’re not going far, not with a lockdown in place.”

“I will NOT take it easy,” Carrie snapped. “Not so long as my younger self is out there, running around my present and screwing up my history.”

“Carrie, it never goes well when you lose control of your emotions,” Glen soothed. “Besides, if the video image I pulled up is any indication, so far the only thing your prior self has done is pull in the rest of her prior time travelling companions - minus Mindylenopia. And with the lockdown, the dampening field will make any further attempts like that difficult for her at best.”

“Peachy.” Carrie took a few deep breaths. “But you’re not wrong. Okay, finding my zen.” She blinked a few times, then smiled. “There we go - I AM still attached to the time streams, it’s only that my senses have been… somehow numbed. Temporarily.”

“See?” Glen remarked. “So we get you back to full strength, trap the other time travellers in a room somewhere, and then you can send them all back to their–"

“Back to the Stone Age,” Carrie growled.

Glen frowned. “Er, really? Because even if you never directly interacted with those ones after we left town, surely they’re still a part of your past. I’m not sure you can simply–"

“I’m Goddamn Carrie Elizabeth Waterson, Temporal Queen!” Carrie spat out, her anger bubbling up again. “If Mindylenopia can mess with my past, I sure as hell can do whatever I want with it too. Yeah?”

“O-kay then.” Glen cleared his throat. “Except you can’t banish your younger self to the Stone Age. Can you?”

“No,” Carrie yielded. Her lips tightened. “No, but I have other plans for her.” Her eyes focussed on his face. “She will become me. Make no mistake.”

“I’m n-not sure how to charge the gun back up,” Anthony admitted. “That is, I c-can see how, based on our version, but I have n-no idea what sort of outlet or b-battery it plugs into. That part’s different.”

The four of them had retreated to a janitor’s closet. Bernard knew about it, because it’s where Mindylenopia had stashed their third security guard. Curiously enough, the room was now empty, containing only cleaning supplies. He decided it was a Timeline Three versus Four thing.

“Pity we don’t have a way of using Julie’s tracking device,” Bernard mused. “We might use it to pinpoint Glen’s location, and thereby trap the two of them, the way they just tried to trap us. Except I left the main assembly back in the time car.” He turned. “Elizabeth, do you think you could jump there and get it?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I haven’t ever seen that car, not really, and I don’t think anyone I know would be around it now either. Moreover, it feels like that lockdown triggered some kind of temporal dampening field. Becoming Buffy and warning you about the knockout gas, it required more concentration than I would have expected.”

“Then you’re saying we can’t get out to Luci or the resistance either,” Amelia sighed.

Elizabeth swallowed. “Know what? I hate to say it, but maybe we should simply surrender.”

Bernard turned again, from where he’d resumed examining the janitorial chemical bottles. “You can’t be serious.”

Elizabeth looped a strand of hair around her fingers, tugging on it. “Yes, I can be. Because the longer I think about this? The more doomed I feel I am. No matter how good my time travel skills are, hers are better. That’s the way it works. A more experienced me will always be better, that’s got to be why Carrie always avoided a “Liz”-style conflict.”

“No,” Amelia said softly. She stood straighter. “I don’t know if my motivational speeches have improved since the hospital over a year ago, but Elizabeth? You CANNOT tell me that the Carrie out there is a better person than you are. No way. You… you’ve always been my mentor.”

Elizabeth looked at her. “Amelia, seriously? Me a mentor?”

The redhead nodded. “So I have faith that you can fix this. Because we never know what we’re capable of until we’re forced into a corner, which is what’s happening to you here. So don’t surrender to the evil Carrie, okay?”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Thanks Amelia, I… I’m flattered. And frankly undeserving, given my attitude towards you and so many others throughout the majority of our time in high school together. But even if I can say I’m a better person now, we’re not fighting a battle of ethics here. We’re fighting a battle of inevitability.”

The blonde cheerleader sighed. ”Meaning if I turn myself in, maybe the future Carrie will respect that. And sure, my OWN future will suck, but I can accept that if at least the rest of you can go on with your lives. Because when I left you behind in the present, that’s all I really wanted.”

“I d-don’t think that’ll happen,” Anthony protested. “I mean, b-based on what Future Luci said to us? Our future lives will suck for as long as you’re w-working with the Temporals. In any timeline.”

“We’re also not leaving without you,” Amelia insisted.

Elizabeth yanked on her hair hard enough that she winced. She pulled her fingers free. “Look, I’m still open to other alternatives - but really, what can we DO? We don’t even have a Temporal to consult for advice, and Carrie’s got Glen on her side.” She frowned. “Speaking of, what happened to Mindylenopia, or Theresa, or whatever you decided to call her? I didn’t spot her when I was looking for people who’d recently experienced a massive temporal displacement.”

Bernard put a bottle of bleach back on the shelf, letting out a sigh. “She didn’t make it, Elizabeth. Back in Miami, Mindylenopia drew Carrie’s attention away from us, to a decoy car, and it exploded.”

“W-Wait, no,” Anthony said, pushing himself off the wall. “I saw Theresa. Like, an old Theresa, way older than she had b-been in Miami. She was w-working with the resistance in this timeline.”

“What?” Amelia gasped. “But we saw Mindy die. Didn’t we?”

Bernard frowned. “So… maybe what I told her in Timeline Three bled through, and she lived? Except if that’s true, why would we still remember the explosion…”

“Agh, it’s just more questions without answers,” Elizabeth groaned.

The door to the janitor’s closet swung open. Bernard reached back for the bottle of bleach, Anthony grabbed a mop, and Amelia dropped into an approximation of a fighting stance. But it was only Buffy standing in the doorway, smiling wryly. She then tossed an apple at her past self, Elizabeth catching it by reflex.

“There you go,” Buffy remarked. “There’s our biggest unanswered question.”

Elizabeth looked down at the apple, then back up at herself. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, Buffy. We cannot be serious,” she gasped.

NEXT: Endgame

ASIDE: The last time we saw Buffy was way back in Part 48, when Carrie tripled herself. The apple is an even older reference. Two weeks left. Hope you’re enjoying. Care to vote for T&T at TWF?

PREVIOUSLY: Much Elder Carrie (Liz) sabotaged her own Timeline Three, leading to Elder Carrie abducting her teenaged self from the past.

PART 94a: REALIGNMENT

Carrie’s fingers curled around the crystal object, aware that more tears were coming. Because here she was, at the mercy of her Future Self, being time shifted into Her Future… a future where Carrie would never see her parents, her friends, or that one ray of sunshine - her once possible girlfriend - ever again.

“CARRIE!”

Oh no, now she was imagining Chartreuse’s voice in her head.

“Carrie, are you there?! We don’t, like, have much time, but PLEASE hear me, there’s something you’ve gotta do!”

Okay, this was becoming surprisingly vivid for a delusion.

“Chartreuse?” Carrie whimpered.

“Carrie!” the voice came again. “Yesssss! Ohhh, I really hope you’re, you know, the right one. Look, we’re not giving up on you. The others, they’re gonna follow you, they’re following you even now - but you’ve gotta, like, hide them from the other you. Okay?”

Carrie blinked. What the hell did that mean?

“I mean you’ve gotta, like, spot their time car, and nudge it. Nudge it ahead, into, you know, the other timeline. Temporarily. Hurry!”

Oh sure, right, piece of cake, just do the thing she had no idea how to do, while her Elder Self was busy keeping her powers in check.

“If anyone can do it, you can! Please Carrie, PLEASE, otherwise… otherwise, you know, I think you’ll be lost to us forever.”

The meditation crystal dug into her palm so hard it hurt. No. She wasn’t going to lose Chartreuse forever. Hell, nothing in life had been easy to this point, right? Why assume that knowing the truth about her mama would have made things any easier?

So, as she was towed along in the wake of her Future Self, Carrie cautiously extended her senses, looking for the ‘time car’ that kept getting referenced. At the same time, she became aware of a wake, like what existed behind a boat, that was rippling out around them… could she somehow nudge a time traveller out of it’s path, and ahead of them? Even preserve it in some sort of time bubble?

She spotted the vehicle right before her Future Self emerged into The Future, wincing as her ‘nudge’ ended up being more like a powerful ‘bump’, and what little temporal energy she had left completely ebbed away at the act.

Frank stared. Both Carries had disappeared. At this point, neither the old-old Carrie who had been reaching for the activation panel, nor the old Carrie who had been arguing with her, were present. Instead, Frank saw that Walter had somehow set his chair back up, and was reaching in for the activation panel himself.

Frank looked around the room, feeling like he’d missed something. He leaned back in towards the observation windows, catching sight of Mindylenopia down in the displacement room - she was standing and waving. Not on the floor, defeated. Then there was a bright flash of light, forcing him to look away, and when he turned back, the displacement room was empty.

Walter jerked his hand back from the panel. “What did I just do?”

Frank reached out to tap at the desk. It felt solid now.

Walter spun to face him. “Where did you just come from?”

“Oh, I’m Chronologic Patrol.” Frank fumbled in Mindy’s handbag for the temporal gun, pulling it out and pointing it Walter’s way. “Just stay calm, I don’t want any trouble.”

Then there was another flash, and three more individuals appeared in the room. The Older Carrie was back! Along with Glen, and a blonde teenager in a blue business suit… but that had to be his Carrie. Could it be that, somehow, he was here at the end of their journey from the airport? Frank quickly reached down, flicking the switch on the gun over to “Carrie” mode, and he fired at the Elder Version.

At the pulse of high energy, the old Carrie collapsed down onto the ground, even as the recoil sent Frank flying back into the wall, hard enough to leave a crack. He groaned, feeling dazed. His version of Carrie didn’t look that much better off, having slumped to the floor after their arrival.

“I’m OUT,” Walter shrieked, running for the door. “You don’t pay me enough for this!”

As such, the only person in the room retaining full command of their faculties ended up being Glinephanis, aka Glen Oaks. And after taking in the situation, and snarling, “You Mundane morons,” his next move was to drag the unconscious Elder Carrie towards the door, following after Walter.

“Glen, wait,” Frank protested. He took a couple of shaky steps, then decided it might be better to check on the status of his own Carrie instead.

She looked up at him as he touched her shoulder. “I’m still here,” she murmured, dazed. “So did that time bump on your car work? Did it hide you from my older self? Have we won?”

Frank crouched down. “We haven’t won yet.” He glanced at the door through which Glen and Elder Carrie had exited. “But we may have bought ourselves some time.”

“Peachy.” She shook her head. “Okay, the freeze effect is wearing off. I feel like I’ll be able to do time stuff again soon. For my next trick, I shall attempt to not become the Carrie who kidnaps mama, and her unborn child.”

“Er, great. How will you do that?”

“No idea. Help me up.” She blinked at him. “Actually, correction. Take off your stupid wig while I remove this jacket, and then help me up.”

Frank straightened, tugging off the disguise he’d been wearing. Meanwhile, Carrie tossed aside her flight hat, allowing her long blonde hair to flow down her back again, and she shrugged off the jacket part of the business suit.

He reached a hand down. Carrie clasped it, and he pulled her onto her feet. “Do we have a plan?” he asked.

“Good question.” Carrie looked around. “Where are we?”

“A stationary temporal generator on the day of your fiftieth birthday. Mindylenopia was just sent back in time, into our past.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.” Carrie moved to look through the observation windows. “Why are we here? Didn’t you arrive in a time car?”

“We did,” Frank admitted. “The circuits were fried. Luci impounded it yesterday, sort of. I’m not sure where it is now.”

Carrie shook her head. “Wait, what? You didn’t mention Luci had come to Miami with you.”

“Er, no, not Luci from our Present. This time’s Luci, a Future Luci.”

“Ah. That’s going to get confusing, isn’t it,” Carrie sighed.

“Well, not necessarily. I died in the past, so if anyone says Frank, it’s probably me,” he said, trying to make a joke of it. He frowned. “Then again, I used the name Bernard with Mindylenopia…"

Carrie shook her head. “You’re not dead, Frank, don’t say that. It’s Timeline THREE where you died, and that’s gotta be where I ended up hip-checking your car, to keep you safe. When I left you in the airport, a few minutes ago, you were raving about us being in ‘Timeline Four’. So that should still be where we’re at now - er, unless you’re saying you later died in ‘Timeline Four’ too?”

“I… I don’t know. Wait, you did what to our vehicle?”

“You were constantly a few seconds ahead of the temporal wave created by Mindy’s arrival in the past, until right before my arrival here. It was Chartreuse’s idea.”

“Okay then. Er, which Chartreuse?”

Carrie smacked her palm against her face and dragged it down until it slid off her chin. “I don’t know, one of ‘em. Look, for my own sanity, as of RIGHT now, everyone who’s temporally displaced? Meaning not part of this future? Meaning us? Middle names. Understood?”

Bernard nodded. “Sure. Except I… I don’t actually know the middle names for Tim or Laurie.”

Elizabeth exhaled. “I will make them up if I have to. Where are they, anyway?”

“They’re still out with the resistance forces. Actually, I need to get them a message,” Bernard realized. “With Future Mindylenopia back in our past, and Carrie temporarily down, Luci and the rest of them need to know that it’s time to storm in and take this building.”

“Thrilling. Meanwhile, I kind of want all of us middle namers together, so let’s see if I can’t kill two birds with one jump. Give me a moment, knowing how to centre on people is fresh in my head.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. Moments later, she disappeared.

“Freeze!”

Tim jerked his hands into the air. “Whoa, whoa, J-Julie, it’s me.” He turned to Lee, only to see that the operations co-ordinator had also drawn a weapon. Though unlike Julie, he wasn’t pointing it at Tim. Yet.

“How did the kid get in here?” Lee demanded.

Julie shook her head. “I don’t know. I turned around, and there he was.”

Lee turned his head. “Theresa, did you see where he came from?”

“Theresa?” Tim blurted. “Wh-What happened to Megan??”

“Hold on,” the red haired woman said, over the video link. “It IS possible that things get a little weird now…”

Which was when seventeen year old Elizabeth popped into the room. “Hi!” she chirped at Lee. “Resistance, yes? Start the attack. I need to borrow… Tim, what’s your middle name?”

“Um, Anthony?”

“To borrow Anthony. Correction, I’m taking him, because he’s from the past, and as such, probably not coming back here. Thank you, have a nice day.”

Anthony shook his head. “Carrie, what–"

“Elizabeth,” she corrected, before grasping his shoulder and time jumping.

Laurie did a double take. One moment, Luci had been walking ahead of her, leading her to the car - and in the next moment, the asian woman was gone. Except, turning around, Laurie discovered that Luci was now approaching her from behind. “Luci?” she asked.

“Okay, where did you come from?” Luci demanded.

Laurie blinked, and pointed over Luci’s shoulder. “Back there?”

“No, I mean one moment I was alone out here, and now I’m not,” Luci insisted. “How did you do that? And how do you know me?”

“What?” Laurie protested. “Okay, no, see, one moment you were up there, and now you’re back here.” She continued to point for emphasis.

Luci shook her head. “You’re not making sense - but you do look familiar. Are you one of the guests from Carrie’s party, perhaps?”

Laurie stared. And then Elizabeth appeared beside her. “Found you,” the blonde said. “Why are you here with - ooh, hold up, you’re Luci, right?”

Luci nodded, now looking concerned.

“Luci, can you make a point of locking down the time car that must have recently appeared? I can’t grab it yet, but I sure as heck don’t need the extra aggravation of worrying about it while I fight myself.”

Luci gaped. Elizabeth then turned to Laurie. “I think your middle name is Amelia?”

Amelia blinked. “Yeah - y-you know about that?”

“I must have looked it up at some point. Come along, Amelia.” Elizabeth reached out her hand. Amelia took it, and then the both of them disappeared off the street corner.

“This is incredible,” Anthony said, as Elizabeth and Amelia appeared in the generator control room next to him and Bernard. “Carr– um, Elizabeth, could you, like, pop the entire resistance invasion force into this room by doing that?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, letting out a slow breath. “Because first, it would have to be one at a time, second, I only made it back here by centring on Bernard, and finally, those couple trips took a LOT out of me.” She released Amelia. “But I wanted us all here because I need your input. Given how I think I’ll now need to defeat… me. Future Carrie.”

“You… you’re okay with doing that?” Amelia wondered.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Not really. Because I don’t see how it’s even possible. Carrie knows my every move, not merely because she’s particularly canny, well educated, or - let’s toss this in for laughs - hauntingly good looking, but because she WAS ONCE ME. Meaning the Elder Carrie HAS TO KNOW whatever it is I’m going to try next.” The blonde bit down on her lower lip. “As such, whatever I think of is a bad idea. So I’m kind of open to suggestions?”

At first, no one spoke.

ASIDE: The stage is set, the Liz & Mindy pieces will be explained shortly. What might you suggest to Elizabeth?

Incidentally, Tartra wrote a WFG review on Saturday, then we set a new all time high pageview count on Sunday, shattering our ceiling of 113. Hello to the person who apparently read the archive? (With the Part A&B thing, T&T is now 128 posts long.) Tartra writes “The Other Kind of Roommate” if anyone’s looking for more reading material.

PREVIOUSLY: Frank, Laurie and Tim ended up in the future of “Timeline Three”. A timeline where Mindy never travelled back. But then Carrie got herself to destroy “Timeline Three”…

PART 93b: TIMELINE FOUR REDUX

Luci had just arrived at home when when she received the call. She pulled the device out of her pocket, blinking at the display. “Answer,” she told it. The call connected. “Phil? Something wrong?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he said, his holographic face looking very frustrated.

Luci tossed her key fob on the side table and shut her front door. “How was the visit? Is Laurie okay?”

“Laurie’s fine. Luci, I’ve pulled my tow truck over to the side of the road.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But I feel like maybe it’s bleedthrough?”

She peered at his expression. He seemed sincere. “Can’t be. There’s no major operations planned in the area that would attract attention.”

“Luci, I’ve pulled over to the side of the road, and for no particular reason, I’m remembering that time I worked on a Chevy in… I think it was senior auto shop class.”

“Phil, I swear, we’re not up to anything.” Luci chewed her lower lip. “Want to meet though? At the small cafe on the outskirts of town?”

“Yeah. Yeah, for some reason you saying that makes me feel better.”

“Okay, good. See you there in an hour.” Luci hung up the phone, reaching back for her key fob, as well as the medical device she used to identify people in the database after swabbing them for DNA.

She stared at it. Why on earth had she picked that up?

“Luci, what in the hell are you idiots doing?”

Luci sat back on her couch, staring blankly at the angry holographic face of Julie LaMille. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed. “You too?”

“What do you mean me too?”

Luci shook her head. “Bleedthrough.”

“I know,” Julie snapped. “For some reason, I’ve been expecting you to call me for the last half hour. What operation are you people–”

“No operation. Julie, you don’t understand,” Luci insisted. “This is crazy, for some reason we’re experiencing bleedthrough on a massive scale, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I’ve got techs talking about a car that isn’t there, an operative who says Mindylenopia contacted us out of the blue looking for help with her suicide mission, and plus I made way too much toast for breakfast this morning. NONE of which is connected to ANYTHING!”

Julie frowned. “Back up to the suicide mission thing.”

Luci sighed. “That’s just Mindy fulfilling her destiny. She’ll go back in time today, then get banished by Carrie. It never changed anything, remember? In the end, Glen still managed to snare Carrie, spiriting her out of town.”

There was the sound of Julie drumming her fingers on a desk. “So are your people helping Mindylenopia go back?”

“No. We explored the possibilities weeks ago, and couldn’t find a new lynchpin. Don’t spread it around, but the whole mission was deemed a predestined lost cause.” She grimaced. “We were WAY too cunning in our youth.”

“Is there a rogue faction within your ranks plotting something then?”

“Julie…"

“Look, I’m serious. The phone call I was expecting? I feel like you wanted me to get you things.”

“‘Things’? What ‘things’?”

“Oh, well, let’s see. It was either party favours for Carrie’s birthday, or ‘things’ that could help Mindylenopia get access to the stationary generator.”

“Ha ha.” Luci shook her head. “Look, according to our intelligence, Carrie made a call yesterday demanding a DECREASE of security at the generator this evening. So Mindylenopia doesn’t need us anyway, it should be no problem for her to… to… wait. WAIT.” She seized the edge of the couch. “Julie, why would Carrie do that?”

Julie rolled her eyes. “You’re asking me? I presume it was to make sure Mindylenopia succeeds in taking the trip, predestiny and all.”

“No, no, there’s no need to make SURE she succeeds, we KNOW she succeeds,” Luci protested. “She’s in our past. That’s not a change Carrie has to make. So why are we feeling the effects of bleedthrough here? The only way it makes sense is if… oh no. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but could Mindylenopia have once FAILED to make it back? Are we now overwriting a timeline where she FAILED?”

“Luci, that would mean Carrie wanted someone to mess with her past. Worse, the implication is that, to fix things, we have to stop Mindylenopia from going on her trip.”

“I know.” If she’d felt overwhelmed before, now she felt positively adrift. “So… I guess we better keep our options open. Julie, if you wouldn’t mind, please get us your ‘things’? Meanwhile, I’m going to organize an emergency strike force to take on the generator station… having them ready might mean we can stop Mindylenopia. If we have to. Hell, we might even manage a foothold, given the lower security - though I’m hoping it’s not a trap we’re falling for here either.”

Carrie glared at her reflection. She didn’t enjoying seeing the lines on her face, the hints of grey in her hair, or even the bright yellow gown that she had chosen for her birthday celebration. But her displeasure went deeper than that. “At least it’s almost over."

“What is, my love?”

Carrie didn’t bother to turn to face the woman who had spoken, continuing to glare at her reflection. “This damn headache. Which a future me in a horrible sweater indirectly inflicted, for absolutely no good reason. I’ve spent the better part of a day looking into things, and the only conclusion I can draw from my latest experience is that I hate myself. A lot.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? A mass–"

“No,” Carrie snorted. “It doesn’t matter. Liz won’t be back, not in this timeline. Also, tomorrow, I want you to give me the name of that forum where they were talking about visions. I want it shut down.”

“Y-Yes, my love… I meant no disrespect…"

“Fine, good.” Carrie finally turned to regard the woman sitting on the edge of her bed, the one dressed in the elaborate purple gown. And Chartreuse’s eyes were cast down towards the floor. As it should be.

“It’s time I got out there,” Carrie decided. “Moreover, if you perform well tonight as my pretty Canadian eye candy, I’ll allow you to give me a special birthday gift after everybody has left.” She grinned. “Would you like that?”

Her companion swallowed. “My love, I d-don’t want to go out there…"

Carrie tensed. “What?”

“Because if I do… I feel that… that I might be hurt…"

“You want to defy me, on my fiftieth birthday?”

Chartreuse shrank back, curling into a ball. “My love…"

“Well, you can stay in here then. With your pretty dress and your stupid visions!”

Raising a palm and twisting it in against her pounding head, Carrie stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Lee? What’s wrong?”

He turned to look over his shoulder at Julie. “The bleedthrough, I guess?” he admitted. “I’m starting to feel dumb about sending Luci out to Carrie’s property. Yet I still feel like someone’s supposed to be stationed there, and reporting in.”

“Right.” Julie ran her fingers back through her hair. “Well, if there’s something to find, Luci can find it.”

Lee chuckled. “Kind words you have for the same woman who, just last month, you referred to as a–"

“We reached an understanding earlier today,” Julie interrupted. She furrowed her brow. “For some reason, it felt right.”

Lee raised his hands in the air. “Hey, I’m happy for you both.” He looked back at his monitors. “What I’m not happy about is the fact that I’m running out of time to pull the trigger on our forces at the generator. Do we storm in, or not? We still have NO intelligence on whether we can allow Mindylenopia go back in time.”

“We should let her go.”

Lee turned to the side monitor to look at Megan. Then he mentally checked himself - Megan wasn’t his redundancy for tonight’s mission. Theresa was. One of the oldest members of the resistance. “But Theresa, how can you be sure?” he protested.

She smiled quietly back at him. He was reminded of the knowing looks she’d had before, way back when she had been a simple waitress in their hometown cafe. “You’ll simply have to trust me,” Theresa said.

One moment, Carrie was reaching for an hors d’oeuvre. The next moment, she was on the ground, screaming. Her past - it was completely breaking apart. Carrie dropped her mental shields into place, and tried to pinpoint how things could possibly be going so very, very wrong.

She had never thought her temporal pain could be any worse than an ice pick to the skull - and yet now, on top of that, it was like her head was simultaneously in a vice, making the misery so much worse, even through the shielding. Making things hard to track.

The issue, it seemed, was that hadn’t left town with Glinephanis? Except she damn well HAD left! But no, she hadn’t. For some reason, it now looked like she had still been in town for Christmas during her senior year of high school. Then… wait, where the hell had her past self ended up? And how had Young Carrie become so… so BROKEN?

Carrie’s eyes widened, as she deciphered the key moment. In a time period when she should have been three years old.

Pushing herself back to her feet, and ignoring the concerned mutterings of all the people around her, Carrie tore open a rip in the fabric of space-time, and stepped through it. Into the lounge of a Miami airport.

Elder Carrie glared at him for a moment, then shook her head, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” she assured Glinephanis. “You did your best. I know who’s really to blame - it’s these stupid Mundanes and that damnable Mindylenopia! They’re all dooming my childhood.” She peered at him. “Perhaps you can still be a bright spot in my younger self’s life though? Will you come with me now? Some of my memories could remain valid, not be inserted by force.”

Glinephanis nodded slowly. “I’m with you to the end. But Carrie, there are more time travellers here in Miami. Mindylenopia and a number of your old classmates. We all came in a time car. They might still try something.”

She growled. Cleaning up her history was going to be a real pain, huh? She hoped she wouldn’t need to mess with too many memories. “Fine, I will deal with them as soon as I get my younger self here restrained back in my present. Grab hold, we’re leaving.”

She grabbed her teenaged self by the collar. Apparently, that Carrie had dressed herself up in a blue business suit, almost like she was pretending to be their mama. Good grief, how had she EVER been so STUPID? Glinephanis took her by the arm, and she pulled them back towards the rip… with her younger self still trying to break free of the freezing. Apparently, this was going to be a long trip home.

The lounge door burst open. “Carrie!” Laurie shrieked.

“Carrie, fight it,” Tim called out. “Whatever is going on, fight!”

Frank charged in between the two of them.

“Frank, don’t get close!” Mindylenopia shouted, grabbing onto him by the waist, slowing him down. Not that it mattered.

“Carrie, FUTURE Carrie, it doesn’t have to be this way!” Frank shouted, looking right at her for a change, rather than at her broken teenaged variant. “You don’t have to do this, not to yourself…"

Carrie did her very best to ignore them all, busy concentrating on getting a foothold on the time streams, without losing her mental hold on the Younger Carrie. It was surprisingly difficult. It occurred to her that maybe that’s why the old “Liz” version she had encountered in the generator hadn’t tried this genre of persuasion? Preferring to snare herself in the “Mindylenopia Catch-22 scenario” instead? Which had, she now realized, somehow precipitated this entire situation.

Well, she would soon set everything right. Young Carrie was weak, and no match for her.

Pulling Glinephanis and her younger self forwards into the time streams, Carrie soon realized that the time trip, which should have taken seconds, would instead drag on for close to a minute. Because Young Carrie continued to wriggle against her hold, at one point whimpering out, “Chartreuse?”.

Carrie decided that her best plan would be to arrive in the future at the stationary temporal generator outside Ottawa. There were dampening fields in the displacement room which she could activate, ones which might help her to control her younger self long enough for a memory implantation, or removal, or whatever else she’d be forced to do to get history back on track.

As such, they emerged from the time streams in the main control room of the Ottawa generator facility.

Where a teenaged Frank Dijora immediately shot her with a prototype for a temporal gun.

NEXT: Realignment.

ASIDE: If it all makes sense, please vote for T&T at Top WebFiction. If it doesn’t make sense, drop a comment before the vote for T&T. Three weeks left.

PREVIOUSLY: As the time group got ready to send Mindylenopia back, Carrie realized something was happening at the temporal generator.

PART 93a: NOWHERE TO RUN

“What’s taking so long?” Mindylenopia demanded. Carrie had to be onto them by now.

The primary tech, a man named Walter, looked up at her. “Well, actually,” he began, “the temporal generator has no geo-temporal records to draw on, for a time from before it was built. And while we do have the material on site that can localize earlier times, the system still has to compensate geographically, ensuring that a traveller doesn’t end up floating in space or buried in the ground or something.”

The redhead sighed. “Yes. I’m Temporal, I know that. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for your authorization codes. But look, the specific day in October doesn’t matter, I picked it randomly. So if that’s the problem, I can…”

She stopped, as the slight rumbling noise in the control room ceased, followed by a chirp from the computer terminal. The main panel changed to green, and Walter turned back to his old style physical keyboard. “There we go," he remarked. “Year is encoded. Your date… locked in place. Displacement room is set for a thirty-three year trip to the past. Satisfied?”

“No,” Mindy stated. “Not yet.” She looked through the large glass observation windows of the control room, down to the displacement room below. It was large, the size of a small theatre, capable of sending back a hundred people at once, if necessary. “I’m going down there to uncouple the wall circuits. When I wave my hand at you, you will activate the displacement.”

Walter looked uneasy. “I wouldn’t advise that.”

“It won’t send me back, not with the wall circuits cut. That’s the failsafe.”

“Yeah, uh… we’ve been having some… glitches in the system this evening.”

Mindylenopia turned to Bernard, who had been quietly observing the last several minutes from the doorway. “Make a note. Safety at this site has been compromised.”

“No!” Walter protested. “It’s only that, if something went wrong, you’d have no way of getting back, and there’s so much paperwork…”

Oh brother. She couldn’t play along with this any more - they were out of time. Mindylenopia stared Walter in the face. “Listen. When I wave my hand at you, you will activate the displacement.”

“When you wave your hand, I will activate the displacement.”

“Good man.” Mindylenopia tossed her handbag in Bernard’s direction, and he fumbled to catch it. “The rest is your problem.” She sprinted for the stairs leading down to the temporal displacement room.

“She’s active! All units, please acknowledge, Carrie is active and using super speed to bear down on the generator.”

Luci reached up to touch her earpiece. “Acknowledged.” She didn’t question how Lee was aware of that fact. In a way, this was actually a good sign. It meant that Carrie wasn’t using any finesse - which in turn implied that their blonde nemesis was worried. Were they about to pull this off?

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as young Laurie Veniti ran up to her, gasping for breath, and grasping her by the shoulders. “Luci!” Laurie squealed. “Luci, I… ohmigod, I did it. A creepy guy was about to sexually molest a version of Chartreuse, and so I did it, I kicked him real hard in the… the…"

“Good for you, Laurie,” Luci said, giving the redheaded girl a hug. “Good for you.” She squeezed once. “But we have to get back to the car now, okay?”

Laurie looked up at her, nodding wordlessly.

Frank walked closer to the large glass windows. There was the sound of what he assumed to be a door sliding open and closed, and moments later, Mindy strode into the room. She looked up at them, and waved. Walter reached out for the panel…

And then everything started to move as if in slow motion.

Frank didn’t clue in right away. It merely looked like the tech’s hand was meeting incredible air resistance, or like he was trying to resist Mindylenopia’s mental command. But then Frank realized that Walter’s eyes were squinting, and closing, and gradually opening… as if in a protracted blink. What?

Now the tech’s hand was an inch away from the panel - and that’s when she appeared.

The blonde woman was drawing in great lungfuls of air, her face was drenched in sweat, and the yellow dress she was wearing had been torn in two places… but she was there. Holding Walter’s hand back, preventing the final activation. Then she pulled him bodily back from the main board, shoving his chair to the side, causing the tech to collapse onto the floor.

“Good,” the Elder Carrie said, her chest heaving. She slammed both hands down onto the edge of the desk that ran the length of the room, under the observation windows. Seemingly trying to prevent her legs from collapsing out from under her. “SO GOOD. But. You. Were. Not. Good. Enough.”

She reached out to smack a button, drew in a huge breath, then leaned down to yell into the nearby microphone. “Mindylenopia! I see you down there. This was the last straw, you understand? You’re finished! You hear me? FIN-ISHED.”

Though the observation window, Frank saw the redhead’s hazel eyes widen in horror - and then she collapsed down onto the floor, like all the fight had gone out of her. Which was when Frank finally realized that Elder Carrie was paying absolutely no attention to him. The time dilation hadn’t even affected him, had it? How else could he have registered what was going on? Did Carrie not care about him, could it be that only Walter’s palm could activate the time jump?

He had to try. He stepped in, reaching around Carrie to bring his palm down on the necessary panel.

Except his hand passed right through. Then it continued down, right through the desk, and Frank stumbled forwards as there seemed to be no solid objects around him to arrest his motion. With mounting horror, he realized that even the floor felt weirdly spongy. Frank brought his hand back out of the desk and up to his face. He could see right through it.

Well, of course he could. Because if Mindylenopia didn’t travel back, he didn’t exist. Right? Numbly, Frank wondered why time was pulling a slow fade on him, like Marty McFly in “Back to the Future”, rather than simply winking him out of existence. Did that mean that there was still a chance? That he was somehow neither alive, nor dead? But what chance did they have if he couldn’t TOUCH anything?

“I win again,” Carrie said triumphantly.

“Sorry, no,” Carrie answered herself.

Carrie spun, reaching up to wipe the sweat out of her eyes. She felt her mouth forming an ‘o’ of surprise. Because yes, somehow, it was her who had spoken. An older her. Had to be older, the lines in the face were still there, and the blonde hair looked even more grey… except at what point would she think a sweater like that would be a good fashion statement?

“You… you can’t be here,” fifty old Carrie choked out. “Why would I want to change THIS?”

“Funny thing that,” even-older Carrie chuckled. “Let’s just say that the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And this, in a sense, this was the major turning point. This lynchpin moment.”

“But you… I… how… why…”

Sweater-wearing Carrie, whom Carrie decided to dub “Sweater Liz” in her own mind for the sake of convenience, gave her a pitying look. “Really? My fiftieth birthday, and I’m still that stupid?”

Carrie clenched her jaw. She snapped her gaze towards the observation windows and then back to Sweater Liz. “Mindylenopia’s really working for me somehow? Is that it?”

Sweater Liz seemed to ponder that. “I suppose that’s a good an answer as any.”

“Meaning that’s NOT an answer.”

Sweater Liz sighed. “Fine. You’re making my point for me here, you know. We’ve never been good at these sorts of interactions.”

“Oh, I’ve learned how to handle Future Me,” Carrie retorted.

“I know,” came the retort. “I’m you. Your plan is to rewrite your history to eliminate the need for me to even be here. Works great in the short term. What about the long term?”

“I never travel back long term. Never erase that much of myself.”

Sweater Liz gestured. “Mindylenopia’s going back long term.”

Again, Carrie’s gaze drifted to the windows and back. “It’s not like she can change me. Not that much. Not with Glinephanis back… wait, how far forwards in my timeline are you?”

“Do you want to find out?” Sweater Liz crossed her arms. “Because here’s the thing, Paradox Woman. I’m going to trigger that panel. Which both sends Mindylenopia back AND locks you into being me, and oooh, we both know how much I HATE that. Right? Being locked into a destiny? Your only alternative would be to rewrite the last few minutes, perhaps days, to keep me from ever being here… but guess what. In that timeline, Mindylenopia MUST go back too. Otherwise I’ll still be here to see to it.”

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Carrie snarled. She wished she wan’t so tired and dripping sweat everywhere, not to mention partially propping herself up using the desk. It felt like that took some of the bite out of her words.

Liz chuckled. “Maybe. Maybe not. Have you ever wondered, whether there might be a better way for us to deal with our future selves?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve started wondering. About that, and more.” She rubbed her chin. “In particular, I wonder… when is it that we stopped being curious about what we could do?”

Liz smiled. And Carrie realized that her Future Self really was going to do it. At some point in the future, she was going to go crazy in the head, and come back to give herself this asinine choice, this ultimatum… and Carrie was forced to admit that, truly, she now had no idea how to stop herself.

Which meant there was no way to prevent Mindylenopia from going back. Even beating up Liz here only meant that she’d get beat up by herself in the future. And as Liz had said, there was only one sure fire way she knew about to avoid becoming a future incarnation.

“I HATE YOU!” Carrie screamed.

“I know,” Liz said.

Liz reached out for the panel.

Carrie flashed back in time a day and a half.

Everything changed.

NEXT: Timeline Four Redux

ASIDE: Carrie herself destroys Timeline Three. What does that mean? As always, feel free to speculate. Also, did you catch last weekend’s Commentary post?

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90 1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 27, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Originally went to Carrie’s 45th birthday, specified as 2029 -Constant attempts to upgrade Clarke’s “phone” with every edit -Future Luci is now in medicine, was teaching -Luci waited in the cafe and at first spoke only with Frank -Luci used to have tech-tech glasses (Julie gets them later) -Now in “Timeline Three” (was a technobabble “spiral time loop”) -Luci gave alien probe backstory in the cafe (not later) -Laurie only protested helping Mindy after they met future her -Luci gave Frank and Tim disguises to meet with Mindy

4. Additions of note: -Laurie’s perspective, with her backup plan in Miami -Inserted Chartreuse communicating to Carrie via crystal -All “Frank being dead” reactions (it hadn’t been “Timeline Three”) -All “prototype temporal gun” references (they’d brought the gun) -New flashback with Tim, where Chartreuse said she had the gun -Luci’s explanation of ways Carrie can temporally mess with them -Luci connecting that explanation to prejudice towards redheads

“Time & Tied” PARTS 91-93

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 30, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -They’d met Julie in a limo outside a pizza place, with Luci -Julie had argued Mindy would die whether she helped or not -Laurie asked about Corry, prompting Julie’s revelation -Julie left; Frank never stopped her -Mindy claimed it was Glen’s idea to create Carrie -Carrie/Chartreuse scene had been Carrie/Glen & much shorter -Had been no fireworks to draw attention to Laurie as Mindy -Frank fired the temporal gun once, to help Mindy -Activation of Mindy’s time jump was different

4. Additions of note: -New discussion of predestination among time travel group -Julie’s remarks about Luci doing genetics work -Entire Julie/Luci reconciliation scene -Frank’s talk with Mindy about her destiny -All Lee scenes (including Megan, Tim & Glinephanis refs) -All Laurie/Chartreuse talk (including Linford’s son) -All of the “Redux” bleedthrough, up to Carrie in Miami

FIGHT THE FUTURE

Back in Commentary 24, I’d mentioned this story existed online with my old “Sympatico” website (in 2006). That index was updated in late August 2009 to list all 44 episodes (45 with the Pilot), along with a link to information about “Seasons 3 to 5” which I’d decided weren’t going to happen. After TEN years, the story was complete. It was then shelved indefinitely. I decided it had no future.

What first fought that future was “Harper Voyager” looking for new book submissions three years later. No agent needed. This story was the closest thing I had to a publishable work.

So, I spent the start of October 2012 pulling together the first 12 entries of then “Time Trippers” into an 80,000 word novel, “Awareness”. In the process of pulling it together, I edited to remove all mention of hard dates (1999, 2029, and so forth), also FINALLY changing the first sentence from “At the back of a rather nondescript two story house, a window rose.” to “A time machine. That would solve everything.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Here was my submitted synopsis:

“The mysterious arrival of a time machine into a small town acts as a catalyst for a group of high school students. It brings to the forefront a number of issues, chief among them how Carrie (the girl who discovered it) was affected by the disappearance of her mother, the numerous difficulties involved in the taking of time trips as raised by her unlikely companion Frank, and the disturbingly obsessive actions of her best friend Julie. As the story progresses, centered almost entirely upon a set of teenagers at the school, friends and enemies begin to turn up in the unlikeliest of places, which results in new allegiances and more questions than there are answers.”

[caption id=“attachment_1734” align=“alignright” width=“210”] Old picture of an older Luci. From “Escalation”, Part 29. No idea why the drastic height change.[/caption]

Nothing came of that (obviously; I heard back Jan 23, 2013). But it did pull the story back into my conscious mind. In March 2013, I re-sketched all the characters. By February of 2014, I had completed similar edits through the rest of Season One, with a second novel, “Escalation”. (That effort was modified more, in that it started with the characters in Grade 9 before blending in the “Luci Pilot” and chopping it’s size down for use as Chapter 2; see Commentary 13 for more.) Then I started into Season Two edits.

At “Anime North” (May 2014), I commissioned art of many characters (Carrie, Frank, Luci, Chartreuse). In July 2014, I posted Chapter 7 (the “Back to the Future” tribute) to my personal blog. By July 10th, I had completed edits on Book 3, “Destruction”, and by Sept 2nd, on Book 4, “Resolution”. (Which did not have the above edits yet.) In fact, before finishing the Book 4 edits, in the summer of 2014, I’d started work on the sequel, “Season 3” - in part because I’d just given up on my personified math serial (after 3 years of seemingly little interest), and yet I wanted to keep writing.

The epiphany hit a few months after starting this very blog. Time & Tied’s “Season 3”, with Carrie at University, was going to be SO much better than what had come before. And it would make no sense to put that story out FIRST and then these four “prequel” books AFTER. Rather, I needed to build towards “Season 3” aka “Book 5”. Even better, any feedback I got on the old stuff could only help me move forwards.

I began running “Time & Tied” here in April 2015.

It flopped. HARD.

Needless to say, the “Season 3” sequel hasn’t been touched since July 20, 2015.

FINAL STATISTICS

No one wanted to read the story, even with a decent review. And the few who were already reading couldn’t seem to pull anyone else in.

As I said in Commentary 15, “thank goodness I restarted personified math (as a webcomic) in August [2015] … it keeps me going”. (Personified math isn’t working? Try “T&T Season 3”. T&T isn’t working? Guess it’s back to reinventing personified math.) One of these days, I thought… one of these days, I’ll write something that others will enjoy reading and sharing. I stopped T&T here entirely after Book 2, and went back to “Epsilon” for an arc. Seeing voting helped morale.

For current statistics, we’re now well over two years in, and I still have a “zero view” day on my blog - March 12th, 2017. Amusingly enough, that was the same day my “best ever” view day was restored to 113 views from 108. (It’s a WordPress daylight savings time glitch. June 28, 2016 had been knocked down by 5 views, as WP seems to simply slide their timing forward and back, meaning hits between 12am to 1am slide between days.) But we shouldn’t be so granular! Right?

Above, you can see what things look like monthly (April 2017 is highlighted, as it ends today). Note November 2016, two years in, and two months after I started publishing twice a week instead, was all the sadness. So many more posts. So little interest.

But, contrast in December, when Mez and Tartra started reading, giving a massive boost… so if we average those, we do seem to have levelled off at 400 or so views in any one month. Which STILL represents no growth over a full year, despite the increase in volume (implying a decrease in readers) with me never missing a post. (For reference, this is post #225.)

And yet, despite the generally dismal reception, there are occasional bright spots.

The fact that YOU’RE reading this, for one. Heck, the story now has three decent reviews at WFG, and at least some people here I’d call regular commenters. That’s a change. My reposting at RRL has a regular commenter too. (We shall not speak of Wattpad.) And just this past week, I suddenly had two consecutive days with over 40 views, as one person went through the archive. (That hadn’t happened yet in 2017. Meaning I reached 10k views before my birthday, unexpected.)

Perhaps it’s little things like this which explain why, back in Summer 2016, I kept going. Stubbornly editing into Book 4. The new Chartreuse parts at the start (referenced in Commentary 23) were done in August 2016. I even set Personified Math aside to better focus, and completed all of the new work you’re reading now in October 2016. (Right before that month of sadness, AGH. Is fate trying to tell me something?)

In conclusion? Aside from some sketching for this final run, and minor edits for RRL posts, I haven’t done any work on T&T since last year. It’s all reposts. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know I’m just one more cis white guy in a sea out there, and there’s many other individuals and stories which should probably get more attention than this not-very-diverse tale does… and yet. I keep getting pulled back into this story. Am I the only one that deeply into it?

I did at least reread “Season 3” this year. With it’s 12,000+ words, plot info, and character sketch. In it’s 2015 archive. Does that T&T world have a future worth fighting for? I used to think so. Maybe I’ll think so again. If it materializes a year from now, would anyone here still be around? Would anyone new even care to read it? I honestly don’t know. Which I guess is better than being sure the answer is “no”.

SPOILER SECTION

I’ve now included “Additions” to my tallies above, because there’s so many things that weren’t mere “Changes”. The original two-parter from 2009 had been four entries, or 8 halves (#42 and #43, roughly 13,000 words). It’s now SIX entries, or 12 halves (roughly 24,000 words) of which we’ve seen five to this point. (I know we’re not at Episode 93 yet, I’ll avoid talking spoilers for that.) There were two reasons for the massive expansion.

The first reason was the “Timeline Three”/“Timeline Four” talk that was placed into earlier parts (in Book 3), which was extended here. I think it works better than random “clouded time loop” technobabble. The second reason is something Frank literally said in Part 91a, to Laurie: “I admit, to this point, I was looking at this whole situation as being a broken timeline for us to fix. But Luci’s made it feel… real. With real people.”

The original 2009 writing was “broken timeline”. This time, I reasoned that Julie should be more than a simple cameo, her dispute with Luci should be more real - and be resolved. And then Chartreuse elbowed me, saying “I must exist here too”, and having her there led to Lee, and even a reference to Glinephanis being in Australia. In a sense, I fell down the rabbit hole. (It’s like I ended up in the Season Four “Agents of SHIELD” Framework, wanting to save the world, even though it wasn’t real.)

One thing that happened in all the newness was Glen getting edited OUT. Carrie had originally been talking to him before her party (not Chartreuse), but it was very unclear as to whether this was the Glen she’d left town with, or a young Glen, from before she sent him back in the first place. And how did that then fit in with the Glen from Miami? So I edited him out of the future completely. When that felt like a plot hole, I tossed him “down under” with Future Tim.

Meanwhile, the addition of Chartreuse to the future let me fix a dangling thread that had always bothered me - that neighbour “Linford” who had tormented Luci, and gotten away. Reincorporating him hadn’t fit with the present timeline. Now? Future timeline. I could have Laurie save Chartreuse from the guy, finally giving that jerk some divine justice, and Laurie a broader character arc. I wrote the scene, read it back over, and thought that Laurie beating up a 70 year old man was kind of pathetic. Subsequently altered to be his SON, who references the fact that Linford got put behind bars. Much better.

Speaking of character arcs, Frank’s come a long way since the Luci/Carrie arguments of old in Book 1 too, managing to be the one to broker a peace between Future Luci/Julie. That felt right. And Tim’s also gaining confidence - he will gain one last little hurrah in the final parts. All new. The Temporal redheads thing, by the way, WAS there in the original writing, though it wasn’t explained to the same extent. (And kudos to Mez for his thoughts on the genetics back in Part 85. Hopefully everything’s held together.) Incidentally, here’s a website noting not all redheads are in Ireland and Scotland.

A couple final things about the original writing. At one point, I’d entertained the thought of Glen being an actual alien, and the group ending up on a spaceship - changed to just having an “alien probe”, both in the original writing and here. Frank had also wondered if he was married to Luci (with him not being dead and all), following her idly referencing “The Time Traveler’s Wife” movie (from 2009, referenced in prior commentaries). And everything since Commentary 26 had been designed as the only two parter since that “Back to the Future” tribute – meaning a “Coming in PART II” clip! For your entertainment, it was:

Coming in Part II: [in back of a limousine] “By all means,” Julie stated, “let’s have her die right now in her present attempt instead.” [outside, in the dark] “I’m not about to ditch you,” Mindy said. “But before we reach the building, there is one other thing to discuss.” [driving a car] “Here,” Carrie hissed, her golden eyes flashing, “Here is a real challenge at last…”

None of those quotes survived. (It ends where we left off with 92b. Granted, it won’t actually ever be made clear now whether Carrie in super-speed mode also includes driving a car or not.) Onwards!

Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future” which became the title of 89a; the previous parts were still revealing that future. The following titles (“Insight the Future”, “Reunite the Future” and “Rewrite the Future”) were riffs on that. Parts 91/92/93 were originally “Fight the Future, Part II”, so I just came up with new things. I’m rather proud of “Veni Vidi Veniti”.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis, and with us nearly being done, this may be the last chance for anyone to lay eyes on this thing. I hold no hope of anyone voting while reading the archive years later. ^_^

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie versus Carrie, but likely not how you think.

PREVIOUSLY: One of the security people is immune to Mindy’s mental power. Elsewhere, Laurie hears sounds of a struggle.

PART 92b: VENI, VIDI, VENITI

“Tim, I can hear someone nearby who’s in trouble,” Laurie said.

“On or off the property?”

“On,” Laurie answered. The sounds of a struggle were coming from within the small grove of trees, where there seemed to be a gazebo.

“Okay, well, HQ here assures me that it’s not safe to approach,” Tim stated. “Double back, and meet up with Luci.”

Laurie felt torn. Given the trees, she might be able to approach the gazebo unseen. But Tim was right - what if she was caught? And what if being identified screwed up everything? Worse, what if she somehow messed up their timelines for good? Besides, what could she even do to stop whatever was going on?

“Please,” came a female voice. “Please, stop.”

Laurie made a fist. No. She had already been taken advantage of so much in her life - she wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone else. More to the point, her standing up to Frank about Mindylenopia this morning? It would mean nothing if she couldn’t follow through on her own principles now.

“Tim, I’m going in anyway,” she asserted. Drawing on her cheerleading abilities, Laurie jumped over the fence.

“Good evening… how exactly do you have authorization to be here?”

The brown haired security woman stared levelly at Frank and Mindylenopia. Almost before Frank had registered the movement, her weapon was out, and pointing their way.

“We need to run a systems check,” Mindylenopia said casually. “Call down a tech who can set the controls for a thirty year time jump, okay?”

The woman lifted an eyebrow. “That’s back to before this facility was even built. I’ll have to phone up the chain for confirmation.”

“No, you won’t,” Mindylenopia countered, putting emphasis on the words. She took a step closer.

The security guard’s head shook. “No, I really will. Also, I think you should put that handbag on the ground before you come any closer?”

Mindylenopia looked sidelong at Frank. It was as she had feared - her mind power was ineffective against this person. So it was up to Frank to come up with a better plan, before Mindylenopia was forced to provide the necessary incentive by firing off her ‘temporal gun’ at people. Shots which would render the thing less effective against Carrie herself. Fortunately, he had the hints of an idea.

“Wait,” Frank began. “The two of us, we’re with the… Chronologic Patrol. It’s a new unit - we conduct safety inspections. We need to see how well the system aligns for a time jump of that magnitude. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re activating anything tonight."

The security woman shook her head. “A new unit, where the dress code is casual? Including bad wigs? And why haven’t I heard of you?"

“The Patrol works under the radar,” Mindy continued smoothly. “Undercover. Moreover, there’s reason to suspect one of your technicians here is violating safety standards, hence our turning up unannounced. We have clearance though. How else could we be this deep in the facility?”

The security woman stepped a little closer. “I don’t know,” she answered, gun still up. “How else COULD you be this deep?”

That’s when Frank spotted the ID badge at the woman’s hip. And the first name on it: Faye. That name, coupled with the woman’s apparent immunity to Mindylenopia’s mind control - it triggered a memory. A memory of Lee’s sister, who in grade nine, had come close to beating up a boy to get a book back for her younger sibling. Could this be her? Was there a way to use that knowledge?

“Question for you, Faye,” Frank blurted. “If you had to choose between your job and your family, which of them would you pick?”

Her gun swung to point only at him. “No contest. Do you think I’d even be working in here if it didn’t help me keep my family safe?!”

Frank realized he had hit a nerve, and so chose his next words carefully. “Here’s the thing, Faye. Maybe, after our inspection, you won’t need this job to ensure your loved ones are safe.”

Her arm shook slightly. “What, are you talking promotion? Or are you part of some military coup?”

Frank glanced at Mindylenopia, wondering whether they should admit to one of those. Her ‘what the hell are you doing’ face made him realize he was now in this on his own. “I’m saying we’re the Chronologic Patrol,” he said, turning back to face Lee’s sister. “We’re conducting safety inspections.”

Faye stared. She seemed to be thinking hard. Then the gun barrel swung down, and she presented the hilt of the weapon towards them. Mindylenopia quickly stepped close enough to grab it away from her. “It is now possible,” Faye remarked. “That I did this under duress. To help my family.”

She marched back towards the communications link at her station. “Priority request,” she said, thumbing the button. “Send a tech. A couple of inspectors have turned up down here.”

Laurie was close enough to the gazebo to hear everything now. It sounded like a man and a woman arguing. And the female voice sounded somehow familiar, the same way Clarke’s voice had sounded familiar to her the previous evening.

“What?” the male was saying. “I heard you go both ways. Am I not good enough for you? Or is it that you only give it up for the lady with the golden eyes?”

“Her name is Carrie,” came the quiet response. “And we’re in love.”

“Hah! That’s rich. She’s got girls in every country. Probably guys too. And if ‘your Carrie’ really loved you, she would’ve kept you close tonight. Or at least had someone stop me when I dragged you out here. No, Chartreuse, she expects you to give influential people like me a good time tonight, in exchange for receiving favours later. Yeah?”

Laurie’s breath caught in her throat at the name.

“Just… stop. PLEASE stop,” Chartreuse begged.

“Stop what? Telling you the truth? Or stop doing things like this to you?”

Chartreuse whimpered.

The firework was arcing over the gazebo before Laurie even stopped to think about it. It exploded with a bang, lighting up the area, and causing the two figures to separate.

“Kick him and run, Chartreuse!” Laurie shouted immediately after, pressing herself up against yet another tree trunk. Her heart was beating so fast, she was worried it would burst out of her chest. “Kick him and run, and, like, keep on running!”

“Who the hell is out there?” the assailant snarled. In the brief light of the firework, he’d looked at least forty, and a bit out of shape.

“Someone who, like, believes people like you can get away with stuff too often, you know?” Laurie wasn’t entirely sure why she’d decided to spout ‘valley girl’ talk. She supposed it was in the hope that it would trigger something in her old friend. “And someone who is finally, like, taking a stand!”

“Oh yeah? Well, news flash. I’m smarter than my father. I won’t get caught the way he was. So you better run along now before you become a victim too!”

Laurie looked to the heavens and crossed herself. “No. You leave Chartreuse alone!”

“Oh, you’re gonna get it now…"

Laurie heard the sound of someone being shoved to the ground, but from the measured steps in her direction, it didn’t sound like the person approaching was Chartreuse. It occurred to her that the only advantage she had was the fact that the guy didn’t seem light on his feet.

“Stand back up and kick him down, Chartreuse,” Laurie pleaded. She began to backpedal from tree to tree as he came closer. “Take a, you know, stand! You’ve gotta do it, if not for yourself, then for, like, me, and people like me, otherwise he’s gonna keep doing it, or maybe he’ll get a firework in the face next, because I, you know, didn’t think this through, and don’t know what else to do, and golly, now I could be screwing up the timelines, um, please, Tim any suggestions…?"

She then realized that in her haste to get away, she’d started back-pedalling towards the house. Perfect.

“Laurie,” came Tim’s calm, measured voice. “Try to hide. Luci’s on her way.”

People were going to have to bail her out. Again. The same way her brother always did. Her brother, who didn’t even exist in this timeline. Laurie felt like crying. As she’d feared, she was ruining everything. What more could possibly go wrong now? Could this get any worse?

No, she realized. Things couldn’t get any worse. She had hit rock bottom, she was at the point where she had nothing left to lose.

“When I get my hands on you,” the man growled, “you’re gonna wish you’d minded your own…"

Laurie knew that a red dress wasn’t the best outfit to be wearing when performing a back handspring. But in retrospect, that’s probably what made the guy freeze in place, allowing the cheerleader to complete her maneuver by planting her hands and kicking back and up with her legs. It was a solid hit, right where she’d intended. The predatory man crumpled to the ground with a high pitched whine.

Nothing left to lose. Had she seriously just done that?

Laurie grabbed her handbag back off the ground and charged back towards the fence, leaving the man laid out in the dirt. She only paused long enough to catch her breath, upon registering the fact that the fifty year old version of Chartreuse was now standing by the gazebo, her mouth open wide. “D-Did you just flatten Councillor Linford?” Chartreuse gasped.

Laurie shrugged. “Your turn next time,” she declared. “Also, you look good. The red hair works. It’s never too late to find a nice man or woman who truly loves you. Okay?”

Not waiting for a response, Laurie sprinted off the property.

One moment, Carrie was reaching for an hors d’oeuvre. The next moment, she was on the ground, her palm against her forehead.

Someone was going to time travel. And they were going to do it with intent - and more importantly, with a plan - for changing history. Who was it? Some fool with a homemade machine in their basement, and lottery numbers in hand? Carrie dropped her mental shields into place, and tried to localize the disturbance.

It was North America. It was Ontario. It was… in town? Ridiculous. In that case, she wouldn’t even have to warn a prior self. She could get there in person. Was the person so clueless?

A shiver ran down her back, as she focussed in… and realized that it wasn’t some crazy person in a basement. The stationary temporal generator to the south was powering up. Impossible. How could anyone have gained access, much less someone who might change history?!

Carrie turned her attention to the time streams, looking for the warning signs, looking for something to nudge. But she couldn’t track back mentally - there was now a waterfall in the way. The anomaly she’d sensed. Well, that was a problem.

She could still deal with this though.

Pushing herself back to her feet, and ignoring the concerned mutterings of all the people around her, Carrie began to speed up time for herself, relative to her surroundings.

NEXT: Nowhere to Run

ASIDE: I kind of love today’s title. Did you spot all the callbacks, like Faye, Linford and the “Chronologic Patrol”? Only four more episodes/weeks to go now! Another Commentary this weekend, before we’re into the home stretch. Everything changes next week, but it all makes sense as far as Miami is concerned… care to do that T&T vote thing?

PREVIOUSLY: Laurie’s mission is to make people believe Mindy is outside Carrie’s party, as Frank and Mindy barge into the stationary temporal generator.

PART 92a: STORMING THE CASTLE

When Julie had said she was taking him to the mission hub, Tim hadn’t been sure what to expect. In retrospect, he’d expected something more impressive than the back room of a music store. “R-Really? Um, operations are r-run out of a place like this?”

“Operations are mobile, the sites change,” Julie answered. “So they can’t be pinned down. Or that’s how it worked before I cut my ties.”

“Still works that way,” came a voice from behind a piano.

Julie and Tim rounded the corner to see an older man in a faded sport jacket with unruly hair. He was sitting on the ground in front of a set of holographically projected keyboards and video monitors. Julie clucked her tongue. “Lee. Surprised to see you’re here.” Tim’s eyes widened in recognition.

“Likewise,” Lee said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Conflict of interest much?” Julie pressed.

Lee shrugged. “Luci felt my personal investment in this particular target would prevent any rash actions on their part,” he explained. “Also, I was available on short notice. Don’t worry, we still have redundancy, Megan’s observing my every move, ready to jump in.” He gestured at a monitor off to the side.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight,” came the voice of the dark haired woman pictured there.

“Luci’s approaching the spot for Laurie’s retrieval,” Lee continued. “The men on site have eyes on the door with no sign of Mindylenopia, but it’s not quite ten o’clock yet. No abort has been given.”

“All right. I’ll stick around until I know Laurie’s safe,” Julie decided. She sat herself down on the piano bench.

Lee shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He turned to Tim. “Your communications are working?”

Tim jolted out of his reverie. He reached up to touch his earpiece. “Ah, y-yes. Laurie’s already checked in twice since we dropped her off. She’s w-walking the perimeter.”

“Okay then. We’re a go in six minutes and ten seconds. Mark.” He then lay back on the ground, clasping his hands behind his head.

“One question though?” Tim ventured.

“Ayup?” Lee asked, tilting his head a bit.

“It’s just… I mean, I know my confidence is better of late, but am I r-really the best person to be doing this? The translation, and the prompting? Surely, in the future, your r-resistance has other people capable of speaking Temporal…"

“Ayup,” Lee repeated. “But first of all, their temperaments might stress out your Laurie. Second, again, short notice. With Carrie in town, Ottawa was kind of the last choice for running a major operation - our best linguist is currently in Australia, where Carrie’s right hand man, Glinephanis, is busy stirring up trouble. And third…” He flashed a smile. “Call me crazy, but I think you’re a good guy to have around in a pinch.”

“Oh. Okay, thanks,” Tim acknowledged.

Megan cleared her throat. “You know, you could simply tell Tim that he’s the younger variant of that agent in Australia.”

Lee shook his head. “I don’t care what Luci says, Megan, I don’t want to accidentally impact our past.” He glanced at Tim. “Australia’s still got dangerous snakes, y’see. Given a choice, I might’ve picked the assignment in Europe.”

Mindylenopia checked her watch. “Okay, the front guard’s going to check in at 10:04pm. We move in right after that, gives us a full fifteen minutes to get to the displacement room before their next check.”

Frank nodded. “Right…" He eyed the shed-like structure. “And how many people are in there?”

“Night like this? Couple dozen. We should be able to avoid most of them though,” Mindylenopia said. She peered closer at him. “You DO realize the majority of the structure is underground, yes?”

Frank blinked. “Right,” he repeated. Now that she said it, he remembered Luci remarking on how the nature of the place made aerial assaults impossible.

“Also, for when you use it…" Mindylenopia reached into the handbag she held, pulling out what looked a bit like a cross between a pistol and a fancy corkscrew. “My %temporal gun%.” Frank was taken aback by the smaller size, before remembering that not only was it a prototype, it was also made with more futuristic materials.

She pointed at a switch. “Two settings. Carrie, and Not-Carrie. Every time you stun someone with the latter, you use up power that could have been used for the former. So don’t go crazy with it.”

Frank frowned. “Meaning a Carrie shot drains the batteries?”

“Right. But it should temporarily drain hers as well, and the more juice you have, the longer that lasts. That said, the recoil will be proportional to the strength of the shot, watch for that. And don’t bother with the Not-Carrie setting on Carrie. She’ll be able to shake off such a mild freezing effect.”

“So you’re saying it’s all or nothing with her? No middle settings?”

Mindylenopia snorted. “I’ll consider more settings for my next upgrade.” She shoved the gun back into her bag and looked at her watch again. “Okay. Get ready. It’s almost time.”

Laurie began to fidget. She wasn’t sure if that was something Mindylenopia would normally do, but she couldn’t help it. Pacing around the block and ducking behind cars and trees, it might have been fun under other circumstances. But she was pretending to be a Temporal double agent or whatever Mindy was, while eyeing a property that was easily twice the size of the LaMille mansion back in town.

She would do this though. She would get through it, to restore their timeline. And in doing so, she would restore her brother. That’s the way these things worked, right?

Laurie forced herself to stop playing with the skirt on her red dress. Trouble was, it didn’t fit quite right, hugging her body in the wrong ways… but it was supposedly a double for the one Mindylenopia was wearing. And the voice modulator taped at her throat would make her voice sound the same too. All part of the plan.

“L-Laurie? It’s time,” Tim said. “Are you in position?”

She closed her eyes briefly, then reached up to tap at her earring. “Right. I’m here.”

Laurie reached for her handbag, pulling out the first cartridge. Her hand shook slightly as she tapped the button, but she steadied her nerves in order to throw the object high into the air. The firework exploded several metres up, and Laurie ran quickly to her next location.

Mindylenopia marched up to the building as if she owned it. Frank found he could only follow along, attempting to project the same confidence. “Names?” said the bored looking woman at the front door.

She looked very young, and seemed to have red hair. Frank wondered if she was a Temporal - then felt ashamed at that prejudicial thought. Hadn’t taken long to become suspicious of gingers, had it! Still, it made some sense to have your main guard be someone who couldn’t be mentally influenced, and who was definitely on your side.

“We’re Smith and Jones," Mindy said, flashing a smile.

The guard looked closer. “Who?”

“He’s Smith, I’m Jones, we’re expected,” she continued easily. “I have the data key with the orders on it right here.”

“Wait, aren’t you–"

Mindylenopia, having reached into her handbag, now pulled out a perfume bottle. She sprayed it into the guard’s face. The redhead on duty only had the time to fumble for the gun on her belt before crashing to the ground unconscious. Mindylenopia dropped the bottle back into her purse.

“Smith?” Frank asked.

She reached for the guard, grabbing a swipe card, then pressing the woman’s hand up to a sensor by the door. “I spent some time watching old time travel shows. To better fit into the past,” she explained.

There was a click as the door unlocked.

“One down, three to go,” Mindylenopia sighed.

Laurie peered around the tree trunk. The person advancing on her position from the house was getting closer. Feeling glad that there was not only a tree, but also a fence between them - even if it was only a four foot high fence - she reached up to tap a few times at her earring.

“Tim? You still there?” Laurie breathed.

“Y-Yeah. How many security people coming?”

“Just the one.”

“Well, that’s good. If he speaks loudly, I s-should hear, s-so long as you’re still w-wearing the brooch. S-Simply repeat what I s-say.”

“Right.” Laurie reached down to adjust the brooch ornament even as she tried to make herself blend into the tree trunk even more. She reminded herself that things were going according to plan.

“Mindylenopia?” came the male voice. “%Is that you setting off those fireworks?%”

“%Happy five zero!%” Laurie blurted, off Tim’s prompting.

The guy sighed. “%Don’t be so juvenile. Why not come inside, with the rest of us?%”

“%Here I like being!%” Laurie retorted. “%You, you can go have some fungus, you who keep believing life is happy. Fun, some fun,%” she amended, off Tim’s pronunciation tip.

The young man didn’t answer. Laurie edged partway around the tree, to take a peek, and saw that his hand had gone to his gun. Oh no. Had she muffed it up? She pulled back again.

“Some of the others say you’re a traitor,” the Temporal continued after a moment, using English. “I don’t want to believe that. But this may be your last chance to prove yourself. Please, join us inside.”

Laurie licked her lips.

“Don’t use English!” Tim whispered, causing the ‘no’ to catch in her throat before she could speak. “Say this…”

“%I am not the one here speeching like them do%,” Laurie fired off. “%Maybe you be the alien instead%.”

“%Funny.%” There was another moment of silence. “%It’s your funeral. No more fireworks, okay?%”

“%You throw boring parties%.”

The security man snorted and moved off, saying something into his own communications device. Once he was out of earshot, she repeated it to Tim.

“They’re standing down,” he sighed. “That guy even told you no more fireworks. So make one last circuit, then meet Luci for the pickup.”

Laurie felt weak in the knees. “Okay.” She moved off in the opposite direction to where the security man had gone.

Moments later, she heard the sounds of a struggle.

Frank had once been inside the Diefenbunker, outside of Ottawa, on an educational trip. He found that the stationary temporal generator building was vaguely similar on the inside; there had even been a long corridor behind the first door requiring Mindylenopia to babble all the way down, to mentally influence the guard at the end before he could react. Since then, they had made it down three levels.

“We may have a problem,” his redheaded companion remarked, as she dumped the latest security guard into a janitor’s closet and shut the door.

“They know something’s going on?” Frank wondered.

Mindylenopia made yet another derisive noise. “Bernard, they’ve known something’s up since I jabbed that datalink into the panel inside the entrance,” she acknowledged. “It’s scrambling their feeds. But they won’t interrupt up the chain unless they’re sure they won’t get a dressing down for being incompetent about a minor glitch, so it’s fine. No, the trouble is, we can’t knock out the last guard. I’ll need that person conscious, to summon a tech to the displacement control centre.”

“So, you use your mind power on them?”

“That’s the thing,” Mindylenopia sighed. “One of the security people who work here is immune. And I haven’t seen her yet. So, if it turns out she’s the one we need awake…”

“Ah. Then we have a problem,” Frank affirmed. He hoped they could also think up a solution.

NEXT: Veni, Vidi, Veniti

ASIDE: It’s my birthday later this week! So if you didn’t vote for T&T on Friday, maybe do it today, tell your friends there’s this cool time travel story out there, that sort of thing… I need to stop looking at stats.

PREVIOUSLY: They need what Julie has, to help Mindy travel back. But Luci tried to throw Julie out, after some uncomfortable truths were revealed.

PART 91b: REWRITE THE FUTURE

Julie had pulled her glasses back out. The way she tapped at the arms and blinked very deliberately helped Frank realize that they were some sort of technological device; maybe she was using them to read the daily news. Or to communicate with someone?

Then again, Luci didn’t seem to be concerned by Julie’s actions. The asian woman merely glared at her house guest from across the dining room table, as Julie continued to stare at her lenses. Deliberately ignoring everyone present. With a sigh, Frank made sure Tim and Laurie were okay on the sofa, the blonde boy doing his best to console their redheaded friend, then he returned to the table.

“Okay,” Frank sighed. “Julie. Here’s the thing. What you’ve got? Luci thought it would make this mission safe for us. Or safer, at least. Knowing that, why would you willingly take those items away, increasing the danger?”

“Because obviously Luci doesn’t need them after all,” Julie said dryly. “Besides, if she truly cared about safety then her resistance friends wouldn’t be–"

“I have been trying to FIX that, Julie! I was making an effort, and I’ve redoubled my efforts since losing–”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you want points for better late than nev–"

“Okay, stop,” Frank said, cutting between them. He drew in a long breath. “Look. I obviously don’t know the whole history here. But I DO know you two - or knew you - when you were my age. Back when Julie tended to work on her projects all by herself, while Luci had a habit of speaking her mind regardless of the consequences. Back when, despite those differences, you both cared. About each other, and about what was going on around you. So, know what? I think that means you still care. Both of you. Somehow, you’ve simply blinded yourselves to that reality over the last thirty years.”

Julie’s posture went rigid, and she reached up to pull her glasses back off. Luci bit down on her lower lip, turning away from Julie to face the wall. For a moment, neither spoke.

“People are dying, Frank,” Luci whispered at least. “You of all people MUST realize that. And when you care too much, and then people die, it hurts that much more.”

“I’m not about to die,” Julie muttered. “Your resistance could at least care a little bit about how much I stick my neck out.”

“You questioned what we were doing,” Luci said, turning back and smacking her palm against the table. “ALL the damn time.”

“Because you were blinded by vengeance. Sorry,” Julie immediately amended. “I don’t mean you, Luci. Some of your group were though. Still are. I couldn’t be a party to that.”

“Oh, why, because you’re such a saint?” Luci sniped.

“No, precisely because I’m NOT a saint,” Julie said. “And what I didn’t enjoy seeing was my darker places reflected in your resistance group. Hence, my trying to clean them up for you - leading to my getting attacked for those efforts. Damn it Luci, if you’d only listened to me back then, then maybe…" Her voice trailed off.

Luci sat back, looking tired. “Corry wasn’t my call. You know that.”

“I know, I just…" Julie shook her head, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe Frank has a point. Maybe, in the end, I was looking for a reason to wash my hands of the whole thing. And I finally got it.”

“And maybe I didn’t like you showing us what we were becoming,” Luci admitted. “I won’t deny my ethics have become… flexible these days.”

Julie rubbed her forehead. “Tell you what.” Her gaze swung towards the couch. “I’ll stick with you for this one, if you’ll have me. Because I want to guarantee young Laurie’s safety.”

Luci nodded. “You have that guarantee. And your acquired immunity to mind control makes you a useful asset for us. Not that I only see you as an asset here,” she amended. “I do care. At least a little.”

Julie chuckled. “So, suddenly friends again?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But I’d say we’re not adversaries.” Luci shook her head. “We never should have let that happen.” She hesitated, then stretched her arm across the table. Julie regarded the hand, then reached out to shake it.

“Thank goodness,” Frank sighed. He winced as both ladies turned to look at him - he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Um, yeah, so what’s the plan then?”

Luci dropped Julie’s hand, standing back up. “The plan? Is to follow Mindylenopia’s plan, until she travels back. At which point we storm the stationary generator, so that the Temporals are facing chaos both inside and out. That gives us our best chance ever to obtain time travel… as long as Carrie doesn’t rewrite everything. That’s the key. We cannot attempt this without that piece in place.”

“Right. Well, we should have a few tricks in store for Carrie,” Frank said, glancing back towards Tim and Laurie. “Mindylenopia’s weapon will help.”

“Hold on,” Julie said. “What’s going to stop Temporals from using the stationary temporal generator in the States next week? Or the one in Japan, or Ireland, or any of the other sites around the world? They could travel back from then to yesterday, and be here to mess with Canada now. After all, they’ve already got their representatives in town for Carrie’s birthday celebration.”

Luci shook her head. “Temporals may have the better grasp on time travel theory, but without Carrie, they’re as locked into predestination as we are.” She grinned. “Meaning we long as we can take the building in the present, we’ll HAVE it.”

“Just one loose end remains,” Frank said. “What did Mindy say, when you told her she could be tortured and killed on her mission to our past?”

He shifted his attention back to Luci, only to see that she was frowning. “Frank, I mentioned she calls us, we don’t call her, yeah? Well, we know where you and Laurie need to be positioned - but when you meet her? I’m afraid you’ll have to give Mindylenopia that information yourself. At which point… well, yeah, I guess she could abort the whole thing.”

Frank stood by the side of Highway 19 that night, south of Ottawa. Luci had dropped him off there, before driving back in to monitor Laurie; Julie had offered to take Laurie and Tim to their necessary locations in advance. Frank took a moment to mentally review what he knew of that part of the mission.

Carrie apparently had residences in many capital cities around the world - but she preferred Canada, where she had grown up. So her fiftieth birthday was being held locally. And Mindylenopia had been invited. Luci had hypothesized that the invitation was a test of the redhead’s fuzzy allegiances, or simply a way to keep an eye on her… either way, Mindylenopia had RVSPed. To the tune of ‘I’ll stick to lurking outside, not unlike the spy you take me for’.

So Laurie would lurk in her place. And as long as the Temporals thought Mindylenopia was there, they wouldn’t be looking for her to storm the building housing the stationary time machine. The building that Frank and Mindylenopia would soon be inside, so that he could get the prototype temporal gun… and then, assuming sending a message was possible, he would cue the resistance to storm in. Piece of cake.

Assuming Mindylenopia had no problem with dying in Miami, years later down her timeline.

He checked his watch - almost nine thirty.

“Bernard, why are you wearing that ridiculous disguise?” came a voice from the darkness.

Frank jumped, absently reaching up to touch the blonde moustache and wig he’d put on. “Uh, I thought it would help fool the video cameras.”

“Right. Because they only use video to identify people,” Mindylenopia said, coming close enough for Frank to see her rolling her eyes. “Oh well, it’s low tech, so it can’t hurt. Maybe you’ll buy yourself time because they’ll be so busy laughing. Come on.”

“Mindy. Mindylenopia, wait,” Frank said. “You have to know something first. About what’s liable to happen to you if you succeed in going back. I promised someone I would tell you.”

“Uh huh, sure. I already checked the history books, there’s no record of me,” she objected.

“Right, true enough.” Frank drew in a shaky breath. “Thing is? I’ve got very good reason to believe that you’ll end up temporally banished by the Carrie you meet in the past. And that, although you’ll survive, and rebuild many of your memories, you won’t survive what comes after that.”

“Speak the truth, please,” Mindylenopia grumbled.

“I did,” Frank said, speaking automatically.

In the process of turning away, Mindylenopia froze. She slowly swivelled her head back. “Are you one of those vision mystics?”

“No.”

“But you’ve spoken with one.”

“Not as such.”

“Yet somehow, you think past Carrie knows that I’m coming for her?”

“Not that either.” Frank shook his head. He sighed. “It’s complicated,” he yielded, using the word Chartreuse had with Tim.

She stared at him. “Part of me wants you to spill everything now.” She licked her lips. “But the sensible part of me only wants to know one thing. This future for me, which you seem to be forecasting - will that Mindylenopia change things? Will her ripples eventually kick this timeline in the teeth, or preferably somewhere even more painful?”

“I’m going to go with yes,” Frank said. After all, how could he even be here otherwise?

Mindylenopia considered that. “Good. Come on.”

Frank hesitated. “Mindylenopia - are you sure?”

She looked over her shoulder again. “No, of course not. Where’s the fun in being sure? Even with the effects of time travel being globally predestined, nothing’s ever sure, not really, not until it’s happened. So, since I’m not in the history books, I’m banking on your predicted past future being flexible. Heck, this mission to get me back could still fail somehow.”

“But if it succeeds, and it leads to banishment and death…"

“Everybody dies, Bernard,” Mindylenopia observed. “The question is what sort of footprint you want to leave behind. Sounds like I’ll go out making an impact.”

She began to stride away. “Look, I appreciate the warning, but don’t bring it up again. Because even if we assume a Carrie-esque banishment leads to me forgetting about this conversation? No one should really know too much about their own destiny. Otherwise, there’s a chance it’ll become someone else’s.”

Frank felt a tension in his shoulders relax. He felt like he’d legitimately held up his end of things, and their plans hadn’t been aborted. “Okay then. I’m right behind you.”

Carrie glared at her reflection. She didn’t enjoying seeing the lines on her face, the hints of grey in her hair, or even the bright yellow gown that she had chosen for her birthday celebration. But her displeasure went deeper than that. “There is an anomaly.”

“There is? What is it, my love?”

Carrie didn’t bother to turn to face the woman who had spoken. She continued to glare at her reflection, her eyes flickering from blue to gold and back, hoping to pinpoint the problem. Annoyingly, if there was a source behind things feeling not-quite-right, it remained elusive. “I don’t know,” she said at last, spitting the words out. That was a three word chain she spoke very infrequently. “Probably just a sign that I’m going to need to rewrite the timelines, and go through this day again with a massive headache. Stupid Mundanes, don’t they know that messing with today will simply make me ANGRY?”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? A massage? Bring you some chocolate? Do a vis– I mean, a massage?”

Carrie snorted. “No.” She pushed herself away from the vanity, clenching her hands into fists. “Wait, were you about to say vision quest? Did you get back into those while I was out of town?! I thought we’d cured you of all that mystic nonsense, along with that silly accent!”

“N-No, I m-mean yes, I mean… my love, I only stumbled into an online forum where they were discussing it…”

“Stay off that forum. Better yet, tell me about it tomorrow, we’ll shut it down.” Carrie felt her fingernails digging into her palms. “I’m the one and only authority on what DOES or DOES NOT happen within the time streams. Is that understood?”

“Y-Yes, my love… I meant no disrespect…"

“Fine, good.” Carrie finally turned to regard the woman sitting on the edge of her bed. Like Carrie, she was dressed in an elaborate gown. However, her’s was purple, to complement her hair, which had for years now been dyed a bright red. When in Rome, and all that. Carrie smiled, seeing that the woman’s eyes remained cast down, towards the floor. In obedience. As it should be.

“It’s time I got out there,” Carrie decided. “Moreover, if you perform well tonight as my pretty Canadian eye candy, I’ll allow you to give me a special birthday gift after everybody has left.” She grinned. “Would you like that?”

Her companion swallowed. “Oh yes, my love,” the woman repeated. She started to look up.

“Excellent. Eyes down. Remember your place.”

Carrie’s first ever female paramour immediately complied. Honestly, there were times when Carrie wondered why she had even bothered to track down and recruit Chartreuse. But the girl had been so fond of her in high school… and then so malleable because of their history together. Even now, Chartreuse still had her uses, for instance in identifying illicit online message forums.

Snapping her fingers at her old high school friend, and with the hints of an anomaly still tickling at her senses, Carrie strode out to meet her birthday guests.

NEXT: Storming the Castle

ASIDE: Remember the April Fools entry? “Elder Carrie” is back, and meaner than ever. Meanwhile, the fourth person in that Tuesday graphic… will be Chartreuse. She turns up everywhere. If you’re enjoying, take 5 seconds to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: Luci explained about the future. To help Mindy, she’ll now need to contact Julie.

PART 91a: REUNITE THE FUTURE

For a while, no one spoke in Luci’s dining room. The forty seven year old version of Luci had left minutes ago, disappearing into the other room, claiming she needed to make some phone calls. Frank knew that his own silence was rooted in a sensation that there was too much to say, with no idea of where to start. Tim became the first to speak up.

“Here’s w-what I don’t get,” he ventured. “If Carrie’s been thwarting every m-move of this resistance - w-why did they send Shady back to activate her early? W-Weren’t things better for them in timeline two?”

“Predestination,” Laurie said glumly. “They had to do it.”

“Yes and no,” Frank said, as he reflected on it. “Yes in that it happened, so they had to have done it. Even knowing that the result wouldn’t be quite what they wanted, they had to… assuming they were even consciously aware of the final result. But no, in that the first time it happened - if we can even call it a first time, when that’s been overwritten - they probably weren’t much better off.”

“B-But Carrie wasn’t active in the prior timeline,” Tim protested.

“Not as a teenager. But I imagine the Temporals recruited her as soon as this alien artifact incident caught up with them,” Frank explained. “The difference being, in that timeline two, she was working for them, whereas now… well, I wonder if the Temporals are working for her.”

“NONE of it is our timeline though, right Frank? Right?” Laurie pleaded. “It can’t be!”

Frank ran his hands back through his hair. “I don’t know, Laurie. I truly don’t. Even if their Elder Carrie wins, and implants memories into Our Carrie to force her down this path… I’d still be alive. I think. Unless telling Mindylenopia is what changes that.”

“Frank, we CAN’T send her back blind,” Laurie insisted, standing up. “It’s not right! Now more than ever, I see that using her to our benefit, it would mean we’re no better than these resistance people!”

Frank nodded. “I agree.”

“And since I won’t be her double unless we tell her the truth, it means we don’t have a… a…" Laurie blinked. “You agree?”

“Yeah.” He exhaled. “Laurie, I’ll tell Mindylenopia about her possible future. I admit, to this point, I was looking at this whole situation as being a broken timeline for us to fix. But Luci’s made it feel… real. With real people. Like Mindylenopia.”

“Oh.” She swallowed. “Which means I’ll get to be the bait. For her.”

“No.” Frank shook his head. “Not unless we can guarantee your safety. Including a complete two way communications link back to Tim, so that he can interject with Temporal linguistic information as needed.” He grimaced. “I probably overestimated whatever Mindylenopia was hoping for.”

“S-Sounds like Luci was keen on s-safety though,” Tim noted. “So even that s-should work out.”

“But can I act like Mindylenopia?” Laurie said, wringing her hands. “She was always so… so… together. So self-assured.”

“She seems more impatient these days,” Frank remarked.

Tim smiled. “Laurie, I w-wouldn’t worry. The w-way you stood up for your beliefs just now? It’s the most self-assured I’ve ever s-seen you.”

The redhead’s cheeks bloomed a bit brighter. “Oh? Golly.”

Tim turned his attention away, and towards the adjacent room containing Luci. “Here’s m-my other wonder. Will we soon m-meet Future Julie?”

Frank followed Tim’s gaze. “Given our own Julie’s paranoid streak concerning Glen and Mindy? I’d be surprised if she simply took any requests made by Luci on faith alone.”

The trio of time travellers spent the day inside Luci’s home - with strict orders not to depart. On the one hand, that suited Tim just fine; he understood Luci’s concerns about making changes, or seeing things they weren’t meant to see. As well as her own need to leave and go to work, to keep up appearances and to make a few “in person” requests. She had even left them with some holo-game devices (which Laurie had gravitated towards for the animations), a pad of stories locked into the ‘classics’, some music discs that weren’t “discs” at all (but Tim supposed the name had stuck), and some technical odds and ends (which had interested Frank).

On the other hand, Tim felt like it was tough to simply bide your time when you were in a foreign environment with a dangerous mission ahead. He had managed to interest Laurie in learning a few typical Temporal phrases - while hoping he was getting the pronunciation correct. He had also figured out the remote for the microwave, and been able to make their late lunch a hot one. But it was hard to concentrate for any length of time.

All things considered, it was a relief when the doorbell rang early that evening. The relief lasted until Tim looked at the video monitor, and realized that the person at the door wasn’t Luci. Well, that made sense - why ring the doorbell of your own house?

“Frank! Laurie!” he called out to them.

Frank was already approaching, and Laurie joined them moments later. They all looked at the image of the brunette woman with long, wavy brown hair, which seemed to be partially greying. She wore a professional looking suit, had a pair of glasses perched on her nose, and carried a tote bag.

Laurie gasped. “Is… is that…"

“Gotta be,” Tim affirmed. “D-Do we let Julie in?”

Their visitor reached out to press the doorbell again, then peered in the direction of the camera, her lips moving. Tim reached out to tap at the volume control.

“…so I know you’re in there. Let me in, or the deal’s off,” came the curt voice of the elder Julie LaMille.

“I’ll let her in,” Frank decided. “You two wait in the other room. Just in case.”

Tim nodded, retreating out of sight. He heard the front door open… and silence. Then Julie’s voice again. “So she wasn’t lying. It really is you. Before you died. Bloody hell.”

“Uh, technically it’s me after I died… er, you want to come in?” Frank asked.

Her tongue clucked. “If I do, will my DNA trigger some kind of home defence system that fires lasers at me?”

“I… don’t… think so?”

“Hmph.” Tim heard the older Julie stride into the house. “I suppose even Luci wouldn’t be stupid enough to incinerate a member of Parliament.”

Frank closed the front door. “Okay! So you’re in the government. That’s… neat.”

“What other job would I have here? Ottawa is still the capital of Canada,” Julie noted. She dropped her tote bag on the floor. “I’ve got your supplies. Guessing Luci’s not here yet?”

Tim decided it was safe to emerge from the other room. He saw Julie was now removing her glasses, smirking a bit as she tapped something on the side of them. The lenses seemed to dim. “That’s the c-communications equipment for me and Laurie?” Tim asked, gesturing at the bag.

She looked his way. “That, plus a voice modulator, some bulletproof laser vests…” Her features seemed to soften as Laurie came out beside Tim. “I am so sorry she got you mixed up in all of this.”

“We kind of mixed ourselves up in it,” Frank admitted. “Did Luci mention how your Carrie abducted our Carrie?”

“No,” Julie said, eyeing him as she tucked her glasses away. “Merely that your being here means we have a chance at taking down Carrie, and subsequently acquiring the local stationary temporal generator. I guess anything more than THAT was on a ‘need to know’ basis. And since I do my OWN thing, which pisses off her little resistance to no end, I didn’t ‘need to know’.”

Tim frowned. “Wait, you’re able to do your own thing? With a war going on?”

“Cold war,” Julie corrected, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the wall. “And yes. Because I have an acquired immunity to the Temporal mind power. Which comes from being told as a teenager to shoot my former best friend, which in turn made me want to shoot my unborn self. That sort of trauma? It makes a girl throw up mental guards to prevent similar incidents from ever happening again. To prevent her from becoming anybody’s puppet. Surely you remember all that better than me.”

“Well, that’s good,” Frank remarked. “Oh, not the trauma!” he amended, as Julie glared at him. “More it’s good that it’s possible for some to resist the influence. The way Lee seemed to be able to do it.”

Julie’s eyes narrowed. “Luci hasn’t even told you about THAT, has she. Typical.”

“Told us what?” Laurie wondered, fidgeting in her hands with the holo-game cube she’d been playing.

The corners of Julie’s mouth curled up. “About what her little group of medical resistance fighters have been working on all these years. I mean, has it slipped your teenage minds that the one who went back, the one who had me shoot Carrie, was a Mundane? Not a Temporal at all?”

Tim felt his stomach drop. “Y-You’re saying that she… that Luci is trying to unlock the Temporal ability…"

“Fun fact,” Julie said. “Her friends haven’t figured out a way of turning the Temporal power of suggestion off, or even suppressing it, as with Lee. But, in certain cases, they’re able to turn a rudimentary version of it ON. In non-redheads.”

“Oh no,” Frank said, slumping against the wall. “That’s why you two don’t get along. Because Luci’s the indirect cause of the trauma you experienced as a teenager.”

“Oh no,” Julie said, shaking her head. “No, my parents caused most of the trauma I experienced back then. I don’t get along with Luci because of how her resistance killed Corry Veniti.”

The holo-game cube dropped to the floor. “What?” Laurie rasped.

“See, these resistance people, they’re not very big on ethics,” Julie said. “Granted, being a politician, it’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but at least I’m aware of my duplicity.” She nodded towards Laurie. “It’s okay, I made sure your future self was set up somewhere safe outside of town. Phil Clarke still visits on occasion.”

Tim reached out to support Laurie, as it looked like her knees were about to give out. “It’s okay Laurie,” he soothed. “It’s l-like you said, this is n-not our timeline. It’s not.”

“Julie,” Frank whispered. “Did you REALLY have to say that?”

She eyed him. “Yes. Because if you truly are from a divergent timeline… you can’t fix the things you don’t even know about. Right?”

“JULIE,” The scream was accompanied by the sound of the front door banging open. “Julie, you came EARLY you good-for-nothing…" Luci turned to Frank, her eyes blazing with anger. Based on the medical looking cloak she wore, and how out of breath she seemed, Tim wagered Luci had hurried home as fast as she could. “What did she say? How much has she already said?!”

“I knew she’d have a DNA notification coded into her place,” Julie muttered, barely audible.

“Luci, Julie merely… well, she told us about your medical research,” Frank admitted. “And about Corry.”

“Of course she did. Of COURSE.” Luci stomped over to the brunette, and pointed back to the door. “Get OUT of my HOUSE! NOW.”

“If I do, I take my government issue communications tools and other gear with me,” Julie shot back. “I thought your people needed it?”

“We’ll find another way.”

“Oh, good luck with that.” Julie reached down and grabbed the bag.

“Julie, wait,” Tim pleaded, looking up from where he was holding Laurie around the shoulders.

“Don’t anyone stop her,” Luci said, glaring his way.

“It’s fine,” Julie said. “Her resistance idiots can just keep on firing blindly, enraging Carrie and the Temporals to the point where they completely wipe us out…"

“At least we’re TRYING SOMETHING.”

“And some of us wish you’d STOP.”

Julie stepped towards the front door. Frank moved to bar the way. “No. Please, Julie, you can’t go. Luci, we need what she’s got, you said as much this morning.”

“Frank, DAMN it!”

“Besides Julie, you need us,” he continued, looking back at the brunette. “Because you can’t just march in here, tell us all that, and hope we’ll fix all of time for you. That’s not how it works.”

The side of Julie’s mouth twitched. “What then?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but…" Frank let out a breath. “We are going to sit down at the table and talk this out.”

NEXT: Rewrite the Future

ASIDE: So “Timeline Three” is a bit of a mess. Do you see “Timeline Four” as being any better? Will there even BE a “Four”, or is Mindy going nowhere?

PREVIOUSLY: Frank wants to help Mindy, to get her prototype temporal gun. Luci says it’s not that simple, and claims they’re in timeline 47.

PART 90b: INSIGHT THE FUTURE

Frank reached for the napkin holder on the table, but Luci waved him off. “Don’t, I’ve got it, don’t do that,” she sighed, standing and moving to a cupboard. She pulled out a cloth which she used to mop up the coffee she had spilled.

He stood, uncertainly holding a napkin in his hand. “I guess I could keep apologizing,” Frank said. “Except I’ve found that can be bothersome to people if I do it too much.” He glanced towards Laurie.

Luci tossed the cloth towards her sink, resting both hands on the edge of the table. “Here’s the thing you don’t seem to have realized,” she stated. “Namely that, while the rest of us have to hunt for lynchpin moments to divert the time stream, Carrie isn’t bound by that rule. She can change time on a whim. She doesn’t do it indiscriminately, granted, mainly because making changes seems to leave her with a hell of a headache. But that power? It means that she can thwart us every time we try to move against her. Or by extension, the Temporals.”

Tim cleared his throat uncertainly. “And s-so forty-six times…"

“I made up that number,” Luci sighed. “There’s really no way to track it. We only know it’s happening, not how often she’s triggered it. But that’s not the worst of it.” She pushed off from the table. “The worst part is all the prejudice that’s resulted.”

“Prejudice?” Frank looked over at Tim, then Laurie, then back to Luci. “Can you give us ANY more context?”

Luci regarded him, then looked up at the ceiling. “In for a penny, in for a pound. Fine. I suppose if giving you knowledge changes bits of this in your new timeline, it would be for the best anyway. Plus we might be able to make you forget, if absolutely necessary. You won’t get many specifics though.” She pointed at him as if to emphasize that, then walked towards the kitchen. “It all starts with the alien artifact. I’m going to make toast, anyone want buttered toast to go with your fruit?”

Frank blinked at the non sequitur. “No, thanks.”

“I’ll have some,” Laurie said, lifting her index finger.

“S-Sure,” Tim said, uncertainly.

Luci pulled the loaf out of the breadbox device where she stored it. “The artifact turned up… let’s say many years ago. The information it provided was completely unintelligible, for the most part.”

“When you say alien, did the artifact come from space?” Frank wondered.

Luci waggled her finger. “No specifics. Now, I never worked on it, and accounts differ… but it either contained genetic material, or had information about rewriting our own genetic code. At the time, the thought was, if we used the information, or spliced the material into us, whichever, we’d be able to understand the rest of whatever the artifact was trying to communicate. See where I’m going with this?”

Luci hit the plunger on the toaster. For whatever reason, among the various high-tech items Frank had seen in Luci’s residence, the toaster had at least retained it’s familiar functionality.

“I-Is it that gene stuff which m-made Temporals?” Tim asked.

Luci nodded. “Bingo. But more than that, it turned out that the gene sequencing or whatever they did only worked for one percent of the world’s population. A slice of the population who share a trait that makes them stand out in a crowd, so to speak.”

“Red hair,” Frank gasped, recalling what Mindylenopia had said to Julie right before they’d left the mansion in the time car. “All Temporals have red hair.”

Luci’s eyebrow arced. “Your new timeline is just FULL of surprises, huh? Fine, yes, red hair. The genetics worked on them. You can see how a racial-style divide might start forming.”

Laurie looked up from eyeing a lock of her hair. “Gingerism. Oh no.”

Tim looked over at her, frowning. “Prejudice based on red hair? That’s a thing?”

Laurie chewed on her lower lip. “Kick a Ginger Day, Kiss a Ginger Day, it’s kinda hard to miss such things when you are one. No one’s ever tried doing those things to me though. Possibly because of Corry.”

“Yeah, you are NOT going to like where this is going,” Luci sighed. She shook her head. “Moreover, full disclosure here, we don’t know why red hair is a trigger. It’s even possible the first scientists screwed something up, and locked it in. There’s been some incidental research into finding lynchpin moments around the time of the first Temporals, but Carrie was deemed the bigger threat.”

The toast popped up out of the toaster. Luci pulled it onto a plate with a pair of tongs, and reached for the loaf of bread again.

“Hold on,” Frank said. “When you first mentioned the artifact last night, you associated it with timeline one. If this is timeline three, or forty-seven, or whatever…"

“The artifact itself is what you might call a fixed point,” Luci yielded. She dropped more bread into the toaster, plunged it down, then reached for the butter dish. “It must exist in all changed timelines, because it’s what leads to time travel in the first place.”

“Oh! Then that’s what the artifact was c-communicating,” Tim realized. “The stuff you couldn’t f-figure out was the time machine knowledge. Which eventually only r-redheaded Temporals were able to understand?”

“Yes, but time travel is only one of the things the artifact provided,” Luci said. She slowly turned the butter knife around in her hands. “Again, not giving specifics, but the first Temporals? They still linked themselves to us “Mundanes”. The ‘pure’ Temporals, who came a bit later? They rejected last names entirely, started using the Temporal language to communicate cross-culturally, and basically see themselves as the next stage of evolution.” Luci grimaced. “Even though that’s not how evolution WORKS, you stupid, self-aggrandizing…" She stopped herself, letting out a slow breath before slicing her knife into the butter. “Sorry.”

“So you’re saying there was more information about genetics in the alien artifact’s translations too,” Frank said, hoping to pull the conversation back on track.

Luci sighed. “Yes. Tough to say if that’s where their mind manipulation power comes from, or if it was baked into the initial genes. It could even be that ‘pure’ Temporals like Mindylenopia are from actual parents, and not a result of genetic engineering - they simply reject their families. I’ve seen medical scans, and I can’t tell either way. All we know for sure is that there was SOMETHING more in the artifact, because of how Carrie was created.”

“Meaning they did something to her mother?” Tim gasped. “Before sending her back?”

“Maybe that’s how they did it.” Luci shrugged. “Look, I don’t have all the answers there, we should go back to the stuff I’m clear on.”

“Yeah, um… is your society in the midst of some ‘redheads versus the world’ thing?” Laurie said tentatively. “Should I even go outside?”

Luci finished spreading butter, and brought the plate of toast to the table before answering. “Let me put it this way. If you were a redhead when the news broke, you became associated with the artifact. Followed by being linked to genetic engineering, mind manipulation, knowledge of time travel - even if you had no flipping CLUE about ANY of that stuff. Meanwhile, some countries with very few - even no - redheads cried conspiracy. They demanded the real truth, wanted a piece of the action, and so forth.”

Frank winced, finally getting a sense of why Mindylenopia might have had trouble recruiting a redhead to pose as her double. And what Luci had meant by them being in over their heads.

Which was when the forty-seven year old asian looked at Laurie. “And then Carrie made it so much worse for all of you.”

It wasn’t her Carrie. Luci didn’t mean her Carrie, because this wasn’t her future. Not really. Laurie felt like she had to believe that, to cling to that tenuous fact, lest she lose her grip on reality itself. She swallowed, but before she could ask whether she wanted to know what Luci meant, Tim spoke.

“H-How do you make that situation worse?”

Luci turned away, heading back for the toaster. “To understand THAT, you need to know how Carrie operates. Let’s say we need to kidnap someone, to isolate them for a couple of days so that they’re freed of a mental suggestion they’ve been given.”

“You kidnap people?” Laurie gasped.

Luci reached for the tongs as the next set of toast popped up. She continued on as if she hadn’t heard Laurie’s outburst. “Carrie’s got a few options. The first is to ignore us, and let it happen; maybe she decides that the Temporal goal isn’t so hot after all, or there’s some other way to accomplish it without this person.”

“So Carrie does have a conscience?” Frank asked.

Again, Luci ignored the interjection. “Her second option is to tweak the past, jumping us into timeline twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two… we’re now aware of when this happens, simply because details don’t match up. The route our target was supposed to take, it’s suddenly different. Or our lookout, he’s delayed getting into position, because of a flash mob, or a car accident. Little things. The sort of thing you’d chalk up to bad luck - except, digging deeper, we realize Carrie had been involved. Directly or otherwise.”

Tim looked up from his toast. “Maybe that’s l-like when she destroyed the chip,” he offered. “Right Frank? Back when I was going to give the time chip to L-Lee, and instead, Carrie destroyed it. Except, aside from that, the week p-played out kind of the same.”

Frank simply nodded back at him. Laurie belatedly reached out for her slice of buttered toast too.

“Carrie’s final option,” Luci said, gesturing with the butter knife, “is a complete rewrite. Where, ironically, victory is ours - but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. We win, but we’ve lost. For instance, same scenario, but we’ve planned more. Plotted out the other probable routes, and we get a dozen lookouts, with two possible vans to make our escape, and then only identify the safe house to the driver after the target’s acquired… we build in SO much redundancy that Carrie can’t stop us, not with a minor alteration. So she doesn’t.”

Luci crunched down on her toast, as if waiting for them to draw the necessary conclusion. Laurie looked at Tim and Frank, gratified to find that they looked as confused as she felt. But they seemed equally as hesitant about admitting to it. “So you win - but lose how?” Laurie asked.

Luci swallowed her bite. “First, it means we’ve committed so many resources to that project that we need to lay low for a while. But second, more importantly, it turns out that our target was a patsy - and “had been all along”,” she said, dropping her toast to make air quotes. “Meaning all the intelligence we’d gathered which pointed to that guy - was false. Which I don’t believe for a second. No, what that TRULY means is Carrie sent information back, telling her Temporal friends to not give this guy the swing vote after all. To have it be someone else… and yet to keep on him, as planned, so that we’d THINK we were getting the right guy.”

Frank let out a low whistle. “Hello paranoia city.”

“Such beliefs are not completely unfounded,” Luci said, retrieving her toast from the plate. “There’s a thing we’ve dubbed the ‘bleedthrough effect’. Curious actions on our part, which make more sense once we assume there’s a timeline being overwritten.”

“H-How does that make it worse for redheads though?” Tim asked.

“Because,” Luci sighed. “When Carrie makes the changes I mentioned, minor or rewritten? If she can, she targets the gingers. Every. Single. Time. It helps sow the seeds of suspicion and discontent within us. Makes us think they might be agents.”

“That’s terrible… but also a weakness,” Frank realized. “Since if you KNOW Carrie operates by targeting the redheads, that means you can foil her by using… them… as… crud.”

Luci nodded. “Now you see it.”

“We’re bait,” Laurie concluded. “You’re saying redheads in the future are either genetically modified people who feel they’re superior, bait for Carrie within your resistance, or stuck somewhere in between. Seen alternately as villains or heroes by society at large.” With her stomach in knots, she dropped her half eaten toast onto the table, looking towards Frank. “I want to go back home now, okay?”

Luci moved back in, resting a hand gently on Laurie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should have said nothing.” She looked back at Frank. “But do you understand now? What you’re truly getting yourself mixed up in?”

Frank nodded. “Yeah.” He ran his hands back through his hair. “Here’s the thing though. Based on what you said, there IS still a weakness. Because Carrie operates by tweaking your past, right?”

“Yes,” Luci said, patiently.

Frank pointed at the rest of them. “We’re not part of that past. Well, not your local past. Your Carrie can’t account for us! Or even if she can, we’ve got a Carrie from our time who can run interference. Maybe she’s doing that even now! As such, we might be your best shot at finally taking your Carrie out of the equation. Particularly if we get our hands on a certain weapon that Mindylenopia can give to us. That is, assuming we go along with her plans as I outlined.”

Luci stared. Laurie felt the older woman’s grip on her shoulder tighten slightly, before releasing. “You’re… not wrong,” Luci realized. “Except we’d have less than a day to pull together some kind of… then again, working so fast, it would be equally unexpected. Can we do something?” Her teeth ground together. “Unfortunately, I think our only shot at managing this SAFELY means I call in… well, hell, no one would expect me to do that either.”

“Expect you to do what?” Frank asked.

Luci spun on her heel, stalking towards an adjacent room. “Would expect me to call on Julie LaMille for help.”

NEXT: Reunite the Future

ASIDE: So that’s the explanation of everything! (At least in “Timeline Three”.) If part of it is inconsistent, or doesn’t make sense, let me know, I’ll try to fix it. Then consider the usual vote for T&T? Thanks.

PREVIOUSLY: Stuck in the wrong future, Frank and Tim meet Mindylenopia - because Future Mindy in their past will have suggested it.

PART 90a: FIGHT THE FUTURE

She came around the side of the building moments after Frank and Tim sat down on the bench. Frank hoped his initial shock didn’t show on his face. After all, Mindylenopia looked so much younger, having reverted back to being the teenage-looking version who had driven the van into their school. With shorter hair and everything. And despite the chill March air, she had her jacket open, revealing a tight red blouse, which matched her knee length skirt. Hoping to distract them, maybe?

Frank started to rise, only to have her gesture for him to sit. The redheaded Temporal then sat down next to him, peering out at the landscape. “So, are you simply Mundanes trying to speak our language?” Mindylenopia asked, without turning. “Or are you under someone else’s control, trying to determine my true allegiances?”

“The former,” Frank answered, before he could stop himself. Perhaps she’d exerted her power. “We…”

“If you’re able to run interference for me tomorrow night, keep talking, if not, I have no use for you.”

“We want to make sure you succeed in your…”

“Great, then can you find a redhead who could double for me, and who also speaks your rudimentary Temporal?”

It occurred to him that Laurie kind of fit that description. “Maybe, but Mindylenopia, can I finish a…”

“No. Concerning the redhead, switch to a definite yes or no, otherwise I’m out.”

Frank let out an exasperated sigh, as he realized Mindy’s future incarnation was at least ten times less patient than Theresa had ever been, even on a bad day. “Yes, PROVIDED,” he added quickly, “that I come with you.”

Mindylenopia frowned and finally turned to look at him. “%You want to go on a suicide mission?%”

Tim flinched. “S-She says you could get killed.”

“Will,” Mindylenopia corrected. “Will get killed. Because I’m the only one travelling back, and as such, anyone else still in the compound after I leave? Has no chance.”

“Why, are you planning to blow it up?” Frank said, eyes widening.

The redhead rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be stupid. I’m not a killer. But I can only delay Carrie for so long, and scrubbing the video footage isn’t on my agenda.”

“Ah. Well, here’s the thing,” Frank continued. “Mindy, er, Lenopia, we got your number from… from someone who knew we’d be fighting against that Elder Carrie. Can you think of why she would want us to talk to you first, before you left?”

“So I could tell you that you’re morons? You can’t get close to her. Don’t worry, I’ll keep past Carrie away from whoever drags her out of town. We’re pretty sure it was Glinephanis.”

“Okay but, hypothetically speaking,” Frank pressed, “if even after your mission, there was still the need for someone to attack Elder Carrie, why would someone like you send us here to talk to, ah, you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who did you say you were?”

Frank swallowed. “Call me Bernard.”

“Mmmmm. People who want my missions to fail say ‘Quack!’.”

Frank blinked, glancing sidelong at Tim, who shrugged.

Mindy rubbed her chin. “Pity, it’s funny when conspirators do that. Okay, fine. So I’ve been constructing a prototype weapon, something I loosely refer to as a %temporal gun%. It’s my ace in the hole, but it’s non-lethal, and has never been tested.”

Tim poked Frank. “Bernard - we may need that.”

“If I accompany you, can I get your %musical gun%?” Frank asked.

Tim winced. “Uh, she used a longer ’t’ sound…”

“Are you going to get me a redheaded double who speaks Temporal before you commit suicide?” Mindylenopia reiterated.

“I can do that,” Frank said. “And I’m not planning to commit…"

“Then yes, I’ll let you come along, and once I’m gone, you can have the gun. I figure bringing back future tech is only asking for trouble, particularly when it might not even work. But you are on your OWN once I leave, yeah?”

“I can live with that,” Frank concluded.

“Oh, I very much doubt it,” Mindylenopia snorted. “But it’s not MY funeral.” She rose. “I’ll be in touch through regular channels about where to put my double, and where you’ll meet me. You won’t be able to use that old phone number again. Don’t follow me, or the deal’s off.” She then marched off the way she had come, muttering, “%I must be out of my mind%.”

Frank remained seated until she was out of earshot before looking at Tim. “So that object she spoke of was…"

“The temporal gun,” Tim affirmed. “The one we don’t have.”

“Right.” Frank adjusted his glasses. “Remind me again of why I gave our most powerful temporal weapon to Chartreuse.”

Tim shook his head. “She didn’t tell me why.”

“Okay, well… maybe you’d better run through the whole conversation Chartreuse had with you? Since part of it could be relevant now, and once we’re back with Luci, we can’t talk about it. Not with that gun not existing in her past, the past of Timeline Three.”

Tim sighed. “I’ll try to remember.”

Chartreuse had turned up at his house the morning of December 30th, an hour after breakfast. Asking to speak to him in private. Having sensed it would be about the time travel group, he’d taken her up to his room.

The mystic girl hadn’t disappointed, or indeed wasted any time, sitting with him on the bed and reaching out to grasp him by the hands. “Okay, so, like, here’s the thing. We need your help. Are you able to help out the group?”

Tim swallowed. “I… y-yeah. If I can actually b-be helpful. Instead of b-being the guy that causes Glen to mind manipulate people, or the one M-Mindy uses to learn everything about everyone, or the f-friend who has no technical skills to help Clarke with whatever he’s…"

“Aw, Tim. Don’t get like that.” She squeezed his hands. “You’re the linguist! Like that person in the ‘Arrival’ movie, you’re handling the thing most of us are hopeless at doing. Which is why we need you now. See, Luci’s not gonna be able to go back with Frank. I saw that. But he’ll still, you know, need someone who can speak Temporal with him while in the future.”

“You m-mean the past,” Tim corrected.

She smiled. “Right, the past, totally tensed up there.”

He shook it off. “S-So wait, you think that I can…"

“I KNOW that you can. Because here’s the other thing, Tim. Laurie, my dear, sweet Laurie, when she leaves, having been recruited to be the Miami signpost? She’s gonna be on her first time trip. With the guy who’s been time tripping since the start, plus two Temporals, and that’s GOTTA be intimidating. Even I’m intimidated, and I’m staying here! Whereas you, you’ll be, you know, in the same boat as her, kinda.”

Tim sighed. “Meaning clueless.”

“No, meaning inexperienced!” Chartreuse protested. “But Tim, you’d be gaining experience, while translating Temporal, and making sure Laurie doesn’t have a panic attack when things, you know, inevitably go south! I swear, the both of you, you’re stronger than you think, yeah? And hey, I’ll need someone to remind Laurie, in case if she ever wishes Corry was there instead, that she’s, like, more connected to Carrie than her brother could ever hope to be! Okay?”

Tim dropped his gaze to the bedspread. “You r-really think I’m the p-person who can do this?”

She released his hands, reaching up to tilt at his chin, making him look back at her. “Totally do. Don’t you think so?”

There was no sarcasm in her voice, and nothing but sincerity in her expression. It was now or never, wasn’t it. The same way it had been with Julie and the chip - was he in, or was he out? Tim straightened his posture. “Okay. When do we leave?”

Chartreuse beamed, and for a moment it looked like she would hug him. But instead, she pushed herself off the bed, glancing at her watch. “At the library, in about half an hour. Bring four days worth of your meds, just in case.”

A shiver ran up Tim’s back. “That’s soon. Exactly what did your future vision show you?”

“I can’t really explain what I experienced, it became… kinda vision plus,” Chartreuse admitted. “Oh! And that reminds me. In case I don’t get to tell him while he’s rescuing Beth, when you go back to pick up Laurie, and get supplies? You need to tell Frank to give the temporal gun to me. Like, past me. Instead of taking it along on your trip.”

Tim flinched. “What?”

“I mean, he’s gonna do it, because I have the gun, and I think that’s how, like, time travel works. But trust me, we’ll need it here, the timing is real important. Frank can hand it off to me between our big meeting, and when the bunch of us gather to tell Mr. Waterson the truth about Carrie. Got that?”

“Wait, h-how does this fit into everything else?”

Chartreuse chewed on her lip. “It’s complicated. Even I don’t know everything, not yet.” She pulled a meditation crystal out of a pocket on her dress, staring at it as she rolled it around between her fingers. “Not yet. But soon.”

She continued to stare for a moment, finally slipping the crystal back into her pocket and meeting his gaze. “That’s all, like, my problem though. Not yours. Are you, you know, okay to get to the library and such?”

Tim nodded. “Y-Yeah. I can do this. I can.” For that matter, if they didn’t need the gun, what was the worst thing that could happen while in the past?

“Complicated,” Frank repeated back. “And at the time, I thought it was related to the people who would be chasing down Beth when we left. I never imagined… this scenario.”

“M-Maybe there’s a thing where we’ll need that temporal gun in the present, and another here in the future?” Tim suggested.

“Except Mindylenopia wouldn’t know whatever Chartreuse knew, would she?” Frank protested. “Only that we didn’t have the gun. Hence the phone number left for us, it must mean she’d hoped we’d use her first gun for an assault on Elder Carrie, right?”

“D-Dunno.” Tim shook his head. “It’s f-funny, I always f-figured I didn’t get what you guys meant because I was out of the l-loop. But there really is no l-loop, huh? None of us knows what’s going on.”

“Nope,” Frank affirmed. He rubbed his arms, becoming aware of the chill. “For now, let’s get back to Luci, and find somewhere warm. And get some sleep. I’ll see if I can convince Laurie to act as Mindylenopia’s double tomorrow.”

“I won’t do it,” Laurie asserted. “Not unless you tell Mindylenopia what’s going to happen to her.”

“But if she knows, that might change everything!” Frank protested.

They had all slept the night at Luci’s place. Frank and Tim had given Laurie the bed-in-a-wall, grabbing some blankets to sleep on the floor. Frank had elected not to bring up the content of his conversation with Mindylenopia until breakfast, after everyone had been able to shower and get a change of clothing… more or less. Laurie had used her suitcase, and her T-Shirt and track pants worked for Tim, while Frank had managed with some male items that Luci had found in the back of her closet. He decided not to ask why they’d been there.

“Might change everything for the better,” Laurie countered.

“Or might mean we don’t end up here at all!” Frank said. “I mean Laurie, think about it. What if… what if something we say to Mindylenopia now means she doesn’t talk to Carrie back then, meaning I die in the past after all?”

“No, no, everyone says time travel is predestined,” Laurie insisted.

“But not in this case! Right Luci?” Frank turned to where she was sipping on a mug of coffee.

“Oh, we are SO off the map with this one, I can’t even,” Luci declared. “I’ve already told our people to lock down your time car and not let anyone near it until this situation has been worked out.”

“D-Do you think Laurie should do it then?” Tim asked her. “Be Mindylenopia’s double?”

“I think you’re in over your heads,” Luci remarked. “Worse, you’re dragging the rest of us under the water with you. Related, please stop talking about Mindylenopia’s possible future in front of me. It freaks me out more than a little bit.”

Frank sighed. “Fine. If Laurie’s unwilling, is there someone else in the resistance who resembles Mindylenopia who would be willing?”

Luci’s grip on her mug tightened. “Over. Your. Heads.”

Frank leaned on the table. “So help us. Please.”

“I can’t. Not the way you want me to.”

“Then at least help us understand why you can’t!” Frank pleaded.

Luci brought her mug down hard on the table, sloshing coffee everywhere. “Because! This isn’t Timeline Three, okay?! It’s more like Timeline Forty-Seven.”

NEXT: Insight the Future (aka InfoDump)

ASIDE: This past weekend I got 5 coins from 2017. (Two quarters, three nickels.) Let the time travel commence!

PREVIOUSLY: Frank has realized they are in the future of “Timeline Three”, where he died, and Carrie left town with Glen.

PART 89b: TIMELINE THREE

“You’re wrong,” Luci said dismissively.

“But it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Frank protested. “We have to help Mindylenopia get back in time. That’s what restores our timeline!”

“No! If you remember her being there, Mindylenopia will go back without your help,” Luci reiterated, with exaggerated patience. “The same way she must have managed it before your arrival in this future.”

Tim glanced back and forth between the seventeen year old Frank Dijora and the forty seven year old Luci Primrose. He and Laurie had tacitly decided to keep out of the conversation during the time it had taken to order, and then receive their food at the cafe - but the two of them had been at an impasse for some time now. He decided had to say something, otherwise they’d have no idea where in the future to go next.

“R-Run through it for me,” he suggested to Luci. “However they teach it in schools these days. Explain to m-me why Frank’s wrong.”

Luci looked at him, then set her meal aside and flipped over her paper placemat, reaching for the small container of crayons next to the ketchup bottle. “We don’t teach this in schools. But here.” She drew a long yellow line, the length of the page. “Timeline one, with the alien artifact. Damn it!”

The asian woman tapped the end of her crayon against the side of her head. “Look, forget I mentioned that last bit. Either way, that timeline’s gone.” She dropped the yellow crayon, picking up the red, and drawing overtop of the majority of the line she’d already placed there. “Instead, timeline two, where Carrie exists as the ultimate temporal weapon. Able to end it all, unless the Temporals get what they want.”

“We knew this much already, Luci,” Frank said. “Carrie once explained it to Chartreuse, after which it was explained to us.” Tim noticed Frank was using the same tone of exaggerated patience that Luci had used.

“Fine! Gone,” Luci said, glaring at him as she dropped the red crayon and grabbed a black. She drew overtop of the last part of the red line, and just as the red had obscured the yellow beneath it, the black obscured the red. “Timeline three. Came into existence when we sent back– what did our younger selves call him?”

“Shady?” Tim offered.

“Shady, right, with a mission of activating Carrie when she might be a little more reasonable. Or, well, destroying her if it turned out she was not. A mission which succeeded, when Shady managed to hit on a lynchpin point.” She intentionally met Frank’s gaze. “And for what it’s worth, I spoke out against the latter option. But we’re fighting a war here. Trying to save as many lives as we can.”

“How do you know it was you who spoke out?” Frank countered. He pointed at the placemat. “Before Shady went back, the timeline was red. How do we know it was you who said something in that timeline two, versus the black timeline we seem to be in now?”

Luci leaned back. “Hmph. Excellent question, actually,” she yielded. “On the one hand, there is no red timeline any more - aside from here, between Elaine Waterson’s appearance in the past, and the lynchpin at Shady’s alterations,” she noted, tapping the line where the red was visible. “So your question is irrelevant. On the other hand… yes, it’s theoretically possible that it wasn’t me. That it was someone else. Individuals still have the free will to screw things up locally, as the Temporals sometimes put it. Still, safe bet someone did it. Might as well say it was me, since I’m the one who has a memory of doing it. Okay?”

“And so now, with M-Mindy?” Tim asked, before the two of them could start arguing again.

Luci dropped the black crayon onto the table with a shrug. “Given how Shady’s mission failed to fix things in our favour, Mindylenopia’s said she intends to go back next. I don’t know much more than that. As an apparent Temporal defector, she tends to keep to herself. Our resistance movement doesn’t call her, she calls us, that sort of thing. Which suits us fine, as the less she knows, the less likely any of us will be in trouble if she switches sides again.”

“But now we have to help Mindy get back,” Frank insisted. “To restore our timeline, where Carrie seeks us out as friends. Where I don’t die.”

“No!” Luci jabbed her finger at the black line. “You. Do. Not. Exist. Yet.”

“Then who. Are you. Arguing with?” Frank challenged.

“Agh! I am not having this conversation. Literally, not having it, because look, once Mindylenopia goes back, you… damn it, I shouldn’t have used the black there…" Luci began to colour over the black with a blue, pressing hard, trying to make the black vanish beneath it. “You WILL come into existence in this blue ‘timeline four’. But that will only happen if you lie low now, and don’t screw up our timeline three!”

“That doesn’t explain how we can be here now,” Frank insisted. “The only way we’re here is if it’s to create the blue timeline four in the first place!”

“STOP that!” Luci threw the blue crayon at him. “DAMN it Frank, I have thirty years of temporal theory behind me here, whereas you’re a bunch of teenagers who don’t even know how to access a present day restaurant menu. Why, why are you doing this to me? Why can’t you simply allow me to be happy that you’re alive again, after all this time?!”

A tear blinked out of the corner of Luci’s eye, causing a hush to fall over the table.

“I’m sorry,” Frank apologized. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Obviously.” Luci swallowed. “You know what, Frank? You’re part of why I went into the medical profession. Because of how I couldn’t save you. Back when Carrie insisted that you rewire the time machine for an unmanned jump… and it all blew up in your face. And I couldn’t save you.”

“Oh, Luci… don’t be like that. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” Frank winced. “I guess we were even going out at the time?”

“More or less. Damn it, Frank…” Luci repeated. She drew in a shaky breath, then grabbed a napkin, using it to blow her nose. “And I SWORE I wasn’t going to do this…"

“Luci, Gods, I’m truly sorry, I didn’t mean to spark the memories you must be experiencing." He reached out for her. She waved him off, but then seemed to reconsider, grasping his hand.

“It’s fine,” Luci said. “Besides, I doubt this conversation will have gone this way once Mindylenopia goes back. Understand? It’s like you said, regarding my memory of objecting to Shady’s final option. Once this weird anomaly resolves itself, we’ll remember having discussed the weather, or how to rescue your Carrie, or something else. So it’s fine.”

“Except…" Tim kind of hated to break up their moment, but he couldn’t help but notice what Luci had done. He reached out to tap at the coloured timelines. “L-L-Look. Our blue timeline four exists, and yet so does your future black timeline three.”

Luci looked down. “Only because I didn’t get a chance to colour in all the way to the end.”

“Right. Something stopped you.” Tim looked sidelong at Frank. “D-Didn’t something like this h-happen with Julie?”

Frank eyed the placemat. “You mean when she sort of killed herself, except how she didn’t because of how I went back with Clarke and Corry? I’m not sure it’s quite the same thing… but you might be onto something. Luci?”

Luci started to look vaguely ill. “No. Oh no.” She released Frank’s hand. “The temporal waveforms in the past. If they haven’t reached us yet… but no, how could they NOT reach us? The only person who could prevent this temporal system from collapsing down into a single time frame by now would be…" Her voice trailed off.

“Carrie Waterson?” Frank speculated.

Luci nodded mutely.

“S-So which Carrie is m-mixing us up?” Tim asked. “Our Timeline Four Carrie, or your Timeline Three Carrie?”

“They’re SUPPOSED to be the same Carrie,” Luci said bitterly. “Damn her ability to paradox. If she’s directly involved, that changes everything.”

Frank tapped his finger on the timelines. “More to the point then, is this being done so that we can get Mindylenopia back to our present year, setting all of this in motion… or is it being done so that we’ll screw up Mindy’s ability to leave on schedule, which might make us disappear?”

Luci shook her head. “There’s no way of knowing. None.”

A clattering sound brought Tim’s attention away from Luci and Frank, and back towards the fourth person at their table. Laurie had dropped her fork down into her empty plate. Her head was bowed, forcing the redhead to look slightly upwards to stare at them. “You all talk and talk and talk - but you haven’t even touched on the most important thing yet,” she murmured.

“What’s that, Laurie?” Tim asked gently.

Her shoulders tightened. “If Mindy gets sent back… she’s going to be banished by Carrie. Meaning she’ll lose her mind, screw with Linquist and Julie, indirectly put that girl Beth in danger, and then finally get herself killed on our last trip.” She shook her head, and her gaze lifted. “So you’re talking about sending someone on a trip to be tortured, and then to die, merely for our own benefit! How can you even be saying that’s an option?!”

No one at the table seemed to have an answer for her.

They went out to meet Mindylenopia. Partly it was from a hope that she would know why her future self had given them the phone number, but mostly, Frank had argued that doing so would maximize their options. Because if they were, indeed, supposed to help Mindy get back in time, there was no way they could do it without being close to her.

“She had to mean the Fallowfield train station,” Luci said, as she drove. Or rather, as the car drove itself according to her instructions. Frank had given up on understanding all the future technology. “We’ve used it as a transfer point before. Mindylenopia must have avoided being specific with you on the phone in order to be sure that she was getting someone with true connections to our resistance. Versus random loons or some kind of sting operation.”

“How m-many people know about the whole resistance thing?” Tim asked.

“Not many,” Luci admitted. “Granted, we like to believe that it’s bigger than we think. After all, it’s not like we can have regular meetings. Since Temporals could force out any information about when they might be, using their mental powers, and thus catch lots of us at once.”

“Why did your group decide to trust Mindy then?” Laurie wondered.

“Ohh, we didn’t. Not at first. Even now, we’re not sure if she’s a plant, gathering intelligence. But she’s too good of a technical asset to pass up. She can also obtain things, like the present day coin we gave to Shady - that’s the one you ended up with, I guess. There’s not a lot of coin currency around at all now, let alone this early on in the year.”

“Speaking of coins, do you know anything more about how Mindylenopia will get back?” Frank asked.

Luci paused. “Okay, yeah, I guess you need to know that too. Portable time machines? They’re dangerous and geographically unstable, not to mention hard to obtain covertly, so unless she’s managed to secure parts to make her own, we figured Mindylenopia was angling for the stationary temporal station in town. Those can target their own building on the jump, instead of DNA, but they’re highly fortified structures. I’d call that a suicide mission most days of the year, except tomorrow is Carrie’s birthday, so…” She shrugged.

“Wait, how d-do stationary temporal stations work?” Tim asked.

“Very well, thank you,” Luci said dryly. “Next question?”

She refused to give them any further information about futuristic technology, or her own personal life, reasoning that it could become a problem once they, presumably, became able to travel back to their present. So, as with Clarke, the trip lapsed into an uncertain silence.

They reached the train station with ten minutes to spare.

“I probably shouldn’t get out,” Luci remarked. “After all, I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. You should be the only variables.”

“I don’t want to go either,” Laurie admitted. “Not if it means I end up helping to cause what we know happens to Mindy.”

Frank nodded. “I can respect that. Tim?”

“I’m still in. For now. You might need a t-translation.”

“True.” He looked out the car windshield. “Here goes nothing then.”

Frank emerged from the car, followed by the shorter blonde boy, and the two of them walked over to the seemingly deserted train station.

NEXT: Fight the Future

ASIDE: That ends ARC 4.3 (“Complicated”), moving us into the final Arc for the entire story (“Terminated”). Hope you’re enjoying! More future versions of the characters will appear, feel free to speculate on that or the plot - and maybe vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: Frank, Laurie and Tim have chased after Carrie into the future, where they’ve encountered a very worried Elder Clarke - and Mindylenopia’s on the phone?!

PART 89a: IDENTITY CRISIS

“%You have five seconds to explain how you know me, after which this phone will be permanently deactivated. Five… four…%”

Frank looked up expectantly, and Tim realized that his friend was anticipating a translation. But Mindylenopia was counting down! By the time he’d explained that she wanted an explanation, they’d be out of time!

“%Three… two…%"

The only thing he could think of to do that might keep Mindy on the line long enough might get them in trouble instead. But he’d made a number of gambles for their temporal group already. At this point, what was one more? He summoned his resolve.

“%One…%"

“%We is be friends!%” Tim said, leaning in closer to the device. "%We want with, uh…%" He snapped his fingers twice, unable to think of the word for help. “%We serve you and be happy future!%"

For a moment, there was silence on the line, Frank simply looking at Tim in surprise. Then there was the sound of muffled laughter. “Okay,” came Mindylenopia’s voice in English. “You’re either the smartest espionage team ever, certified loons, or people who may actually be of service to me. I can spare some time to find out. 10pm, at the train station."

Before either of them could speak, the ensuing dial tone indicated that Mindylenopia had hung up.

Frank reached out to tap at the holo-button that would cut off the call. “Uh, thanks Tim,” he acknowledged. “I didn’t realize you and Luci could speak Temporal as well as understand it.”

“We can’t," Tim sighed. “I may have just told her that we were friendly, and want be her future slaves. But she was counting down to cutting us off for good, and there was no way I could sum up our situation in five seconds, so I thought I’d better try something unexpected.”

“Oh. Well… assuming we can find her train station, that means we still have a shot at figuring out why Mindy gave us her own phone number. So again, thanks.”

Tim shook his head. “How could that even BE Mindy? She… well…”

“This must be before she travels back,” Frank reasoned. “For some reason, when Mindylenopia sent us forward to the future - it was also into her own past.”

“So did she KNOW?” Tim wondered. “The whole time she was Theresa, in our present, did she know we’d eventually meet her, in her past?!”

“That might depend on what we end up saying to her.” Frank sighed. “My new worry is that we might do something that prevents her from going back in the first place.”

“Oh. OH.” Tim’s eyes widened. “I feel like that would be BAD.”

Frank nodded. “For now, let’s get the car into town and meet with Clarke’s contact. Maybe they can provide us with some much needed future context.”

Apparently, Clarke hadn’t ever played professional basketball, had become a mechanic and tow truck driver about ten years ago with the intention of helping people, and had not married Julie. At least, he’d admitted to the first two, and Laurie was pretty sure that his body language had answered that last question, not to mention his changing of the subject. Unless they were divorced? She worked with him for another few minutes in silence.

“How’s your sister?” Laurie asked at last, again seeking some common ground with the Clarke she knew.

He shook his head, looping the length of chain around the front of the Chevrolet to secure it. “Another thing we probably shouldn’t talk about.”

Laurie slumped her shoulders. “Really? We’re stuck with favourite foods and recent movies from my time that are being remade yet again in this future?”

“Sorry, Laurie,” Clarke apologized. “I don’t want to risk changing anything about my past.”

“I don’t think you can,” Laurie assured. “Most of the talk I’ve heard surrounds all time travel being predestined.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.” She fancied then that his gaze drifted to Frank, but maybe he was simply looking back at the tow truck. “I sure hope Luce can sort all of this out.”

“Luce… do you mean Luci?” Laurie ventured. “Wait, Cl– Phil, are we going to see Luci??”

“Crud. Yeah,” Clarke admitted. “And I am seriously going to stop talking now. Otherwise I might let slip about more things. Like that huge ban Canada has on Japanese anime art.”

“WHAT?” Laurie practically shrieked. “The future has banned… okay, NO, don’t even kid about that! Seriously!”

Clarke’s smile widened. “Sorry again. Bad joke, but I couldn’t remember what your other teenage passions were. My point being, sometimes the truth isn’t something you want to know, yeah? And now I truly am done talking.” He hit the lever to pull the front wheels of the Chevy up.

Laurie fired off a look that she hoped was an angry pout. Yet at the same time, she suppressed her desire to ask any further questions.

The trip into Ottawa took less than twenty minutes, but since no one was talking, it felt longer to Frank. They pulled up to the parking lot of a small cafe, on what seemed to be the outskirts of town - and she was there in the parking lot, waiting for them.

Frank felt a lump in his throat, looking at the older version of Luci. It reminded him more of her twenty-year-old artificially aged version than the one they’d left back in the present. Perhaps because the normally so omnipresent little ponytails she sported were gone, in favour of longer hair. It fact, it seemed like Luci had aged well, even though her figure was largely covered up by a long coat. Could she have been his wife, if the two of them had decided not to break up? He shoved those thoughts aside as they all piled out of the tow truck.

Lucille Primrose was all business, her first words to Laurie being “open your mouth”, the asian woman holding out a Q-tip. When Laurie obeyed, Luci swabbed inside, then dropped the Q-tip into a small device she was holding. She peered at it for several seconds, then repeated the process for Tim, and again for Frank. A “ping” came from her device at the end of his analysis, and she looked uneasy.

“Are they the real deal?” Clarke murmured.

Luci didn’t acknowledge the question, instead looking to Frank. “How did you get here?” she demanded.

Frank pointed to the Chevy. “Time car. The circuits burned out on arrival.”

Luci peered at everyone with her heterochromatic eyes, then finally addressed Frank again. “Show me.”

He went back to show her the setup. Her apparent skepticism gradually began to shift into a mix of confusion… with hints of fear. “This is impossible,” she said, echoing Clarke. “How would you even have the means to come this far forwards?”

Frank decided to hedge. “The one who went back to activate Carrie’s powers? He had a coin,” he said, cutting out the Mindy-Linquist part of Tim’s revelation.

“Damn.” Luci rubbed her forehead. “Better question then, WHY make this trip? What could you possibly hope to gain by it?”

Frank again wondered if it was prudent to bring up Mindylenopia.

“Your Future Carrie abducted our Carrie,” Laurie offered. “We want ours back.”

Luci snapped her gaze over towards the redhead. “Impossible.”

“You keep using that word,” Tim quipped. “I d-do not think it means what you think it means.”

Luci regarded them each in turn once again. She seemed to come to a decision. “We’ll need to compare histories. Could take a while. Do you want to freshen up first?”

“We shouldn’t, we kind of have a deadline,” Frank said, thinking of Mindy’s meeting at 10pm.

“But we haven’t had a proper meal in a couple days,” Laurie noted, looking towards the nearby cafe.

Luci followed her gaze, and a smile flickered over her face. “You look like it. Okay, don’t go nuts in there, but I can credit you a meal as we talk.” She turned to Clarke. “You in, or should I recap later?”

“You know I hate getting mixed up in your extracurricular activities, Luce,” Clarke answered, adjusting his glasses. “Plus I’ll never be able to follow your temporal talk. Call me once you know for sure.” He turned to Frank, hesitated, then extended his palm to shake. “I know I ended up acting pretty weird here, but… it was good to see you again. Really.”

“Right,” Frank said, shaking back, even as he wondered as to Clarke’s wistful tone of voice.

He watched as the tall blonde moved to start uncoupling their Chevy from his truck. “Actually, Phil,” Luci broke in, “since you’re set up, could you tow that over to the warehouse? I can give these three a lift to wherever they want after we eat.”

Clarke turned. “Luce…"

“You don’t mind do you?” Luci said, eyeing Frank. “It’ll stand out like a sore thumb in this time period, and maybe our techs can fix it.”

“Techs?” Frank wondered.

A smile tugged at the older Luci’s face. “I’m connected.”

Frank wished he knew more about this future. “You can take it on condition that no one messes with it unless me, Tim or Laurie are present. If our histories have diverged, it could contain information you’re not ready for yet.”

She thought on that for a moment. “Fair. Phil?”

“I can take it over, but then I wash my hands of the whole deal. Except for the phone call you owe me.”

“Also fair,” Luci agreed. “In fact, I’ll owe you a favour too.”

Clarke chuckled. “Fine. I’ll call it in next time I need medical assistance.”

Tim turned to Luci. “Oh, are you a doctor? Because I might need some medication.”

She nodded back. “I have a day job. For now, let’s go talk.”

Laurie raised her hand. “Can I get my suitcase of clothing and art supplies out of the Chevy’s trunk first?”

Luci, as it turned out, couldn’t remember a whole lot about high school. The major events had stuck with her over time, and seemed to have transpired the same way Frank knew them - namely Carrie getting them involved in time travel, Corry’s flyer about Julie’s past prompting the theft of the time machine, and Glen showing up in their senior year. But when they delved a bit deeper, the inconsistencies surfaced.

“I was never artificially aged,” Luci asserted. “And Linquist didn’t hide out, when he sold the mansion it was to live in a smaller house in town instead. One that most people avoided.”

“But if that’s so, then when did you tell me you, uh, had feelings for me?” Frank pressed.

Luci swallowed. “After Carrie got shot by Julie,” she admitted. “It helped me realize how little time all of us have.” She bit down on her lip. The way she was reacting towards him… Frank shook it off.

“So that’s a change of maybe two weeks,” Frank decided. “What else happened around that time… the drugs in Carrie’s locker?”

“Oh right,” Luci recalled. “Yeah, that set up the whole Carrie-Chartreuse dynamic, since they both got detentions.”

“Wait, so they started dating then?”

Luci laughed. “WOW, no. But Carrie did do some strong-arming, and Chartreuse eventually fell for her in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way.”

“Okay, that might be a parallel…" Frank let out a breath, glancing towards Tim and Laurie.

Tim shrugged. “You’re kinda before my involvement. I’ll shout if I hear something wrong.”

Laurie looked up from the menu, which Luci had downloaded into her device upon entry, and had then offered to share around the table. “Ditto. And what are ‘spam tacos’?”

“Like fish tacos, but vegetarian,” Luci said absently. “Frank, are you trying to pin down a specific event in Carrie’s past?”

“Yes, and I kind of think I know what it is now,” he admitted. “As much as I don’t want to admit it. Luci, after the locker drugs, do you know if Carrie came to see me? If she ended up apologizing to me for everything, and crying on my shoulder in the park?”

Luci flinched back. “Big no, unless that’s something you never told me about. Rather, she cut off everybody, and practically blackmailed the both of us into fixing the time machine. With the intent to, as I later learned, go after her mother. Probably would have done it too, if she hadn’t been shot first.”

“So it’s Theresa,” Frank sighed. Carrie had said something to him in the days following their park encounter, about having had a talk with Theresa. Who was Mindylenopia. Except, she wouldn’t be.

“Who’s Theresa?” Luci questioned, as if to verify his fears.

He might as well just ask. “Luci, in this future… did I die? Back in the past? And is that when Carrie and Glen left town?”

Luci bit down on her lip again. “Yeah,” she admitted, her voice suddenly quiet. “Over a month before you claim to have travelled here. Hence our skepticism and whole ‘this is impossible’ angle.”

Frank slumped down in his chair. That explained it.

Somehow, they had ended up in the future of “Timeline Three”.

NEXT: Timeline Three

ASIDE: How about them apples, huh? Now you have to wait until Friday for a new post. Feel free to comment in the meantime.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 84-85

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 20, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Now a bigger speech by Laurie, also teaching Beth cheerleading -Scene with Mr. Waterson was new (previously offscreen) -Beth spoke with a random student, not Chartreuse -Scene with Clarke and Theresa was new (going to Julie’s) -Beth had approached Megan, not the other way around -Megan’s motivations (women’s lib used to be Claude’s birthday)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 86-87

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 25, 2009
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Frank’s mental flashback with Tim moved a bit earlier -CSI:Miami reference had included talk of “upcoming spinoff show” (NY) -Glen originally escaped before they arrived at the airport -Tracking device on Glen was new (had followed sound of a scream) -Carrie had dressed like a stewardess rather than her mother -Question for Question format now tried to make exposition interesting -Had cut away for truth of Carrie’s mother; audience learned later with Frank -Now a longer scene with the Elder Carrie -Frank had lamented leaving the temporal gun behind

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90, completed by AUGUST 27, 2009 Information to follow in next Commentary.

CHARGING TO THE FINISH

More on that future next time. For now, a quick look back at the parts involving Beth. I’d made a habit of starting into the next serial entry (“episode”), whenever I’d finished the last one. That way, I’d have a sense of where to go next, in case it was months before I got back to the story. So Part 84 (half an “episode”) was basically completed by March 21, 2008. It was dusted off over a year later, and finished through Part 85 (“after commercial break”).

The note I’d left myself in 2008 was that I wanted to include Beth’s point of view, and somehow wrap up the Megan angle, which had gotten away from me prior to the talent show. So it made sense to have them talk. The content was different with that first effort, as I referenced above. I prefer the new rewrite (see spoilers below for why).

Continuing on, I’d never been to the Miami International Airport (MIA) as of 2009, but WAS there in December 2014 (hence the photo in part 86). They lost the bags for our family as we went to a connecting flight (all but one bag, actually). This despite my in-laws upgrading us to first class. Not impressed. Yet the first hand experience didn’t cause any real change to the content of those parts in edits. I suppose I did pull up maps for reference, to avoid blatant mistakes.

As far as a car being left at an airport for three days, I didn’t do any research at the time, but (once again) stumbled on something later. Namely this article a couple years back: “Edmonton International Airport parking lots, home to 100 plus ditched cars”. So there is precedent. Alternately, here’s a hilarious tale of a BMW, lost in a UK parking garage for six months.

Even if later experience didn’t change the framework, you might have noticed the “changes of note” list is getting longer. That’s because lots of new elements are being draped onto that older skeleton. In fact, there are only two and a half episodes remaining in the 2009 material, which would mean five episodes - except there are, in fact, EIGHT upcoming (meaning 16 updates). Before discussing the repercussions of that in spoilers (below), an aside to talk about temporal inspirations.

TIME TRAVEL TV

Needless to say, “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993) was a huge influence on me, growing up. (Luci’s remark from Part 84, “Is that ethical? That can’t be ethical.” is another homage. The response in QL was “No, it’s television.” See also Clarke’s tow truck, “Sam & Al’s Garage”.) But there was another show influencing me back then too. “The Girl From Tomorrow” (1991-1993), an Australian television series that was shown in Canada.

That show has a teenager from the year 3000 (Alana) becoming stranded in the 1990s. She’s taken in by a family (which includes another teenage girl, Jenny), and the two work to retrieve her “time capsule” from the villain. The second season has them trying to fix a time error in the year 2500, introducing Nik (a teenager from that year) and the “time gate”.

Teenagers and time machines. Was my “Time & Tied” story all but inevitable? (And hey, speaking of inevitability, I wrote a guest post at the Time2TimeTravel site in March called “Models of Time and Fate” you can check out.)

Another show worthy of mention: “Seven Days” (1998-2001). In that show, they can go back in time and change things, but the trip is always seven days. I don’t think I ever caught this show as regularly (being at University), but you’ll see it took place as “Time & Tied” was first coming together. A sign there was a market. And I did use it’s theme music to make this Anime Music Video. (The anime was an OVA, “Natsuiro no Sunadokei”, or “Sandglass of Summer Colours”, about a boy living his summer out of order. Based on a video game.)

And another show: “Being Erica” (2009-2011). A Jewish woman in her thirties undergoes therapy, which allows her to literally revisit (even change) past experiences, by walking through doorways. This Canadian show actually began in January of 2009, meaning it was an additional kick towards getting the T&T story done in that year. I actually wrote the initial TV Tropes page for this show, after seeing that it didn’t exist yet. Further, an episode of my math serial (“Being Parabola”) was influenced by seeing it.

I suppose “Doctor Who” should also get a mention. I started watching it in the late 1990s, in reruns, while at University. (Third and Fourth doctors, if memory serves.) I caught the return in 2005, and have been following it since. Curiously, despite it being a serial itself, I don’t think it’s been as big an influence on me. There are also individual episodes of other shows that tackle time travel - in fact I created my own “TIME LOOPS” TV Roundup Page, which I maintain to this day. Let me know if you have a new entry.

In 2017, during this republishing, I’ve been watching the new “Timeless” show (shady organization tries to preserve their control of history). In fact, there’s a LOT of time travel TV out there now. “Frequency” (based on the movie of the same name). “Time After Time” (also based on the movie of the same name). “Making History” (a comedy on Fox). Plus “12 Monkeys” is in season 3, while “Legends of Tomorrow” and “The Flash” are established superhero shows doing time travel. Seen any of those? (I only caught “Time After Time”, until it was cancelled by ABC without airing filmed episodes. Not impressed, ABC Network!) Are there any other time travel shows that you have enjoyed, or which have influenced you in some way? Let people know in the comments!

SPOILER SECTION

As I mentioned, we’re heading into this storyline’s future. So, with the majority of the remaining action taking place there, it meant the present had to be wrapped up (mostly) with the conclusion of Part 85. I don’t want to say too much yet (there are flashbacks and the coda to come), but if something sticks out as a “loose end”, now would be the time to warn me. It’s why I had the new scene of Julie inviting Clarke to help out (via Mindy), for their relationship.

Regarding the school… I realized at the start of March (2017) that I had never drawn Megan Falls before. Ever. So that image of her is completely new. Did you see something different in your mind’s eye? (For any of the characters?) Megan’s feminist point of view (in conversation with Beth) was also new, but made a lot of sense, in my opinion. It harkens back to Julie’s parental issues, and certainly felt like a better reason for her hesitation on hooking up with Claude than in the original writing (concern over a birthday gift). It’s also in line with her hate on Corry. In general, I’m satisfied with how her character, and the school plots in general, closed out. Are you?

In terms of who would go after Carrie, the only primary characters who hadn’t time travelled yet were Tim, Laurie and Lee. (Chartreuse only had the single round trip, knocking her out, but it counts.) Laurie was a given here, Tim needed a chance to shine, and Lee, well, he was always the “satellite” member. Too bad for him. I didn’t want to overload the group, so “understanding Temporal” was selected as being more important than “being immune to Temporal powers”. Thoughts?

As to what happened in Miami, Laurie’s insecurities were a lot worse in the original writing, particularly when her father turned up in the airport. (A touch I couldn’t resist. I like how Mez picked up on the genetics.) Laurie’s mannerisms got tightened up here; her week of being in charge of the cheerleaders was apparently good for her. The bit with Carrie’s mother being pregnant, that had been the plan for a while, though I can’t give a specific date for the idea (probably by Book 2, given how it ended). “Anne” at the Miami hostel was a VERY subtle reference to Buffy (Season 3).

The other thing that deserves some mention - it’s Future Carrie! I’d always envisioned Carrie vs. Carrie, and it seems the elder version wins Round One. She numbed herself, and would have managed to strand the time group in the past, if not for Mindy’s efforts. In fact, with the “April Fools” update (you read that entry, right?) by Michael Fitzgerald, he portrayed her very well: More experienced, with better control, and a darker personality. How do you fight that? Well, first we’ve got to get a clearer picture of the future itself. Stay tuned through April, and thank you for all the recent comments!

Parts 84/85 were originally “Powering Up” which became the title of 84a, since we don’t even see the powered up time car until that part. In fact, “Powering Up” was meant to be the entire theme of Season Two, the same way “Coming Together” was meant to be the theme of Season One. Parts 86/87 were originally “The Plain Truth”, which became the title of 87a, because that’s where we learned about Elaine’s pregnancy. It’s a deliberate riff on “The Plane Truth”, the title of Parts 3/4, when we first met Carrie’s mother - get it? Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future”, and we’ll get to that in due course.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I’ve added a “science fiction” tag there for more visibility. I’m also now publishing from the start on Royal Road Legends (slightly re-edited, currently nearing the end of Book 1), feel free to give me a ranking there if you’re able. Phew, this was a longer Commentary than usual, thanks for reading!

Coming TOMORROW: It sinks in where the time travellers truly are.

PREVIOUSLY: A fifty-year old Carrie has abducted her teenaged self. Characters have pursued her from their past… to the uncertain future.

PART 88b: FUTURE IMPERFECT

And Carrie felt the time streams pulling at them, and there was nothing her friends could do, she was being pulled away, pulled off into the future, down a path that had no turns…

Wait, could she move? Was Elder Carrie losing her grip? Her fingers twitched, but no, that wasn’t enough, she was unable to pull away… a single tear trickled out of the corner of her eye, as Carrie Waterson, the future Temporal Weapon, surrendered herself to the inevitable. Her hands slipping into her jacket pockets.

Which was where she felt a hard object. Of course - it was the meditation crystal. The one Chartreuse had given her yesterday, or rather the day of the talent show. Carrie had brought it along with her, feeling like it might help her to feel connected to Chartreuse… and by extension all of the other people she had been hoping to protect. But she had failed them. She had failed them all. Even her parents.

Carrie’s fingers curled around the crystal object, aware that more tears were coming. Because here she was, at the mercy of her Future Self, being time shifted into Her Future… a future where Carrie would never see her parents, her friends, or that one ray of sunshine - her once possible girlfriend - ever again.

“CARRIE!”

Oh no, now she was imagining Chartreuse’s voice in her head.

“Carrie, are you there?! We don’t, like, have much time, but PLEASE hear me, there’s something you’ve gotta do!”

Frank gently tapped at Laurie’s face until she murmured and her eyes blinked open. She immediately sat up, seemingly registering how he’d taken her out of the time car, to be laid in a field. “What happened?” the redhead gasped. “Did it work? Are we in the future?”

Frank nodded. “We… think so. The time circuits shorted out.” He looked towards Tim, who was pacing around the car. It sat a short distance away, in the same field. “Anything?”

Tim shook his head. “No sign that we were hit. But you’re right, the trip didn’t feel like the previous ones, and I thought I saw sparks through the windshield before I blacked out.”

Laurie looked back and forth between them. “What? Problem with the length of the jump? The fact that it was trying to orient on a future me? Something else?”

“No idea,” Frank said. “We’ve done even crazier things than what you’ve described, and never experienced a jolt like that. So I can’t explain it.”

Laurie shivered. “There’s patches of snow out here,” she realized. “This weather is is a far cry from Miami.” She peered through the dusk towards a nearby rural road. “But at the same time, it all seems weirdly normal, huh?”

Frank reached out a hand to help Laurie to her feet, which she accepted. “I’m guessing we’re back in Ontario,” he observed. “But there’s no way to be sure.”

Laurie began to brush herself off. “No, I meant, if this is the future that Glen and Mindy were talking about, the one with the temporal war, it looks normal instead of more… more… golly, I don’t know.”

“Post-apocalyptic?” Tim suggested, approaching.

“Different,” Laurie decided.

Tim chuckled. “W-Well, we have yet to look around. Though after four time trips, I see the car still hasn’t managed to arrive on a road… boy, s-so much for the practical aspects of a time machine vehicle, huh?”

Laurie smiled back. “We’re in the future. Maybe we can get a hover conversion, like in the movies.”

“Hah!” Frank said, smiling too. “I’ve never seen the sense in flying cars. Unless you’ve got something like an airport control tower, there’s no practical way to avoid mid-air collisions.” He turned back to the road, spotting a vehicle turning the corner. It was going to drive right past them. “Uh oh. I hope that’s not a future version of us.”

“H-Hide?” Tim asked. “Or ask for h-help?”

Laurie scrambled to get over to the side of the road. “Oh, they’re gonna see the car anyway.” She waved. “And I think that’s a tow truck!”

“Help then,” Tim concluded. He looked at Frank. “Because I d-don’t think we want to split ourselves up OR leave the time machine alone in the middle of this field.”

“Still…“ Frank grimaced, then sighed. “Okay, I yield. Let’s flag it down.”

They stood by the side of the road, the tow truck slowing as it approached. It probably would have stopped even if Laurie hadn’t been jumping up and down with her arms in the air. Frank barely had a chance to register the logo for ‘Sam & Al’s Garage’ on the door before it opened and a blonde haired man in his late forties or early fifties jumped down out of the cab.

“Hey,” the guy said with a wave, slamming the door behind him. He pushed a pair of glasses up higher on his nose and adjusted his cap. “Lucky break for you guys that I was driving by. What’s the… trouble… damn. Is that an old Chevy?!”

“Yeah. We’re not from around here,” Frank said. He wondered why the blonde guy’s voice sounded familiar. “Plus our vehicle might have sustained damage, so I’m nervous about starting it up. Could you maybe give it a quick once over?”

“Amazing. I haven’t worked on one of these since my senior year of high school,” the blonde said, letting out a low whistle. He walked over to run his fingers over the hood. “How did a bunch of teenagers get their hands on…" He paused, looking at them a bit more closely. His eyes gradually widened. “No. No, it can’t be you. This is impossible.”

“Clarke?” Laurie ventured. “Clarke, is that you?”

That’s when Frank caught the resemblance. Laurie was right. This man could definitely be Phil Clarke, over thirty years later.

“Laurie? Tim?!” The tow truck operator looked from the both of them over to Frank, and then took a couple steps backwards. “No! How can you all be here - looking like THAT? None of you ever… we never… what date are you all FROM?!”

Frank looked over at his companions. Could they trust this version of Clarke? Then again, did they have much of a choice at this point? “December,” he offered. He provided the year, and when it looked like Clarke was trying to do mental math, he added, “Your aforementioned senior year of high school.”

Clarke shook his head. “Impossible. That’s impossible. That’s…" He stepped forward, and reached out to poke at Frank’s shoulder, tentatively, as if wondering if his hand would go right through. When they made contact, Clarke recoiled, then turned and headed back for the truck.

“W-Wait,” Tim protested. “Clarke, we’ve landed in an unknown future, we need a hand here!”

“I have to make a phone call first,” he shouted back. The cab door slammed shut. Moments later, it lit up inside, as if Clarke had a very bright phone engaged where he was hunched over.

“Are we in trouble?” Laurie wondered.

“Clarke’s m-my friend,” Tim insisted. “Whatever he’s doing, it will help us.”

Frank was getting an uneasy feeling. “I hate to say it but… based on that reaction… maybe we don’t end up returning to our present? Or at least, not to our home town?”

“Why wouldn’t we go back home?” Laurie demanded.

Tim flinched. ”Because Clarke’s acting like he hasn’t seen us in thirty years,” he deduced. “Oh no. Does the present think we died?”

“Then again,” Frank continued, “maybe Clarke’s shock is simply the result of some Temporal wiping our memories. Meaning we’ll be unable to tell the present about this trip, and as such, we’re very unexpected.”

“So we CAN get home?” Laurie asked, wringing her hands.

“I thought a Temporal’s m-mental influence faded over time,” Tim objected. “Unless we WANT to f-forget, like Clarke’s sister. S-So why would we want to f-forget this?”

Frank winced. “I don’t know. Though Carrie’s memory wiping? That would last, from what we know of her impact on Shady.”

Tim frowned. “S-So you’re s-saying Carrie might end up tampering with our…"

“Know what?” Laurie interrupted. “Maybe we simply NEVER talk about this to anyone. Because all your talky alternatives sound awful.”

Frank exhaled. “Maybe that.”

Clarke looked out at them from behind the tow truck’s windshield, shook his head, and a moment later, the glow surrounding him disappeared. He reopened the door, adjusting his hat again. “Okay guys. Let’s have a look at that Chevy.”

“I-Is everything okay, Clarke?” Tim asked.

The blonde hesitated, then nodded. “It will be. And hey, call me Phil, all right?” He gave the group a tentative smile.

“So this car… it’s your time machine?”

“Yeah,” Frank affirmed. “Do you see anything wrong with it?”

Clarke poked his head back under the hood. Tim felt worried - based on Clarke’s reactions to this point, Frank’s theories about memory manipulation seemed valid. Because while Clarke remembered the Chevy, he didn’t seem to remember converting it into a time machine.

Then again, maybe when you got old, you forgot about a lot of childhood stuff? Except their temporal activities seemed like the sort of thing you’d remember. Unless Clarke hadn’t helped with the time machine car in their present after all… but then, what else could he have been doing at Julie’s for most of December? With a sigh, Tim decided to stop speculating.

“I don’t think the car’s about to explode when you start it up,” Clarke concluded. He straightened, and dropped the hood back in place. “Man, I miss having them this easy to diagnose. These days, cars mostly drive themselves, to the point where you have no idea what the issue is if they grind to a stop.” He pulled a rag out of his pocket to clean his hands. “Granted, as far the time machine pieces go, that’s beyond my understanding.”

“But don’t time machines exist now?” Laurie wondered.

Clarke shrugged. “Not in cars. And there’s no ‘For Dummies’ books about them. The technology is highly regulated, and to handle security leaks, the ‘net was flooded with misinformation, things designed to blow you up before you could ever manage to create a time distortion.”

“So time travel isn’t d-done by the general public?” Tim mused.

“Nope,” Clarke affirmed. “Not since… well… yeah, I probably shouldn’t be giving out future information. Even if…“ He glanced at Frank. “Damn, I am SO out of my depth here. But if you’re willing, I had hoped to bring you to someone who could help. She’s the person I phoned when I first realized who you were.”

“Oh! Is it Carrie?” Laurie asked.

Clarke visibly shuddered. “Hell no, not her. Not Carrie. You will know this person though. I think. Which is probably all I should say until we’re there.” He glanced at the Chevy. “You want to try driving it and follow me? Or shall I tow? I’d recommend the latter, since there’s room for everyone in the truck, and I wager this thing’s still running on regular unleaded gasoline. No point draining the tank.”

Frank rubbed his neck. “Tow then, I guess. Except where is this person you’d be taking us to? For that matter, where are we now?”

Clarke thought for a moment. “You’d realize soon enough. We’re a little ways outside Ottawa. That’s where we’re headed.”

Laurie did a double take. “Wow. Is Ottawa still the capital of Canada?”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah.”

“Hold on.” Frank pulled Mindy’s piece of paper back out of his pocket and looked at it. “That means we’re in the 613 area code. This string of ten digits… it could be a phone number.”

“Ten digits… an old school phone number?” Clarke said. “You’re just full of surprises. I mean, the system’s backwards compatible, so whatever you have should still work, but who are you planning to contact thirty years out of date?”

“I won’t know until I try it,” Frank admitted. “Can we use your phone?”

Clarke tugged on the brim of his hat. “Depends,” he said. “Will it get me in trouble?”

“I’ll hang up if it’s someone problematic,” Frank assured him. He looked to Tim. “But there’s a chance I’ll need your linguistic expertise.”

Tim nodded, closing the distance between them.

Clarke frowned, but reached into his pocket to pull out a small device. “All right. Phone,” he said. The bright light from earlier returned, and this time Tim saw that a holographic keyboard had been illuminated in the air. Clarke moved his fingers around the virtual image. “I’m keying in audio only, anonymous guest, location tracking off,” he noted. “Keep the call short. Not because I don’t have the bandwidth, but because I feel like we don’t want to be noticed.”

Clarke swiped left, and the keyboard image resolved itself into that of a virtual numerical pad instead. It included buttons to dial and hang up. “There.” He placed the small device into Frank’s palm, then turned. “I don’t even want to know what you say, so Laurie, care to help me position things for the tow?”

As Clarke went to join the redheaded girl, Tim looked down at the device, then up at Frank. “Who do you think will answer?” he murmured.

Frank eyed Mindy’s note. “I figure maybe it’s whomever helped Mindylenopia get back to the past in the first place. And maybe that person has information we need about Carrie - except maybe they only speak Temporal.”

“L-Lots of maybes,” Tim observed.

Frank nodded. “Translate if you can?”

Tim nodded back, and Frank reached up to tap experimentally at the holographic keypad, keying in the ten digits. After a series of clicks, there was a buzzing noise that Frank took to be equivalent to a ring. Almost immediately, a familiar sounding female voice came on the line, demanding, “Who is this and how in hell did you get the number?!”

They both recognized the voice, Frank’s eyes going wide. “Mindylenopia?!” he blurted out.

NEXT: Identity Crisis

ASIDE: In case you missed it, there was an amusing ‘April Fool Update’ yesterday, written by Michael F. Read that to get a sense of why Clarke wouldn’t want to contact Carrie here (even though his story is not in continuity, it’s semi-accurate). Commentary coming tomorrow, regular schedule resumes Tuesday, want to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: A fifty-year old Carrie has abducted her teenaged self. Characters have pursued her from their past… to the uncertain future.

PART 88b: A FUTURE DARKLY

Elder Carrie bit her lower lip in amusement as the Temporal in front of her was fidgeting in his seat. It was clear that Glen was nervous, his body language was broadcasting it aggressively. Elder Carrie took a moment to appreciate that, this was not a side of Glen that she had seen often, but it had confirmed the change of roles in their relationship: Carrie was in control. Carrie was in charge. The best part of this is that Glen knew he was in trouble.

Elder Carrie locked eyes with Glen as she removed her coat, without blinking she hung it on her new “coat rack” and watched as Glen flinched.

“Is this making you uncomfortable?” Elder Carrie asked, motioning to the “coat rack”.

“I don’t think it is tasteful,” Glen responded, avoiding further eye contact. “I think it’s a little cruel,” he continued.

“Cruel?” replied the Elder Carrie. “Coming from YOU that’s a laugh. Cruel was you changing my childhood, cruel was you letting my past self know about about my sibling prematurely!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “What is ‘cruel’, Glinephanis, is that we got here because I trusted you, and you proved to be incompetent.”

An awkward silence fell on the two time travelers. As Glen looked down on the floor in guilt, abandoning his usual confidant demeanor, Elder Carrie poured herself another glass of wine and let her arm fall on the “coat rack” showily. She let the rack hold her weight and leaned on it as she swirled the wine in her glass playfully.

“This,” she said motioning to the “coat rack” once again, “is nothing compared to the trouble you have put me in.”

Glen could no longer avoid her gaze and finally yielded. He gazed up to see that right next to the mirthful and half drunk smile of Elder Carrie was the horrified and painful face of her younger counterpart. Carrie Waterson, the young Carrie Waterson, was frozen in place, trapped in time by her future self. The once powerful, albeit naive teen was powerless in the face of an older version of herself that had both more experience, and better control of her powers. She was now frozen in place, being forced to act as a makeshift coat rack. Glen could see the plea in her eyes.

“It is still pretty distasteful,” the Temporal finally managed. “How much longer are we going to have to keep her like this?”

The Elder Carrie stopped swirling her wine and looked at her younger self contemplatively. In a swift motion she grabbed a hat off of the sofa Glen was sitting on and rested it on the younger Carrie’s outreached hand, then took a step back and admired her work. “I’m not sure,” she replied, “call me an egotist but I am growing quite fond of myself as a coat rack.” The Elder Carrie took a sip of wine. “I really do just tie the room together.”

The Elder Carrie was taken aback now as the tone in Glen’s voice changed to annoyance. “I think you have misunderstood me, when I said it was not tasteful or cruel I was not talking about her treatment…”

“Go on”, said the Elder Carrie.

“I was talking about her style. The airport uniform she is wearing, it just does not go properly with the drapes,” continued Glen.

The Elder Carrie had not expected this, and was earnestly offended by Glen’s assault on her interior decorating skills. “What are you talking about?!” she snarled.

“The drapes Carrie, they clash with her navy blue, black and yellow vertical stripes just do not mesh well, either change her clothes or change the drapes.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to change the clothing of someone frozen this stiff?!” The Elder Carrie countered.

“Fine, then change the drapes, I said you could do one or the other!” Glen retorted.

She winced. “No. NO! I stand by those drapes, they are little unconventional–”

“A little unconventional?” Glen interrupted “They have black and yellow vertical stripes, Carrie! You might as well have lined your living room with ‘caution tape’ because that’s what it looks like!” The Temporal was out of breath.

She finished her glass of wine in protest and pointed at the drapes in fury. “They were CHEAP Glen, I am not spending a fortune on something that just blocks out light!”

“Well that’s the problem, isn’t it Carrie? Everything has got to be cheap with you! You can’t spend the extra money to get some drapes that aren’t an eyesore and you can’t even spend some money on a real coat rack. A coat rack left out on the street would be a better option if you are being so frugal!”

“WHAT?!” she screamed, “and get bed bugs? You know how dangerous discarded furniture is, Glen! At least I know where this one has been.”

In her fury, Elder Carrie lost concentration on her younger counterpart, giving her just a moment to plea, “Help me Glen please!” before being frozen back into place.

“Stay out of this,” The Elder Carrie sneered.

Glen looked on Carrie with exasperation and said: “Thank you, she wasn’t even contributing to the conversation!”

“I know right?” replied The Elder Carrie. “She just rudely interrupted us without saying a thing about the drapes!”

Glen frowned. “Why do we fight like this? It’s just furniture.”

“I don’t know, Glinephanis,” Elder Carrie sighed. “I guess the drapes are really not all that important. I’m sorry. We can replace them with the bright red ones with the paisleys you liked.”

“Those paisleys are going to clash too,” said Glen with his arms crossed.

“WILL NOTHING PLEASE YOU?!” the Elder Carrie shouted.

“A basic sense of décor will! A simple and basic sense of décor! Why is that so hard to ask for?!” countered Glen.

A single solitary tear ran down the frozen Carrie’s eye.

“Look, she’s crying, now she is far less appealing as a coat rack!” said Glen impatiently.

The Elder Carrie opened her mouth as if to say something when she was suddenly hit with an epiphany. Running over to the nearest lamp, the Elder Carrie removed the lamp shade and placed in on her younger self’s head, obscuring her tears and horrified expression. “What do you think Glen?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Glen said positively. “Yeah! I think that works! She is much better looking as a lamp, plus that black lamp shade actually goes well with the drapes!”

“And you doubted my sense of décor!” the Elder Carrie said playfully. Glen smiled back at her and poured a glass of wine for himself and for Elder Carrie. They clinked their glasses together as the tension between them softened. “You know,” said Glen, “if you can keep her like this I can glue a light fixture to her head and then she would be a functioning lamp.”

“There is no need Glen, my past self was always pretty bright…”

^.- APRIL FOOL. ^.-

Gregory Taylor, who normally writes this story, has today created their own entry for Unice5656 who normally writes “Fantasia”, so you can go check that out next. (I’ll post a direct link to my post there once I’m awake.)

For a full list of all six April Fool’s Swappers and their stories, as well as dozens of other serial novels that you might enjoy, check out the Web Fiction Guide Forums.

Thanks for reading, and remember, the best way to support your favourite serial novelist is to tell all your friends about them!

NEXT: The real 88b, “Future Imperfect”, posts TOMORROW. Then a Commentary Post on Monday!

ASIDE: Hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did. With no prompting, Michael actually nailed some elements of Future Carrie’s personality pretty well… I’ll leave it to you to decide which ones, as before we officially meet the older Carrie again, we’ll get some future context. Oh, care to vote for T&T at TWF?

PREVIOUSLY: An older Carrie abducted her teenaged self, took Glen, and killed Mindy. Leaving Frank, Laurie and Tim stuck in the past.

PART 88a: GETAWAY

Laurie felt like she had become the most stable person of their tiny time group. That in itself was freaking her out, and yet in the same way that Tim had said that focussing on her had helped him, it was by focussing on Tim and Frank that she seemed to be able to quell any panic attacks over Carrie’s abduction and Mindy’s apparent demise.

They had made tracks after the car explosion. Found their way to a Miami hostel, pooled their money (admittedly Canadian funds, with only some of it valid in this time) and pleaded their case. Anne, the desk clerk, had taken pity on them, and given them some beds.

Laurie had heard Frank crying for the first time that night. He’d kept quiet about it the following day, but it seemed to her that he was becoming emotionally unstable. Pinning all his hopes on whatever note Mindy had given him, though as per her instructions, he was waiting the requisite two days before looking at it. To honour what may have been the Temporal’s last request.

By contrast, Tim was shutting down. Resigning himself to the fact that they were trapped out of their time. He had initially brought along enough of his medications to last four days, yet he was now looking into ways of getting those over-the-counter drugs while stuck in the past. Along with investigating how they might find jobs. His practicality was becoming a counterpoint to Frank’s desperation.

Laurie felt stuck somewhere between them. She had to believe there was a way out - she HAD to! - because time travel existed. She couldn’t even completely accept Mindy’s death, because again, time travel. Yet at the same time, Laurie was reluctant to place all of her faith on Mindy’s note.

To that end, on the morning of the second day, Laurie travelled back to her old house. It occurred to her that, if she could somehow send a message forwards using her younger self, at least Luci or one of the others would eventually know about the situation. How would that help? She wasn’t sure. In fact, in the end, she hadn’t been sure how to manage it.

“So what d-did you d-do?” Tim asked her.

Laurie finished chewing her half of the granola bar, which was effectively their dinner, and swallowed. “Nothing,” she answered. “I stared at our Miami house, then walked away.” She looked across the street, to where Frank was staring into space. “I’m telling you because, well, maybe suggesting it to Frank is an option? Tomorrow morning, after whatever fallout he feels from that note?”

“C-Could do,” Tim yielded. “Might help keep him going. Yeah, that’s a good idea, Laurie.”

Laurie bit down on her lower lip. “I mean, I’m not delusional, am I? There… there IS a way out of this, right?”

Tim sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t felt this messed up since Julie sprang her whole ‘get the chip’ mission on me.” Tim reached out to pat her knee. “But know what, Laurie? I’m glad you’ve got a plan. Your hope helps give me hope.”

Laurie felt a smile flicker across her face. “I just want to get home.” She squirmed. “Or failing that, at least get into a change of clothes. These ones are getting gross.”

Tim nodded. “I hear that. Pity our car blew up. You were the most prepared of any of us, what with having a whole art camp bag packed.”

Laurie slumped. “And now I’m gonna need to buy new coloured pencils when we get home. The good ones aren’t cheap.”

“Right. Sorry for bringing that up.” Tim withdrew his palm.

“No, it’s fine,” Laurie said, reaching back to grasp his hand. “Speak your mind. Be true to yourself! That’s what I’m trying to do here.” She forced a smile back out. “It’s only, the thing that’s making this all feel so weird? Is that you’re the ones who came into the past to recruit me. So I feel like you should kinda be the smarter ones in terms of figuring out how to resolve this kind of situation. You know?”

Tim shook his head. “Intelligence and wisdom are two different things. You are wise, Laurie, in your own way. Seeing the best in people and situations. In fact, your optimism reminds me of Clarke’s… except it’s somehow a lot more infectious than it is with him.”

Laurie nodded, then as an afterthought squeezed Tim’s hand, until he smiled back at her. The both of them then turned their attention back to Frank, who remained staring at the darkening sky.

“It’s time,” Frank said. He looked away from his watch, which synched to local time now read 11:30pm, and towards his two time travel companions instead. Their faces were partially illuminated by the streetlight above. “I… I just want to say, if this note thing doesn’t work out, I really am SO sorry to have dragged you both into–"

“Frank, stop.”

He blinked at Laurie. “I’m sorry?”

“And AGAIN you’re sorry,” she pointed out. She stepped closer. “Stop saying that. It’s actually beginning to bug me! You’ve been like this for the last 48 hours, talking to us like we didn’t want to be here. Sure, it’s not what we expected, but golly, no one ever held a gun to my head. We came here for Carrie. We did our best. This trip is what it is, Frank, and if you apologize again for something so obviously outside of your control, I’m gonna… gonna slap sense into you. So help me, I will!”

Frank gaped at her for a second, not sure how to respond. He looked over towards Tim, who smiled and shrugged back. “Her Veniti attitude is coming through, Frank. She’ll do it.”

“Um. Well, okay then. No apologies. Only this note.” He thrust his hand into his pocket. He felt the paper there, hesitated, then slowly drew it out. He fingered the edge of the sheet. “Dammit, I feel like this is Mindy’s last will and testament or something…"

“So let’s see what she wanted us to have,” Tim soothed.

Frank nodded. Carefully, he unfolded the page and smoothed it out on his leg. The other two leaned in to see. The scrawled handwriting read: ‘Tim has the coin. Laurie has the key. Frank, set March 25, 7pm.' It was followed by a string of ten digits.

They stared for a moment.

“The coin?” Frank murmured, looking to Tim.

Tim stared back, then reached for his back pocket. “I r-remember what Mindy said to me now!” he gasped.

“Tim, come with me, stammer a lot and make writing motions. We’ll ask that businessman to lend us his pad.”

“B-B-But,” Tim began again.

“Good, like that,” Mindy asserted. “Frank, wait here a moment with Laurie,” she added, practically dragging Tim towards the guy in the suit who was scribbling something in a book as he talked on his cell phone.

As she did so, she leaned down to whisper to him. “I have something for you.” She pressed the coin into Tim’s hand. He blinked in surprise, looking down at it. “Put that in your back pocket,” Mindy continued. “Do NOT spend it. In fact, forget all about it until Frank mentions it. Our survival may depend on it.”

Tim shook his head. “Mindy, HOW? This c-coin is from–”

“Shhhh!” Mindy cut in. “I know. Fun fact, the guy you call Shady, the one who activated Carrie’s powers? I managed to steal his future currency. And for over three years now, I’ve kept that coin on my person - now you must do so in my place. Okay?"

“Um, okay…?”

“Now seriously, stammer something."

“B-B-B-But,” Tim began anew, that request becoming a tired refrain.

They had reached the businessman, and Mindy quickly negotiated for some sheets of paper and a spare pen from his pocket. She began to scribble on the sheet as she walked back. “Hey, I thought the kid needed it to communicate!” the businessman protested, before giving up and returning to his phone call.

Frank felt his heart rate quicken as Tim explained. “So when Mindy says the key,” Frank decided as Tim finished, “did she mean a literal…”

He turned to look at Laurie, only to see that she was staring at him, a surprised expression on her face, and a car key dangling from a loop of wire in her fingers.

Mindy grabbed Laurie by the arm, maneuvering her out of the room, leaving Tim to deal with Frank kneeling on the ground.

“Laurie, I’m giving you something very important right now,” Mindy said, pressing the object into her hands. “Don’t look at it, simply carry it with you. Secretly. You’ll know when to bring it back out. In the meantime, you’ll have to be strong - but I know you can be. And no matter what anyone says, for the next couple days, you will never lose hope. You understand me?”

“Ah, s-sure,” Laurie said, taken aback by the urgency of Mindy’s tone. “But Mindy, it feels like you handed over–"

“Shhhh!” Mindy smiled. “Turns out it’s a good thing I swapped licence plates to throw Glen off our trail. Now, forget for two days, since as of right now, we’ve got to move.”

Frank and Tim quickly caught up to the two of them in the corridor.

Laurie gasped. “That’s why it felt wrong. When Mindy was going for the car. Because back then, I was the one with…"

“Don’t say it,” Frank broke in. “Not out loud. Objects back in pockets.” He shoved the paper back into his own pants. “We play it casual, like Mindy wanted. We can check this out tomorrow.”

“What? Frank, why wait??” Tim protested.

“We might only have one shot at this,” Frank explained, forcing his mind to shift back into gear. “And even if Mindy drew Elder Carrie’s attention, maybe the future is still tracking us. Expecting something like this, something to be triggered two days later. So we don’t let it play out tonight. We can’t make this easy for those future trackers.”

Laurie nibbled on her lower lip uncertainly, exchanging a glance with Tim, who shrugged. “He’s the time expert,” the blonde boy yielded.

They made their way back to the Miami airport the following afternoon, all of them hungry and tired. “Mindy’s choice of a Chevy was fortunate,” Frank murmured as they regarded the parking lot. “There were a bunch of them in the States around this time. I only hope we haven’t been towed."

It took about ten minutes of searching, but a shout by Tim brought them running. The Ontario plates had been swapped out for Florida ones - of course, since it had been an Ontario registration that had blown up over two days ago now - but through the driver’s side window, the interior looked just as they remembered it. The time machine was intact.

The trio stood there for a moment, letting it sink in. Frank slowly exhaled. “I guess it could be booby trapped, but there’s no point leaving it here. If you want, you two can head back to a safe distance while I start the car up.”

“Don’t start it,” Laurie suggested. “Use my key to unlock, you set the date, drop Tim’s coin in, and we go.”

Frank blinked. “Good point.”

Tim fished Mindy’s coin back out of his pocket. “Do we really use this though? Our stuff must still be in the trunk, including our coins. We could use one of them to return to the present. To recruit more help.”

Frank shook his head. “If Elder Carrie is the one gaining control over things, the only hope we have against her is OUR Carrie. And in order to get to that Carrie before the older version can solidify her position, I think we go straight to the date Mindy’s provided. No side trips.”

“Right.” Tim rubbed his forehead. “At l-least Chartreuse saying I’d be using Temporal in the future m-makes sense now.”

“Frank, how can you be so sure OUR Carrie will be at that date?” Laurie pressed.

Frank exhaled. “I can’t be. But the date Mindy said to set? Coupled with the coin, it’s the night before Carrie’s fiftieth birthday. That can’t be coincidence.” He turned. “If you’d prefer to wait here though…"

Laurie shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”

“L-Let’s do this,” Tim agreed.

Carefully, the three of them piled into the time machine. Laurie in the driver’s seat, Frank tapping in the coordinates from the passenger side, and Tim in the back. They dropped in the future coin. Then they all eyed the DNA pad. Frank cleared his throat. “So, which one of us…"

Laurie reached out, pressing her thumb against it. “Like riding a bicycle,” she breathed.

Three seconds later, there was a popping sound, the car vanished… and it immediately spun, as if it the front had been struck by a heavy object. Frank grabbed for the dashboard, despite that not making sense, because he couldn’t move, couldn’t grab, they were being dematerialized in a wormhole, and how could they even be in a car accident there?

He opened his mouth to shout, but he couldn’t do that either, and for the first time in over a year, Frank felt himself losing consciousness on account of a time journey.

NEXT: A Future Darkly

ASIDE: Hope that didn’t feel like a cheat - you knew as much as the characters did. Now, to the future…

PREVIOUSLY: Frank caught Carrie up on everything. Then Glen told Carrie why she can’t save her mother.

PART 87b: TRAPPED

She had allowed the time stream to coalesce about her, had been about to pinpoint her mother and jump to her, which was when…

“Carrie, when your mother was taken, she was pregnant.”

The water became deathly cold. Cracks formed in the scene around her, and then the image shattered, leaving Carrie standing back in the small airport lounge, staring at Glen. With a twisting in her gut. “No,” she whispered. A reflex word, because deep down, she knew it to be the truth.

Things were starting to make sense.

“I’m sorry,” Glen said. He looked around. “Carrie, maybe we can still run away together."

That time in the hospital, when she had felt like she and her mother couldn’t both exist, because of a strain on the time streams… it had actually been because she and a sibling couldn’t both exist. One person with temporal powers was bad enough, to have two?! Insanity. Why had nobody ever told her this?

“My Dad… did he…"

Glen shook his head. “He didn’t know. Elaine was barely a month along, I’m not sure if she even suspected.” He continued to look around nervously. “Carrie, please, we need to get out of here.”

The repercussions continued to wash over her. If she saved her mother, all she was doing was pushing her fate onto her unborn brother or sister. Removing herself from the timeline as a child wouldn’t fix things either. The future could simply try again, with someone else. How could she do that? How could she make someone else suffer in the same way that she was suffering here? How could she make a SIBLING suffer that way? Was the path forwards with Glen truly the only one?

Glen pulled at her arm. “Carrie…"

She ignored him. There was something more to this. Why hadn’t she been able to pinpoint where her mother had gone, that time she had first tried to figure it out? Why hadn’t she ever been able to learn the fate of Elaine Waterson? The only one who might have been able to stop her would be someone with similar powers…

A rip began to form in the fabric of space-time.

“I did it to myself,” Carrie realized. “I can’t save my mama, because I’m the one who’s going to abduct her. Along with my unborn sibling, in order to stabilize the timelines. I do it because… because I was always predestined to do it. I’m the Chosen One, the ONLY one with the power to do it and hide the truth, so it has to be me.”

“Bloody hell,” Glen gasped.

A fifty year old Carrie Waterson stepped through the rip in space-time, dressed in a bright yellow gown, and looking royally pissed off.

“Glen’s up here,” Frank asserted, looking down at the tracking device as he ran. “In a room, it’s probably some lounge area.”

“Stop,” Mindy asserted, reaching out to grasp him by the shoulder.

Frank shrugged her off. But when he turned to look at the redhead, his feet stumbled to a stop, not having expected the look of horror on Mindy’s face. Tim and Laurie stopped also, looking back and forth between them.

“What?” Frank asked. “What, are we too late?”

“Maybe,” Mindy said. “Let’s approach cautiously, okay? Listen at the door first. There’s…" She shook her head. “You ever get the feeling that your past has finally caught up with you? Even if that past is the future?”

Carrie couldn’t move. She wanted to scream, wanted to run, wanted to lash out at the older version of herself - and she couldn’t. She was trapped. But then, in a way, they were both trapped, trapped by time, by fate, by the cosmic forces that refused to cut her a break. Insanely, the thought that popped to the forefront of her mind was how at least her present day three-year-old self was tucked away safely in bed - so which of them here in Miami should be adopting the middle-name tradition of becoming Elizabeth?

“You have irrevocably screwed up my past!” Elder Carrie said, glaring at Glen. “That’s NOT why I sent you back, Glinephanis!”

He winced. “You, that is, she– Carrie, your younger self was about to time slip, and mess with your mother. Telling her the truth, it was our last chance.”

“She wasn’t jaded enough for that knowledge. Not as this teenager! Even now, she’s trying to figure out a way out of this one.”

Glen swallowed. “Which you know, because you were once her?”

“Which I know because it’s taking considerable effort to keep myself temporally numb. Plus yes, it’s what I would be thinking in her position.” Elder Carrie bared her teeth. “You broke her, Glinephanis. Broke ME. She will still have been me though. I’ll now have to see to it personally.”

“I’m sorry,” Glen apologized.

Elder Carrie glared at him for a moment, then shook her head, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “Oh, it wasn’t your fault. You did your best. I know who’s really to blame - it’s these stupid Mundanes and that damnable Mindylenopia! They’re all dooming my childhood.” She peered at him. “Perhaps you can still be a bright spot in my younger self’s life though? Will you come with me now? Some of my memories could remain valid, not be inserted by force.”

Glen nodded slowly. “I’m with you to the end. But Carrie, there are more time travellers here in Miami. Mindylenopia and a number of your old classmates. We all came in a time car. They might still try something.”

A growl came from the Elder Carrie’s throat. “Fine, I will deal with them as soon as I get my younger self here restrained back in my present. Grab hold, we’re leaving.”

Carrie felt her future self (or alternate future self, maybe, somehow? Oh God… so trapped…) grab her by the collar. And Glen latched onto Elder Carrie’s arm, and then they were all being pulled back towards the rip in space-time…

Which was when the door burst open. “Carrie!” Laurie shrieked.

“Carrie, fight it,” Tim called out. “Whatever is going on, fight!”

Frank charged in between the two of them.

“Frank, don’t get close!” Mindy shouted, grabbing onto him by the waist, slowing him down. Not that it mattered.

“Carrie, FUTURE Carrie, it doesn’t have to be this way!” Frank shouted, looking from her to her Elder Self. “You don’t have to do this, not to yourself…"

And Carrie felt the time streams pulling at them, and there was nothing her friends could do, she was being pulled away, pulled off into the future, down a path that had no turns…

Wait, could she move? Was Elder Carrie losing her grip? Carrie twitched her fingers, but no, that wasn’t enough, she was unable to pull away… a single tear trickled out of the corner of her eye, as Carrie Waterson, the future Temporal Weapon, surrendered herself to the inevitable.

Frank pounded the floor where they had disappeared.

“This is bad,” Mindy murmured, her face pale. “She’ll be monitoring us from this point on… oh no, no, no. Tim, get Frank. Laurie, you’re with me. We’re heading back to the Chevrolet. NOW.”

“B-But…” Tim began. However, Mindy had already grabbed Laurie by the arm, and was maneuvering her out of the room. So Tim looked towards Frank, who was now kneeling on the ground and looking like he’d just lost his best friend. Which, Tim supposed, might not be far from the truth.

“Frank,” he ventured, moving to touch his companion’s shoulder. “We’ve gotta go.”

“I shouldn’t have waited,” Frank said numbly. “We should have tracked Glen right away. We could have stopped this.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Frank, Mindy needs us back at the Chevy,” he said, tugging on the other boy’s arm.

“And what did the older Carrie even mean?” Frank said, turning his head. “The bit we heard, about Glen having broken her… damn it, what were they even talking about before that?!”

“Frank, time machine. We still have a chance to do something. Come ON,” Tim said, surprised at the force of his own voice.

Frank swallowed. “Right.” He scrambled to his feet. “Right. And we still have Mindy, she might tell us more now. Let’s go."

The two of them quickly caught up to Mindy and Laurie in the corridor. They all hurried out through the arrivals section, pausing only when Mindy started snapping her fingers. “Paper, I’ll need paper… Tim, come with me, stammer a lot and make writing motions. We’ll ask that businessman to lend us his pad.”

“B-B-But,” Tim began again.

“Good, like that,” Mindy asserted. “Frank, wait here a moment with Laurie,” she added, practically dragging Tim towards the guy in the suit who was scribbling something in a book as he talked on his cell phone.

“She’s scared,” Laurie said to Frank, as they watched. “She’s trying to act in control but… but in seeing that future Carrie… golly, it really freaked Mindy out.” She shook her head. “That… it IS what we saw, right? That was a future Carrie abducting… herself?”

“I think so,” Frank answered. “But we’re not finished yet. We can’t be. Mindy must know somewhen we can go. Or have some future knowledge we can use.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

Laurie shifted her weight back and forth. “Really? Or are you only hoping that, because we’re kinda out of other options.”

Frank didn’t answer, which Laurie supposed was answer enough. Mindy strode back towards them then, scribbling something on her newly acquired piece of paper. The man briefly called something out to them before getting pulled back into his phone conversation.

“All right,” Mindy concluded, folding up the sheet. “This is for you, Frank. Put it in your pocket, and wait two days before looking at it, all right?”

He blinked as he took it from her. “Um, okay, but why…”

“We’re going to hang around Miami for at least two days, acting normal, see?” Mindy continued. “Blending in. Acting passive. We time jump, we enter her domain, whereas so long as we’re here, she probably won’t bother to trace us closely. Not for any length of time. She’ll jump ahead instead, and if she focusses on anyone, it’ll be me. If we get separated, remember, she can use time as a weapon, but she’s not omniscient. She can miss things. Details. Be covert.”

Laurie didn’t like the resignation in Mindy’s tone. When her brother planned things, he never sounded like that. “You’re talking as if we’ve already lost,” she murmured.

Mindy grimaced. “Now that Carrie’s Future Self is involved? I guess I am. But there’s still a chance. Maybe. To that end, you might as well know the truth about why Carrie couldn’t succeed with her mother - I’m pretty sure Glen spilling the beans is what created this mess. But if I tell you, it’s on condition that you all agree to let things play out normally for two days. No matter what! You all cross-your-hearts promise that?”

“Of course!” Frank blurted.

“O-Okay, if it helps Carrie,” Tim said.

“Are you sure we can handle it?” Laurie squeaked.

Mindy flashed her a smile. “Oh, Laurie. Don’t worry, a lot of my earlier reluctance was a fear that one of you would tell Carrie. Which, if she already knows, is no longer an issue. But know what? On your few visits to the cafe this past year, I’ve seen you really coming into yourself. Emerging from the shadow of your brother. Yes, I believe you can handle this.”

Laurie nodded back, feeling a newfound confidence. “Okay then.”

So Mindy told them. And while the thought of Carrie, faced with the choice of either inflicting her own destiny onto a sibling, versus one day removing her own mother from the timelines, made Laurie feel sick to her stomach… she wagered the temporal truth of the situation was even worse, given the way Frank reeled.

“So there’s no way to get Carrie’s attention through her mother,” Frank said. “When Elaine’s plane leaves the airport shortly…”

“Oh, Gods, do NOT mess with that,” Mindy said, eyes widening. “Remember, you do NOT want Carrie’s attention. Not the one who’ll be looking now. Rather, we need to do everything we can to AVOID her attention.” She glanced around. “We’ve spent too much time talking in one place. Wait out front, I’ll go get the time car, we can take it to a hostel for the night.”

Mindy began to stride for the exit, the teenagers hurrying to catch up. “Wait, Mindy,” Laurie protested. “Why take the car?” Something about that felt wrong.

“Glen’s still with HER,” Mindy said. “Since Glen knows about it, we can’t hide it, but we CAN make her think it’s broken or something. So stay back, okay? Also, two days, acting normal, no matter what. You all promised!”

“Sure,” Frank said, exchanging a glance with Tim.

“Good.” She paused, a ghost of a smile flickering over her face. “One last thing. If this all goes south as fast as I think it will - in the end, know that I’m glad I could make an impact.”

Mindy ran off. The knot in Laurie’s stomach tightened. “Frank, no. Something’s wrong. I wonder… I wonder if this is maybe how Chartreuse feels sometimes?”

“F-Frank, she’s right, we’re missing something,” Tim said. “Was Mindy maybe mentally influencing us? She wouldn’t try to time travel without us, would she?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Frank said. He blinked. “But we did miss something. Mindy moved the car. Glen wouldn’t know where it was, not right away. All she’s doing here is leading him and that Future Carrie right back to it. Why?”

“So that Future Carrie’s not watching us?” Laurie whispered.

“But if she’s watching Mindy instead…” Tim murmured.

They all exchanged glances, then Frank took off at a run. He’d barely made it outside before there was the sound of loud explosion from out in the parking lot. By the time the teenagers got there, they were unable to even approach the flaming, burning wreckage of the Chevrolet Cavalier. Or it’s lone occupant.

NEXT: Getaway

ASIDE: That went to hell pretty quick, hm? Any feelings about it, or what’s next? There’s also that vote for T&T, perhaps.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie went back in time to save her mother. Frank has caught up to her at the Miami airport.

PART 87a: THE PLAIN TRUTH

Frank ignored everyone else in the Miami airport, devoting all his attention to not losing sight of Carrie. After all, this might be their only chance - and she was angling for an ‘Employees Only’ door. He shoved the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and got a grip on the belt of his slightly-too-large pants as he ran. He pushed past someone, mumbling an apology.

The door Carrie was aiming for seemed to open in front of her as she arrived, and she charged through it at full sprint. Frank tried to sprint himself, reaching out and catching the door before it could swing shut. He burst through, spotting Carrie down the passageway.

“Carrie!” he called out, risking the shout now that they were out of the main area. “Carrie, wait, we’re in another timeline!”

“Frank, stop,” Carrie said.

Except she hadn’t said it - the voice had come from behind him. He spun as the door closed, revealing… Carrie. Another Carrie. Except this one was dressed differently. She was wearing a white blouse with a blue business suit, her hair having been gathered up underneath a flight hat. Which made her look much like Elaine Waterson had, moments ago. “Carrie, what–"

Frank stopped, for as he turned back to look at the prior Carrie, she disappeared. One second she was there, then there was a flash of light which made him blink, and then… nothing. Empty hallway. Of course, Frank realized - she’d escaped through time, to become the Carrie in the business suit, who was here now. Frank turned back to her. “Carrie?”

“You couldn’t stop her,” Carrie observed. “Maybe you can’t stop me either. But I have questions. So many questions.”

“H-How far back did you just go?”

“No, Frank. I get the first question. Namely, how in hell did you get back here?! I destroyed… at least, I thought I’d destroyed…"

“The chip?” Frank finished, as her voice caught in confusion or possibly frustration. “You did, but you didn’t. It’s complicated.” He reached into his pocket to shut off the muffled noises coming from the walkie-talkie.

“That’s not an answer,” Carrie countered. “I need more.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. “Well, what we all thought was the chip wasn’t really the chip. So we were able to reconstruct the time machine after all. Which we did because we had to get a message to you. And it all took weeks, Carrie - weeks where we never saw you. Or your mother.”

She flinched at that.

“We figured out what you were planning,” Frank continued. “At least in as much as saving your mom - and with you dressed like that, is it your intention to take her place? To vanish instead?”

Carrie’s mouth twitched. “That other me jumped back a day and a half,” she said after a moment. “To give herself time to prepare for this event. I’d rather not time slip again, but I will if I have to. If you make it necessary.”

It took a second for Frank to realize that she had answered his initial question, about how long she’d been in town. “So what about your intentions here?”

She stared. “Was it you who brought Glen back in time?”

It was Frank’s turn to flinch. Had she been watching them? Well, there was no point denying it. “Yes,” he admitted. “Which goes to show that he doesn’t want you to do this either, Carrie.” A thought occurred. “Wait, have you already spoken with Glen?”

Carrie crossed her arms. “My intention is to bring my mom back into our present. To give her back to Dad. Admittedly, she’ll be almost fifteen years out of time synch, but saving her in the ‘now’, and having her around while I grow up - I already know that’s not a possibility. Her absence made me too much of who I am. It brought me to this point. If I try to paradox my way out of that, it’s liable to render the younger me comatose. So, this is the best alternative I could think of. A parting gift, as I return to this airport and vanish in her place.”

Frank shook his head. “Except Elaine was never in our present. So I’m afraid your plan won’t work.”

Her jaw clenched. “Maybe it will work if you tell me the date when you left.”

Frank exhaled. “But Glen also thinks this event is something you can’t affect. He wouldn’t tell us why.”

Carrie frowned. “Well, if that’s truly the case, I have a backup plan.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “You’re a couple questions deeper than me now. And here I thought I was the curious one.”

“Carrie…"

She pulled her hat down tighter against her head. “Did Char– or rather, who all is actually here with you and Glen?”

So she hadn’t been watching them after all. “Laurie is, that helped us get to Miami. And Tim, to translate any Temporal talk. And, ah, well, Mindy.”

Carrie’s posture became rigid. “Mindylenopia?!”

“Is that another question?” Frank said, seizing the opportunity.

“No!” Carrie countered, her face a flurry of emotions. “Except how is that possible, she… I banished…"

He wanted to spill, to tell her about Mindy/Theresa and Chartreuse’s conclusions about Timeline Four, but at this point, he also desperately wanted to know what her next plans were. He had to be assertive, the way he had been that day in the hospital over a year ago. Well, over a year, relatively speaking. “I’ll explain it all, but first it’s your turn to answer a question,” he insisted.

Her hands curled then uncurled. “Glen spoke to me earlier,” she admitted. “He must have spotted me as I was checking out security at the airport. I didn’t want to speak with him, but he pursued me, blocks away. Tried to offer up an alternative plan, said that we could leave here and still relocate somewhere, somewhen.”

“Carrie, even though he came here with us, his plans aren’t the same as ours,” Frank insisted.

She shrugged. “It’s fine, I wouldn’t let him finish. I knew I had to be here to open the door for myself, and to delay you.” Her lips pursed. “But I did say that I would meet him again, after this conversation.”

So she was going to Glen next. Frank swallowed. “Okay, well, here’s the thing. Our whole worldview is ‘Timeline Four’, Carrie! Not Glen’s ‘Timeline Three’, not the one that Chartreuse told us about. Because, thing is, when you banished Mindylenopia… she became Theresa. The waitress in the cafe.”

Carrie’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back. Frank charged on. “See, in our past, Mindy influenced Linquist, who created that temporal gun, and he in turn influenced us, and Theresa influenced us, and then Mindy’s the one who fixed our time machine, and so it’s all so interwoven at this point that ‘Timeline Three’ can go to hell! We want you back, Carrie. Everyone wants you back in the present, and maybe that can be a thing in this New Timeline.”

Aside from biting down on her lip, Carrie hadn’t displayed any other outward signs of emotion. She seemed to be processing the information. So Frank gave her the time. “I’m not good for you, not good for any of you,” she said at last.

“Chartreuse would dispute that,” Frank objected. “And maybe it’s egotistical, but I think we’re better for you than Glen. And better than you being by yourself. Actually, there’s been talk of a rather nasty ‘Future You’, which is what Mindy had initially been trying to change… and it’s not too late to change that future. I’m sure it’s not.”

She stared at him, then slowly shook her head. “Going back to the present to fix my future, I don’t see that as an option.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Thing is, if all else fails, there was a first timeline. The one where I was never here, where you all led perfectly good Carrie-free lives. That’s what I was angling for by doing this, and if I can’t manage it by disappearing in your present…”

She let her voice trail off, giving Frank a pointed look. It took a second, but the piece snapped into place - oh no, was she referring to her ‘backup plan’? “Carrie, no,” he gasped. “You can’t… look at what happened when Julie tried to erase herself!”

“I’m not Julie,” Carrie said quietly. “I’m Temporal Paradox Girl.” She tugged on her hat again. “I’m going to leave you now, Frank. Don’t follow, or I’ll be forced to temporally freeze you in place, and I’m not sure I have the skills yet to put a short time frame on that effect.”

“Carrie, we came here from December 30th,” Frank blurted. “We had a stand-in for you at school, so your absence wasn’t missed. Your Dad knows about you, and he’s okay with it. Please, don’t throw all that away. Look into all the options before you do something rash!”

She back-pedalled away from him, down the hall. “No, no, stop making everything harder for me,” she pleaded. “Stop talking! Don’t follow!”

“Carrie…"

She turned and ran. Frank clenched his fists, but as requested, he didn’t follow. After all, he had to tell the others everything, and if she ended up temporally freezing him, the truth might come out too late.

“I told her everything,” Frank said. As soon as Carrie had vanished from view, he’d radioed the others, and everyone had converged at the ‘Employees Only’ door. “I… I don’t think she took it well,” he admitted. “She seems determined to disappear, whether she can rescue her mother here or not. And she said she’d freeze me in time if I followed her.”

“A-Are we letting that stop us?” Tim asked.

Frank shook his head. “No. But you’ve got to understand her state of mind before we pursue. She doesn’t seem to want to accept any alternatives…" He shook his head. “Yet I can’t think of how to convince her to find another path forwards! Damn it, what other arguments can we make??”

Mindy sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe Carrie has to know.”

Frank turned. “Know WHAT?”

“The reason she can’t save her mother. The reason she shouldn’t destroy herself. Trouble is, I have no idea what that knowledge will do to her. She might give up and shut down entirely.”

“Carrie’s not the sort of person to give up,” Laurie asserted. “And we have to do something.”

“We are running out of options,” Frank agreed. “Mindy, if revealing your secrets will help…"

Mindy grimaced. “Oh, I’m not telling YOU. I’m not even sure I’m telling her. First, I’ll try speaking to Carrie as I used to as Theresa, maybe that passive assistance I gave to her counts for something. We’re going to lose her trail though, if we stand around here much longer!”

“Maybe not. She went to meet Glen,” Frank said. As Mindy’s eyes widened, he added, “so that’s how we’ll find her. Based on what Carrie was saying, I don’t think Glen found our tracking device after all.”

Carrie ran into the small lounge room, wanting to get away - only to find that he was already there, waiting for her. Of course. He would have had to use his mental abilities to clear the room out of other people. Besides, what other events would be on his schedule for the evening?

Carrie sagged back against the door as it closed behind her. “We’ve never been in Timeline Three,” she accused.

“So you did speak with Frank,” Glen remarked. “Pity. But whatever this timeline is, it doesn’t change anything.”

Carrie used her palm to wipe away any tears that might have escaped after her prior conversation. “If that’s so, then you’re not stopping me any more than Frank was. This attempt, it’s my true ‘swan song’, alright? My parting gift. At least give me that."

Glen stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Carrie. So sorry. But you can’t save your mother. Just… let’s run away together. Then we can zap the time machine into oblivion, after Mindy and the others return to the present, okay?”

“WHY? Why can’t I do this? Because you should know that, if I truly can’t do this, I’ll be heading back to make myself disappear before mom even gets to Miami instead!”

“That would have… similar repercussions. If you stop and think about it, I don’t think you’ll really want to do either of those things.”

Carrie strode over to grab Glen by the front of his shirt. “WHY?” she shrieked again. “Why can’t I actually do the ONE thing that I want to do with these temporal powers of mine?”

“You’re not old enough to know that yet.”

She shoved him back, making him stumble. “Wrong! If I can mentally project myself around the present, temporally banish someone, and find people up and down my own timeline, I’m damn well old enough!”

He grabbed a chair for balance. “Carrie, no! This isn’t how things are supposed to play out…”

“Because I change things! I’m Paradox Girl, that’s what I do, right?! You’re just bitter because of how I got you got in trouble for losing me at the talent show, huh?”

“Carrie, please, you need to calm down. I want you to experience us being together, I don’t want to see you to be captured and spoon-fed those memories, but the longer this conversation goes on, the more likely that outcome is becoming…”

“Then I’ll leave,” Carrie asserted. “Leave this conversation, this room, this time. Unless you tell me right the hell now, I’m time jumping, and no one will find me ever again! Not you, not Chartreuse, not Frank, not anyone!”

“Carrie…”

“Bye, Glen.”

“Carrie, when your mother was taken, she was pregnant.”

NEXT: Trapped

ASIDE: Is it falling into place yet? Oh, and don’t confuse this part with “The Plane Truth”, when we first learned about Elaine’s fate.

PREVIOUSLY: To figure out the Miami International Airport, the time group split up - Laurie, Tim and Mindy in one group, Frank and Glen in the other.

M.I.A. (in 2014)

PART 86b: M.I.A.

“I don’t think we’re getting a boarding pass unless someone buys a ticket,” Laurie sighed, watching Mindy talk to the airline receptionist.

Tim poked her arm. “Or maybe it’s only…" He used both hands to slip on the sunglasses he was holding. “A matter of ‘time’. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh?”

Laurie slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. “Tim! Ohmigod, no, we have to stay serious. Also, I hated that CSI show. The original was better.”

Tim pulled the shades back off. “S-Sorry, couldn’t resist. And you seemed really tense.” He glanced over towards Mindy, then back to Laurie. “Tense is not good. Understandable, b-but maybe you need to try to relax?”

Laurie pulled her hands back to her sides, her eyes again on Mindy. “No. Carrie’s in trouble. Frank’s trusted us to keep track of Mindy. I can’t screw that up. I can’t relax.” Her fingers curled.

Tim shook his head. “Laurie, if you wind yourself up too tight, you’ll crash, like you–" He winced, but couldn’t think of another way to end the sentence. “Well, like Chartreuse said you have before. I’m sure you’ll d-do your best, we all will, but if the unexpected happens… d-don’t beat yourself up, okay? If there’s one thing I’ve found out about our time group, it’s that n-nothing really goes according to plan.”

The redhead nibbled on her lower lip. “Right.”

“You’re d-doing good here,” Tim assured her. “Give yourself permission to smile at my lousy j-jokes.”

The corner of Laurie’s mouth twitched up. Which was when the walkie talkie she was holding crackled to life. Her arm jerked up. “Yes?” she gasped, mashing the talk button.

“Get everyone back to the car,” came Frank’s voice.

“Frank, what’s the problem, what happ–" She caught Tim’s look and checked herself. “Okay. We’re meeting at the car.” She released the talk button. “Tim, go get Mindy, okay?”

He nodded back, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

“You let Glen get AWAY?” Mindy said, slamming her hands down on the car hood.

“I didn’t let him get away,” Frank countered, equal parts anger and sadness gnawing away at him. “Glen told me that if I didn’t let him leave, he’d tell security that I was some sort of terrorist. And with his power, they’d probably believe him. Pop the trunk, we need to get Julie’s tracking stuff back out.”

“Fine. Mess with her devices while I move the car,” Mindy sighed. “Glen knows where we parked, we don’t want him escaping with the time machine.”

“Y-You’re saying you put Beth’s tracking device on Glen?” Tim asked.

“Kinda,” Frank admitted. “The one Julie got off that hairband over fifty years later, at any rate. So, not ideal, but she’d charged it up and tested it. And since I kind of suspected Glen would try something like this, I slipped it in his pocket while we were moving the car off the beach.” Mindy handed the central device over to him. “I’ll just need to retune all this so that it reads Miami, at this point it’ll likely show Glen as being in our town library…"

“Why would Glen run away now?” Laurie piped up.

“What?” Frank asked, already messing with Julie’s device.

“Why do it now, while there’s still time for you to react?” Laurie pressed. “And not later, like when Carrie’s mom is about to land?”

Tim’s hand reached out to cover the display, forcing Frank to look up at him, then over to Laurie. She was biting down uncertainly on her lower lip.

“That’s… a good question,” Frank yielded. “Glen must have figured now was his best chance. What with being away from Mindy, who might otherwise advocate on our behalf. I shouldn’t have split us up.”

“It’s fine that you did, the decision seemed sound,” Tim assured. “But Laurie makes a good point - are you sure nothing happened right before Glen left?”

Frank thought back, slowly shaking his head. “We were looking for ways around security while you were checking out the boarding pass angle. We’d just agreed that even security outfits might not be enough to do it when Glen leaned in and told me he was leaving. He…" Frank frowned. “He did seem to be looking at something over my shoulder. I glanced that way, but I don’t know what he saw.”

“Something temporal,” Laurie concluded. “It had to be.”

Frank shrugged. “Maybe. Let’s see if we can figure out where he went before speculating.” It took almost thirty minutes to recalibrate the machine, by which point Mindy had walked back from re-parking the car. She glared at him.

“Is it a good time to point out that I never wanted Glen along in the first place?” she asked.

“No,” Frank grumbled. “Here’s the weird thing though. Unless I’ve done something wrong here, it looks to me like Glen’s left the airport entirely.”

“That is weird,” Tim agreed.

“So Glen knew you were bugging him, and thus put the tracker on someone else,” Mindy suggested.

Frank winced. “Possible.” He frowned, then finally directed his attention back to the three of them. “Okay, well, I think Glen’s already told us all he was going to about the limits of Carrie’s abilities. Is it practical to still chase him down? Or do we resume our efforts inside?”

Their eventual consensus was to make sure they had an airport plan before getting sidetracked looking for Glen. Laurie even pointed out that if things went badly that evening, they could time travel back to now, so that they could follow Glen instead… which Frank suspected would cause larger issues, but he made a note of how Laurie’s simpler way of looking at time travel might prove useful later on.

“I think Frank sees me as a nuisance,” Laurie sighed. “I was the wrong person to come. It should have been my brother.”

Tim shook his head. “D-Don’t say that. From what Clarke told me, when Frank was with Clarke and Corry back in the past, your brother was a bigger n-nuisance than you could ever be.”

She frowned. “Except my brother saved Julie!”

“Just as you’re helping to save Carrie.”

Laurie poked her fingers together. “But I can’t understand things, not the way Corry can! I’m only here because it’s Miami. So Frank’s been dismissive, and I’ll probably end up tensing up like you said, and then we’ll all have to try again somehow, which we wouldn’t need to with Corry and what if in the end I’ll have spoiled our only chance to save–"

“Laurie,” Tim broke in, stepping closer to meet her gaze. “Breathe. First, Frank’s not being dismissive, he gets p-preoccupied by technology. P-Plus he’s concerned about Glen, and he’s f-focussed on Carrie.” The blond boy smiled at her. “Second, being aware of tensing up means you’re less likely to do it. And f-finally, you’re more connected to Carrie than Corry could ever hope to be. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Laurie swallowed. “Chartreuse tell you to say some of that?”

“That last bit,” Tim admitted. “Honestly though, I’m making up a lot of this as I go along. In f-fact, focussing on you is kinda helping me not f-freak out myself. So thanks for that.”

The corners of Laurie’s mouth twitched up again. “You’re welcome.” She took in a long, slow breath. “I wish this wasn’t a life or death situation for the girl I idolize.”

“It’s not. Not yet, at least,” Tim said.

“Hey,” Frank said, approaching them with Mindy trailing along behind. “So, we’ve now got clothes that can have me pass for an airport worker. Don’t ask. I figure we grab some dinner, then have Mindy liberate us some boarding passes.”

Laurie’s partial smile faded. “We’re sticking with that plan then?”

“Unless you’ve come up with a better one.”

Laurie dropped her gaze to the ground. Corry would have come up with a good plan, she reasoned. She wasn’t the planning type. “No. But try and make sure you don’t disrupt anyone’s vacation, okay?” she murmured.

“Being choosy about our targets would draw more attention to us,” Mindy countered. “And time will smooth out minor changes.”

“Laurie’s right though, individuals are still important,” Tim put in. “Don’t you agree, Frank?”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed. “Yeah, let’s be choosy on the passes we grab. Thanks guys, keep acting as my conscience check whenever I lose perspective.”

Mindy let out a noise of exasperation, which made Laurie want to cringe. But then she felt Tim nudge her arm, and she looked up in time to catch Frank’s grateful smile towards her.

They had all been through security now. Mindy had ‘convinced’ the ‘donors’ of their boarding passes to stay in the main airport until after 11pm. Which wasn’t too much of a stretch, since Frank and the rest of them had gone through security at only half past ten. Frank glanced at his watch. Elaine Waterson’s plane would be on the ground by now.

“Check, check… we set? Over.” Frank clicked the button on his walkie-talkie.

“Clear at customs,” came Mindy’s voice.

“Um, all good here!” Laurie reported, situated at the entrance to the baggage claim area.

“N-Nothing on my end,” Tim reported. “And no way to tell who might be here to pick up Mrs. W for her transfer.”

“All right. From this point on, report on any sighting of Glen, Carrie, or Elaine,” Frank concluded. While the others were stationed at points that Mrs. Waterson would logically have to pass, he was mobile, able to go wherever he was needed. For now, he paced around the baggage area, pretending to look for misplaced luggage.

Slipping his walkie talkie away for the moment, Frank reached down to adjust his belt. Pity that the room Mindy had located hadn’t had any pants in his size. But he wasn’t going to quibble over something that helped him to blend into the background.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Frank whirled. “Could you tell me where the washrooms… oh, never mind, I see the sign,” the woman in the purple dress finished. She smiled at Frank. “Thanks anyway!”

“Ma’am,” Frank said, nodding as she sauntered off. He quickly made for an area with fewer people, deciding there probably was no such thing as a perfect disguise.

Ten minutes later Mindy made the first report. “W’s clearing customs,” she reported. A pause. “She’s through, and heading for a red haired man who went through right ahead of her. They seem to know each other.”

“Is he from her company? Or a Temporal agent?” Frank asked.

“How should I know?” Mindy said crossly. “I’ll follow in a moment. No sign of Carrie or Glen.”

The seconds seemed to stretch out longer than before, until Laurie’s frantic voice came onto the channel. “Ohmigod. That’s my DAD, guys! Carrie’s mom, she’s with my dad, and they’re coming this way, do I run and hide?!”

“What?” Frank nearly dropped the walkie talkie.

“He must have been on the plane! What if I’m somewhere else in the airport too? Or what if I’m not, but something happens here with my dad that screws up my future?!”

“You won’t, it’s all predestined,” Mindy broke in.

“Laurie, you’ve got this,” Tim added right after.

Frank was busy making for Laurie’s position. A couple paces away he was brought up short at the sight of Elaine Waterson. Looking eerily the same as she had during Frank’s first time trip, right down to her clothing. Which made sense. Oh no, she wouldn’t recognize him from that encounter, would she?

Realizing that Laurie had turned away, inspecting the wall, Frank turned too, so that he was only seeing Elaine out of the corner of his eye.

“Hello?” Mindy said over the system. “Update?”

Frank brought the walkie-talkie back up but Laurie’s voice came over the channel first. “I tried to look casual - they walked right by me! Saying something about town. Because, golly, it makes sense, Dad’s older brother lived there. That’s how we ended up - will end up - moving.”

Frank frowned. “Was your uncle friends with the Watersons?”

“Um… I dunno. Our families don’t mingle these days,” Laurie said.

“M-Maybe they m-met on the plane,” Tim suggested. “Sitting next to each other.”

“Focus!” Mindy said sharply. “Carrie. Glen. Anywhere?”

Damn it. Frank angled his way back towards Mrs. Waterson and Mr. Veniti, looking around for any trace of the other time travellers. “Not yet,” he reported. “Laurie?”

“I didn’t see either of them,” Laurie said.

“Nor me, and I’ve been scanning en route,” Mindy said. “Could Carrie have arrived earlier, outside the airplane from Ontario or something?”

“I hope not,” Frank sighed. He approached Carrie’s mother, trying to keep his back to her. She was still talking to Mr. Veniti, saying something along the lines of ‘good luck on your genetics project’.

“Nothing my end yet,” Tim offered.

“We’ll be headed your way soon, Tim,” Frank muttered into the walkie-talkie. “If we have to, we can regroup and…”

He almost missed her.

Something told Frank to look left; maybe it was intuition, or perhaps there had been a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. But when he looked, there she was. Carrie Waterson, dressed the same way she had been the night of the talent show. Gripping a photograph. She looked around, seemingly disoriented - and their gazes met. And her eyes widened, briefly flickering back to gold.

Then she turned and ran, shoving her way back through a few people.

“Frank? You trailed off,” Mindy pointed out.

“We’ve found Carrie,” he gasped. “I’m in pursuit.”

NEXT: The Plain Truth

ASIDE: It took six parts (weeks) but we’ve caught up to Carrie. Any speculations on why she can’t save her mother before the big reveal? There was some interesting talk in last week’s comments about genetics. And any desire to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie went back in time to save her mother. Glen and Mindy said that wouldn’t work, and a group of Carrie’s friends have gone back to find her.

PART 86a: MIAMI IS NICE

The waves lapped quietly against the shoreline until shortly after midnight. At which point the waves found themselves lapping up against a set of car tires as well. Inside the car, the redhead who had her thumb on the dashboard slumped forwards unconscious. Another redhead, in the driver’s seat, winced as she looked through the windshield.

“Brilliant, Mindylenopia,” came Glen’s voice from the back. “Hey, let’s make the time machine into a car! Then you can ride in it! Except you can’t drive on water!”

“Shut up, Glinephanis,” sighed Mindy. She put the car into reverse and eased backwards towards a beachside boardwalk on the compacted sand.

Next to Glen, Frank turned to regard Tim, who had also fallen unconscious. It would probably be one of the last times Tim would succumb; this arrival in Miami marked his third time trip. Frank thought back to the first time the blond boy had regained consciousness after time travel, back in the 1950s.

Tim had seemed nervous, so Frank had brought him along as they had gone to track Beth, leaving Mindy alone with… well, Beth. To make their Carrie stand-in think that her prior weeks in the future had been a dream of sorts.

“Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk before leaving,” Frank apologized. He attempted to split his attention between Tim, and the tuning of Julie’s tracking device. It was hard to be sure which building on this block contained Beth. “It all happened so fast. Are you sure you’re okay with this, Tim? I mean, what did Chartreuse say to you?”

“She s-spoke to me about how Laurie would end up going to Miami,” Tim answered, trying not to fidget. “And she s-said that her friend might feel better having someone along who also had little actual time travel experience. Even if I’d only be g-guarding the car when you and Mindy go off to convince her.”

“Ahhh.” Frank frowned. “You’re not saying Chartreuse coerced you?”

“Oh no!” Tim assured. “I’d already s-said I wanted to help. That is, actually help for once, s-since keeping myself at a distance has only allowed me to b-be manipulated by Glen and Mindy. And here, I can keep them from chatting in s-secret in front of you! Finally do my part, s-since I do understand Temporal better than Luci. Um, no offence to her.”

“No offence assumed.” Frank started walking, eyeing his screen. “Though, Tim? You said some of that as if you were still trying to convince yourself."

“I…” From the corner of his eye, Frank saw Tim rub his forehead. “M-Maybe. It’s a lot to take in. But I care about Julie and Carrie and all Clarke’s other friends too, so… yeah. I’m committed. Really.” He swallowed. “One other thing though… there was a point when Chartreuse said my language skills would be needed in the future. Not the past. The future. Do you know what that meant?”

“Likely your personal future, no matter how the timeline wraps.”

Tim frowned. “Maybe. But it didn’t seem like that. She back-pedalled, said her tenses were all wrong.”

Frank eyed Tim uncertainly, then shrugged. “Well, the furthest we can go with the coins we have is back to our present - plus a day, to the 31st - so I’m not sure what Chartreuse meant by that.” He smacked the side of the tracking device. “Huh, that’s better. Okay, I’m going in. Tim, maybe you could look over that list of things we figured we’d need, for when we bring Beth back to our present year? We were thinking big, like the temporal gun, but maybe you’ll spot something more, I don’t know, linguistic.”

Tim nodded. “S-Sure. Uh, and actually Chartreuse s-said something about the gun too… ah, you don’t need a hand with Beth in there?”

Frank shook his head. “Not initially - Beth knows me, not you.” He looked up at the front of the apartment building. “I really hope this meeting goes well.”

Frank was pulled out of the memory as the rear wheels of the time vehicle sank in the sand, accompanied by the sound of spinning car tires. “Damn!” Mindy cursed. She tried to edge forward and back, to no avail. “Uh, so,” she concluded, turning to the back with a smile, “good thing we included a shovel and a couple planks of wood with the rest of our supplies, huh?”

It took them an hour to get the car back to a roadway. Laurie then suggested they drive a short distance away to park, because they were close to her old house, which was a little unsettling for her. And then Frank suggested they catch some sleep in shifts; for him, Tim and Mindy, it had been the equivalent of a whole day already.

By the time they got together for their breakfast (dinner?) in a park, it was nine o’clock in the morning. Laurie handed out the sandwiches, which had been packed in her present. Frank unwrapped his, finding his thoughts wandering yet again. They had made it, and the reality of the situation was fully dawning on him.

“We’re back on the date of my first ever time trip,” he remarked aloud. “I suppose I always knew I’d return here, given Carrie’s insistence… but thought it would be under different circumstances."

“Y-You were here before?” Tim asked.

“Oh, not in Miami,” Frank clarified. “In Ontario. Carrie tried to keep her mother from boarding her first plane, to come down here. Which reminds me, if we end up talking to Elaine? We’ll want to make sure she doesn’t think we’re part of a setup by her coworker… uh, oh damn, I forget the name. It was either Bob or Doug.”

“How can you be so sure we needed to travel to Miami then?” Laurie asked. “I mean, Miami is nice, but what’s to keep Carrie from picking up in Ontario, wherever she left off last time?”

“She has a better understanding of how to handle the timelines now,” Mindy asserted, swallowing her bite of sandwich. “Carrie’s own personal history is based on Elaine Waterson disappearing after being in Miami at this time. The closer she can get to that event, the easier it will be to leverage without causing headaches or something worse.” She frowned. “That said, I suppose Carrie could decide to arrive even later. On Elaine’s plane, after it leaves the airport…"

“No,” Glen offered. “Young Carrie is neither experienced enough, nor disciplined enough to be able to hit a moving target like that.”

“The Earth itself is a moving target,” Frank reminded him.

“Pedantic much?” Glen said, annoyed. “I mean moving relative to the Earth. Besides, Carrie can’t risk popping into existence right beside her mother, and scaring the hell out of everyone around. She’ll need space, a geographic margin of error.”

“So she’ll appear at the Miami airport,” Tim concluded. “Tonight.”

Frank nodded. “Seems likely. Elaine reaches Miami around 11pm. She’ll then switch to a smaller corporate plane to take her the rest of the way to Bermuda. That’s the window of time where Carrie’s liable to turn up, and thus why we brought along those relevant maps.”

“So, what do we do?” Laurie asked, wringing her hands. “I mean, Carrie’s never talked about specifics of where her mother was - has she?”

“No. I did speak with Mr. Waterson,” Frank admitted. “During those few weeks when the time machine was being reconstructed. But he couldn’t add much. It doesn’t seem like there was any layover to check out the plane, as Carrie had suggested on our first Ontario trip, but her father didn’t know if that was because a request was denied, or was never made. Elaine meets someone from her company after getting her bags, that’s all we have.” He looked to the two Temporals. “I don’t suppose you two can add anything about ‘the dangerous true circumstances’?”

Mindy pursed her lips. “Let’s just say we know Carrie won’t be changing anything here and leave it at that.”

“%They wouldn’t understand the ramifications even if we told them.%”

“Hey!” Tim protested, looking to Glen. “Frank, Julie, Chartreuse… they’ve all f-figured out a lot already!”

Glen sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, right, that one vaguely understands us. I hate you all.”

“Okay, well, when we’re done eating, let’s pick out key locations in the Miami airport where Carrie is liable to appear,” Frank concluded. “Then see how hard it is to gain access to those spots. Presumably we can do it by obtaining disguises or allies, which is part of the reason we aimed to give ourselves the whole day here, rather than only a few hours.”

Glen nodded. “So, we drive to the airport and then split up?”

Frank shook his head. “We shouldn’t split up. For one thing, we’re not all seasoned time travellers.”

Laurie looked briefly chagrined, until Tim reached over and touched her arm. The both of them shared a quick smile.

“For another, you don’t trust us Temporals,” Mindy added.

Frank frowned, then nodded. “True. But if you were me, would you?”

“No. That’s why I said it,” Mindy chuckled.

“Okay, except the five of us wandering around together? That’s going to stick out like a sore thumb,” Glen complained, rolling his eyes. “We need to be sneaky, we need to gain access to restricted areas, and we need to talk our way out of situations. Easy enough for me and Mindy, damned impossible with you Mundanes cramping our style.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. “Two groups then,” he decided. “With regular check-ins via our walkie-talkies. Me and Glen will be one group, the rest of you can be another.”

After all, Mindy had been nice enough to this point - Glen was the bigger problem. Right? Frank frowned. Unless his personal feelings about Glen’s motivations were clouding things?

He looked around at the others, who either nodded or shrugged in response to the assertion. Glen added a snort of derision, but also didn’t complain. Frank looked back at his sandwich. They were certainly an eclectic group. He hoped he wasn’t making a big mistake here.

Glen got away from him later that afternoon.

NEXT: M.I.A.  (Pun! Get it?)

ASIDE: I wrote an article yesterday for the “time2timetravel” website, where Paul talks about methodologies and does book reviews. Check it out: Models of Time and Fate explores various fictional models and their impact on free will. (Can you spot this story’s model?)

PREVIOUSLY: The time machine has been rebuilt into a car. We know events will send Frank (et al) back in time to pick up Laurie.

PART 85b: CLOSING THE LOOP

“Coin goes in here,” Julie said, indicating the slot on the Cavalier’s dash, where a radio might once have been. “The silver box thing from the old machine - which was a pain to install, by the way, but is one of the few items we can’t reproduce yet - is back there. It’ll auto-set the year and ultimately flash fry the currency. Keypad here is for entering the other coordinates, namely month, day, and time.”

“So you’ve fixed that random variance thing?” Corry mused.

Julie shook her head. “Nope, still a factor. If you arrive an hour or even a month off from the time you input? Don’t blame me. Now, when you hit the hashtag, or rather pound key, it routes the entry through the assembly on the floor of the passenger side. Including Luci’s old modified circuits, meaning the pocketwatch you see here should also display your actual time of arrival.”

“Wait, you kept the pocketwatch?” Luci asked, reaching to tap where it had been mounted in the dash. “Why not use the digital time display from the car itself? Still an overheating problem?”

“Because the watch belonged to Carrie," Mindy interjected. “Or rather her mother. From when she was left at the orphanage. Right?”

“I think so,” Frank agreed. “It never actually kept time, but in Luci’s first reparations over a year ago, Carrie insisted on trying to hook it in. So we did, to humour her - and it’s somehow synched up accurately upon arrival.”

“Mmm hmm. Thought so,” was Mindy’s final word about it.

“As to the DNA,” Julie continued, undaunted, “this blank looking panel here is actually a thumbpatch. It will pinpoint your geographic location. Hold part of your body there - presumably your thumb - for three seconds with the switch in the ‘on’ position. That’s the signal for the time jump to activate. Have two people press against it if you’re going for a point between them.”

“What about rematerializing ten feet in the air?” Corry demanded. “I still remember that from my first trip.”

“It… shouldn’t do that,” Clarke offered, hesitantly. “That’s part of the new stuff we’ve been hooking into the undercarriage. But it’s also one of the things we wouldn’t mind having a fresh set of eyes on.”

“The licence plate and registration are also for Ontario, and next year,” Luci pointed out. “How will that play out in the past?”

“Look, I’d be much happier with hologram technology and three years to perfect this," Mindy admitted. “But you play with the cards you’re dealt, okay?”

“Just show us the schematics then,” Frank stated. “We’ll see if we can offer any input.”

“Well, show those two tech wizards anyway - why did you want ME here so early?” Corry wondered.

Julie opened the car door. “So that you’d know how close we were to bringing your sister home, partner.” She smiled. “Oh, also I need your help hauling the briefcase of coins up from Linquist’s lab. It’s damn heavy.”

“So I’m like the hired help. Fun,” Corry grunted.

“You know,” Corry mused, as he closed the secret passage behind the china cabinet. “Since my ankle’s healed, what’s to stop me going back with Frank and Mindy so that they don’t need Laurie?"

Julie shrugged. “The fact that you didn’t do it, so you can’t?"

“Yeah, I’ve always hated that logic. What’s the REAL reason?” He hefted the briefcase, and the two of them headed for the hallway.

“I guess it has something to do with the future situation…" She paused as Jeeves strode towards them, looking worried. “That’s about to happen?”

“Mr. Waterson called for that waitress, Theresa,” he stated. “She’s on the phone with him now, and she sounds agitated.”

Julie dropped the electronics she was carrying, hurrying towards the phone in time to hear Mindy say, “Sir, this is important, did either of the two have red hair?” A pause, then, “Don’t worry. I was expecting this. We’re on it.”

“What?” Julie asked as Mindy hung up the phone.

“Two suspicious people at the Waterson house looking for Carrie,” Mindy replied curtly, already heading for the front door. “They held Hank at gunpoint and searched the place. Beth wasn’t home, perhaps fortunately, however she forgot to bring Carrie’s cell phone along. Hank told me - and them - that ‘Carrie’ had gone to the public library."

“The public… Lee’s working there today,” Julie said. As Mindy strode out, Julie doubled back. “Call the library. Ask to speak to Lee,” she asked Jeeves. “Tell him to keep an eye on Beth, and anyone looking for her. That is, for Carrie. Oh, he’ll know what I mean.”

“Certainly,” the butler responded, heading back for the phone.

“Bad?” Corry asked.

“Is it ever good? We’ve got the coins and the electronics for tracking the hairband, let’s at least load those up while Mindy explains more precisely what it is that she was ‘expecting’.”

“We’ve reached a temporal crossroads,” Mindy stated, after getting everyone into the garage. “Today is the last day ‘Carrie’, aka Beth, will be seen in the present before ‘Future Carrie’ abducts her from the past.”

“But we’re going to recover Carrie and prevent that act!” Clarke protested.

“If we do, today becomes the last day me and Glen remain in this time,” Mindy countered. “Because I still hope to get him away from Carrie. It all paints a target on December 30th.” She shook her head. “I had hoped that the future war would leave our departure day alone, but it IS a potential kick they’ll have at averting a predestined outcome. At actually affecting the timelines. Must have been too tempting of a target.”

“Why not travel back sooner, and stop us then?” Corry wondered, as he loaded the trunk of the Cavalier.

“If they had, this day might not have occurred,” Frank reasoned. “Ripple effect.”

“Also, the fact that I kept things so quiet and controlled would cancel any earlier advantage,” Mindy added. “Acting before now, they’d merely have a greater risk of my snaring them into our predestined outcome.” She jerked her thumb at the car. “Frank, get in, we’re off to the library to get Beth.”

“Wait,” Julie protested. “What was the deal with red hair?”

“No time.” Mindy opened the driver’s side door.

Julie kicked it shut. “Make time. What if those two come here next, after you’re gone?”

Mindy muttered under her breath.

“Rude,” Luci observed. “Also, not yet in our Temporal dictionary.”

“All Temporals have red hair,” Mindy confessed. “It’s genetic. The two who pulled apart the Waterson house? Were blonds. So either they were Mundanes, or they were of your time, being influenced by a Temporal. Happy?” She yanked the car door open again. “Either way, if they do come here, lay low. My best guess is that the future travellers want to abduct Carrie or Glen for themselves; they shouldn’t do more than injure you. Luci, get out of the car.”

“Oh no, I’m going back with you and Frank,” Luci asserted.

“Oh, for… we’ll argue on the way,” Mindy groaned.

They reached the library in record time. “Okay,” Frank wheezed, as he released his fingers from their grip on the back seat. “I see now why your limit is five people - there’s only five seat belts. Mindy, do they relax some traffic laws in the future?”

“I’m not letting over a decade of time stuck here in the past come to naught!” Mindy snapped. “Which may be the case if we can’t shake these time travellers and restore Beth to our past, when she’s supposed to be. Now, any way to tell if that girl’s still inside? Or her pursuers?”

“I’ll send Lee a message,” Luci said.

Frank pulled out his phone as it buzzed. “I’ve got a message from Chartreuse. She’s on her way - one of the others must have called her.”

“Yeah, hey, NO phones on once we’re out of the present!” Mindy reminded, eyeing the two of them. “Also, your argument for bringing Luci was unconvincing. I can translate whatever Glen says.”

“But will you do it accurately?” Luci questioned.

“I don’t like your tone.”

Which was when the gunshot rang out.

“Okay, those are NEVER good,” Luci noted, her door open before she had finished speaking. Frank ran out after her, despite Mindy’s protests. They were met at the steps up to the library doors by a number of panic stricken people running out.

“Lee says go ‘round back,” Luci said, eyeing the message on her phone. They rounded the building. There was a small theatre entrance there, as part of the structure also housed a small stage for local plays. Frank reached the door first, only to find it was locked.

“Now what?” he asked.

Luci eyed the keyhole. “Now… we need lockpicks?”

The door opened out unexpectedly, causing Luci to stumble back and fall on the ground. This left Frank staring at Lee, who was dragging after him a very scared looking blonde. “I’m sorry!” Beth was wailing. “I know I shouldn’t have been looking up my own past, I couldn’t help it, please PLEASE don’t let them kill me!”

“Math whiz, take her!” Lee said. He shoved Beth towards Frank. “I clubbed the guy who had the gun with a set piece shaped like shrubbery, but there’s another dude here somewhere. Go do whatever you’re supposed to do to prevent this from ever happening, I’ll keep them–”

“Lee!” Luci shouted in warning. Barely on her feet, she jumped past him, tackling the blond man who had been about to swing the piece of wood. The two of them fell to the floor as Lee spun back around.

“Luci!” he shouted, moving to help.

“Wait!” Frank cried, stepping around Beth - too late to reach the door before it swung shut again. After verifying that it remained locked on this side, he lifted his palm to pound on the metal.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” came Beth’s tearful voice.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s, you know, not your fault,” came another voice, making Frank turn. It was Chartreuse, looking winded as she ran up carrying a trombone case. She fired off a weak smile at him, before hugging Beth close. “It’ll be okay, our wonderful Carrie stand-in. As long as you, like, go NOW,” she emphasized. The last sentence seemingly meant more for Frank.

“But Luci’s in there…”

“I, you know, saw bits of this,” the pink haired girl assured. “Tim’s with Mindy back at the time machine. We’ve spoken, and he’s good to go instead. Oh, speaking of, cool car!" She gave a quick thumbs up. “Too bad I’ll never get to ride in it.”

“Tim?? But…”

“Frank, PLEASE, those guys are gonna charge out in less than four minutes!” Chartreuse said, finally releasing Beth. “Go! Go, go! Give Laurie my best."

The door banged as if something heavy had hit it, but it failed to re-open. Frank hesitated only a moment more before grabbing Beth’s hand and heading back for the library parking lot. “Is this why you didn’t mind me knowing about the future?” Beth asked tearfully. “Is it because I’m going to die now?”

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Frank answered. “You’ll only forget a few things.” He saw Mindy already had the car running, and Frank noticed Tim in the front seat. He helped Beth into the back, then ran to the trunk, slapping his hand on it.

“What are you doing? Get in!” Mindy said, poking her head out of the window.

“We need a coin,” Frank said. “Pop the trunk!”

“Let’s get to safety first, then… oh fine,” Mindy sighed, sensing Frank wasn’t going to budge. She hit the release, and with some effort, he pulled out the briefcase. The second shot rang out as he was climbing into the back seat again.

Mindy ceased her mumbling – it was English, so Frank caught something along the lines of “create a fully mobile time machine and they all just stand around it” – in order to step on the gas.

“S-S-Seatbelts?” Tim suggested.

Frank tried to ignore the effects of acceleration long enough to peer out the back window. A man was running down the front steps of the library. He waved his gun at another car that had been about to pull out, forcing it to stop. Oh no, he hoped this wasn’t going to become a car chase.

“Coin?” Mindy said pointedly.

“Oh, uh…” Frank fumbled with the briefcase, only to slide into Beth’s lap as Mindy turned another corner. “Can we slow?”

“No. I’m busy being ticked off about your group substituting Tim for Luci.” With one hand on the steering wheel, Mindy moved her other to hover over the keypad. “What date shall I set?”

Tim flinched. “I thought we’d be going three weeks back…”

“We have to drop off Beth first,” Frank said, managing to get his hands on the coin changer for the 1950s. “Not to mention pick her up. Hey, maybe that works as one trip - Beth, on what day did we find you?”

“I… uh… I…” the blonde stammered, gripping the seat in front of her, tears in the corners of her eyes. Then her eyes closed and she began to whisper a prayer.

Frank sighed. “Well, for continuity, use the same date as her arrival in our present,” he decided. He was reminded of what Clarke had said - this Beth would need to bury her blue hairband somewhere in the forest, so that no one would be able to track her down again.

Mindy’s fingers flew over the keypad, as Frank handed Tim the necessary coin. “Drop it in that slot,” he advised. Tim did so - after which Mindy flipped the time switch and reached out for the DNA trigger.

“Mindy!”

“I didn’t exist then,” she assured him. “My failsafe should ensure that we end up in roughly the same spatial–”

“Mindy, we’re in MOTION,” Frank insisted. “What if we appear in front of a wall back then?!”

The redhead spun the wheel one handed, throwing Frank into Beth as the car swerved into an alleyway. She immediately stomped on the brake, thumb on the pad. “I was ABOUT to get us out of the–”

There was a bright light and a popping noise as the car disappeared.

NEXT: Miami is Nice

ASIDE: The next scene? You already saw in Part 84a (picking up Beth), followed by Part 83b (picking up Laurie). Which brings us to shortly after Part 4 (Elaine at the airport). You follow? How about a vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: Megan is suspicious of Carrie’s behaviour - not knowing that the person is really Beth, who is substituting until the time machine is rebuilt.

PART 85a: POWERING UP

Beth Parker wasn’t stupid. Naive, she would grant - and could hardly deny after how she’d been duped by Ms. Peabody - but stupid? No. She had kept some savings back then. And this time, it had taken her less than a day to realize that the ‘astral plane’ of her ‘angels’ was the very same town where she lived, somehow decades in the future. The dates she put on Carrie’s class notes merely confirmed it. It explained a lot.

At the same time, she wasn’t about to let on about what she knew.

Oh, surely Carrie’s friends had to be aware of her suspicions; Hank Waterson most of all. In a way, Beth’s heart went out to the poor man, who’d had to put his faith in a bunch of teenagers, a waitress… and herself. An aspiring singer who had, thanks to a twist of fate, been sent back into high school. To learn about her future in a history class.

But there was no point in inviting trouble, and that seemed inevitable were she to treat this experience as anything other than an ‘astral plane’. Besides, she had wanted to help her ‘angels’, and now, at last, she was. It was a pity they hadn’t told her what to do about this girl Megan though.

Beth regarded the junior student in the crisp white blouse and dark skirt who was glaring up at her, and she responded the only way she felt she could. “Judge not, Megan, lest you be judged.”

“Nice try, Waterson,” Megan fired back. “Can you even name the origin of your mangled quotation?”

“Matthew 7. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Beth countered.

Megan took a half step back. “Huh. Okay. So you’ve seen the musical ‘Godspell’, good job. Doesn’t mean you found God.” She seemed rattled though.

Beth slipped her hands behind her back, hoping she looked disarming. “Listen, Megan. While I’m not going to outright claim to you that Carrie Waterson has become religious, or that your demands on me are hypocritical, any truth I speak here? Would be rather subjective. And you know as well as I do that such truths would not set you free. So, what’s the real issue behind cornering me here?”

Megan pursed her lips. “Okay. Okay, I guess I want to know what Corry’s up to. Is he getting you to read up on scripture in order to attack me on my home turf?”

“I think Corry’s too worried about his sister right now for such planning.” A thought struck Beth. “Is this about Claude?”

This time, instead of backing up, Megan reached out to grab the front of her shirt. “Who have you been talking to?!”

Beth eyed Megan’s hand. “Um, no one, outside of the few close friends I have here. But I notice things. Like how you were lurking around the music room last week, at the same time as me and Julie were there. Watching Corry’s band rehearse for the Christmas assembly.”

“I’m taking music. I was wondering if Mrs. Willis was around.”

“At first, maybe? But you were there for quite a while. And your attention wasn’t on Lee or Tim. Now, I suppose it could have been directed at Corry, except didn’t I hear that you were the one who got Claude into that band in the first place?”

Megan’s grip relaxed somewhat. “I may have insisted, yes. Because Claude knew the music, and while he’s not the best bass guitarist, he’s a lot nicer than that jerk Tommy.”

“Nicer? You knew Claude personally?”

“Not really. Not then. But he didn’t snark back at me that Friday when I said maybe he shouldn’t disrupt the talent show. In fact he–" Megan stopped herself, using her hand to push Beth away. “How dare you? Have your talks with Chartreuse been about how to handle me?!”

Beth regained her footing and shook her head. “Um, again, no. Your religious nature might have come up in conversation - not that I couldn’t spot it - but no, Megan, Chartreuse didn’t say anything about handling you. Or Claude. Do you fancy the guy, is that it?”

“No!” Megan sized her up, then blurted, “B-But he did ask me out.”

“Okay. So did you reject him, is that the trouble?”

“I… I didn’t. Not outright. Except it wouldn’t be appropriate, me dating Claude! Not with me and Corry being rivals. The poor guy might then become a lever that Corry could use against me, and moreover it’s a clear conflict of interest.”

Beth shook her head. “Corry wouldn’t use Claude against you.”

Megan scoffed. “Just when I thought you were making sense.”

“Really, he wouldn’t. His friends wouldn’t let him do that,” Beth insisted. “Haven’t you noticed how they act as his conscience? Are you sure you’re not using Corry as an excuse?”

Megan visibly flinched. “I’m not scared of a relationship. I’m strong, I wouldn’t be tempted into sin.”

“Great! So what’s the real problem?”

Megan’s lips pursed again. It took a moment, but finally she answered again. “The problem? Is it’s a man’s world out there, Waterson. Consider Corry. Mister Hunt. Even God, if you buy into the personal pronouns. Women like us? We have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. I don’t want to lose it all by dating Claude.”

That one forced Beth to stop and think. Since Megan wasn’t wrong. In fact, Beth had been surprised by how much certain things had changed in the intervening decades - and by how much some other things, which she might have expected to change, had not. “Valid point,” she granted. “You said Claude was nice though. Do you think he would take control away from you?”

“Not intentionally.”

Beth mused again. “Well, it’s a risk then. Though I don’t think anyone would accuse you of being weak simply on account of a relationship. Not if they’re smart, anyway. And regret? That’s a terrible thing. So if it were me? I think I would go for it.”

Megan’s eyes narrowed. “Did Corry tell you to say those words?”

Beth sighed. “No - and why would it matter if he had? In the end, you’ve got to do what’s right for you. Seems like Corry is the plank in your eye. Try to remove him.”

Megan flinched, frowned, and then let out a long breath. “Damn. That’s the second time your little inner circle of seniors has surprised me. Maybe Chartreuse really was onto something with her talk back in the woods.”

Not sure how to respond to that, Beth simply stood quietly. Megan fingered the cross on her necklace as she came to a decision. “Okay Wat– Carrie. You can go. Maybe I’ll even loosen the screws I’ve got on Corry, and focus more on my own grade level. Provided the rest of you can keep him in check.”

Beth nodded, but couldn’t help but ask before she left, “And… Claude?”

A hint of colour crept into Megan’s cheeks. “Time will tell.”

Word had spread of her budding relationship with Claude even before classes ended for the December holiday break.

“Megan emailed me yesterday,” Corry remarked, walking behind Luci and Frank, his hands clasped behind his head. “Told me not to let my guard down in the new year. Said that she’d resume demands if I tried to hurt her through Claude. Even included a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar holding a cross out. Can you believe that? What, does she think I’m a vampire?”

“Just don’t antagonize her any more,” Luci sighed, boots crunching through the light snow on the sidewalk. The three of them had agreed to meet at the last intersection and walk to Julie’s together. “Considering what Beth told us about their conversation in the library, we dodged a bullet back then.”

“Hey, how is it vampires are still a thing anyway?” Frank asked. “Like, I’ve found that they’ve been in pop culture for our entire life - either of you seen that ‘Forever Knight’ show from the late 90s?”

Luci turned, raising her eyebrow.

Frank held his hands out. “Look, you said not to obsess over time travel. I thought I’d ease into the horror genre.”

Corry face palmed. “You’re both missing my point. This means me and Julie did the right thing, by staying out of it. We’ve got control back! But don’t worry, we’ll take care not to abuse our power. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Peachy,” Luci stated. “I’m a bit more focussed on the fact that it’s December 30th, and after what felt like the most subdued Christmas ever, we’re finally getting to see what Mindy and the others have put together to fix this whole temporal mess.”

Corry reached out to grab Luci by the arm, but at the last second, seemed to think better of it. He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets instead. “Luci, you’re talking to the guy who’s spent all month without his TWIN SISTER. And I’ve had to call Mindy three times in the past week to maintain the charade with my parents. So don’t you DARE lecture me about how hard it’s been, or how relieved you are for things to be over. Because that all goes double for me.”

“Right. Sorry,” Luci apologized, wincing.

“Look at the bright side,” Frank offered. “In a way, the extra time has given Beth a chance to be changed back. Me and Carrie, we apparently turned her religious on our first trip. Now? Well, she’s considering expanding beyond mere gospel singing.”

“Okay, sure, but don’t forget that Mindy’s going to have to excise parts of Beth’s memory,” Corry pointed out. “Unless you want her becoming some kind of future prophet.”

“Right.” Luci tugged on her hat. “I hate that. We were on such a high horse when Mindy first revealed her mind manipulations, telling her off… and now? We’re becoming just as guilty.”

“Do you see an alternative?” Frank asked. “We know she’s worked it out.”

“No. But I still hate it.”

They reached the LaMille mansion’s front door and Luci rang the bell. To their collective surprise, Jeeves directed the teenagers around towards the garage.

“They did recruit Clarke,” Frank pointed out as they approached. “Maybe they’ve got a DeLorean in there.”

“Chevy, actually,” Mindy said, walking out of the garage while wiping her hands with a rag.

Frank froze, and Luci almost plowed right into his back.

“Of course,” Mindy continued, “my original designs were for something more environmental, maybe a smart car. But I quickly realized the space in one of those is roughly equivalent to a phone booth. For this mission? We might need extra space. Besides, we can always pull the time interface and plug it into another vehicle later. Well, maybe. Kind of.”

“I was joking,” Frank murmured.

Clarke poked his head out from around the opening to the garage. “At last! Guys, you’ve GOT to check this out… it’s pretty cool!”

After exchanging glances, the three of them filed in. “It’s… a Cavalier,” Luci said, nonplussed.

“I got a good deal,” Mindy asserted. “The guy was half ready to donate it to your high school, for their shop class to disassemble.”

“Huh. Well, I have always said that you were supposed to be able to ride around inside a time machine,” Corry yielded.

“It’s more impressive than it first appears,” came Julie’s tired voice. She poked her head out the driver’s side window. “And we’ve still got a couple adjustments to make, but at this point, a second - fourth? - opinion might be of benefit. Plus it means someone other than me can pass the information on to the others.”

Luci was the first to stride over. “I don’t have a driver’s licence!” she protested. “Nor do some of the people in our time group who ARE of age, seeing as we live in a small town and can bike most anywhere. Why make the time machine a CAR?!”

“Safety,” Clarke said. “From what I understand, having an enclosed object means everyone’s sure to be pulled through the vortex.”

“Right,” Mindy concurred, giving up on cleaning her hands and throwing aside the rag she was holding. “The old cash register version? It sucked through whatever was touching the handle, or more dangerously, whatever was touching people touching the handle. Here, you get the whole car, a metallic enclosure, and thus we won’t have to worry about leaving anyone behind. Just, you know, make sure you’re inside. Not touching the doors. Definitely not hanging onto the hood. Okay, so it’s not that much safer.” She smirked. “Still, I always SAID it could be done, but noooo, they were fine with using their stationary temporal generators instead.”

“Could be worse,” Frank decided. “Could’ve been a fridge, we wouldn’t want anyone trapped in one of those. And this means there’s a built in age requirement to get a time travel licence.”

“Actually, the car doesn’t need to be in drive,” Mindy countered. “In fact, probably better that it’s not. Unless you know you’ve got plenty of runoff room at your destination time.”

“Does the DNA sensor track everyone in the car then?” Luci said. “How does it know where to put you spatially?”

“Hi! If you’ll let me EXPLAIN,” Julie said, motioning again in obvious exasperation. She waited until they were peering in the car windows at her, then she pointed to the modified dashboard.

NEXT: Closing the Loop

ASIDE: If I mangled religion somewhere in there, let me know, so I can fix it. Not my forte. Also, time car! Why a Chevy? Well, I used to own one.

PREVIOUSLY: Beth is replacing Carrie in the present, as a time machine is rebuilt. Laurie was taken on a time trip.

PART 84b: CROSSING PATHS

“Should we really let Chartreuse spend so much time with her?”

At Frank’s remark, Luci looked up at him, then followed his gaze towards Beth. Their stand-in for Carrie was back at school this Friday, after two days out “sick”. Beth seemed to be adjusting surprisingly well to the present, all things considered. She had just stopped en route to their table in the cafeteria, in order to talk with the pink haired mystic. Luci considered that fact - it wasn’t the first time the two had spoken. “Why not?” she answered him.

Frank frowned. “People might start to talk. And if Carrie’s not actually here to defend herself against rumours…"

“Defend herself against what? A relationship that we’re pretty sure was forming anyway? For all we know, us being here together, there’s rumours concerning our old relationship too. Besides, before Glen, Carrie used to spend time with both us and Chartreuse. So, since he’s gone, why wouldn’t ‘Carrie’ resume talking to our group again?”

“Okay, well, that’s another thing. Did Glen really leave?” Frank countered. “I got an email from him yesterday.”

Luci pursed her lips. “Yeah. I got one this morning. Vague ‘watching you’ stuff though, and according to the school, his ‘parents’ pulled him out - I think he must have timed those emails to send off in advance. Before he left with our future travellers last Sunday. To keep up appearances.”

“Or Glen could be hiding out in town,” Frank countered. “And covering it up with his powers.”

Luci shrugged. “Maybe. So what if he is? Frank, at this point, I’m done with my second guessing. It’s given me nothing but grief. We have to trust our future selves.” She glanced back at Beth. “As to Chartreuse, look at it from her point of view. In the span of a weekend, she lost her potential girlfriend, and Laurie, her best friend. If hanging with Beth is her way of coping, I don’t think we can fault that.”

“Right… right,” Frank sighed. He ran his fingers back through his hair. “And the busier Beth is, the less she might be prone to exploring our ‘astral plane’ too much. Which is good. I’m just worried that we’ll end up missing something.”

“You need to take a break from time travel analysis for once,” Luci decided. “Don’t follow anyone. Don’t look up articles about Mindy in old newspapers. Don’t watch temporal television. Just relax.”

Luci tapped a finger against the cafeteria table. No one was paying attention to them, and Chartreuse seemed to be in the process of passing a crystal around Beth’s head, so maybe now was as good a time as any to bring it up. “Besides, when the time machine’s done, I plan to go back with you. So you’ll have extra support there.”

Frank flinched. “What?”

“The later time trip will include Mindy, and possibly Glen, yeah? The only way you’ll catch everything is if you have someone with you who can speak Temporal. Now, me and Tim have been putting together a rudimentary dictionary, but in a pinch it makes more sense to have one of us there in person. We’re also the experts in the temporal gun, as Carrie herself pointed out in her letter.”

“But Mindy said only four people could go…"

“Or five.”

“And your double wasn’t there at Julie’s!”

“Meaning I was off guarding the new time machine. Frank, the only people who we can be sure WON’T travel back are Glen and the Venitis."

“But…”

Luci reached out to touch Frank’s palm. “Look, it’s an option we should consider. Okay? Not worry about! Only consider. And, ah, by the way, my intention to go is based on a concerned about all our futures thing, not a romantic thing.”

Frank blinked. “Sure. Er, did I give off a romantic signal?”

Luci shook her head. “No. I’m hoping I didn’t, by touching your hand here.”

“I didn’t clue in. You’re the observant one, not me.”

“Right.” Luci exhaled, pulling her arm back. “Okay, last card on the table. I’ve now been wondering if I broke up with you in part because you died in an alternate timeline. I… I feel kinda bad about that.”

“Oh?” Frank half smiled. “Well, don’t. I mean, so what if you did? In this timeline we had a good run, we both had issues to deal with, and in the end, we’re still able to talk about it like we are now. I think, if we couldn’t, that would somehow be the worst thing.”

Luci nodded, and found she could smile back. “Okay then. End of the second guessing - and of the obsessive temporal stuff, yeah?”

Frank hesitated, but finally nodded in reply.

“Heya Frank, Luci,” Beth chirped as she joined them. “I don’t care what Chartreuse says - have either of you tried adding ketchup to this poutine stuff they serve here? It tastes really good that way!”

Luci’s smile faded. She wondered whether they could truly steer Beth through another couple weeks of approximating Carrie… and despite her own assurances to Frank, whether a failure to do so correctly would result in temporal issues before the trip back in time became possible.

Corry watched as Beth joined Frank and Luci, then resumed poking at his cold pasta with a fork. “Anything?” he asked absently, when he sensed the person sitting down across from him.

“No,” Julie answered. “Megan’s a cipher.”

He made a face. “Yeah.” Corry tossed his fork aside. “We should have anticipated that Megan would blame me for Laurie vanishing to attend that ‘camp’. There was no advance warning.”

“We had bigger concerns. Amusingly enough, Megan’s suspicions are not wholly unjustified.”

“Yeah, funny!” Corry said bitterly. “Trouble is, it means my telling Megan to ‘go for it’ might have screwed things over, rather than fix them. She doesn’t trust that I’m passing on Laurie’s true message. I should have pressed my sister for more information.”

Julie shrugged. “Might be nothing to it. ’Go for it’, could simply refer to a new story Megan’s writing.”

“Yeah, or it could be a plot to mess up the school. One that Laurie hadn’t clued into.” Corry picked up his fork, only to drop it again. “Geez, how could my sister think anyone but her would be a good choice for encouraging Megan? Laurie’s the one who should be here now. Not me. Why did I let her go?! I mean, she’s so naive, so innocent, so… so…”

“Corry,” Julie said quietly, reaching out to take his hand. “Laurie’s fine.”

“I know that! You think I don’t know that? Of course I know that. Who do you think I am?” He tried to pull away but Julie held fast.

“You’re someone who cares about his sister, and who’s realized in the last couple days that he’s no longer there to protect her. But part of you knows your sister had to one day be free to make her own decisions, right? For good or bad.”

Corry opened then closed his mouth. “Goddamn it,” he grumbled at last. “We should have at least sent someone aside from Frank. Like Clarke. Sure, she’s over him, and I wouldn’t want to mess that up, but he does think a bit like her. And he’s more streetwise.”

“Corry.” She squeezed his palm. “Me and Mindy are working as fast as we can… and as soon as the time machine is completed and activated, Laurie will be back.”

The redhead sighed and kicked his foot out at a table leg. “I know. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Don’t I?” She smiled. “Look on the bright side. You’re starting to appreciate your sister’s ability to connect with people on a level that you can’t.”

“Hey, I never said Laurie didn’t have good qualities.” He briefly squeezed Julie’s hand back before pulling his arm away. “I guess there’s also a part of me wondering how I would be treating her running off if I were on the outside. Like Megan is.” He shook his head. “Do you think that sometimes, there’s stuff going on that truly is none of our business?”

Julie lifted her eyebrow and gave him a pointed look. It served to remind Corry about his flyer about her from last year, not to mention her own hushed up parental situation.

“Ah. Dumb question,” he answered himself. “Better question - what about this ‘go for it’ thing with Megan? Should we keep prying, or is THAT none of our business?”

“I think we should monitor, in case it becomes our business… but you’re not wrong. Inserting ourselves into it can only make the situation worse.”

“Mmm. I guess you’re right.” Corry toyed with his fork for a moment, then finally had some pasta. “Okay then, to change the subject, Carrie’s double, this Beth… how will Frank and the others locate her in the past? Is your team working on that, as well as fixing the machine?”

Julie’s brow creased. “Actually, that’s kind of another funny thing… we don’t have to work on it. You remember how Frank gave us a rundown on his first encounter with Beth? And how she and Carrie traded clothes?” Corry nodded. “Well, soon after that, Phil wondered if I hadn’t left a small tracking device on what became Beth’s hairband over fifty years ago…”

Clarke walked into the central cafe and hesitated, not sure if he should find a table or simply wait to chat with Theresa/Mindy. He decided to do the former. She brought him a hot chocolate moments later, then waived him off as he pulled out his wallet. “On the house. My shift’s done in ten minutes, see you outside.”

Although the first snowfall of December hadn’t stayed on the ground, it was cold enough that the hot chocolate was appreciated. At the same time, Clarke made sure not to leave Mindy waiting outside, heading out as soon as he saw her. She immediately set out for the LaMille mansion, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“So… what did you want to talk to me about?” Clarke asked, after a few minutes of walking.

Mindy chuckled. “I’ve acquired the necessary parts for retrofitting the time machine. I had to tell Julie about it, since we’re storing it all at her place - and she insisted I tell you too. Funny enough, I agreed. Not merely because of your potential expertise, but because I think it will be educational.”

There was a playfulness to her tone that Clarke couldn’t figure out. “Educational? How so?”

“In that you’ll finally have a secret you can’t talk to the others about. Since Frank and the rest of them can’t know. Not yet. The more people who know, the more temporal danger there is.”

“Theresa… Mindy… really? More secrets?”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “Yes, really,” Mindy asserted. “Because first, Glen might still be in town. I want to make it difficult for him to prepare counter-measures. But more than that, the only thing I can think of that would send us back to ourselves unprepared? Is a future incursion. And the fewer people such an incursion can target for information about what’s going on, the better.”

“What happened to time travel is predestined?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’re going back,” Mindy said. “The question is what wreckage we leave in the present - what we leave for Carrie to have to fix. I figure we should minimize that. That said, if you’re not willing to help? I’ll understand. This will ultimately be your decision.”

Clarke sighed. “I guess I’m willing, but why did Julie even think I could help? I’m not so technically minded.”

“To answer that, I need a more firm commitment. In now? Or not until the end?”

Clarke looked up the street towards the LaMille mansion. He couldn’t turn away, not if Julie was offering this olive branch. “I’m in now.”

Mindy’s smile returned. “That’s good. Because you’ve taken tech classes, including auto shop, right?”

Megan Falls wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with the seniors. She only knew that Carrie Waterson was somehow at the centre of it. The blonde had been acting flighty ever since the talent show, and Glen’s subsequent disappearance. It was like she was a changed person - yet also someone reverting to old habits, by hanging around those other students of her clique again. Who were, Megan decided, sheltering her. Even Carrie’s father had rebuffed her when she’d tried to drop by cheerleader’s house.

Megan was having no more of that.

On the Tuesday of the last week of classes before the winter break, she got some of her associates to corner the rest of Carrie’s entourage, ensuring her meeting wouldn’t be interrupted. Then she got Kim to personally escort the blonde to the library.

“All right, Waterson,” Megan began, after waving Kim off. “I want to know what’s going on. The truth.”

Carrie glanced left and right, as if looking for an exit. “We’re talking in the library?” she offered.

Megan glared. “Don’t give me that. You know what I mean - it’s your whole ‘changed person’ routine over the last few weeks. The prevailing rumour is that you ‘found God’! Well, as an authority in this school on God, I don’t buy it. At all. So either you tell me the truth, right here, right now, or I’m going to make things VERY unpleasant for the rest of your friends.” She smiled, placing her hands on her hips. “Starting with Chartreuse. So what’ll it be, Carrie? As always, the choice is yours.”

NEXT: Powering Up

ASIDE: Care to indulge in the weekly vote? Or idle speculation?

PREVIOUSLY: Recreating a time machine will take weeks. Future incarnations have appeared, with a plan for making Carrie appear to still be in town.

PART 84a: ADJUSTMENTS

“Saints alive!” Beth Parker crossed herself and fell to her knees at her apartment door. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, uh… look, get up.” Frank pocketed the radio transmitter with one hand, the other rubbing his forehead. Damn Carrie and her whole divine intervention story the first time they’d encountered Beth. “Truth be told, I was never actually an angel, and I - we - kinda need your help.”

“I always wanted to thank you properly. I’d hoped you’d return to me,” Beth said breathlessly as she scrambled to her feet. “I’ve become very religious in the last year, did you know that? What am I saying, of course you know. And my part time work at the Clayton hotel has almost earned me enough to get professional singing lessons! I plan to do gospel. Are you pleased? Am I on the right path?"

“Beth, please, I’ll explain everything.” Frank paused. “Okay, no… that would confuse you. But I’ll hit the highlights, so long as you come with me now. To the, um, oh heck with it, to an Astral Plane.”

Beth peered out into the hall. “Why now? And where is your partner? The one who looked like me, the one named Carrie?”

“That,” Frank concluded, “would be why we need your help."

“We’ll pull a girl out of the past,” Luci whispered to Frank. “Is that ethical? That can’t be ethical.”

Frank eyed the blonde girl who was currently gaping at all the television channels and other technology Julie was demonstrating. “We have to assume our future selves know what they’re doing,” he muttered back. “And I mean, we’re right - while Beth is a couple years older, with a little makeup and Mindy providing an external boost on any naysayers? She could pass as Carrie at school. At least in the few weeks we need leading up to Christmas vacation.”

“And EVERYONE on your astral plane has these ‘sell phones’?” Beth gasped. She looked up at Julie. “But why even call them phones if they do other things? Are you sure they’re not demonic devices?”

“Oh yeah,” Luci said dryly. “It’s like she and Carrie are the same person.”

Frank sighed. “We’ll need to monitor her. The bigger question is Laurie. Can we really hold that situation together for upwards of three weeks?”

“No, nO, NO, no, and, oh wait, how about a side dish of NO!”

“You know, Corry,” Mindylenopia observed. “We’re telling you as a courtesy more than anything else."

“I’m trying to say ‘no’ in a courteous manner. You’re not listening.”

The former waitress sighed, and looked to Frank. Or Bernard, Corry supposed, what with those two apparently being time displaced. Bernard was rubbing his forehead again. “Look, Corry - we can, and in fact did convince your family that Laurie’s away at an art camp. That she was recruited after someone saw that drawing that Megan published for her back in October. All we need is for you to warn Mindy if your parents seem about to–”

“What about the school Laurie would be missing?” Corry challenged. “Not to mention potentially Christmas! You think my family will buy her being away for something like that?!”

“I’m in the room,” Laurie said, quietly.

Both Venitis had been called and asked to come to the mansion a little earlier than everyone else. Corry turned to her on the sofa. “I know. Sorry Laurie, but based on your reaction, I figured I should advocate on your behalf.”

Laurie’s hands tightened where they held her skirt. “When they said what this trip would mean, I was shocked. I needed a moment. But there really isn’t an alternative, right?”

“I’m the alternative,” Corry asserted, waving off Mindylenopia before she could speak. “My ankle’s not that bad, and–"

“No, Corry.” Laurie stood up and turned to face him, her fingers releasing her skirt, in favour of twisting together. “You’re always jumping in, trying to protect me, and while I appreciate it - we’re seniors now. It’s like Megan says, I gotta do more on my own. Besides, my memory is still shaky, but I think maybe we’ve had this discussion before? When you volunteered for time travel a year ago, to go after Julie? And I don’t think I liked that. Even this year, when you and Frank were gone for two days after the van crash, I could barely handle it - no way can I bluff mom and dad for weeks! Whereas you can.”

Laurie pulled her hands apart, forcing her arms to her sides. “I’ll do extra studying, plus I’m taking History, and this is history. And Dad was away for the holidays two years ago, for work, so it’s not that weird. I can even record a message now for you to use, saying my plane home was cancelled or the camp was extended or something. Because bottom line, the time group needs me, so I’m going to go.”

“C’mon little sis, you can’t really…”

“Two minutes!” she reminded her brother, pointing at him. “Not THAT little. In fact I’m not only doing this for them, it’s for me too.” She paused for a breath. “Because here’s the thing, Corry! I admire Carrie. I have for a long while. I admire all things she can do so much better than me, even including her power of time travel. But know what I’ve learned? She can’t do everything. Not on her own. She needs people like us. So I’m stepping up. Last week with cheerleading, and now with this.”

She then crossed her arms, imitating the posture Corry so often made - with only a slight shiver betraying her nervousness. “Corry, I care about this group and what they’re doing a lot more than some stuffy classes,” she continued. “Except maybe art class, because here’s ANOTHER thing, I also want to be a professional animator. And this cover story will make my parents see that maybe, I’m just that good. So… so there. Deal with it, bro. I’m going.”

Corry opened his mouth to protest… and found he couldn’t. Not after a speech like that. For some reason, he was reminded of something Chartreuse had said to him, back when Julie had time travelled: ‘If Laurie wants to help someone, she’s going to do it. No matter what EITHER of us has to say.’ After a few moments of standing with his mouth open, he finally found enough of a voice to say, “Damnit Laurie, of all the times to make me proud, you just have to do it when there’s a chance of mortal danger, don’t you?!”

Laurie blushed faintly, smiling back at him. She then nibbled on her lower lip and let her arms fall back to her sides as she looked back to Bernard. “Golly, there won’t be MORTAL danger, will there?”

“Look at it this way,” Bernard offered. “Things go screwy for us in your future, our present. So maybe the safest place for you to be is with us, in the past.”

Corry didn’t feel entirely reassured, but he decided pushing the point would only make things worse for Laurie.

“Okay,” Laurie sighed. “So how many days do I need to pack for?”

“In theory, none,” Mindylenopia pointed out. “We won’t stay long in the past, then we’ll simply be returning to your future. In practice, of course, whatever an art camp would need.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Though before I do that, I’ll need to teach this Beth girl our cheerleadering routines.”

“Heck. That’s a good point,” Bernard realized. “Let’s go see if Julie and the others are done with their technology primer.”

Laurie nodded, then looked back to Corry. “And one last thing? Since I’m not going to be here, please, tell Megan to go for it. Okay?”

Corry lifted an eyebrow. “Go for it?”

“Yeah, I think she’ll need extra encouragement. You can say I asked you to pass it along. Thanks Corry!”

Corry was tempted to ask what his sister meant by that, but she seemed to have a lot to worry about already. Besides, he reasoned, it couldn’t be too hard to figure out whatever Laurie was referring to.

The whole group met, and everyone was brought up to speed. Only Glen wasn’t there, having said he’d render his decision about leaving or not once Mindylenopia and Bernard came by the hotel with Laurie.

They’d then determined that the people to tell Mr. Waterson the truth about Carrie would be: Frank and Luci, as two of the originals, Mindy, as the adult, plus she’d been to his house yesterday, and Chartreuse, who knew of mystical powers.

Hank took it well, all things considered.

“So you’re saying that, ever since she was shot, Carrie - my daughter - has been a time traveler?”

Frank glanced over at Luci, then back to Hank Waterson. “Right.”

“I’ve been helping Carrie come to grips with it,” Chartreuse offered. “There are, you know, strange things in this world that at least 99.9% of the general population isn’t aware of.”

“Thing is,” Luci finished, “until we can get Carrie back, we’ll need a girl named Beth to act like her double in the present. Because as long as the future thinks Carrie’s still here, there won’t be repercussions.”

“Time travel,” Hank reiterated. He moved to sit down in one of the living room chairs. “This is like something out of a bad novel.”

“It’s really happening though,” Mindy (or to Hank, Theresa) observed. “Now, if you like, I can essentially hypnotize you into being okay with everything. It’s simply better for everybody if you’re dealing with Beth of your own volition instead, should any issues come up that I cannot foresee. Also, it avoids me needing to reiterate that ‘everything’s fine’ every few days, as you start to feel like it’s not.”

“We do have things more or less worked out,” Frank added. “Beth will need to be in school Monday and Tuesday, for continuity, then you can take her out for some sick days as we regroup. Her being sick will also help explain away any odd behaviour. From there, we’ll play it by ear.”

“How long will this go on for?” he asked.

“At least three weeks. Maybe to the end of December,” Mindy stated.

“Three WEEKS?!”

“Mr. Waterson,” Chartreuse said, reaching out for his hand. “Listen, there’s no way I can, you know, fully understand what you’re going through. Because you’ve gotta take a lot more here on faith than I do. But PLEASE sir, know that I, like, get some of it. Because Carrie and me, we’ve been, you know, pretty close lately. Like, extremely close, actually. So know that I’m scared for her, and that large parts of me now want to scream, or sob uncontrollably, or lash out at Theresa here… except I know those things won’t help. This thing with Beth? It will.”

He searched her expression. “How can you be sure?”

She swallowed. “I… I can’t. Not entirely. But we’ve met future counterparts, and they say this is our best shot, so I figure it’s gotta help. Please, sir, if nothing else, please trust that we all want the same thing here. We all want - no, we NEED - to, like, bring Carrie back to the present. To have her here with us again, all safe and sound.”

Hank realized that Chartreuse was trying hard not to cry. His grip on her hand tightened, and his expression settled into one of resolve. If Carrie’s friends could manage? Then he would as well. “All right then,” he said. “Tell me more about this Beth, and what I have to do to bring our Carrie back home.”

On the bright side, the first week was only mildly problematic.

NEXT: Crossing Paths

“Time & Tied” PARTS 80-81

[caption id=“attachment_1584” align=“alignright” width=“232”] Old sketch of Chartreuse & Lee[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 30, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Almost everything with Chartreuse was new -Working out where Carrie was going, bumped back into this part

“Time & Tied” PARTS 82-83

1. Original Date Of Completion: MARCH 18, 2008
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -More Chartreuse; her timeline work was new -Some of Mindy’s backstory with Linquist was tweaked -Added Lee preventing further physical acts by Glen -Inserted explanation of time travel by Temporals -The language, now “Temporal”, used to be called “Sectoral” -Added Julie/Clarke scene, to handle their relationship

EIGHT YEARS LATER

“TimelineUsed” was the last such text file I left behind, dated Dec 10, 2006. It got a lot more in depth than previous versions, by flagging more obscure names like Tracy Irving (Corry’s contact in England who knew Julie), by inserting Carrie’s departure from the present (then “Late May 2002”) and by pinning down Mindy’s identity (more on that in spoilers below, in case you didn’t catch that key part).

Despite the detail, eight years later, I was still trying to decide where to take things. And the writing was slowing down. Initially, I’d envisioned a five season (10 book) epic. By 2008, I wasn’t even sure if I’d get season two finished. Except I couldn’t set it aside completely, because I wanted people to read it, and I asked myself, who would read an unfinished story? That’s where I was at, mentally.

Then, in August of 2009, I saw “The Time Traveler’s Wife” when it first came out in theatres. (Which is rare, normally I give movies a few weeks.) That energized me enough to work through the remaining five episodes from this point forwards (which, after edits, will become 13 parts, not the usual 10). Ergo, before we continue into those final two arcs, let’s look at stats, and wrap up the Mindylenopia connection.

RANDOM STATISTICS

[caption id=“attachment_1585” align=“alignright” width=“188”] Old sketch of Theresa & Tim[/caption]

Individually, only 7 people have seen Part 80 (“Vanishing Act”), posted back at the end of January. As Lightdefender has reminded me, by following the RSS feed, no page view would register… but I think it’s clear this story is gaining zero traction. The last time anyone looked at the start of Book 2 (“Missing Piece”) was back on Feb 4th, and a view for the start of Book 3 (“Talking to Herself”) requires tracking back even further.

The frustrating thing is that I know there’s interest in time travel out there. The TV show “Timeless” wrapped up it’s first season last Monday, and I was live tweeting along with tons of other people. There’s a new comedy time travel show, “Making History”, coming out in March. The movie “Arrival”, which has time travel as a theme, was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Why can’t I tap into this?! I’ve given two interviews in two months (a local author’s site, and a serial page on Facebook) and it hasn’t seemed to help at all. Is my story that bad?

Now the good news. In the past week, Paul Wandason has approached me about writing a guest post on his time travel blog. (“Time2TimeTravel”, find it there.) It could help, and has added a “like” to my Facebook page, bringing us to 15. I also have eleven blog followers, up two from 2016 - hello to sweetmotivational and cuteanimallove. John Golden commented this month. And I am still getting mentions out there: k-fish of Redwood Crossing offered an unsolicited plug back in December (that I only recently saw, oops) and Scott Delahunt posts me regularly to Facebook.

I have also, as of Feb 23rd, started posting Time & Tied on the site Royal Road Legends. (The turnaround for approval was surprisingly quick, a little over 24 hours.) I’ve reformatted Book 1 to split all parts in two, the way I’m posting now. I fixed my possessives (I hope), cut back on my overuse of exclamation points, and made a few other minor changes. The plan is to post there daily for the next half a year. (Yes, this tale is over 183 half-parts.) We’ll see how that goes. If you have any pull over there, maybe give a ranking? If not, it’s cool, thank you for simply sticking with me.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that some of the early parts, previously published on this very site, have been edited as of the week of February 5th, 2017. (The Facebook banner was also updated then.) Notably Chapter 1, streamlined to have some better grammar, and Chapter 11, to include a brief appearance by Theresa. Honestly, I’d thought she was already there, alongside the first cafe reference. Somehow, I’d made a mental edit in my head. It doesn’t really make a difference, although Theresa has become a relevant character in the midst of Book 4. Speaking of…

SPOILER SECTION

At what point did the Mindylenopia/Theresa plot point come together? From the point of her banishment, I had it in mind that Mindy went back less than 20 years, and that she would be mixed up with Linquist, driving his alien vendetta (first seen in the abduction of Luci). The subsequent “Timeline” file, from before the start of Book 4, further postulated that Theresa was Mindy’s mother, while making it clear that Mindy was behind Julie’s reconstruction efforts. The “TimelineUsed” file (mentioned above) finally melded Theresa and Mindy - they were the same person.

As to foreshadowing? The cafe fire to start Book 3 was a happy accident (I forget why I’d decided not to have Theresa there), the couple lines of dialogue to Clarke post-Banishment were done in recent edits, and there’s one other much older Theresa item you may have forgotten about, which will help steer the narrative later. This is also why I know these random sketches I’ve been including in recent Commentary were done after 2005, given the presence of Theresa (above, with Tim).

Regarding the overall time travel plot elements, lots of the rest was originally there, but got shifted around. Carrie’s blowout with Glen was originally in Part 80 (day of the talent show). It was moved back to Part 78, which made space for the new Chartreuse romance (the classroom scene). Carrie’s letter to her father appears earlier now; it wasn’t revealed in the original until Luci read it aloud during the group discussion. Even then, they didn’t realize Carrie’s destination (her mom) until Laurie helped Frank connect the dots in the second discussion (the one after Glen and Mindy bickered).

The group also didn’t discuss Frank’s death until that second meeting. They couldn’t do it any earlier, because in that first draft, only Glen knew the truth. By picking up the dropped ball of the Carrie-Chartreuse romance in edits, I’d realized Chartreuse could be the vehicle to tell the group about Carrie’s Timelines, which made a lot more sense than Glen doing it. The tradeoff for Chartreuse’s torment was that she also got a surprise make out scene with Carrie.

I’m serious there - their kissing scene was new, yet felt necessary, and I thought that was everything. So I was just as surprised as Glen when Chartreuse blurted out Carrie’s love admission, then had her cry-fest extra-love confession with Laurie. Um, you go girl?

Back on the topic of changes, another shift was the talk of Future Carrie. Originally placed during Mindy’s technical talk, now bumped back to the day before (in that second talk, after the Glen/Mindy bickering). And all of the temporal theory talk (about burning dinner) was new. To be clear, the “one timeline” temporal thread in that talk was always the intention for this universe, but there was never any actual discussion of it in-story… and Frank’s question of Shady/Glen/Mindy affecting the timeline in different ways WAS valid. Wasn’t it? So we finally got an in-story explanation of time travel in Part 83. I hope it made sense.

Was anything else baked into original plans? Yup. The Venitis being in Miami, which is where Elaine disappeared. Planned since Book 2 or before. Hence why I twisted Corry’s ankle earlier - he’d taken Laurie’s place last time (saving Julie), but I wanted his sister on this trip. And Beth’s return from the 1950s was always planned in some way too. I mean, I gave her a hairband with a tracking device, for goodness sakes! Though I hadn’t known then that this was where I would use her.

So, at this point we HAVE been in Timeline Four since Book 1, Chapter 1 (as Chartreuse deduced). Even though the cause for it was in Book 3 (Mindylenopia). And if Carrie seemed a bit abrasive in Book 1, she has this whole dual protagonist/antagonist thing going for her. Antagonist of Timeline Three, Protagonist of Timeline Four. And yes, Future Carrie of Timeline Three IS a legit threat, as I had always intended for her to face off against herself somehow. Oh yes, we’re going there.

But first, we’ll see more Beth, who I had always intended to make more religious, due to Carrie’s “angels” assertion. Beth now has to deal with school - and someone else, who became religious while I did my edits. Know who I’m talking about? We are now halfway through Book 4, and heading back into a bit more character work. I hope you continue to enjoy.

Parts 80/81 were originally “Vanishing Act”, so that was Part 80a. Parts 82/83 were originally “History Lesson”, but uh-oh, I used that for the second part of “Flashback” way back at Part 28. So I went with “Remaking History” as Part 82a instead. (Weird that both parts use ‘8’ and ‘2’.) Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis to help spread the word. It helps.

Coming This Tuesday: Laurie’s out, Beth’s in.

PREVIOUSLY: Glen and Mindy explained temporal theory - and said that Carrie would never be able to save her mother in the past.

PART 83b: DOUBLE TROUBLE

“Wait, stop,” Laurie protested. “How can there BE this ‘Future Carrie’? Isn’t she from that old timeline three? Chartreuse said it’s gone!”

“Not entirely,” Mindy said, looking uncomfortable. “In a sense, timeline three is a few milliseconds in our future. We’re constantly in the process of overwriting it. So Future Carrie’s still a threat.”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t see it. After all the changes, why isn’t ‘Future Carrie’ destined to be from our timeline now?”

“She may be, but as we Temporals know, perception is everything,” Mindy sighed. “Did your Carrie grow up alongside Glen? That’s timeline three. Or did she grow up in a mental hospital being spoon fed memories of growing up alongside Glen? Because that could be our path now. They both lead to Future Carrie.”

“What? No!” Chartreuse gasped.

“Then we’ll finish our time machine and go after our Carrie,” Julie asserted. “It’s time travel, we can get to her in the past before that future happens. We’ll tell Carrie that she’s been living timeline four, to give her another path forwards.”

“Won’t work,” Glen asserted. “Unless you leave soon, Future Carrie will easily spot when her past self ceased influencing your present, and she’ll tie up the loose ends to preserve her own timeline. Even if it means the mental hospital in her past. Soon enough, you’ll all be adjusted to think your version moved away or something. I warned you, didn’t I? But oh no, nobody listens to–"

“Oh, stay shutted up,” Mindy interrupted. “Know what, Julie? Yes. Doing that is better than doing nothing. Possibly better that Carrie end up with Glinephanis here versus… yeah.”

“Meaning we’ll need to temporally hide out until until the machine is complete,” Luci realized. “To avoid this Future Carrie’s interference. How do we do that? What do we tell the rest of the school? What do we tell Carrie’s father?”

“Look. All you’ll need to do, is make everyone in the present think Carrie’s still here,” Glen admitted to them. “It won’t matter if she really is or not, her history is now in quantum flux. Basically, her future self can’t be allowed to perceive a lengthy discontinuity.”

Mindy rubbed her forehead. “I’ll go to Carrie’s father. We can stall a missing persons report.”

“Oh! More ‘minor changes’ to us?” Julie asked, her tone sarcastic.

“Julie’s right,” Clarke agreed. “Mr. Waterson should be told everything. Not have his mind adjusted.”

“Right, since giving the whole story worked SO well with your sister, Mary,” Glen reminded him.

“Yet you two Temporals have limits to your mind powers, yeah?” Lee noted. “Can’t change the whole school, not if there’s more people like me. And how long is this time machine rebuilding going to take?”

“Days,” Mindy sighed. “Okay, fine. For now I’ll set things up to stall another twenty four hours.” She glanced at Julie. “Let’s have a meeting of all technical minded people, right here, first thing tomorrow morning. That will tell us how long our stalling needs to be maintained.”

She’d asked him to stay behind. So Clarke decided to give Julie the first words. It took about two minutes of her staring into the china cabinet before she spoke.

“We have a problem here, Clarke. Phil.” Julie turned. “Damn it, I’m sorry, how do you want me to refer to you?”

“Let’s go with Phil,” Clarke suggested. “Against all odds, I spent four straight years at our school. So I’ve been wondering about using my first name more with everyone in post-secondary.”

“Phil then,” she said, smiling. “Here’s the thing. I tore myself away from whatever we had because I thought it was for the greater good. And maybe it kind of was, even if I went about it badly. Not to mention how it ended up being a trick by Mindy.” She raked her hands back through her hair. “So yes, I know I shouldn’t have unilaterally decided to keep you out without giving you any options. Thing is, Phil, I can’t promise that sort of thing won’t happen again. Like how it did today, with Glen at the park. And you don’t deserve that.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Julie. Jewels.”

“I’ll try not to be - but you can’t be so easy on me. I’m not healthy for you, Phil. You must realize that.”

“I should get a say in that, yeah?”

Julie moved closer. “Yeah. But PLEASE, you need to see where I’m coming from here. Logically, not emotionally. Phil, I did these things to you even after you saved my life last year. Do you understand?”

Clarke shook his head. “I can’t ignore my feelings…”

“I’m not saying you have to! However, you always seem to think more with your heart than your head. While I’m the reverse, hyper analytical. And while my emotions are pulling me back towards you here, the rest of me is… worried. Because while I may have been acting more hesitant for the better part of this year, as I rebuilt my life, underneath it all? It turns out I’m assertive to a fault. I could easily end up crushing you. Again. Please, if we’re going forward, I want you to recognize that, and have a contingency plan.”

“You mean I’ve got a blind spot when it comes to that part of you,” Clarke realized. He forced himself to consider that. “Maybe you’re right,” he granted. “But maybe you’re also scared to be losing your objectivity. You’re scared to give yourself over to your feelings.”

“Ohh, you’re not wrong.” Julie held his gaze. “Thing is, where does that leave us? Friends? More than friends? Something else?”

“Our relationship has always defied description,” Clarke said wryly. He reached out his hand. “How about we start again here, as a couple, and see where that takes us.”

Julie reached out, fingers twitching a little until their palms met. She was moving into the embrace almost before Clarke could pull her in. She drew in a long breath. After a moment, her shoulders began to shake - was she sobbing? Was she giddy with relief? When Clarke pulled back a little to try and see, she released his hand and held him tighter, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

So he simply held her back. It was enough, he decided. They could rebuild from this.

Sunday morning found all the technical specialists reunited in the LaMille sitting room: Julie, Frank, Luci, Mindy… and Glen. For while Glen was more of an expert on the theory than the hardware, Glen had refused to allow Mindy to be present without him.

It meant that arguments between Mindy and Glen were not infrequent. But with arbitration by Luci, progress on the actual circuitry was made too. Slow progress. It was close to noon when Julie threw her pencil down onto the table in disgust.

“Mindy, you’ve made this MORE complicated, not LESS. It’s going to take WEEKS, not days.”

“I thought you agreed with me that we cannot fit the circuits back into that black box chassis,” Mindy countered.

“We’re still on a deadline here! Stop adding stuff!”

“There’s no need to sacrifice safety. The only hard deadline is the end of December, and that’s only because once when we get into January there’s no coins to return to your present.”

“You’re forgetting the smokescreen,” Luci said. “The longer we obfuscate on where our Carrie is and what she’s doing, the greater the chance that we’ll be found out. At this rate, we could have this work cut off by outside forces from the future before we can finish.”

Mindy shook her head. “Once I saw this would take more than a few days - one week or three weeks, that won’t make a huge difference. Trust me.”

“What IS the new framework you’re aiming for?” Frank asked.

Mindy looked from Frank to Glen. “I’d rather not say.”

“What, worried I’ll take a sledgehammer to it before you’re done?” Glen asked, smirking. “You forget, I want Carrie back too.”

“Yeah, so you can get her closer to your ‘timeline three’, versus letting us explore other options,” Mindy pointed out. She then looked to Frank, perhaps to pull herself back from a new argument. “Though I admit, I’m also holding back to avoid giving out more information about future technology than I have to.”

“Mindy, that’s making it IMPOSSIBLE for us to–”

“Maybe it’s time for a lunch break," Luci said, cutting Julie off. “Was Mimi making sandwiches?”

“I think something was left in the kitchen, yes,” Frank agreed, as Luci shot him a look he interpreted as pleading for assistance. “Why don’t we adjourn there?”

After a few assorted mumblings, it was agreed that food might be in order. Luci interposed herself between the two Temporals as they changed locations, and as such was able to hear Frank’s next question to them. “So Mindy, with this ‘new design’, how many people are we going to be able to bring along? I mean, we’ll need to track Carrie down once we’ve arrived in the past, and the more people we have there, the easier that could be.”

Mindy grimaced. “No more than five.”

“Right. And I’ll be one of those five,” Mindylenopia clarified.

Luci managed to sidestep Julie, who had stopped in front of her, practically blocking the entranceway to the kitchen. They then understood why Julie had frozen in place. The kitchen was already occupied by a number of seated individuals: Mindy (or rather, Mindylenopia, who had spoken), Frank (or rather, Bernard), and also…

“Carrie??” Julie gasped. In two strides she was at the other girl’s side, leaning down to look into her eyes. The blonde was dressed curiously, sporting a very out-of-fashion blouse with a long skirt, and she was wearing a cross on a necklace. Only her blue hairband was familiar. “How are you feeling, are you… no. You’re not Carrie. Who are you?”

The blonde haired girl faltered. “Um, I… I…” She turned to look at the time travellers. “Frank, help…?”

“I’m Bernard now,” Bernard sighed back. He looked up at the rest of them. “Everybody? This is Beth Parker. Beth, that’s Julie, Luci, Glen, and, um, other ‘us’es you already know. It’s an Astral Plane thing.” Beth raised her hand, giving a tentative wave.

Frank slowly shook his head. “Beth Parker… I know that name. Why do I know that name?”

“This town,” Bernard offered. “Decades ago. Carrie’s lookalike, the Clayton Hotel, Mrs. Peabody…” Frank flinched as the memory came to him.

“Oh, this is rich,” Glen said. “You honestly think a body double is going to work?”

Mindylenopia rose to her feet. “It will for a while, yup. Until things go south. We’re not merely here to drop Beth off, we also need supplies before our trip back to the airport in Florida. Didn’t have time to load up before coming back.”

“Why not?” Luci asked.

Bernard adjusted his glasses. “We can’t say. At present, there’s a certain stability involved in our predestined time travel. We don’t want to risk it teetering into an even worse future.”

“You didn’t tell us when you were me, so you won’t tell us now,” Frank summarized. Bernard shrugged.

Julie turned to eye the current Glen and Mindy. “Could this be a trick?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past Mindylenopia,” Glen grunted.

Mindy finally spoke. “Honestly? I’d hoped we’d experience something like this. It means my machine will work. Awesomeness.”

“But there’s going to be sacrifices,” Mindylenopia countered. She jerked her thumb at Beth. “First, we’ve gotta acclimate her to this situation as fast as possible. And…" She exhaled. “Play it straight with Carrie’s dad.”

“That’s a terrible plan,” Glen and Mindy chorused. As they had the previous day, they then glared at each other.

“Second,” Mindylenopia continued, “Glinephanis, if we DO run into Carrie’s future self back there? You’re one of the few people she might listen to. So we’re willing to bring you along with us.”

Glen folded his arms. “So you can leave me stranded somewhere? No way!"

“Sweet.” Mindylenopia turned to Bernard. “We tried, he’s not coming."

“Wait,” Bernard protested, standing also. “Glen, we wouldn’t strand you. As much as I hate to admit it, you also know more about our own Carrie’s emotional state leading up to her departure, and her capabilities. We need that information, that… expertise.” He let out a quick breath. “Plus, causally speaking, the fact that you didn’t time travel back here with us? Implies that you’re stuck in our present. Would you rather be there? Or keeping an eye on what it is we’re about to do?”

Glen’s eyes narrowed. “You neglect to point out that, if I come with you now, I won’t get to see what it is you’re planning through the month of December.”

“I’m hoping we can lock you in a basement for the next few weeks to achieve the same result,” present Mindy muttered under her breath. Glen shot her a look, which she ignored.

“Anyway, you’re not the only person from this time that we need to recruit,” Mindylenopia finished.

Julie frowned. “Why?”

“Welllll,” Bernard began slowly, after exchanging a glance with his companion. “As you know, our destination is Elaine Waterson. Last seen for sure in Miami, Florida. And we’ll need to time shift reasonably close to that position, both to minimize our temporal impact and to eliminate the possibility of unforeseen travel delays. So… we need someone who was in Miami that year.”

“Someone to pull the handle,” Luci reasoned.

“One of the Venitis,” Frank realized.

“And Corry has his twisted ankle,” Julie observed.

“Yeah. We’re here for Laurie,” Mindylenopia confirmed. “We need to pull her out of your time for this mission.”

A hush fell over the room. It was broken when Beth swallowed her mouthful of sandwich, and gestured at the tray. “Anyone else want one? They’re very tasty.”

NEXT: Adjustments

ASIDE: The dominos set up in Book 1 (Beth) and Book 2 (Miami) continue to fall. ARC 2 is done, so we’re halfway through Book 4. New commentary Sunday. How about that weekly T&T vote? I’ve also started posting to “Royal Road Legends”, if you want to start over.

PREVIOUSLY: Julie decided the best plan was to bring Glen (who wants to preserve the future) and Mindy (who wants to change the future), together.

PART 83a: TEMPORAL ALIGNMENT

“Oh, what’s Theresa doing… here…" Glen’s voice trailed off as the two redheads locked eyes. Despite everyone now being present in the LaMille sitting room, an unsettling silence fell. It lasted precisely five seconds.

“You scared Carrie off, this isn’t on me,” Mindy accused, quickly rising to her feet. “I’ve been passively watching, and only occasionally slowing down your orders at the cafe.”

Glen shot a glare at Clarke before turning back to her. “%You expect me to take YOUR word, you traitor?!%” he hissed back in Temporal. “%I’d be gone with Carrie by now if not for your interference.%”

“%Preserving a terrible future! Who wants that?%” Mindy argued. She looked to Julie. “This might have gone better if you’d said he was coming.”

“This might have gone better if you’d been more up front with us from the start,” Julie reminded her.

“Move away,” Glen said to Luci, Lee and Chartreuse, who were between him and Mindy. The two girls automatically took a step to the side, but Lee remained where he was.

“Dude, we might as well hear her side before the hurling of more garbled profanities or potentially heavy objects,” he remarked. Glen edged to the side, but Lee matched his movement, keeping the two Temporals apart. “Look, I don’t like getting physical, but I will if I have to.”

“That person is a traitor to everything a Temporal stands for,” Glen seethed, pointing past Lee, towards Mindy. “I’d banish her again myself if I could!”

“Glinephanis, our stance shouldn’t be that every Mundane is the enemy,” Mindy shot back. “%Remember, they created us.%”

“%Yes, and we are superior,%” Glen reminded. “%Until they learn to accept that…%”

“%They’re not servants. Not slaves.%”

“%No, but they are SO helpless,%” Glen scoffed. “%Playing around with technologies that they don’t understand, it’s not unlike giving teenagers a time machine. Let it continue, and everyone will be killed.%”

“%No, it’s sweeping generalizations like that which will kill everyone,%” Mindy responded. “%Don’t conveniently forget, fundamentally we remain human ourselves.%”

“What gibberi–” Corry began, only to be quickly silenced by a motion from Luci, who had been exchanging glances with Tim.

“%Temporals are the next generation of humans,%” Glen continued, ignoring Corry’s outburst. “%Imagine what we could accomplish without the petty restrictions of their society.%”

“%We could turn more innocent girls into weapons?%”

Glen managed to step around Lee, who had become distracted by Corry’s outburst. Showing no finesse, his fist went flying for Mindy’s face. Reacting quickly, Mindy stepped to the side and reached for Glen’s arm. As she tried to pull him off balance though, he twisted out of her grip, and the two of them faced off, eye to eye. Lee circled around, reaching out for Glen’s shoulder from behind, only to hesitate as the redhead simply resumed talking.

“%I’m not the one who woke her powers early,%” Glen seethed. “%That was a Mundane! I’m trying to HELP her.%”

“%Future her. Not the her of this time!%”

“%They are the SAME.%”

“%Not now. Not according to this one,%” Mindy asserted, pointing at Chartreuse.

“%That harlot?%”

“Whoa,” Tim gasped. Glen turned to stare, and the blonde boy slapped his hand over this mouth. Glen narrowed his eyes as he looked back at Mindy. “Oh no. No, this is unbelievable, did you teach all these Mundanes how to understand TEMPORAL?”

“No,” Mindy protested. “Though, okay, apparently they did find one of Linquist’s logbooks in our language…"

“Meaning you taught HIM? Oh, I’m out.” Glen’s posture relaxed then - as did Lee’s. “Future Carrie can destroy your lives as she likes,” Glen decided. He turned away from the group.

“Glen, wait," Frank objected. “Truthfully, most of us have no idea what happened and would like to get caught up.”

“Yeah, um, what were they, like, saying about me?” Chartreuse asked.

Glen paused, looking from Frank to Mindy to Tim. Mindy simply clasped her hands behind her back, adopting a neutral expression. Tim looked towards Luci. Luci seemed about to speak, then thought better of it and gestured back his way. “I caught words. You’re the linguist, Tim, you probably have a better idea of how it all fit together.”

Tim exhaled slowly. “Oh. Okay. Um. S-Something about them - as Temporals - being superior, and how our ignorance could kill us… though at a fundamental level we’re all the same? Except Glen didn’t buy that. Then they were arguing about Carrie’s powers, the use of her as a weapon, some garbling of tenses - hey, using a future imperfect tense almost makes sense now - and then on to Chartreuse. Which, ah, there’s a particular page where Linquist was spouting off about aliens, and he used what seemed to be cursing, so while I’m not entirely sure of the specific word…” He hesitated.

Mindy cleared her throat. “That ass called you a–"

“Never mind,” Chartreuse interrupted, her hands making fists. “I can guess.”

“Right, talk as if I’M the ass,” Glen said, his gaze settling back on Mindy. “Passively watching us, were you? If Carrie’s different, you’re the one who changed this past without considering the consequences!”

“I had no MEMORY when I met Linquist,” Mindy countered, jabbing her finger at her head. “Because of what YOU made Carrie do. So don’t you DARE lecture me, that man was like a father to me, he–“

“The change to Carrie’s timeline had to be more recent, traitor. You couldn’t have simply left town, noooo, you had to stay here and–"

“Yes, I had to TRY to create a better future, because it’s not like anyone else knew–"

“What gave YOU the right to decide–"

“Okay, this was funnier when I didn’t know what they were saying,” Corry grumbled.

Glen took a step back towards Mindy, only to have Lee again step between them. Then Julie clapped her hands twice, drawing everyone’s attention. “HEY! Temporals. Laying blame isn’t going to help bring Carrie back. So how about we all shut up and listen to each other until we’re on the same temporal page, allowing us to actually find a path forward through all this mess. Okay?”

Glen and Mindy glared back at each other. Then Glen rolled his eyes. “Fine. Feels like that’s the only way I’ll find out where the present day Carrie is.” He marched over to sit himself in a chair.

“Fine,” Mindy agreed. “Most of my cards are on the table already.” She sat back down on the couch.

“Lovely.” Julie put her hands on her hips. “Chartreuse, since you’re the one who understands Carrie’s timelines best, how about you guide us through the discussion?”

Chartreuse ceased her fumbling with the crystal around her neck, pursed her lips, then slowly nodded.

Frank found that the various timelines made sense. Mostly. There was one notable issue. “Here’s the thing,” he said once Chartreuse was done, which took some time given the questions of others along the way. “When ‘Shady’ initiated timeline three, that was a change. But Glen came back within that timeline - it was predestined. Mindy then initiated timeline four. That was a change. In fact, the very change that put us in this situation. So why the differences? What makes time travel predestined or not?”

“All time travel is predestined,” Glen grunted.

“Until it’s not,” Mindy added, with an impish smile. Frank frowned.

“That’s not an acceptable answer,” Luci protested.

The two Temporals exchanged glances. “You want to waste your time on this?” Glen said, gesturing.

Mindy raked her fingers through her hair. “Oh, sure, let’s give it a whirl.” She looked to Frank. “Say you burn your dinner. You’re bummed out. You travel back a half hour through time, to remind yourself to take it out of the oven. Meaning you don’t burn your dinner. Awesome. So why even take the time trip? Things worked out fine!”

“Because you’re predestined?” Frank ventured.

“Exactly,” Mindy concluded. “On an unconscious level, you need to go. For consistency, and so that your time travelling version has somewhere to return to. Perhaps the trip even avoids you being stuck in some sort of infinite time loop.”

“Wait. So did that dinner EVER get burned?” Laurie asked.

Mindy smiled. “Nope.”

“Unless dinner’s connected to paradox inducing Carrie Waterson,” Glen added, rising to his feet and wandering over to the china cabinet.

Lee scratched his head. “So time travel has become a way to remind yourself to do stuff that’s gonna happen ANYWAY?”

Mindy’s smile widened. “Yup.”

“Hence, all time travel is predestined,” Clarke echoed. He looked to Glen. “Except possibly when Carrie’s involved.”

“What’s the damn point to doing it then?” Corry asked.

“Funny you should say that, we keep telling the Mundanes as much…"

“Oh, Glen, lighten up,” Mindy said. “Thing is, even setting aside having actual motivation via one’s relative present being affected by a predestined trip, there are exception cases outside of Carrie too. It’s a matter of getting your time trip to knock the prior timeline completely out of alignment, such that it starts getting overwritten with your new one. To do that, you need to aim for a lynchpin moment. Which, alas, are almost impossible to spot, even in retrospect. So sometimes a Mundane tries anyway, hoping to get lucky.”

“For instance, instead of going back in time to warn about dinner, you go back in time, disabling your time machine,” Frank offered. “Lynchpin, and new timeline.”

Mindy shook her head. “Actually, that can be predestined. You might think you’re disabling it, when in fact you’ve enabled something that will force the trip.”

“Then the usual paradox of going back to kill your grandfather is a lynchpin,” Luci stated.

“Predestined,” Glen countered, now leaning against the wall. “You never take the shot. Or he survives. Or it’s a case of mistaken genetic identity. Time is more of an active force in this than you realize.”

“Okay, I know going back to try and kill YOURSELF does something,” Julie declared. “All I’m missing is the T-Shirt.”

“That can set up temporal waveforms,” Mindy acknowledged. “Are you alive? Are you dead? Even are you both at once, that’s a messy quantum possibility. But ultimately the timeline will collapse down into the most stable configuration… which is usually one of predestination.”

“Kinda hating the, you know, lack of free will here,” Chartreuse observed.

“You have free will in your actions,” Mindy noted. “And in your perceptions, which honestly is the most important thing. After all, two people can see a single event very differently.”

Chartreuse grimaced, as Mindy’s remark reminded her of the incident at school with the broken violin.

Mindy looked around at the others. “So yes, you get less free will about the final destination, but that’s all. To be blunt, everyone dies, the question is how did they live their lives.”

“Then you’re s-saying global warming was always going to happen,” Tim said.

“No,” Glen sighed. “She’s saying something was always going to happen. Free will and general human stupidity meant that the something became global warming. And now we’re kind of stuck with it, along with a host of other somethings… Mundanes really screwed over the Earth we’re trying to inherit.”

“But Mindy, doesn’t this temporal inertia mean your mission to separate Carrie and Glen was always doomed to failure?” Frank protested.

Mindy nodded. “Maybe. But there’s also early nudges on timeline alignment which can help knock it out when the lynchpin arrives, and with Carrie involved here, that was my goal. For while a mission to prevent Carrie’s departure entirely would likely have failed, mine was to prevent her from going with Glen. Which, frankly, seems to have worked.”

“Temporarily,” Glen grumbled. “Look, lecture over. Have we reached the point where you’ll all tell me when Carrie took her time trip to yet?”

Frank looked around the room at the others, seeing varied levels of confusion but no real argument. “They might as well know. Chartreuse? Feels like you should do the honours again.”

The pink haired girl nodded, again touching the crystal around her neck. She drew in a deep breath. “We’re almost certain that Carrie went back in time to get her mom. So that Hank Waterson would have someone here with him, after losing his daughter.”

“Oh, well, that won’t work,” Glen and Mindy chorused. They turned to glare at each other, as if irritated to be so in synch.

“Why not?” Luci demanded, perching herself on the couch again. “Carrie’s involved. Can’t she change things?”

Glen lifted an eyebrow. “Ooh. Gonna tell them all about it, ‘Mindy’?”

“Shut up, Glinephanis. I’m trying to work through the repercussions of that.”

“What repercussions?” Corry asked. “What’s the problem?”

“Sorry,” Mindy sighed. “I can’t. This goes beyond temporal theory, it’s need to know information only.”

“She’s my girlfriend!” Chartreuse insisted. “I need to know!”

Mindy merely pursed her lips.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Glen said. “If your Carrie went back to that time? My Future Carrie will pull herself out of there. Probably has already.” He smirked. “There’s nothing we can do about it here in the present. You’re screwed.”

NEXT: Double Trouble

ASIDE: A couple weeks ago, I submitted a serial profile to the “Serial Fiction Digest” FB group. Check it out if you want to know how I get in the minds of my characters, and check out @SerFicDigest on twitter.

PREVIOUSLY: Mindylenopia is at the LaMille mansion, as others prepare to meet Glen in Willowdale Park.

PART 82b: AFTER EFFECTS

“So why are you the official substitute for Frank?” Luci asked.

Corry carefully lowered himself down into the park swing. “Damned if I know.” He used his cane to brace the swing and arrest it’s motion. “Might as well focus on Glen. What did you turn up?”

In the swing next to him, Lee grinned. “Luci, show him the article about–"

“Hold that thought,” Clarke interrupted, looking towards the tree line. “Let’s tell them both at once.” Luci turned to see that Glen had emerged, and was approaching them, looking around warily.

“You’re short a few people,” the redhead pointed out, stopping at least three metres away.

“Research is ongoing,” Lee countered, before Clarke could speak. “You didn’t specify we all had to be here.”

“Right. Look, if your plan is for the others to knock us all out, then ply me for secrets about my abilities? Save your time, I won’t talk.”

“Oh, shut it,” Corry barked. “As if locking you in a box somewhere would be of any use. Me, I’m interested in what’s been discovered so far. Up to you if you want to listen too.”

Glen glared, but did close the distance between them. “Do you actually have documented evidence that Mindy has been hiding out in the town’s past?”

Luci glanced at Clarke, who nodded. She pulled a page out of the folder she held. “To start, an article from ten years ago. Talking about Linquist’s research taking a bizarre turn ‘since taking in that street girl’.”

Glen motioned with his hand, and after a momentary hesitation, Luci handed over the page. The redhead scanned it. “There’s nothing conclusive in this,” he objected. “No mention of who that ‘street girl’ was.”

“But notice the bizarre turn,” Clarke said, pointing. “Linquist publishing a paper about relativity. Wormholes. Surely that points to an influence by Mindy.”

Glen shook his head. “No, it proves the opposite!” he said scornfully. “I guess Carrie never said? Mindy’s memories of such things would have been scrambled by the temporal banishing. Linquist would have needed something in his own background to put her pieces together this way, yet you’ve now said this was a bizarre detour for him. You’re wasting my time.”

“Except we also have some later news articles!” Luci protested. She pulled out another page. “Including this one, where an interviewer says Linquist believed that aliens were feeding him information. If he started to think that Mindy was–"

“Luci, wait,” Clarke interrupted again. “Glen, you say Mindy’s memories would have been affected?” When Glen nodded, Clarke turned to look at Lee. “The stuff Linquist was doing before that bizarre turn, wasn’t it about memories?”

“Thought experiments, yeah,” Lee agreed. “Including recollection under hypnosis. It was good enough to get that minor award.”

Corry leaned forwards. “Maybe that’s the real proof then. Linquist got access to the wormhole stuff by fixing Mindy’s mind.”

Glen’s eyebrow twitched. “Show me the rest of your articles.”

“My original mission was to get ‘Glen’ away from Carrie, using any means possible,” Mindy answered Frank.

“How does a time machine help you do that now?” Frank asked.

Mindy shrugged. “It could have let me reason with one of them, away from the other. Worst case scenario, it creates the option of travelling back and planting as many subconscious triggers for Carrie as I could. Anyone spot that poetry I submitted some five years back?”

“So you again admit you’re trying to manipulate us,” Julie noted.

Mindy sighed. “Seriously? My poem was minor. Calling you last weekend, so you wouldn’t lose hope, was minor. I haven’t done anything major.”

“You crashed a van into our school library,” Frank reminded.

“Anything lately! Though short term damage like that is also minor,” Mindy said dismissively. “Time recovers. Also, I was younger and more impulsive then, stop trying to corner me.”

“What about the note you wrote me in Carrie’s handwriting?” Julie accused. “It was you, right? ‘Rebuild it, in secret,’ et cetera?”

Mindy shifted uncomfortably. “Right. Kind of minor? To be honest, I tapped Carrie to write that note herself, but it was years ago, back before her powers awoke. Kept it vague, removed the memory… I mean, it stood to reason that Glen would have her destroy the machine, after the stunt you all pulled on me with it. I just had to figure out who would be the best person to give that note to afterwards.”

“SIX WEEKS of my LIFE, Mindy!”

Mindy ran her fingers back through her hair. “Okay. Okay, sorry. That was a bit more long term - but come on, less than 12% of a year? It’s not as bad as it could have been. Not as bad as what happened to Linquist.”

“Why, what happened to him?” Laurie asked, biting her lip.

Mindy exhaled. “Euh. Well, I mentioned I had language trouble after the banishment, right? Truth is, we Temporals have our own language, and what with switching back and forth due to my memory blanks, Linquist kinda figured it out.”

“Hold on,” Tim said. “You mean, the language in his logbooks…?"

“%That little witch%…”

Luci jerked her gaze from Clarke back to Glen. “What??”

Glen waved dismissively. “Mumbling gibberish, never mind.”

Luci frowned, trying to peg why the strange words felt familiar, but Glen was already addressing them again. “Okay. It’s not a strong case, but it’s more of a case than I thought you’d pull together. For the moment, I’m on board with your suspicions.”

“Okay,” Luci said, temporarily setting aside his mutterings. “So, do you have any idea where Linquist and Mindy could be hiding out?”

Glen handed the sheets over to Corry. “No. In fact I may have run into them a dozen times and not known; Mindylenopia would have been on her guard for me, while I can’t say the same. That witch would even slip past Carrie’s headaches now, given how Carrie was the one who sent her back for those fifteen years or so.”

“So you’re not much help, is what you’re saying,” Lee remarked.

“I’m saying I’ll be looking now. You want a suggestion? Let’s talk with the guy Carrie referred to as ’Shady’.”

“Him? But he’s in jail somewhere,” Clarke protested.

Glen waved his hand in the air. “Hi, I have mental powers. Plus Tim’s father is a lawyer, right? The combination should be sufficient.”

“But how does getting to that guy help?” Luci asked.

“Simple. ‘Mindy’ would have known ‘Shady’ was coming,” Glen countered. “To awaken Carrie. More, that he had a time machine. Excellent opportunity for our nemesis to refresh her own knowledge, and perhaps obtain anything else he’d brought along, before mentally adjusting him and leaving.”

Luci and Clarke exchanged glances again. “So, that’s a scary thought,” Luci admitted. “Still, if Shady got adjusted to forget, what’s the point in us seeing him now?”

“Because wherever ‘Shady’ was staying in town back then could be a good place for Mindy to stay now,” Corry concluded, looking up from the articles. “Besides, it’s the only temporal lead we have, right?”

Glen crossed his arms. “Unless your missing friends have a better plan?”

“I’ve give Julie a call,” Clarke decided. “Wait here.”

“So, is that it, Mindy?” Julie said, her hands tightening on the back of the couch. “Is that all your manipulations?”

“Yes,” Mindy said. Then, glancing sidelong at Tim, she sighed. “No.”

“What else?” Frank asked, rubbing his forehead.

“It’s okay, you’ll like this one,” Mindy assured. “The time travel chip? The one that you had Tim bring here last week? It survived.”

Tim nearly fell forwards off his chair. “What? But I SAW Carrie destroy it!”

“She destroyed something, sure. You’re forgetting that I was paying attention to the time machine situation, thus had prepared a worthless dummy chip of my own. Just in case. And when Tim came to the cafe before heading out on the mission? I saw my chance.”

“You had him pull your dummy chip out of his pocket to give to Lee instead,” Julie reasoned, working to rein in her anger.

“Oh, I couldn’t be sure exactly what would happen, but I left Tim with the suggestion to hide the original once he was alone, and to use mine in all interactions,” Mindy admitted. “He brought the correct one to me the next day. He didn’t know at the time. It was to keep him safe.”

“I feel so used,” Tim said, biting his lip.

“Mindy, honestly? With all those manipulations, you’re not sounding much better than Glen,” Frank said.

“Rude! I’m on your side. The temporal gun? For helping Carrie with her temporal self? My doing. You’re welcome.”

“It was hidden in a safe,” Julie reminded. “Was that done by manipulating Linquist?”

“Okay, a bit, yes!” Mindy said, becoming visibly exasperated. “But I couldn’t fix him, or do anything that might prevent Carrie from actually banishing me after my first trip into your time. So I made the best of a bad situation. It’s all worked out to this point, what’s your problem?”

“You were, like, silent too long.”

Everyone turned to regard Chartreuse, standing in the doorway. Julie glanced reflexively at the china cabinet; Chartreuse must have come up through the pantry access. She wondered how long the mystic had been listening.

“What do you mean, Chartreuse?” Laurie asked, standing and moving closer to her.

Chartreuse took a deep breath. “Carrie’s WHOLE deal was in how she’d ended up, you know, destroying timeline three. The one Glen and ‘Future Carrie’ wanted. Except she hadn’t.” Chartreuse advanced into the room, ignoring Laurie’s outstretched hand. “You beat her to it, Theresa.”

“Very flattering, but Linquist’s knowledge was not a direct–”

“Not merely due to Linquist. It was through your cafe interactions with us. Both the, like, covert, in convincing us to be part of Carrie’s life, or, you know, the more overt, creating that fire to split Carrie and Glen apart on their first date. We’re in YOUR timeline now. We have been since the beginning.”

Mindy shook her head. “Minor, minor, all minor, major events would still happ–”

“Minor stuff ADDS UP,” Chartreuse interrupted again. “Before this? I could still kinda make it work. Now? No way. There is NO way the Carrie in ‘timeline three’, the one who once left with Glen, has ever been my– been our Carrie. Except our Carrie never, like, knew that before she ran away! And if she’d known, maybe she could’ve stayed, could’ve figured something out!”

Mindy leaned forwards. “Even IF Carrie is now different, Glen still has the power to steer her back. Remember, he’s the villain here, not me. I came to you today of my own free will.”

“Free will?” Julie cut in. “Or did you come here because talking with Tim made you realize we’d soon have Glen identify you?” Mindy shot her a look. And Julie jumped as her phone rang again. She glanced at it, and upon seeing Clarke’s name, excused herself from the room.

“So, Glen’s talking about breaking us into a jail, how are you doing?”

“We’re with Mindy. She’s been rewriting time,” came the response.

Clarke nearly dropped his phone. “What? A-Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine. We’re all fine, but in her own way, this woman’s been as manipulative as Glen. It’s annoying.”

“So… um, what do we tell Glen…?"

“Nothing. Simply bring him here. I think these two Temporals need to talk it out.”

Clarke blinked, sure he’d misheard. “Bring him? Julie… Jewels, those two hate each other.”

“Right,” she agreed. “But Mindy needs someone to take her down a peg, and we can’t keep this from Glen for long. Besides, it might be the only way to figure out whether all their plots are because of their time war… or whether one of them truly has Carrie’s best interests at heart.”

Clarke glanced towards the others. From the way their voices had begun carrying, it sounded like an argument had arisen about whether Linquist could have learned the power of mental manipulation. “Okay. We’ll be there in less than half an hour.”

NEXT: Temporal Alignment

ASIDE: That’s Mindy’s history for you. I think the only missing piece at this point is how timelines work in the “Time & Tied” universe; that’s coming next. Are you enjoying? Care to vote or recommend?

PREVIOUSLY: The group considered help from Glen towards getting Carrie back. Mindylenopia’s present day identity was revealed.

PART 82a: REMAKING HISTORY

The door to Linquist’s hidden laboratory was ajar, so Tim simply pushed it open. But the words he had been about to speak died on his lips at what he saw.

Papers had been taped up along one full wall, over the cabinets. The haphazard array was at least 20 sheets long and 4 sheets down; occasionally a section was missing, or another had been laid overtop. And the majority of the pages had been scribbled on with marker, seemingly random sequences of numbers and words. In front of it all was Chartreuse, on her hands and knees, perched in the middle of the central table, staring.

Tim turned his attention to Laurie, who was standing off to the side, her hands clasped behind her back. “W-What… what are you…"

“Chartreuse is trying to understand her girlfriend,” Laurie explained softly. “Or at least her girlfriend’s timeline theories.”

Tim blinked. “Her… girlfriend?”

“Oh, golly, I forgot you weren’t there when Chartreuse was outed by Glen… she and Carrie are an item.”

“Oh. Okay.” Tim looked from Laurie back to Chartreuse and the wall of pages. He saw it then - the numbers weren’t random, they were years, running chronologically, with months/days spliced in. Marked with events like ‘LaMilles Here’ and ‘Broken Swan’. “Why now?”

“The Mindy being with Linquist thing,” Laurie whispered. “Remember how Chartreuse said it couldn’t be? She feels like it’s actually not possible, given what Carrie told her about timelines. She’s tried to explain, and I don’t get it, but her attempts to do so seem to help clarify it in her own mind.”

The mention of Mindy reminded Tim of why he’d come down. “Well, we need you b-both upstairs now. Mindy, she’s here. And she’s Theresa! I left Julie alone with her, but we’ve gotta figure this out before meeting Glen!”

Laurie blinked. “What? Wait, Tim, you’re saying that you and Luci discovered Mindy’s identity?”

“N-Not even,” Tim sighed. “We didn’t get much of anywhere with Linquist’s notes, so Luci finally went to join the others at the library. I s-stopped at the cafe before coming here. The n-next thing I knew, Theresa was telling me she had the rest of the afternoon off and was coming to the mansion with me. It wasn’t until then that I… I realized…”

“Mindy’s Theresa? Theresa’s Mindy? Like, cafe Theresa? Ohmigod, are you SERIOUS?”

Tim looked over towards Chartreuse, taking a physical step back at the manic look she was now giving him. “Uhm, yes? Unless real Mindy pulled a Jedi trick on Theresa or something…"

“But that changes EVERYTHING!” With surprising grace, Chartreuse shifted her weight to her hands, kicking her feet around to jump off the front of the table. She grabbed a marker, pulling the cap off with her mouth as she ran to the right, scribbling ‘Theresa?’ underneath the words ’She’s GONE’.

Chartreuse then ran the length of the room, past word clusters reading ‘Glen Here’, ‘Session #1’, ‘Shady Jail’, ‘Julie Trip’, ’Luci DNA’, ‘Trip #1’, ‘Algonq Park’… and even more items within that, which Tim saw more as a jumble. When Chartreuse reached the end, denoted ‘Mindy Arrival??’, the mystic also scribbled ‘Theresa?’.

Chartreuse spat the marker cap out of her mouth. “Ohh, three CAN’T survive that. Can it? It, like, totally can’t. Can it?”

Tim turned his attention back to Laurie. “So, um, J-Julie needs us back upstairs.”

Laurie nodded. “Chartreuse, we need to go.”

Chartreuse shook her head, not even turning. “No no. I gotta see if that piece can fit in, Laurie. I gotta. I’ll, you know, be up once I’m sure. Don’t leave without me.” She charged over to the other side of the room again, now writing ‘Cafe Fire’ above and between ‘Glen Here’ and what Tim now realized was ‘Dance <3’.

Laurie looked at Tim uncertainly, as if wondering if that was okay. Or maybe wondering whether Chartreuse would be okay. Off his shrug, Laurie squared her shoulders and nodded. “Okay Tim, let’s go up and help Julie.”

“Hey, I just met you… this is crazy… here’s my number…"

“Julie, honestly, you don’t have to bury your thoughts under pop music,” Mindy/Theresa assured, a bemused smile on her face. “I’m not a mind reader. Besides, you know me, I’ve been working in that cafe since before you even moved to town.”

“No way,” Julie shot back. “You already admitted to nudging me away from seeing the truth. I don’t know you at all any more. Now stop talking.”

Mindy shrugged and leaned back against the wall in the mansion entranceway, hooking her thumbs into the belt loops of her pants. While still mumbling the song lyrics, Julie resumed her considerations of whether they needed Glen here ASAP. He’d been her first thought, upon the revelation, but now? Well, Mindy was acting a LOT less hostile than anticipated. So, if Mindy was willing to help them whereas Glen wasn’t… but what if that was her angle? Glen had also seemed nice enough, initially.

“This - is - cray - zee -“ Julie emphasized in the refrain. “So - call - me -“

Her phone rang. She jumped, and looked down to see that it was Clarke. Clarke. She’d even changed her phone to not use ‘Phil’. What had she been thinking? Would they ever be together again?

Tim and Laurie walked out of the sitting room then, allowing Julie to relax a bit. In part because she remembered now what Tim had said - he and Mindy had come right from the cafe. No one else knew yet. Pointing to the former waitress and giving the arrivals a curt, “I’ll be back, don’t let her talk to you,” Julie ran down the hall, accepting the call after the fourth ring.

“Clarke?”

“Glen said the location will be Willowdale Park. Can you get everyone else there in twenty minutes?”

“Ohhh, not really, no.”

She could practically hear the frown in his voice. “Why not? If we don’t do this, we may never get Glen to hear us out again.”

“Yeah. Thing is, we’re onto something here… it won’t wait. Did you find enough data to convince Glen without us?”

“I… we hope so. Lee helped us find this article that–"

“Okay, great.” She was realizing there was a way to maximize their options. “We’re going to need either Frank or Luci back here, they’re the best at temporal mechanics. Actually, make it Frank, you might need the Linquist angle and we’ve already got Tim with us.”

“Julie, what is going ON?”

“I don’t quite know. I only know that you can’t know yet. Oh, I’ll send you Corry in exchange for Frank, how about that? Between him and Lee, you should be able to handle Glen. Okay?”

Clarke didn’t reply. Which is when Julie realized how it must look to him.

“Oh no. Clarke, no… Phil, please, no, I’m not trying to shut you out again. It’s only, if I tell you, then Glen might…" The same old excuse. She clutched her phone, desperation returning. “That is, it’s not about the time machine, not completely, but if I say, then Glen will see it in your face, meanwhile out of all of us Glen might only listen to you, so if we end up needing him, taking you away now means we’ll have blown it there. Clarke, Phil, it’s fine, I’ll have people here with me, but if you think this means we can never be a thing again, please tell me and I’ll try to think of another–"

“Julie? Stop,” Clarke interrupted. “You sound like Laurie on a bad day.”

Julie swallowed. “Sorry.”

“You’ll tell me all about this afterwards?”

“For sure.”

“Until then, the plan is for Jeeves to get Corry to the park, where he’ll pick up Frank?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then. We’ll tell Glen the rest of you are tracking a lead. Just assure me that this isn’t old habits…?”

Julie exhaled. “God no. I actually cannot think of how this situation could be any more screwed up than it already is.”

“Talk to you later then. About everything.”

“For sure,” Julie repeated.

Clarke hung up, and Julie leaned back against the wall. Only to hear a car door slam. She raced back through the hall and out the front door, needing to get Jeeves and Corry back in the car before they could get inside and see Mindy.

“Mindy? Theresa is Mindy?” Frank questioned.

“Keep your voice down.” Julie peered up the stairway, but it seemed like Jeeves was already out of earshot. “Yes, Theresa is Mindy and she’s in the living room with Tim and Laurie; Chartreuse is still down in the lab doing who knows what. We need you to assess whether what Mindy tells us makes ANY temporal sense, to know whether she’s sincere. If so, maybe we won’t need Glen, but we CANNOT let her pull the rug out from under us."

“Theresa? The red haired waitress from the cafe?”

Julie snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Frank, please, focus. She has mental abilities, like Glen. You need to approach this situation with confidence, don’t give her a foothold.”

“Er, right…” His posture straightened. “Let’s do this.”

Giving him a hesitant look, Julie nodded, and the both of them went into the living room. Mindy was sitting quietly on the couch, with Tim and Laurie in nearby chairs. The redhead looked at them with that hint of amusement in her expression, but continued to say nothing.

“So you’ve grown your hair long since the first time,” Frank observed, a mite redundantly. He folded his arms. “Theresa, just how old are you?”

Julie was unable to suppress an eye roll as Mindy’s smile widened. “Starting with the more personal questions?” she remarked.

“Err…"

“I’m about 32? Though I look younger,” Mindy answered. “We Temporals don’t quite age like you. Actually, I’m now the oldest Temporal ever.”

“And you’ve spent how much of that time in our past?”

“At least 12 years since the temporal banishment… and here’s a key thing I’m realizing you don’t know. Said banishment? It wipes the memory of the affected person. After all, it wouldn’t be good to have someone from the future using their knowledge in the past, right?”

Laurie gasped. “So… so when you got blasted back…"

“All gone,” Mindy sighed, her smile disappearing as she snapped her fingers in the air. “That is, beyond the most mundane things like a name, how to dress myself, and so forth. So I can’t give firm dates. In fact, I was homeless, I stayed at the shelter in town, tried to find work. Kept screwing up my languages, people thought I didn’t know proper English. Time lost it’s meaning for me.” She tapped at her head. “Underneath it though? Still a technical genius. Which was finally realized by one man in particular.”

“Linquist,” Tim concluded.

Mindy pointed at him. “Bingo. Last week, Tim, you asked me if I’d ever found myself not knowing who to trust? That was me every day, back when I had no memory. Linquist was the man who helped me through it. Saw something in me, that day outside the computer store when I was muttering about computer programming. Which is when things finally started going right for me - and wrong for him.”

“Why? What did you do to him?” Julie demanded.

“I… opened up a world of possibilities that he wasn’t quite ready for. If my memory had been intact, I never would have done it. But he’s the one who helped me put those memories back together!” Mindy shook her head. “It was as I finally began to remember who I was, and realize what I was doing, that I tried to minimize my impact on your timeline. Pull away from Linquist. Find myself my own place, adopt the name Theresa, and get some less conspicuous employment. Something to keep me in the background, while still letting me see everything that was going on.”

“As a waitress,” Frank said.

Mindy shrugged. “Worked out pretty well, all things considered.”

“Yes, it let you manipulate us very nicely,” Julie remarked.

Mindy shook her head. “Julie, I have made no alterations to you or your friends beyond what was necessary to maintain my hidden identity. Guiding you away from making any connections, like that time Phil Clarke seemed to recognize my voice the day after my younger self was here.”

Julie glared. “What about having us make you a time machine?”

Mindy’s partial smile returned. “Ah, right. That. Well, I was originally sent back here on a mission, right? Those memories came back along with everything else.”

They couldn’t trust her. Could they? Julie glanced at her watch, noticing that it was the time when the others would be meeting with Glen. She wondered whether they were having any better luck.

NEXT: After Effects

ASIDE: Happy Valentine’s Day… a day with Clarke and Julie still having romance issues… well, this is post #200 for the blog, so that’s some good news?

WARNING! MASSIVE REVELATIONS INCOMING. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO READ PRIOR PARTS THE SAME WAY AFTER THIS. ARE YOU CAUGHT UP?

PREVIOUSLY: Did Carrie go back in time to find her mother? Is Mindy somehow pulling strings in the present?

PART 81b: DO YOU MINDY?

“No, that feels wrong,” Clarke objected. “Glen wanted Julie’s time machine destroyed. Why would ‘Future Carrie’ want it restored? Why work against the person she sent back? We’re missing something.”

Luci frowned, but apparently couldn’t think of an immediate defence for her position. After a troubled glance in Frank’s direction, she resumed her pacing.

“Let’s all back up,” Lee suggested. “Consider ways our rich witch’s note COULD have been written by our version of the track tease. For example, maybe it was dropped off after destroying the chip, but before she went after her mom? Thinking it was possible for us to make another chip or something.”

Julie shook her head. “Doubtful. Carrie’s started using new stationery in the last couple months. My note was on plain paper. Why the difference?”

“Also, Carrie was pretty adamant about not invoking more time travel,” Chartreuse added. “Problem is, I’m not sure I, like, buy Luci’s theory either. After all, the mystery note’s basically led to all of us, you know, being here and theorizing about time travel. Which is, like, exactly what ‘Future Carrie’ would want to avoid, yeah?”

“We weren’t always working together,” Clarke pointed out.

Julie winced. “Yeah, look, about that… Clarke, I…"

He flashed her a tired smile. “We’ll talk later.”

“Know what? We’re putting a lot of faith in handwriting here,” Corry decided. “And handwriting can be forged. Moreover, Julie, the note never referred to you by name, did it?”

“No,” she admitted. “You think it was a setup by someone else? But who outside of our group would know enough to be able to pull it off?”

Corry pointed his cane at her. “Mindy.”

“But that… actually fits,” Frank realized. “Mindy did have a couple hours in our time. She could have devised backup plans, gone to Carrie’s house, planted notes…"

“Mindy DID go to Carrie’s,” Clarke recalled, leaning forwards. “The day after the banishment, when I was with Carrie? She mentioned a letter by Mindy that had been left with her father.”

Luci leaned forwards against the back of the couch. “So Julie’s been working for MINDY all this time? Why? Surely if Mindy had enough knowledge to build a time machine, she’d have hired a reputable scientist rather than work to dupe a bunch of teen… she’d hire a…"

She snapped her gaze over to Tim at the same time as he turned to look at her. “L-Luci, the person in L-Linquist’s notes. Who might have been a relative, or associate…"

“No way. No WAY!”

“It would explain why that associate came up with the idea for the %gun of temporal freezing%.”

“Okay! Context for those of us out of the loop, please?” Lee requested, waving his hand.

As Luci seemed too stunned to speak, Tim turned to address them. “Linquist’s work on time travel. F-From once sensing the problem in Luci’s DNA to creating the t-temporal gun we found in the safe. What if all of his recent work was due to Mindy?”

“Linquist used to be a more reputable scientist,” Frank agreed. “Even won a local award once. When did that change?”

“When Mindy arrived,” Julie concluded, smacking the back of the chair. “After her banishment. She’s been working with him this whole time.”

“That can’t be,” Chartreuse gasped. Laurie reached out to again grasp her friend by the hand.

“But if that’s true,” Luci finally vocalized. “Mindy’s temporal banishment was, what, back fifteen years MAX?”

“That girl was Carrie’s first ever banishing attempt, right?” Corry remarked. “Maybe she didn’t do that great of a job.”

“Unless Mindy moved away and then came back into town,” Clarke countered.

“Well hey, why not look for evidence?” Lee suggested. “I’m working some hours in the library this afternoon. Now that you know what to look for, why not come with me and see if there’s something tying that Mindy to this Linquist? Maybe we can even figure out where they are now.”

“Wait, that plan, um, it doesn’t seem to help us get a time machine to pursue Carrie,” Laurie pointed out, waving one hand in the air as she continued to hold Chartreuse with the other. “Since even if present Mindy is tracked down, it still leaves us at the mercy of her, um, mental powers, right?”

“Lee’s immune, and I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve,” Julie said.

“No, Laurie right,” Frank sighed. “Without Mindy’s help, we have no time machine, and we need one. So Mindy can demand stuff, and we’ll have no choice. Worse, I don’t think she’ll have wanted a time machine so that we could all save Carrie.”

“Threaten Mindy with that gun maybe?” Corry suggested.

“Not if she h-helped to invent the thing,” Tim reminded. “Wouldn’t she know h-how to defend against it?”

Clarke sighed. “How about using Glen?”

Chartreuse jerked out of her thoughts. “Clarke, seriously? HIM?!”

“Maybe Mindy’s been warning us away from him because he’s the one guy who can take her down,” Clarke said, shrugging.

“Maybe we, you know, WANT her to take him down.”

“The devil we know, or the devil we don’t,” Julie muttered. “It’s like choosing Corry instead of Megan all over again. But in that respect, Clarke’s right - at least with Glen, we know what we’re getting.”

“Megan was merely misunderstood,” Chartreuse said.

“Maybe Glen is misunderstood too,” Clarke insisted.

Luci came around the couch to step between them. “Here’s the thing though. If Glen’s goal is to get Carrie back, and our goal is the same… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe Clarke’s right. Maybe we should at least ask Glen if he wants to help retrieve Carrie?”

Everyone in the room exchanged uncomfortable looks.

Glen stared back at Clarke and Lee, an expression of disbelief on his face. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”

“Hey, I’m inclined to ask that question of their group quite a bit lately,” Lee put in, before Clarke had a chance to respond. “But instead I roll with it. Turns out anything that doesn’t make sense either eventually does, or doesn’t matter.”

“Ha!” the redhead scoffed, turning away from the two other boys. He leaned against the window frame of his hotel room, staring outside, trying to find the flaw in their reasoning. It wasn’t coming to him. “So you expect me to believe that Mindylenopia has been in town for years? That she somehow remembered enough to be behind Julie’s time machine? And that getting the machine away from Mindy is our only chance to help Carrie?”

“Right, though Mindy doesn’t have it yet,” Clarke noted. “We only know that she told Julie it could be rebuilt with her help. So we can’t simply take Mindy out pre-emptively. Unless you can make us a time machine as well…"

“I’m not a technical guy,” Glen grunted. “I only know the theory. Mindylenopia was a full-on tech, that’s why it was a big deal when she supposedly joined the idiot Mundanes in the resistance.” He shook his head. “She shouldn’t have been capable of introducing such technology into the past though. Not to mention the issues with causality… unless she figured it was less of a deal to tell all of you, since you knew already?”

He began to tap his fingers on the windowsill. Mindylenopia. Was it true? How much might she remember? Was this a game changer? Did he want to work with Carrie’s so-called friends?

Clarke cleared his throat, as if he was going to speak again. Out of the corner of his eye, Glen saw Lee signal him to stay silent. Yeah, of course they would have sent along the guy who couldn’t be influenced. They didn’t trust him - nor did they have any reason to. So was this a trap, or were things just that serious? Glen grimaced, continuing to tap his fingers for another minute or two, before turning around again.

“When did Carrie travel to?”

“We’re not sure,” Clarke answered.

“But you must suspect. Hence wanting the machine.”

When Clarke hesitated, Lee spoke up instead. “That information isn’t on the table here, dude. If you agree to help, and to never again pull any sort of stunt like you did with that chip, then maybe. BIG maybe.”

Glen narrowed his eyes. “And how do I know Julie didn’t create two chips? Or maybe once you have the time machine, your whole plan is to return to yesterday and take Carrie away for yourselves!"

Clarke’s jaw dropped, a sign that either those weren’t, in fact, possibilities, or that the guy was a better actor than Glen gave him credit for. The latter seemed unlikely, as the blonde only pulled himself together when Lee’s hand fell on his shoulder. Then again, maybe the others simply hadn’t told Clarke the true plan.

“High guy. We’re getting nowhere. We should go."

“I guess,” Clarke said. “Unless… Glen, is there’s anything that might convince you that Mindy’s the real enemy here?”

Glen rubbed his chin. “Proof might. Yes, proof of actual scheming by Mindylenopia over the last ten years.”

Clarke nodded. “Okay, well, Tim and Luci are looking back over their notes, and Frank is already at the library, which is where we’re headed. So by tomorrow, we should–"

“Nope, by 5pm today.”

“What? Glen, that’s less than six hours away! And there’s so much data we’ll have to sift through!”

“Well, I can hardly give you the time to come up with a grand song and dance number for me, can I?”

Lee shook his head. “Paranoid much, red barren? You could use your mental gifts to see if anyone is trying to trick you.”

Glen shrugged. “Maybe your plan would be to try and figure out how I use that power, in order to turn it against me. No, I think if you’re really serious, you’ll put the effort into making my deadline. Oh, and I choose our meeting site, which won’t be the LaMille mansion, so don’t even bother.”

“Okay,” Clarke sighed. “Okay, fine. We’ll have something for you. And then you’ll see, Glen. You’ll see that we’re on the same side here!”

Julie had a sip of her tea as she sat in the kitchen, peering at her laptop. She, like Corry, had opted to do some searching online, rather than get in the way at the library records room. Besides, with Chartreuse and Laurie down in Linquist’s lab doing… whatever Chartreuse had insisted on doing, it had made sense for her to stay at home with them anyway. Unfortunately, the internet wasn’t providing much aside from a couple of references to Linquist’s jargon filled papers.

Julie glanced towards the pantry, which held the access down towards the hidden room. It was already past 4pm. What was going on down there? Chartreuse had said something about mapping timelines, and Laurie was popping up every so often to ask Julie about a specific date, plus there had been that one time for sandwiches… should she disturb them?

Julie shrugged. One of the library group was due to phone her soon, giving them the location where Glen wanted to meet. If the mystic and her friend hadn’t materialized by then, then she’d go down and see what was happening for herself.

The doorbell rang as she finished her tea. Jeeves would have already left to pick up Corry by car, what with that turned ankle, so Julie closed her laptop and rose to answer the front door herself. Maybe Clarke had come back to share some information in person?

Except it wasn’t any of the library people - when Julie opened the door, she found Tim standing with a rather more unexpected visitor. “Theresa?” the brunette questioned Tim’s companion. “What’s going on? We don’t usually see you out of the cafe."

The waitress half smiled. She wasn’t even wearing her cafe outfit, instead she wore a red blouse and dark pants. “Yes, well, I was talking to Tim here and realized that the time had come to explain certain things.”

Julie frowned. “What things? What do you…" She stopped. Noticing Tim’s worried expression, she looked a bit more closely at Theresa. And at her red hair.

“You know what things,” Theresa said. “In fact, you came damn close to figuring me out once before. Don’t worry, I won’t mentally guide you away this time.”

It hit with such force that Julie felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She grabbed for the doorframe. “No. It can’t be. You mean you… you’re…"

“Yes, Julie.” The seemingly twenty-something cafe waitress stretched her arms out to the sides. “I was once known as Mindylenopia."

NEXT: Remaking History

ASIDE: Anyone seen my microphone? I seem to have dropped it. Feel free to speculate on the repercussions of this part in the comments. Oh, and vote for T&T, maybe even encourage friends to read?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie vanished during the school talent show. Everyone has parts of the puzzle…

PART 81a: MUM’S THE WORD

Hank Waterson opened his front door almost before his visitor had a chance to knock. “I’m sorry to have called you so early,” he apologized, opting to get straight to the point. “But I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know what to think about this, but her note mentions you, so I thought you might have more information. I don’t want to leave the house either, lest she come home…”

“It’s fine,” Luci assured him. “But like I said, I’ll need to see what Carrie wrote for myself.” She gestured to her companion. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I brought Julie along. She, um, specializes in cryptic Carrie notes.”

Julie gave him a quiet wave.

“That’s fine,” Hank said, beckoning them both inside. “At this point, I’ll take all the help I can get. From what I can gather, Carrie was last seen at the talent show? Is that why she insisted to me that I not be there? How far in advance had she planned her trip? Why didn’t she tell me about it, and when is she coming back?”

The two teenagers exchanged a glance, Julie offering Luci a small shrug.

“We’re not sure about any of that stuff,” Luci hedged. “Aside from yeah, she was last seen at the talent show. Maybe we don’t know that much more than you. Can we see the note?”

Unable to get any sort of read on their expressions, he nodded. “It’s upstairs, in her room. I left everything the way it was. I’d appreciate if you’d do the same, in case we need to open any sort of police investigation into her disappearance.”

“Why, do you think Carrie was coerced into writing whatever it was?” Luci wondered, as they ascended the stairs.

“I don’t know what to think,” Hank admitted. He let them into her room, gesturing at Carrie’s desk, over by the window.

Both Luci and Julie walked over, peering down at the note. Almost immediately, Julie turned to speak for the first time. “How long has Carrie been using this stationery? With the little pocketwatch in the corner?”

Hank shrugged. “I don’t know. I think maybe she bought it a couple of months ago?”

As the brunette considered that, there came a knock at the front door. Hank turned and ran back down the stairs, but instead of seeing Carrie when he opened it, he saw Chartreuse instead. She had a redheaded girl with her, whom he belatedly identified as Laurie.

“H-Hi, sir,” the pink haired teenager said nervously. “Sorry if we’re, like, disturbing you…”

“Did Luci tell you about the note as well?”

Chartreuse tilted her head to the side. “Note?”

Dear Dad, (it read)

  Some things have been happening in my life recently that I… I can’t deal with. So I have to disappear. Please know that this isn’t because of anything you’ve done, or didn’t do - I like how things have been getting better between us. I really do. But I don’t think I can go on, not with the path that’s been laid out for me. That said, my leaving? It means she can return. All the best to both of you,

Carrie

PS- Luci, if things DO go horribly wrong, do NOT hesitate to use the item that you found in that safe!

Julie crossed her arms. “It’s Carrie’s handwriting,” she confirmed for Luci. “And the ‘disappear’ remark would seem to confirm what Chartreuse said.”

“While the postscript obviously refers to the gun. But what about ‘she can return’? Surely that doesn’t mean…” Luci’s voice trailed off as footsteps approached, and moments later, Mr. Waterson was showing Chartreuse and Laurie into Carrie’s bedroom as well.

Chartreuse looked better than she had the previous night. Of course, Julie reflected, it would have been difficult to look worse. After Carrie’s girlfriend (should she now think of Chartreuse that way?) had run off, the rest of them - minus Glen, obviously - had waited around in the hall, making awkward small talk.

Eventually, they had gone back into the auditorium. No one had seemed to know what to say, Julie least of all, given how little she’d spoken to any of them of late. Chartreuse and Laurie hadn’t returned. They’d all left separately, and Julie probably wouldn’t have made any efforts to talk with them today if Luci hadn’t called her.

Julie watched silently as Chartreuse and Laurie read over the note, emitting twin gasps as they got close to the bottom. With Chartreuse though, there seemed to be a dawning realization, if not yet a complete understanding.

“Mr. Waterson?” Luci was speaking again, and pointing to Carrie’s dresser. “That empty picture frame. Do you know what picture used to be in there?”

He turned to look. “Yes, of course. It was Carrie’s mother. My wife, Elaine.”

Chartreuse’s eyes got even bigger than they had the previous night. “Oh my GOD,” she gasped. “She was trying to–"

“Mr. Waterson,” Julie said, cutting off Chartreuse. “We’re developing a working theory here. If you can give us a little time to network with the rest of our friends, we might be able to provide you with some answers by –" She looked from Luci, to Laurie, to Chartreuse, and then back to him. Based on their expressions, this wasn’t going to be straightforward. “The end of the weekend.”

Carrie’s father shook his head. “I can’t wait that long. If my daughter is out there, in trouble…"

“We’ll talk to you sooner if we can, but here’s the thing.” Julie rubbed her forehead. “Did it occur to you that Carrie’s letter might have been referring to the return of your wife?”

“It sort of did,” Mr. Waterson admitted. “But that’s ridiculous, since Elaine disappeared back when Carrie was only three years old.”

Julie nodded slowly. “Thing is? Rather a lot of ridiculous stuff happens at our school. And it’s going to take us some time to figure out where that possibility ranks on our events scale of ‘pop quiz’ to ‘van totalling the library’.”

Lee was the last person to arrive at the LaMille mansion. Julie couldn’t think of a time when they had all been together - herself, Frank, Luci, Clarke, Corry, Laurie, Tim, Chartreuse, and now Lee. Of course, there was one notable missing person.

She fingered the small jade figurine in her hands before placing it carefully back onto the table. At least this time, they knew Carrie couldn’t arrive and object to their gathering.

Julie cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “Okay. We all have various pieces of the puzzle, but I don’t think any one person knows everything, so we’re going to have to tackle this in pieces until we’re all up to speed. Make sense?”

Corry looked like he might want to say something, fidgeting with the cane he was using owing to his twisted ankle, but he kept silent.

“Okay,” Julie concluded. She sat down in the last available chair and pointed to Luci, perched on the arm of the couch. “Carrie’s letter to her Dad. Go for it.”

Luci outlined what had been in the message that had been left at Carrie’s house, adding that the photo of Carrie’s mother had been missing from her bedroom.

“Meanwhile,” Chartreuse piped up, “I, you know, saw Carrie with a photo as Glen was putting her into that trunk. And Tim saw her with a photo the night she, like, destroyed the chip.”

“You mean Carrie was using her mom’s photo as a focus,” Laurie reasoned. “To strengthen her resolve.”

Frank drew his gaze up from the floor. “There’s another link. That time, in the hospital, with Shady? When Carrie first went a bit crazy? She told me that the presence of her mother had been a strain on the timeline. That, after giving birth, her mom had to disappear, that she and Carrie couldn’t co-exist.”

“Whacky,” Lee mused. “But no more so than the rest of it, I guess. So when did her mom end up instead?”

Frank shrugged. “Carrie couldn’t see it. All we know for sure is that Elaine Waterson disappeared 14 years ago, on a flight from Miami to Bermuda, in the so-called Bermuda triangle.”

“So last night, Carrie went back to get her,” Clarke concluded.

“It would TOTALLY explain why she was so scared,” Chartreuse agreed. “On top of the, you know, issue of seeing her missing mom again, she would also have had to deal with airports or airplanes. She hates those.”

“She managed it not TOO terribly on one of our first time trips,” Frank admitted. “But yeah, point granted.”

“And since neither Carrie, nor her mom, are currently back in the present,” Luci remarked. “The trip can’t have gone well.” Frank nodded, and resumed looking at his shoes.

“Can I say something as the designated jerk in the room?” Corry remarked, waving his cane in the air.

Julie half smiled. “Please do, I rather like that you’re offering to take that title before I end up claiming it.”

“What’s the damn point in knowing when Carrie went? We don’t have a time machine to chase after her.”

“D-Don’t we?” Tim spoke up. As his gaze went to Julie, many of the others looked to her as well.

Julie let out a long breath. “Yeah, not presently. But Tim’s right, in that maybe we could.” She grimaced. “With Mindylenopia’s help.”

“Mindy?” Laurie gasped. “But she’s the one who crashed that van at school! She made Corry and Frank miss two days back in October and she… didn’t Carrie, um…"

“Mindy was banished through time,” Clarke finished. He looked curiously at Julie. “Right?”

“Here’s where it gets fuzzy again,” Luci said. She hopped down from her sofa perch and began to pace. “Frank found an article in the local paper five years ago, a poem simply signed ‘Mindy’, which told us not to trust Glen. Good advice, all things considered.”

Frank picked up the tale. “Then last weekend, Julie got a call from someone claiming to be Mindy. They said that they could help with rebuilding the time machine. But it was a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ thing, and she hasn’t called back - has she?” Julie shook her head.

“Soooo, this is a Mindy with a time machine then?” Lee asked.

“Unlikely,” Luci said. “Our current theory is that she’s the same banished person, who has been in town for the last fifty years or less. Possibly waiting for the chance to get her hands on a time machine again.”

“But then how did Mindy find out about Julie’s work?” Tim protested.

Julie threw up her hands. “However Glen found out, maybe? I swear, I should have taken out a billboard for all the good my secrecy did. But Carrie’s letter TOLD me that I was to–"

“What did THAT letter say?” Corry interrupted. “Do you have it?”

Julie sighed. “No, sorry. I ripped it up. Then burned it. It said I should do that. But give me a second, I’ll see if I can remember…" She closed her eyes trying to see the words again. Recalling the last time she’d looked at them, on that day, before taking off her rose brooch… damn, at this point, she really should get that back out of her drawer.

“Okay, it said, ummm, ‘Please help. It has to be you. You need to watch me now, and when I dispose of the time machine, save the key pieces. Then rebuild it. In secret. Please. Now destroy this note. Yours, Carrie.’”

“Kinda vague then,” Lee remarked.

“And that, like, makes no sense!” Chartreuse asserted. It was chiefly the tone of her voice that drew Julie’s attention - along with that of most of the others. Chartreuse winced under the scrutiny, and began fiddling with a crystal in her hands.

“Chartreuse, why does it make that much of a lack of sense?” Laurie asked, resting her hand on Chartreuse’s leg.

Chartreuse sighed. “It’s… oh boy. See, in timeline three? The one where the old time machine was, you know, still around? Um, Frank died.”

Frank’s posture straightened as he gave up on the plan of mostly staring at his shoes. Luci froze in her pacing. Many of the others present either inhaled or exhaled sharply.

“When?” Tim gasped.

“That time when Carrie was in hospital,” Frank realized. “Oh, geez, it had to be. Since that’s when she destroyed it.”

Julie rose to her feet again. “But my note WAS written by Carrie! Why would she want me to restore a timeline where one of you DIED?”

“Ohh. Oh no. I have a really bad thought,” Luci said. She waited until all eyes were on her before continuing. “What if Julie’s note was written by Glen’s ‘Future Carrie’? The one who wanted our Carrie to run off with him, and who would be extremely annoyed otherwise? Maybe she was trying to restore her timeline.”

NEXT: Do You Mindy?

ASIDE: Last chance to speculate before some massive revelations. Also, consider TWF voting if you didn’t on Friday?

PREVIOUSLY: Glen gave mental suggestions to others, hoping to destroy Julie’s temporal chip. Carrie told Chartreuse she was leaving, and then vanished during the school talent show.

PART 80b: NOT FORGOTTEN

“What’s up, Chartreuse?” Frank asked as the group of them exited the school auditorium. “Do we need to head backstage to meet Carrie when she returns or something?”

The pink haired girl let out a sigh. “Carrie’s not coming back.”

Laurie flinched. “What?”

Chartreuse turned to look at all of them, though Frank felt she was addressing him and Julie more specifically. “She’s not coming back, and I, like, desperately need some time to process that myself, except I’m pretty sure Glen’s not gonna, you know, give me that time. He might even come after any of you too. So, um, like, heads up on that.”

Frank noticed Julie turn to Clarke and mutter something, gesturing back at the auditorium. The tall blonde nodded and headed back inside. Frank wondered idly whether the two of them were on speaking terms again, or if Julie had simply chosen the closest person.

“Hold on, Chartreuse,” Luci was saying. “You can’t drop a bombshell on us like that without SOME explanation. Where is she? WHEN is she?”

“I don’t know that stuff,” Chartreuse said, looking pained. “I can, like, give you this much though. According to Carrie, we’re currently in timeline five. She’s had to do some, you know, temporal housekeeping, what with Glen and Mindy coming back. I think her leaving fixes things for good.”

“Five?” Frank said, stunned. “Are they running in parallel, or in a destined to go back kind of way?”

Chartreuse looked at him like he’d asked her to give him the 47th digit of pi. “I don’t know about temporal mechanics, Frank, only Carrie. She did, you know, mention overwriting, if that helps.”

“So was timeline four - sorry, one more question if I could,” Julie amended, seeing Chartreuse’s expression. The mystic girl gave a resigned shrug. “Was timeline four one in which Lee actually held onto my chip? Instead of it being destroyed?”

“I think so.”

“So timeline five only now came into existence,” Luci concluded. “Even though it’s been running since last weekend.”

Frank frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense. Carrie went back in time during the show because she knew that she already had. That’s a destiny thing, not an overwrite. How could there even be a timeline where Lee had the chip?”

Luci crossed her arms. “Maybe we’re too deep inside to see it? Thing is, an overwrite would explain why Carrie was taking headache meds this week. When it’s destiny, she doesn’t need them. Er, does she?”

“Frank,” Laurie put in. “If, as you say, Carrie was going to go back because she already had, then why did you even try to prevent it?”

“I…" Frank grimaced as he realized how his actions didn’t match his explanation. “Well, I was hoping that this wasn’t really when she left. Or, in a best case scenario, that talking to her might even change her mind, which might retroactively alter our memories and bring the chip back? Assuming history can even be changed in that way…"

“It might be instead that you, like, originally protested some intention to take the chip from Lee in timeline four,” Chartreuse offered. “And with this timeline being similar, there was no way to, you know, stop yourself from protesting during the show again.”

“All of which brings us dangerously close to a time loop,” Luci mused. “One where we convince Carrie not to go back, restoring timeline four, and then she learns Lee has the chip and goes back, restoring timeline five, the one wherein we convinced her not to go back, restoring…"

“Guys, stop, you’re going to give ME a headache,” Julie groaned.

Frank let out a breath. “If we’re having trouble, I can only imagine how bad it was getting from Carrie’s point of view.”

Clarke pushed open the auditorium doors and rejoined the group. “Glen’s done. When Carrie didn’t reappear in the trunk, or backstage, he claimed she was getting back at him for missing a date. Said she’d likely left and gone home. It actually sounded pretty plausible, so maybe he was using some of his mind control there? He definitely used that power to improvise a new grand finale.”

“A finale?” Laurie wondered.

Clarke smiled wryly. “Yeah, Glen got Mr. Fisk up on stage and used his ‘magic’ to make our dance-hating science teacher cluck like a chicken.”

It didn’t make sense. Or if it did, Glen couldn’t figure it out. Why wouldn’t Carrie have come back? Returning at some later date would simply embarrass the both of them. Had she really been more nervous around crowds than he’d thought?

Glen decided that he should have insisted to Carrie that she simply time jump to earlier in the day. Not back to Lee, the night the chip had been destroyed; it had overcomplicated things. Carrie had insisted on figuring out how to target a person with a time jump though. She’d been working hard on it all week.

Had her vanishing act been due to something her classmates had said? If so, it was liable to have been that Chartreuse girl. She had gone from giving Carrie a good power basis to being a bad influence, and Glen decided it was high time to corner Chartreuse, to learn exactly what was going on between her and Carrie.

Finding her turned out to be easy - she was waiting outside the drama room as he emerged, after putting away his trunk. Cornering her didn’t seem to be an option though - she was accompanied by the others. Frank, Luci, Julie, Clarke, even Laurie Veniti. At least that explained a few things.

“Okay, so, this was all about getting back at me for the minor mental suggestions I gave you last weekend,” he realized. “Grudge much? I mean come on, you’re all free and clear now. If the trigger event, namely waylaying a package destined for Julie’s, doesn’t register within a day or so? The impetus goes away.”

Frank shook his head. “This isn’t about that. It’s more to make it clear to you that if you mess with one of us? You mess with all of us. So, don’t do it in the coming days. Okay?”

Glen looked a little more closely at them. Chartreuse in particular looked stricken, as if someone had kicked a puppy in front of her. He started to get a bad feeling. “Okay Mundanes. When did Carrie travel to?”

“We don’t know,” Frank asserted.

“When is she coming back?” Glen pressed.

The body language of the others seemed to defer to Chartreuse, even though it was again Frank who answered, “She might not be coming back.”

Bloody hell. “Do you have ANY idea how problematic that is? No, don’t even answer that, how could you possibly!”

“Carrie made a decision,” Julie said. “Like she did with her letter to me. You can’t force her to travel the path you want, you can’t–"

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Glen interrupted. “More to the point, when Carrie sent me back here in time for the training, she told me that it was because she had grown up with me. That I’d helped her through a difficult time in her life. Past Carrie can’t simply reject that! At best, it makes her future self a liar. At worst, it makes Future Carrie EXTREMELY pissed off right now.”

The band of idiots exchanged glances. “Well technically not RIGHT now,” Luci remarked. “What with Future Carrie being in the future.”

“Funny! When the temporal waveforms reach her, she might decide to MAKE your present into her ‘right now’,” Glen snarked. “She could even wipe this whole conversation out of existence. So, in all seriousness, what the hell was my Carrie planning on doing?”

Again, the tendency was for the group to cast sidelong glances at Chartreuse. So he directed his full attention onto her. “You will tell me the truth now,” he insisted, making it a compulsion. “What did Carrie say to you today, before she left?!”

“That she loved me too.”

Chartreuse slapped both hands to her mouth after the admission. With her wide eyes blazing in what seemed to be equal parts pain and anger, she spun on her heel and charged off down the hallway. Laurie fled after her, while the rest of the group gave Glen a mixture of irritated and shocked looks.

Glen raised his hands, palms out. “Look, in my defence, I really did NOT expect that answer.”

Laurie simply held Chartreuse as she cried. Her friend had fled to the washroom the furthest away from the school auditorium, only to find it locked. Chartreuse had then collapsed to the floor in front of the door, which was where Laurie had embraced her. Laurie now hoped the hallway would remain deserted, despite Chartreuse’s sobs. She rubbed the back of the more heavyset girl, pulling Chartreuse deeper into the crook of her neck. Her nicest purple shirt would be a mess, but she didn’t care.

It took about five minutes, but finally the sobs eased up, and a minute or so after that, Chartreuse said something. Except it was muffled. “I’m sorry, what?”

Chartreuse’s grip tightened slightly, even as she turned her head to the side. “I said they, like, know now. They all know.”

“What, that you like girls? Or that Carrie apparently also likes girls? Chartreuse, I don’t think any of our friends will care, not really. And we won’t tell on you.”

“Not that. They, like, know now that Carrie ran off after saying she loved me. That I, you know, scared her off. That I was driven to temptation, and so Carrie freaked, and so that’s why she’s never coming back.”

Laurie frowned. “What do you mean that’s why she isn’t coming back? What did Carrie say?”

“It… it’s not about what she said. Not exactly.”

“You mean you got one of your random impressions off of her?”

Chartreuse squirmed, loosening her hold. “No. But when we met after school, during our second kiss, I…"

“SECOND kiss?”

“I got overzealous. I mean, okay, I’d had it on my mind for weeks, and it’s been, you know, so long since Tope, and she was going to LEAVE, Laurie, she would leave, and it was, like, my last chance. And maybe it was the kiss, or how I grabbed her, because at first Carrie was into it. She, you know, pulled me back into the corner of the room once our lips came apart, and so I kept at it, and she reciprocated, and ohh, Laurie, that’s when I felt it inside me.”

Chartreuse looked up into Laurie’s eyes. “I truly felt our connection, Laurie, despite neither of us using our powers.” She smiled at the memory. “There was more kissing, and soon Carrie had me, you know, pinned up against the wall, and we were all over each other, and in the middle of it, I blurt out ‘I love you!’ and she, like, said it back. She said it BACK, Laurie, like automatically! For a moment, I was in Heaven. Except I think that screwed her up, because that’s when she, you know, froze, pulled her shirt back down, said she was sorry but she couldn’t, and ran out of the room.” Chartreuse swallowed. “Away from any timeline where we could be together.”

“Oh, Chartreuse,” Laurie sighed. She reached up to wipe off the eye makeup that was staining her friend’s cheeks. “You said Carrie was leaving anyway though, right? So it wasn’t you. No one will think it’s you.”

“It had to, like, be a little bit me, don’t you think?”

“All it sounds like to me, is that she was into you, and didn’t want it to be a one night stand. Geez Chartreuse, don’t tell me Carrie’s ego rubbed off on you along with the rest of her body.”

Her friend snorted, and uncurled more until the two of them were sitting side by side against the washroom door. “Okay. Okay, maybe it’s silly to blame myself. But, like, to have that be our last conversation…?" She sighed. “Oh, Laurie, I really can pick ‘em, huh? Why isn’t there a way to, you know, UNpick ‘em?”

“If you find it, let me know. Remember, you’re talking to the girl who pined after Clarke for HOW long? Even now, I can’t figure out if I’m over him or not.”

“Oooh. Point.” She shrugged. “So maybe it’s better for me this way. Not, like, constantly seeing Carrie, day after day.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think you should give up. If I were Carrie, I’d make a timeline six,” Laurie offered. “One where I swoop back in and carry you off to a majestic palace or a medieval castle or something!”

Chartreuse shook her head. “I can’t handle time travel, Laurie. It, you know, messes with my head.”

“Same as love. So what?”

“So… so yeah, I guess we still charge into that.” She smiled. “Thanks, Laurie. Thanks for helping keep hope alive.”

“You’re welcome.”

Chartreuse wiped at her eyes. “Can I ask you to come with me tomorrow morning to see Carrie’s father?”

Laurie blinked. “Sure, but… Carrie didn’t ask you to break the news to him, did she?!”

“No, no, but she did say he was the source of some insight. Maybe knowing what that is will help me too.”

Laurie reached out to grab Chartreuse tightly by the hand. “In that case, I would be happy to.”

They ended up arriving at the Waterson home shortly after Luci and Julie. It wasn’t long before all of them had seen the note.

NEXT: Mum’s The Word

ASIDE: As always, a vote for T&T would be appreciated. Feel free to swoon at the romance or speculate on the future in the comments.

PREVIOUSLY: Chartreuse knows something is up with Carrie, but not what. Carrie will have destroyed a time travel chip, and may be destined to leave town.

PART 80a: VANISHING ACT

Chartreuse entered the classroom she’d been invited to after school, to find Carrie sitting behind the teacher’s desk. She took a second to appreciate the fact that her temporal friend had asked to meet in the same room where they had ‘interfaced’ during September’s dance before closing the door and setting her books by the chalkboard. “So, is class in session?”

Carrie looked up. “I hope not. Because I don’t seem to have the right answers today.”

It was just the two of them. As Chartreuse approached, Carrie stood and walked around the desk to meet her. “Chartreuse…" Her fists clenched and she looked down at her feet. “Damn it. What I SHOULD tell you here is that I don’t care about you, and that I never have, so that you can get over your feelings. Because where I’m going, I can’t take you with me.”

“Carrie?”

“Except I can’t say that, I can’t, because I’m scared Chartreuse, I’m SO scared about how things might play out, and you’re the only one who knows about everything that I’ve seen and done and…"

She looked back up then, and she was so close to tears that Chartreuse didn’t even think about it. She reached out to grab Carrie in the biggest, tightest hug that she could manage. Carrie sobbed then, and after a moment, her hands slipped around Chartreuse’s sides to hug back.

Chartreuse closed her eyes, preferring to let her other senses capture the moment. The feel of how Carrie’s body was pressed up against her. The scent of whatever fragrance her friend was wearing. The sound of the quiet sobs of the girl she’d fallen for.

Alas, she knew the moment was bittersweet. To the point where, when Carrie finally released her, and started to draw back, Chartreuse nearly didn’t let her.

“I’m sorry, Chartreuse. I’m making everything about me again.”

Chartreuse reopened her eyes and smiled. “That’s my Carrie. At the centre of the, you know, universe.” Carrie let out a noise that seemed to be half laugh, half choke, reaching up wipe at her own cheeks. “So where are you going, and why not take me with you? Glen, like, won’t allow it?”

“Oh, I’m not going with HIM,” Carrie assured. “In fact, I fully intend to embarrass him tonight at the talent show. My raging headache isn’t the only reason I set that event as my point of departure.” She took a step back to pull a tissue from the box on the teacher’s desk, blowing her nose.

“You’re going ALONE? Carrie, no…"

“I’m going through time, Chartreuse. We’ve seen how that messes with your head. But even if that wasn’t an issue, this is something that only I can do.”

“WHY? When are you, you know, going? Aside from the obvious chip destroying side trip, that is.”

Carrie tossed her tissue into the wastebasket. “I’m sorry, I can’t. If I tell, then Glen, or someone else at some future time, they’ll try to drag it out of you. I won’t allow that. Not knowing, it keeps you safe. Besides, I’m not even sure if my plan will work. Hence the scared part.”

“But if you leave, what happens to, like, the rest of us? Your friends, your father… me…"

Carrie sighed. “In at least two alternate timelines, everyone led perfectly good lives without me around. I’m sure they can do so again. My father’s kind of a special case, but that gave me the insight into what I’m going to do, so he should be okay as well. You…" Her face crumpled again.

“Oh, God, Chartreuse, you’re the only one I still can’t figure out. I wish I could at least give you an answer here. I think I’d hoped that somehow, the two of us, in this room… and yet…"

“My feelings kinda defy all common sense, huh?”

Carrie licked her lips. “I don’t know. I’m truly sorry. I… I’ll leave it up to you as to whether you tell the others? About everything? Causality loops aside, maybe it will help them understand why I have to destroy the time machine on my way out.”

Chartreuse nodded, then closed her eyes, taking a second to call up the sensations of having Carrie in her arms moments ago. “Okay,” she decided. She turned and headed back to her books. “If you’re going for sure, like, at least take this with you.” She reached into her pencil case, pulled out a relaxation crystal and returned to press it into Carrie’s hand.

“Chartreuse?”

“Take this piece of me with you, Carrie. That way, you’ll know there are people out here who, like, care about you. People who you can turn to for help if you get stuck again. I know it’s not much, in fact it’s, you know, actually kind of a cheap parting gift, but I hate the thought that in time you might forget. Forget all about–"

Carrie’s lips pressing in against her own cut off the rest of that sentence, indeed made Chartreuse forget about whatever she’d been about to say about forgetfulness in the first place. To her chagrin, in the time it took for the kiss to fully register as being a thing, and for her body to start properly reacting, Carrie was already drawing back. Chartreuse felt like a part of her brain wanted to scream. She tried to distract it by looking into Carrie’s wide eyes. Those gorgeous, deep blue eyes.

Carrie swallowed. “Okay. So that’s a thing I actually did.”

“I-Is it a thing you might, you know, do again? I wasn’t ready.”

Carrie’s eyes darted around the room. Her fingers obtained a stranglehold on some locks of her hair. “I… oh, Chartreuse, I would. I’m still not entirely sure what this is I’m feeling, but know that I really would. Except I can’t! Not now. It’ll only make it harder for me… or rather, for the both of us, when I… I have to…"

“A proper goodbye kiss, Carrie? Please?"

Chartreuse wasn’t entirely ready the second time either, but she made sure it lasted much longer than the first.

“Corry’s band was pretty good, huh?” Laurie said brightly as the applause died down. “Even if he had to perform sitting down on account of the ankle.”

“Yeah. Claude seemed to, you know, play all the right notes,” Chartreuse murmured. She wondered whether Megan had actually spoken to the bass guitarist, or any of the others she’d attempted to influence. Well, they were only twenty minutes into a two hour event, maybe chaos would erupt later. Not that it would change anything.

“Well, sure Claude did. He had been practicing their songs since way before Glen got kicked out on Monday,” Laurie noted. “Megan wouldn’t have insisted that Corry choose him for no reason.” She tilted her head. “Chartreuse, are you okay? You shouldn’t keep worrying about what happened with you and Megan last night, yeah? Because I spoke to her, and I think she understands how you’ve been under some personal stress.”

“It’s not about Megan,” Chartreuse sighed. “Sorry, Laurie. It’s more that, the closer we get to, like, Carrie being up there, the more… conflicted I feel.”

The others, sitting around her, they would know of Carrie’s plans right away. Or at least, Julie would, as Carrie would be dressed the same as she had been that night she’d destroyed the time travel chip. Lee and Tim might suspect too, if they saw her backstage. Glen, of course, would already know - but he believed that Carrie would go back, destroy the chip, then return. Except she wouldn’t. She wasn’t coming back. Was she?

The points of the crystal Chartreuse was holding dug into her palms.

Laurie touched her shoulder. “Golly, what is it? Did Carrie finally give you an answer today, Chartreuse?”

The whimper escaped from Chartreuse’s lips before she could prevent it. “Oh, Laurie. Let’s, like, talk about it later, okay?”

Up on stage, the freshmen juggling routine finished with only a couple of objects on the ground, and they took a bow. Then Kim announced Glen’s magic act.

Chartreuse’s breath caught. Her eyes darted to the side, eyeing Frank on her right, and Luci beside him. The two of them also exchanged a glance before they all returned their attention to the stage.

Glen came out, wheeling a large trunk. He was followed by Carrie. Ignoring the light patter as Glen began to speak, Chartreuse watched as Frank’s attention shifted to Julie, who was sitting behind them. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded back. On stage, Glen produced a bouquet of flowers, which he tossed out into the crowd.

Frank shifted, like he was about to stand up. Chartreuse reached out to seize him by the leg, and he turned to her in surprise.

“Don’t,” she whispered, even as part of her said to release him, to let him try, to see whether he could succeed here, where she had failed.

“Chartreuse,” he murmured back. “Julie thinks this might be when Carrie–”

“I know. Don’t. Causality, you know.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Actually, we only have the effect. The cause could be any time Carrie looks like that. If we keep it from being right now, that gives us all more time to determine–"

“No, it’s gonna be, like, now.”

“Why? Did you have a vision?”

Chartreuse closed her eyes. “Something like that.”

“So, for this trick… I will make Carrie disappear!” Glen said, flipping open the trunk.

“Chartreuse. I still have to try.”

She counted to three in her head, then released Frank’s leg. Hearing him get to his feet, she reopened her eyes.

“Carrie! Don’t… don’t do this! Not now!” Frank called out.

Students, parents and teachers alike all turned to regard Frank; the group of them had chosen seats closer to the back. He tried his best to ignore the attention, focusing instead on the stage. Carrie also paused there, one booted leg in the trunk. She fired off a quick, resigned smile. “Frank? What, you jealous that Glen gets to work his magic on me instead of you?”

There were a couple of laughs within the crowd. “Y-You… you know what I mean,” he called back. “Me… Julie… Lee… all of us, we only have your best interests at heart!” Carrie simply looked his way for a couple more seconds, then shook her head, resuming her climb into the trunk.

“Carrie!” Julie said, joining Frank on his feet. Luci rose as well, silently.

“You’ll have to excuse them, they saw what happened when I tried to do this to a watermelon last week,” Glen quipped, spinning his wand in his hand. Another wave of laughter rippled through the crowd, drowning out the growing murmurs.

That’s when Chartreuse noticed it. The photograph that Carrie had pulled out of her jeans. She was looking at it, as Glen closed the lid of the trunk on her. That fact seemed important, because Tim had mentioned a photograph too, hadn’t he? Almost a week ago now, in what would be for Carrie, another few seconds. Had that been the same image? What was the significance?

As Glen began to spin the trunk on stage, Frank looked back at Julie, seemingly unsure as to whether they should simply take their seats or not. So Chartreuse rose with them, motioning to Frank and plucking at Laurie’s sleeve. “Come with me,” she sighed.

“Chartreuse?” Julie questioned.

Chartreuse didn’t answer, she simply edged herself into the aisle and headed for the auditorium doors. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that the others were following. And beyond them, up on stage, Glen was now opening up that trunk. That empty trunk.

Carrie Waterson was gone.

NEXT: Not Forgotten. (PREV: A commentary last Sunday)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 76-77

[caption id=“attachment_1509” align=“alignright” width=“163”] Old sketch of Clarke & Julie[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 1, 2005
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Luci/Tim scene near start was revamped -Some added explanations in Julie/Tim scene -“Mr Francis” became “Mr Piquaud”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 78-79

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 4, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -EVERYTHING. Well, Corry’s blackmail plan survived. -Some later information also retroactively inserted here.

BACKGROUND FILES

“Timeline”, a file from Oct 23, 2004, was the file where I stored key events that had occurred - or would occur - in the story. This file was an update from the “TimelineA” file (referenced in Commentary 21). That new file adds in when Luci moved to town, elements of Mindylenopia in the present, and a bunch of future stuff is clarified - the file no longer ends with Glen going back in “Mid 2013”, that event is now “Mid 2027” (despite main events still occurring in 2001). There’s more, like 2025 being the construction of the first time machines, but that starts to tread on spoiler territory; we’ll revisit this at the next file update.

“TimeCha5”, my character file (also referenced in Commentary 21) is a version from Aug 25, 2006. Bizarrely enough, the only update I can see from TimeCha4 (in 2003) involves the insertion of Luci’s middle name (Isabella) - it doesn’t even mention Megan. That’s the last update I would make to this set of files until 2014, effectively present-day. Sidebar though, last time I mentioned my inability to give characters last names… Megan’s name was originally “Megan Fallows”. (Megan Follows, anyone?) That was shortened to “Falls” in edits for the blog.

[caption id=“attachment_1510” align=“alignright” width=“150”] Jan 22, 2005[/caption]

A few other files of note: An HTML file from October 30, 2006, linking to all the episodes thus far. It also included the titles for the next three episodes, implying I knew where I was going, mostly. Coupled with that was the image of a crystal swan I got off the internet (dated Jan 22, 2005). These were linked to off my personal Sympatico website at the time, so maybe old versions of “Time Trippers” still exist in web archives (the site was www3.sympatico.ca/gbtaylor1…). And then there’s the last of my Comments Files, which are dated Sep 24, 2006 and Oct 10, 2006 respectively.

Scott Delahunt and I have a history that dates back to before this story. Back in the late 1990s, we would comment back and forth on our fan fictions and other works - eventually including “TT”. Starting in 2000, I kept many of those emails, for his thoughts on Episodes 2-5, 9-13, 15, 16, and 18. (Recall each “episode” is two parts, so those cover through to the middle of Book 2.) I obviously wasn’t careful about archiving, hence, gaps. In that same directory are these two 2006 files, which are not emails, but IRC (Internet Relay Chat) logs, about Episode 37 (Parts 78-79) and Pre-38 thoughts.

CHANGING EPISODE 37

[caption id=“attachment_1511” align=“alignright” width=“204”] Old sketch of Corry & Laurie[/caption]

I started Part 78 thinking it would be an insert, doing a bit more with the Chartreuse-Carrie dynamic. Then I realized to properly address that, Carrie needed a scene with Glen too. So chunks of their talk from Episode 38 (coming up next) were transplanted, with the specific timeline references being new. The Chartreuse/Megan talent show vision issue, merely informed in the old 37, was then shown “on screen” instead. After which Chartreuse completely took over.

Episode 37 USED to be a Corry-Megan episode. In brief, Corry got Kim to knock Megan out, then they brought her out to the woods. They reset her watch (adding a fake time travel element, so she thinks it’s after the talent show), and then Corry leads Megan on a false chase after Laurie, culminating in the blackmail plot, at the train station. Two problems. First, the fake temporal element creates unnecessary complications (Megan doesn’t buy it), and second, Corry is portrayed as being the “good guy” - in a story where he scares the wits out of a girl, for blackmail purposes. Uhm, yeah, hard sell there.

So, Chartreuse became our new “good guy”, as she endeavoured to understand Megan, rather than deceive her. I went along with it, because: (1) It allowed me to explore Corry’s initial reasons for controlling the school. The whole story with Laurie and Josh smoking was new. (2) It forced ME to understand Megan. Every single religious element was new, and fortunately these rewrites were in time for me to retroactively insert Megan’s cross necklace into Book 3, at her first appearance.

Was ANYTHING kept? Well, Kim still made an appearance. Linquist’s cabin in the woods is in both versions. Ditto Frank’s sonic grenade, Corry dressing up like his sister, and his twisted ankle. Also Chartreuse doing the recording… except in this version, she turns it off, then chases Corry away. As a result, Megan is mollified instead of justifiably LIVID. Oh, Frank also appeared in both, though this time it was for the new scene with Julie, which helps to explain why they’re back on speaking terms in the next entry. Originally, he showed up mainly to collect his grenade, having helped Corry as a favour to Kim.

With all of that in mind, some thoughts from that IRC file on Ep 37: At the time, I’d mused on it being a “filler/setup ep, but it felt needed”. Scott agreed that Megan was a loose end. At that time, I wasn’t certain about revisiting Megan afterwards, barring Season 3 (FYI, she will return). And Scott also correctly pegged why I’d put Corry out of action with his ankle - do you see why? Talk later shifted to Scott’s story of the time, and whether Corry and Rita would get along, so instead of getting into that, let’s now look at how everything threads together.

SPOILER SECTION

The school plot is mostly wrapped up now. The school politics (between Carrie, Julie and Corry) were largely what carried us through Book 1, back when time travel was experimental. It led to Julie’s school story interweaving with the time travel in Book 2, ultimately taking her out of the picture. But I couldn’t leave Corry in charge for senior year - he would get too much of a swelled head.

In Book 3, as the time travel came more to the forefront, Megan was devised as a rival to both of them. Now, in Book 4, Megan is in charge - but letting the student body do their own thing (more or less). We even got a look at Corry’s school domination origins, to balance Julie’s earlier story. So while there is a bit more Megan to come, hopefully you feel like the overall high school aspect of the story has reached a satisfactory conclusion. Let me know if aspects remain unsatisfying.

Elsewhere, the time travel plot is close to firing on all cylinders. Are we in “timeline five”? What does that even mean? A lot of the earlier parts were instrumental in setting up where we’re headed, though I suspect (hope?) it wasn’t too obvious at the time. And as much as I might want to mention specifics here, it’s better (and more entertaining?) for you to see those things as they come up. It will be gradual.

Turning from plot to characters, originally, Megan was something of a cipher. She merely served her purpose by turning the tables on Corry (and Julie) for once. As I mentioned above, I didn’t delve deeper until these edits, when Chartreuse confronted her. As a result, Megan has now gained more of a personality, and there’s method to her madness. Religion was not an angle I’d expected.

I suppose you could say I’m Christian, in that I had a religious grandmother who gave me a Bible, I once did Sunday school, and I went to church… on special occasions. Yet my parents themselves didn’t insist on anything religious, so for over twenty years now, “Christianity” has idled in my subconscious. As such, lot of web searches were necessary for Part 79, to pull Megan into focus. Is she plausible?

To be clear, adding religion didn’t feel totally out of place, given how the concept of free will is tied to time travel. Consider: Megan baits people, to see what they’ll do. Well, when Carrie told herself to “talk to Chartreuse” to start Book 3 - was there really a choice there? Or was it predestined? However, religion IS edging out of my comfort zone, so don’t be afraid to call me out on inaccuracies, or to offer up some new religious insights.

As far as other characters go, we’ve been seeing more of Tim. Like Megan, aspects of him are also a cipher to me. I know he needs to take over-the-counter medication, and has an occasional stuttering problem, but I’ve never been sure whether those elements connected to something physical or mental. Only that it meant he kept mostly to himself. There’s no revelation coming there; let me know if you have thoughts.

Regardless, Tim is now part of the group, thanks to his connection with Clarke and Julie - Chartreuse’s old “two degrees of separation” (2DEGS) group has again been fully integrated. And a linguist will be helpful - did anyone see the movie “Arrival”, late last year? It’s not really like that, but there’s your precedent for language being used in time travel fiction. As Mez pointed out in a comment for “Bad Signs”, the language in Linquist’s logbook will now be referenced in dialogue using % markers.

Lee has also come more to the forefront, in helping to create the stalemate between Julie and Corry. He’s always been my satellite member of the group. They help him out, he helps them out, but he stays on the fringes… I’m hoping he comes across as the most “average” out of any of them. The “grounding rod”, if you will, a normal guy dealing with otherwise extraordinary situations. Things happen around him, more than they happen to him. Yes/No? What do you think?

I don’t believe there’s much to say about the other characters at this point. Laurie got some extra backstory in Corry’s story… Julie is coming back into the fold… Carrie is dealing with how she is destined to leave town. It will all play out shortly. In fact, after a bit more character work between Chartreuse and Carrie, plot effectively takes over. Also, temporal explanations. Stick around, won’t you?

Parts 76/77 were originally “Double Blind” which became the title of 77a, since 76 set up the issue of who to trust. Parts 78/79 were originally “Truth and Consequences”, which was the title of 79a, for very similar reasoning. Remember, you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis.

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie leaves. (The story doesn’t need a protagonist any more, right?)

PREVIOUSLY: Megan’s actions seem to be interfering with Chartreuse’s mystic readings. Chartreuse, Corry and Megan have gone to Linquist’s old cabin in the woods, looking for Laurie.

PART 79b: CROSS PURPOSES

“What did Corry say this was? A sonic grenade?” Megan peered at the object on the table. Corry had gone out to scout around the vicinity of Linquist’s old cabin, looking for signs of Laurie, leaving the roughly spheroid object behind. He’d said to ‘use it in case of trouble’.

Chartreuse looked over her shoulder. “Yeah, I think Frank’s been getting, like, bored this month. He also said he might try to make me a sonic lipstick, he must be watching reruns of that, you know, British TV show again.”

Megan shook her head, then looked back around the room. Aside from the table, there were a couple chairs, a small bed, some sort of cooling unit plugged into an old portable generator, and a filing cabinet that Chartreuse was revealing to be empty. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in months. Why would Laurie have wanted us to come out here? Why would SHE have come out here?”

“I’m kinda thinking it was to, you know, get us to talk more,” Chartreuse offered. She closed the last cabinet. “For instance, have any of us people whom you associate with Corry ever, like, congratulated you for getting that short story published?”

Megan eyed the pink haired girl warily. “Only Laurie did. Why, did she suggest you use that as a way of getting on my good side?”

The pink haired girl sighed. “No, Megan. I’m not… or rather, I like to THINK I’m not as bad as you, like, perceive. But in thinking on it, every time we’ve crossed paths, I’ve tended to see you as an obstacle. Perhaps I should be the one taking Corry’s story to heart. I haven’t been, you know, getting the facts about you before opening my mouth.”

So this was apparently Act Two of ‘let’s get Megan to behave the way we want’? “Self awareness is nice, Chartreuse, but you have a LONG way to go if you’re aiming for redemption.”

Chartreuse sat down on the corner of the bed. “Redemption… Megan, are you Catholic?”

“Oh, the cross on my necklace tip you off?”

“Plus the story you wrote, now that I think about it. I did, like, read it, you know.”

“Of course you did. But only because of how it related to Laurie’s picture, right?”

Chartreuse pursed her lips. “Is it, you know, difficult for you? Living in a town that doesn’t have a separate Catholic high school, I mean.”

Megan sighed, gripping the edge of the table as she leaned in. “I’m not the only Catholic in the school, Chartreuse.”

“That’s not what I meant… um, wait, is religion, like, a touchy subject?”

“No. Though it sure doesn’t come up much with Corry or Julie, so you MIGHT want to stop before you dig yourself into a deep pit.”

Chartreuse sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I can’t help it, I gotta know - are my mystical ways part of the problem here? Does it offend more religious people like you?”

Megan nearly fired off a blanket ‘if that’s what you think, sure’, but something told her that Chartreuse was trying to be sincere. So she took a second to gather her thoughts, resting her elbows on the table instead of her hands.

“No,” she admitted. “Granted, I think your talk of crystals and visions is not at ALL the sort of spiritual guidance Laurie needs. But I don’t hate you for your beliefs. I try not to hate at all, frankly. You may be aware of how it’s rather against our underlying philosophy?”

“So it’s more you think I’m destined for Hell, and you don’t want me, you know, dragging Laurie down there with me.”

“Wrong again.” Megan looked up for a moment, trying to figure out how to put things in a way that Chartreuse would understand. “Chartreuse, the whole point of us being on Earth is that we have free will. No one is predestined for Heaven or Hell, and as such, what I’m trying to do at school - and with you - is better educate people about their own consciences. Granted, some of you seem beyond my ability to educate.” She eyed the door, wondering what was taking Corry so long.

“And so instead you… what? Hold such people up to your followers as, like, examples of what’s wrong in the world? Try to, you know, tempt them with evil, in the hopes that they’ll reveal that fact to everybody? What?”

“I…" Megan frowned, starting to feel a bit uneasy as she realized that Chartreuse wasn’t exactly wrong in her assessment. “I do what I can to illustrate the dangers of hubris, envy, wrath and so forth.”

“Then you do think you’re, you know, influencing people.”

“It’s more helping to illuminate the…”

“Darkness already there,” Chartreuse finished. “I got that on our way out here. But isn’t the very act of, you know, doing the illuminating having influence? Like, consider, it’s only by ignoring big problems in society, like religion, race and politics, that those things don’t, like, change. Change happens when people like you shine the light, pointing the bad stuff out.”

Megan raised her eyebrows. “Are you seriously proposing that I ignore what Corry does around the school instead? To keep the status quo?”

“No, no… it’s more about, you know, accepting responsibility. And admitting that you’re influencing things and people a lot more than you might want to take credit for.”

Megan pushed herself back from the table, equal parts fascinated and disturbed. When she’d entered into the conversation, she hadn’t thought that Chartreuse had a prayer of making any coherent arguments, but Laurie’s pink haired friend was making surprisingly good points. Granted, the girl had missed out on something rather obvious. “Chartreuse, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t take the credit. Hubris is one of the seven deadly sins.”

“Megan, you totally shouldn’t take pride in everything you’ve been doing anyway. For instance, there had to be better ways for, like, Sue Simmons to get her counselling. Right?”

Megan’s lips tightened. Now she saw where Chartreuse was steering them. “I’m still not going to issue orders about the talent show for your benefit.”

“Megan, no, this isn’t, like, about that any more!”

“No? Then what IS is about?”

“I… I don’t know!” Chartreuse flopped back completely onto the bed, a puff of dust rising around her. “But, you know, the Lord’s Prayer says ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’, and our talk is making me wonder if we’re both here now because there’s forces out there trying to, like, remind us of what that really means.”

As Megan attempted to parse the inclusion of ‘both’ of them, there came a scream from outside the cabin. Chartreuse jerked back up into a sitting position, while Megan grabbed for the ‘sonic grenade’ and ran to the doorway.

‘Oh no, not now,’ Chartreuse thought, scrambling to push herself back up onto her feet. She succeeded on the second attempt.

“Laurie? Is that you?” Megan called out. She ran out of the cabin.

“Damn,” Chartreuse cursed, fumbling in her pocket for her phone. She switched it to video recorder mode as she charged to the door after the dark haired student.

A few metres away, slumped at the base of a tree and illuminated by light from a nearby phone, was a redheaded form in a dress. “Laurie, what’s wrong?” Megan asked, hurrying over.

Chartreuse hesitated, her finger over the record button. Then, with sudden resolve, she reached up, turned her device off, and jammed it back into her pocket.

“Laurie, are you–" Megan’s voice became a high pitched shriek as a form in a lab coat jumped down out of the tree above her. She tried to backpedal, but stumbled, belatedly attempting to throw the grenade. Except she was already falling backwards by then, so the spheroid slipped out of her hands, arced behind her, and cracked the glass of one of the cabin windows where it hit.

“Don’t you come near me!” Megan yelped, sprawled on the ground. She crossed herself. “I have friends, I’ll be missed, I’ll… I’ll…" Her panicked shouts ceased as she realized that the person in the lab coat wasn’t advancing, but rather continuing to dangle in the air. Then, with the release of a rope, the “person” collapsed on the ground like a bundle of clothing. Which it was.

The redhead in the dress started to rise, leaning back against the tree. “Chartreuse, did you get it?”

Chartreuse didn’t respond. Instead, she walked over to pick up the nearby grenade. In her haste, Megan hadn’t even hit the trigger button; Chartreuse wondered idly if the device would have actually added to the confusion, or been a complete dud.

“This was a setup,” Megan gasped.

“Chartreuse, do we have Megan’s reaction on tape or not??”

Chartreuse looked back up at him. “No, Corry, we don’t.”

Corry tried to take a step closer, only to lurch back against the tree he’d used to claw himself to his feet. “Are. You. KIDDING. Me?! I twisted my ANKLE getting that rope set up!”

“You two… you LIED to me!” Megan accused, pushing herself back up into a seated position.

“A bit, but we mostly ‘suggested’,” Corry countered, raising one hand to make a set of successive air quotes. His other palm still busy acting as support against the tree trunk. “Remember, you brought yourself out here, by your own choice. Does that methodology sound familiar?”

Chartreuse sighed. “Okay, Corry? Don’t help. That won’t, you know, help.” She moved to crouch down next to Megan, wincing at the glare she was receiving. “Megan, this was, like, the nuclear option. We really were, you know, hoping that the talk on the way up here would be enough.”

“What was Laurie’s part in it?”

“Minimal. She, you know, recorded that bit of phone conversation for us. That’s it. She’s probably asleep at home right now.”

“Yeah, I would NOT have let Laurie up and run off like this,” Corry said, attempting to limp in their direction. He nearly tripped on the hem of the dress. “You really DO have a low opinion of me, huh, Megan?”

“I’d say my low opinion has been more than justified tonight.”

Chartreuse winced. “Corry, can you please let me do the, you know, talking from here? Please?”

“Oh, FINE. I’ll need to find a branch that I can use as a cane anyway.”

Chartreuse turned her full attention back on Megan as Corry moved off. “Okay. So Corry brought up the blackmail, and I went along with it, and we brought all this stuff up here in advance… but I, like, purposefully turned off my camera then. Not that I expect you to believe it, or, you know, anything I say at this point, but I did. Because I think I get it now. Like, not all of it, no way, but I get you a little better, and, you know, maybe I finally realize what the spirits have been trying to tell me too.”

The intensity of Megan’s glare seemed to subside, even if her overall expression didn’t. “That freaked me the hell out, Chartreuse. Laurie will hear about this, mark my words.”

“Oh, I know. I’ll tell her myself. I’ll even let you tell her first, if you want. Thing is, Laurie really did want us to talk, you know? That’s why she provided the recording. She’s desperate for everyone that she likes to get along, particularly now that she’s got the extra cheerleader responsibility on her mind.”

“Sounds like Laurie.” Megan looked up towards the sky. “That girl is SUCH an optimist, huh? Trouble is, me and Corry, we are NOT compatible.”

“I get that. Perhaps because he involves himself too much… while maybe you imply some of the same stuff, then don’t involve yourself?”

“Meaning?” Her glare was back.

Chartreuse nibbled on her lip. “Words can be, you know, very powerful. They spark emotions, ones which can lead to a total override of a person’s, like, higher reasoning… and while, as a writer, I’m sure you already knew that… maybe you’re not always testing what you think you’re testing in people?”

Megan eyed her, then finally lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “Okay. Okay, maybe I talk too much. And God does not tempt us to sin, so perhaps there were times I should have been leading more by example.”

The dark haired junior started to push herself back up to her feet. Chartreuse quickly straightened up, reaching down out a hand to help her. After a hesitation, Megan accepted her help and was soon brushing herself off. “What you’re saying is about MY beliefs though,” Megan pointed out. “What about you? With that reference to ‘the spirits’ telling you things?”

“Oh. That was, um…” Chartreuse sighed as Megan looked at her expectantly. “Okay, long story condensed? Something’s gonna happen with Carrie at the talent show. But she’s being evasive with me. So I sought spiritual guidance, except instead of Carrie, I got visions of all the stuff you were stirring up. Hence me going a bit crazy this week, trying to negate your influence.” She exhaled. “Which was a mistake. Because maybe, the spirits were trying to get me to stop being tempted by their gifts. They wanted me to put my faith in Carrie instead, the same way you test the faith of the people you talk to.”

“Hmmm. Reaching a bit?”

Chartreuse shrugged. “As mere mortals, can we ever TRULY know what the cosmic forces are trying to tell us?” Chartreuse ventured a smile, and was relieved when it was reciprocated, however tentatively, by Megan.

“Got your talent show deal figured out yet?” the male Veniti twin asked, hobbling up next to them, leaning on a large branch. “Because if so, I find I’m in considerable pain and would prefer to leave these woods sooner rather than later.”

Chartreuse nodded. “I have my answers. Let’s get going.”

She received a message from Carrie later that Friday.

NEXT: Vanishing Act

ASIDE: During edits, the last two parts were completely gutted and rewritten from how they were before. Read this Sunday’s Commentary for more info. We’ve now reached the talent show; a vote for T&T is always appreciated.

PREVIOUSLY: Megan beat out Corry for control of the school. To read Carrie, Chartreuse needs Megan not to interfere with the upcoming talent show. She was told Corry’s biggest weakness was also Megan’s.

PART 79a: TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

“Megan, I need some help? If you can, please get Chartreuse, and both of you come out here now to this cabin in the woods where I’ve –"

Laurie’s voice cut out as the line went dead. Megan frowned, punching the redial button, only to be told Laurie’s phone was off or out of service. She stood quietly in her bedroom for a moment, eyes flicking over towards her clock radio - it was almost 11:30pm - then to her bed, then to the pyjamas she’d been about to change into.

“Damn it,” she muttered. What did that poor girl’s brother have her doing now? She walked back over to her desk, opening her laptop and looking up the necessary phone number. Chartreuse picked up after the first ring.

“Like, hello?”

“Something’s up with Laurie,” Megan said. “She just called me.”

“What? You found her??”

“Found? What do you mean found?”

“Laurie ran away from home this evening. It’s, like, totally on me. I was kind of pressuring her into, well, talking to you about the talent show actually. Where is she?”

“I don’t know, but she said something about a cabin in the woods.”

“A cabin? The Veniti’s don’t own a cabin. Megan, what specifically did Laurie, you know, say?”

Megan began to fiddle with her necklace as she thought back. “Laurie wanted help. She asked me to get you, and to come to some cabin in the woods. Then her phone cut out.”

“Okay. I wonder why Laurie phoned you, and not, you know, me?”

Because I’m the better influence on her now, plus I can talk like a normal person? “Chartreuse, you JUST said you were pressuring her to do something she didn’t want to do. Why do YOU think she called me now?”

“Okay, okay. She could be in trouble though, if her phone, like, cut out. Shall we do a little, you know, search and rescue?”

“Chartreuse, it’s 11:30 at night! This is a job for the police.”

“We don’t want to get Laurie in trouble. Her parents, like, don’t know she’s gone. Corry found this note when he went to say goodnight to her, and since then we’ve, you know, both been out searching. Hoping we can work this out without causing Laurie more grief. And since she, like, called you, maybe you’re the best person to come help us investigate the woods…?”

Megan suppressed the urge to groan. “Chartreuse, what’s the point in having all of us stumble around in the woods, in the dark of night?”

“Laurie’s the point. But if you don’t want to, you know, help, it’s fine. I get that you’re tired. I think maybe I know the cabin she was talking about anyway, so, like, thanks for the tip. Should I call you in the morning?”

“Chartreuse…"

“Megan?”

You’re not better than me. “You know the cabin?”

“Maybe.”

Laurie phoned ME, not you. “Then I’ll meet you where the forest runs up against that new development north of town in half an hour.”

“Yeah? I’m not ‘demanding’ that you meet me, you know…"

“Funny! Half an hour.” Megan hung up, hesitated, then went to her laundry basket, stuffing a bunch of dirty clothes underneath her sheets in case her parents poked their heads in. They were already in their bedroom though, making it easy for Megan to sneak downstairs, grab her jacket, and leave the house.

“What is HE doing here?” Megan said, pointing.

Chartreuse looked from her, to Corry, and then back. “I said we were both out here. Come on, Megan, Laurie’s his sister. He cares about what happens to her.”

“Right. Pity Laurie didn’t think he cared, or she would have been able to talk to him for help. Instead of running away.”

Despite the darkness, the glow from the light on their phones revealed the scowl on Corry’s face. His hand clenched into a fist. “I waited for you instead of going on ahead, don’t make me regret that.”

“Oh, so you know where this cabin is as well? Then why didn’t you check there as soon as Laurie went missing?”

“It’s a place that used to, like, belong to a scientist called Linquist,” Chartreuse put in quickly. “Hardly the first place we’d think to look. Heck, it might not even be the cabin Laurie mentioned, but it’s, you know, the only one I know of that’s in the woods.”

“Linquist?” Megan blinked. “Wait, that guy who owned the mansion is still in town?”

“Maybe,” Corry said tersely. “He abducted a girl and held her in that cabin just over a year ago, so can we get a move on already to make sure he hasn’t done the same thing to Laurie by this point?”

“Yeah, it’s this way… I’m pretty sure,” Chartreuse offered, heading off onto what might pass for a trail between the trees.

Megan jammed her hands into the pockets of her coat, resigning herself to the situation and falling into step behind Chartreuse. She tried to ignore how Corry was following her. It proved difficult, as not ten seconds later, he asked, “So, Megan, do you think I’m the devil?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Megan countered, without turning.

“I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure there’s people out there who are worse than me. Linquist for one.”

“Corry, your being here doesn’t mean I have to talk to you.”

“True enough. As you seem to be listening though, let me tell you a story about Josh.”

“Please don’t.”

“You wouldn’t know him, because you were at that other middle school in town, and he moved away before high school.”

“I’m going to stop listening now.”

“Laurie came close to getting him hooked on cigarettes.”

Megan nearly tripped over a tree root. ‘He’s baiting you!’ she chided herself. ‘Don’t let him!’ She clenched her jaw, focussing on where Chartreuse was leading them, waiting for the inevitable follow-up. Yet behind her, Corry now opted to remain irritatingly silent.

Her mental resolve lasted at least a minute, but her desire to better understand whatever Laurie had to suffer through every day won out. “How does that even make sense? Laurie’s never smoked,” she pointed out.

“You’ll need the whole story. See, my hobby hasn’t always been high school domination,” Corry began. “Back in Grade 6, I was content to have a small circle of friends.”

“Oh, give me strength,” Megan sighed, clutching at her jacket, feeling for her necklace beneath it.

“There were seven… no, eight of us. I organized a game night every week or so. It was the gaming we liked most. Laurie wasn’t part of that group, of course. It’s not that we were all guys, we weren’t, but despite the two of us being twins, I’m sure you’ve seen how we run in different social circles.”

“You run in entirely different shapes.”

“At the time, I was trying to ease off and let Laurie do her own thing,” Corry continued, undaunted. “After a couple years of keeping an eye out in grade school, not letting anyone bully her, that sort of thing. I figured, time to see if she could manage on her own. That’s why Laurie wound up hanging out with Josh that year.”

Corry paused momentarily as the three of them climbed over a downed tree trunk. “Now, Josh was pretty insecure. A bit like Laurie. Problem was, Josh wanted to be popular. To be a real rebel. And Laurie encouraged that, she told him he should follow that dream, and stop being so concerned about the things it would take to achieve it. A bit like how you enjoy encouraging people to do things, Megan… without considering the consequences.”

“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

“I’m not surprised. So yeah, it wasn’t long before Laurie suggested to Josh that he get his hands on some cigarettes, like a couple of the “cool” kids were doing. Because that was sure to help him out. And hey, if the things were TRULY that bad for you, the government would crack down on it, right? In this perfect world we live in?”

“Corry, she meant well,” came Chartreuse’s quiet voice from up ahead.

“Laurie ALWAYS means well. Except she doesn’t understand how terrible things really are! Meaning when Josh got caught with them, he was suspended, followed by Laurie too, once she tried to take the blame. Worse, that idiot Josh didn’t learn. He was caught smoking up again a month later.”

“Corry, even if he didn’t learn, your sister, you know, did. And after realizing what she’d done, she started putting more effort into her studies.”

“Thank goodness. Though she also became more prone to talking in excessively illustrative sentences, to give people extra background detail. Tradeoff.”

“Hold on,” Megan cut back in. “Corry, are you implying to me that your whole desire to control your middle school was not merely because of some craving for power, or out of some desire to save your sister from the world - but rather, you hoped to save the world from your sister?!”

“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but sure, it’s one interpretation.”

“Wow. Way to blame your pathological narcissism on poor Laurie.”

“In actual fact,” Chartreuse said, speaking over Corry’s growl. “I think we accept that Josh’s story is, like, only part of the puzzle. Part of Corry, you know, probably craves power too. This stuff’s not so black and white.”

“Mmmm. There were other factors,” Corry granted. “But they detract from the moral I was aiming for here.”

Megan glared over her shoulder. “What, that schools need better anti-smoking campaigns?”

She couldn’t see his face, but she suspected Corry was rolling his eyes. “Given how those campaigns are easier to put in place once you’re in control of a school, sure, I’ll grant you that too. But I think you know where I was going with this.”

“Oh, sure. The moral is that you’re a narcissist.”

“The moral is to know all the FACTS before you open your mouth!” he snapped. “And to consider the consequences of your actions before you speak!”

“My bad. It was that you’re a narcissist with rage issues.”

“Oh for… this was a bad idea. Chartreuse–"

“We’re nearly there now,” she insisted. “You can’t turn back here.”

Corry let out a rush of air. “One last try then. Megan, do you even remember how you were the one who incited things with Sue last September? How I nearly DIED because of it?”

“Corry, please. First, an attack on you was a mere suggestion, Sue’s the one who took it to extremes. And second, you weren’t fated to die that day.”

“How do you know I wasn’t??”

“Because you didn’t. Obviously.”

It sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “Oh, a perfect circle of Megan logic. Tell me, do you think Sue was always fated to need psychological counselling too?”

Sheesh, how long was Corry going to harp on her here? “Based on what happened, yes,” Megan explained. “I grant I might have accelerated the process…"

“Accelerated?!”

“But it’s just as well that I did, so that it happened in high school, while Sue was still able to get proper help. Who knows what would have happened a year later, away from home?”

“Damn. You really do have a rationalization for everything you’ve done, don’t you.”

“I merely help to illuminate the darkness that’s already there.”

He grumbled again. “Great, so what has fate decreed about the talent show tomorrow? Or rather, now that it’s after midnight, today? Still chaos?”

“Who knows? As mere mortals, we’ll only know for sure once the show itself is over.”

Corry finally fell silent, and Megan smiled to herself. He’d been sloppy at the end there, allowing her to confirm the fact that he really had sent Chartreuse after her at school. The nerve of them, trying to use Laurie’s disappearance here as an excuse to double team her! Still fixated on the school’s stupid talent show. No wonder Laurie had run off - it made Megan want to help the poor Veniti twin all the more. Maybe she could find the girl a prayer group.

“Here we are,” Chartreuse declared. They emerged from the brush in front of what seemed to be a one-room cabin structure. Strangely, the front door was hanging ajar. After exchanging a quick glance with the others, Chartreuse edged forwards and peered around the door frame, looking inside. She immediately motioned them over.

“Look,” she said, pointing.

Megan pushed the door open a bit wider, spotting Laurie’s jacket and phone on the floor right inside the doorway. But there was no sign of the young redhead anywhere.

NEXT: Cross Purposes

ASIDE: I recently gave an author interview here at Alastair Luft’s site. Consider checking it out, he has a number of other interviews there too, and a number of them have published. 

PREVIOUSLY: Someone named Mindylenopia called Julie, offering help. Chartreuse tried to get a mystic reading on Carrie, yet kept seeing Megan.

PART 78b: CONNECTING

“I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted to talk with you.” Julie ran her fingers back through her hair. “Honestly, it took a full day to decide to speak up at all. Then I had to figure out who to speak to. So, congrats Frank, you win. Namely because, since Glen thought you’d be my confidant last time, he probably won’t peg you this time around.”

“Um, Julie…" Frank glanced towards the door of the school library, then back to her. “Look, I’m afraid it’s rippled through the whole group by now. We know what you were trying to do, what Glen did to us in order to stop you, and how Carrie trumped everything. I’m not sure what more you could add, and right now I actually have a business club meet–”

“Mindylenopia’s back. She phoned me that night.”

Frank froze. “Okay, that’s new.”

“She didn’t say much aside from ‘being able to help me with the rebuilding’, and ‘not to lose hope’. And that she would be in touch.”

“Do you know where the call originated?”

“Pay phone. Frank, do you think Mindy’s truly back? Or could this be another attempt by Glen to confound me, to keep me from working on any circuit alternatives as I await a call that’s never coming?”

“Euh. Well, she could be back, in as much as might have she caught back up to us.” Seemingly reaching a decision, Frank beckoned Julie further back into the book stacks. “A couple weeks ago, I found a poem, in the local paper. It had been published five years ago, on the same date of Mindy’s arrival this year, and was signed by her. Moreover, read a certain way, it was an attempt to warn us about Glen.” He shrugged. “Naturally, after that, both me and Luci looked for more evidence. Except we didn’t find anything. So… I figured it could have been coincidence.”

“In our lives? Never.”

Frank sighed. “Did your caller sound old? Young?”

“Her voice was distorted. Frank, if Mindy’s TRULY back, and moreover if she’s influencing our lives the way Glen did… wait, do you think HE knows she’s here again?”

“I kind of doubt it, otherwise he’d be gearing Carrie up for another temporal banishment, right? They really didn’t get along. I’m more worried about the fact that ‘Mindy’ called you on that night, because it means she ALSO knew about the time machine situation. How could she?”

Julie crossed her arms. “I can say I’ve been wary of any memory gaps, given how I’ve been guarding against Glen. So I don’t think Mindy’s ever influenced me. And the original note was written by–" She stopped herself.

“Note?”

“Hell.” Julie lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “Oh well, not hard to connect the dots now. I got a note, in Carrie’s handwriting, after Mindy’s banishment. It’s why I took the parts out of Carrie’s trash, and tried to rebuild the machine in the first place. She said I was the only one who could. My question is, what’s Mindy’s angle on all this?”

Frank rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know, but… would this future Carrie have known that Mindy was back?”

Julie stared at him, then slowly nodded. “That seems likely. So, you think I should wait for another call?”

“I don’t know what else we can do. Aside from raise our alert level for redheaded women eavesdropping on us from the shadows.”

“She could get a wig or dye her hair,” Julie pointed out. “If it were me, I’d do that.”

“Right. Well, I’ll tell everyone to keep their guard up. For now, I should get to my meeting.” Frank turned away, then back towards her. “Oh, and thanks, Julie. For having the faith to approach one of us again.”

She grimaced. “It was never you that I was worried about.”

“What is it you’re worried about?” Megan asked, idly filing a nail.

“I don’t know!” Chartreuse shot back, doing her very best to rein in her exasperation. “It’s something to do with, like, the talent show. I know you’re involved.”

“Mmm hmm.” Megan blew on her finger, then replaced the file in her locker, reaching for her book bag. “Corry sent you to me, did he?”

“No, he did NOT. But I did speak with him first, and from the sounds of things, he’s been, you know, super co-operative with you all week. Putting your friend Claude in the band to replace Glen, getting Kim to be, like, the one handling the lineup for said show, and not voicing any objection to, you know, other things, like giving the junior students one of the two senior study rooms in the library… why would you even suspect him of sending me to you now?”

“Ugh. Why wouldn’t anyone suspect that guy… oh wait, you wouldn’t, because you’re part of his gang.”

“Megan…"

She closed her locker with what seemed to like deliberate slowness, then adjusted her necklace with the cross before shouldering her bag and turning away. “Chartreuse, darling, quit while you’re behind. You’re going to give me a persecution complex.”

Chartreuse hurried to block Megan’s way. “Megan, I can’t quit. Not when someone I love is in trouble, and I can’t, like, get a bead on her because of your plans. You know, it’s not a complex when you really ARE at the heart of everything!”

Megan’s eyes narrowed. “How dare you. Unlike your friend Corry, with his fingers in every event happening around us, my policy is merely to suggest. Not demand.”

“Yeah, well, some people can’t tell the difference. PLEASE Megan, call off whatever you’ll, like, be doing at the talent show!”

Megan held up both hands, palms out. “I’M not doing anything. My followers make their OWN decisions. Now get OUT of my way!”

Sensing that she wasn’t going to get anywhere productive, Chartreuse reluctantly stepped aside, slumping back against the row of lockers as Megan marched off. She moaned. Her last chance had been that direct confrontation. What was she going to do now?

“Megan’s being honest there, Chartreuse. She has no idea what will happen at the talent show.”

The mystic girl turned to see a girl with short brown hair and overlarge glasses approaching her from across the hall. “Kim? What do you, like, know?”

Kim Carpenter looked to see that Megan was really gone before answering. “I know that Megan suggested to Claude that he deliberately play the wrong chords during Corry’s favourite song. To Bill that he make fun of Mrs. Willis during his comedy routine. To Amy that Tommy’s slideshow should get put into the wrong order backstage. That someone replace the middle of Kelly’s dance number with a slow jazz track, and there’s probably even more things I don’t know about. Thing is, all of those things might happen - or none of those things might happen. Who’s to say? Certainly not Megan.”

“But that’s… she… how can Megan, you know, get anything DONE that way?!”

Kim smiled, reaching up to adjust her glasses. “Oh, Megan can get serious, if she chooses. She’s simply been more inclined to say whatever off-the-cuff remarks come into her head this week. I think partly because Corry’s been increasingly backing off.”

Chartreuse groaned. “But I, like, TOLD Corry to back off! I figured it would give me a better sense of what Megan was, you know, planning - and now you’re saying his nicer attitude has only made it worse??”

Kim nodded. “Haven’t you noticed? Megan’s philosophy is that people will eventually make the right choices by themselves. So she nudges at people - actually, sometimes shoves them with great force - to see how well they truly understand themselves, and the people around them. Not knowing how her influencing of events will pay off can be a gamble, sure, but it’s also how Megan’s been able to recruit so much support this year. And the more Corry backs off, the more she figures she can take the initiative.”

Chartreuse rubbed her forehead. “Kim, what would it take to get Megan to tell all the people she’s influenced to for sure NOT do anything at the show?”

Kim shook her head. “A miracle.” She began to move off.

Chartreuse pushed herself off the bank of lockers. “Kim, wait. Please. Megan must have, like, a weakness. Something I can, you know, leverage here.”

Kim turned back. “Chartreuse… you looked really upset. And I heard that you and Corry stood up for my chess skills that time she, uh, kind of used me without my permission in order to test you in the music room.” Her brow furrowed at the admission. “So anyway, I thought I’d cut you a break. But you have to understand, I’m with Megan now. Sure, she makes missteps, we all do, but her philosophy is the first one in this school that actually makes sense to me! Don’t you see that?”

Chartreuse swallowed. The longer the week went on, the less forthcoming Carrie was being with her. A knot was forming in her stomach, one she couldn’t get rid of, and yet couldn’t properly interpret, not with the forces fixating on Megan. “Well, you know… if people are gonna do whatever they like in the end, it doesn’t, like, matter what you tell me about Megan’s weak points. Right?” Chartreuse smiled.

“Yes, well, there’s also the philosophy ‘Stupid is as stupid does’,” Kim countered. Except she didn’t turn away, so Chartreuse clapped her hands together in a prayer pose.

Kim’s response was to roll her eyes. “Oy. Look, I’ll give you this much,” she decided, before spinning on her heel. “Corry’s biggest weakness? Is becoming Megan’s too.”

With that, the brunette strode off down the hall. Leaving Chartreuse to figure out how to use that knowledge to the best of her abilities.

NEXT: Truth and Consequences. Do you see Megan’s weakness? Remember, Voting for T&T is an option.

ASIDE: My personal blog hit 300 posts, so I wrote a short fantasy story called “A Bunny’s Tale”. Magic is weird. Feel free to check it out.

PREVIOUSLY: Glen gave mental suggestions to others, trying to do away with a chip Julie had created, meant to restore the time machine. Instead of Lee getting the chip, a future Carrie appeared to destroy it.

PART 78a: CHEER UP

There were two major announcements at school on Monday morning. The first was that Glen would no longer be the bass player for Corry’s band. While there was some confusion within the school about that, it at least made sense to Chartreuse. After all, given what Tim had said on the phone about the conflict he and Lee had experienced with the redhead on the weekend, not to mention the audacity of Glen mind controlling their friends, they could hardly keep working together in a band. Not in any amicable way.

The second announcement was that Laurie would be acting as the head cheerleader until further notice. That was the announcement that didn’t make sense to Chartreuse. Not because it was Laurie - she knew better than anyone how much her friend had been going all out this year, even sketching diagrams of possible new routines for the team that week Carrie had been in hospital - but because giving up the lead ran against Carrie’s nature. More to the point, the timing implied a temporal connection that she couldn’t see, again based on the weekend’s events.

Chartreuse knew Carrie could avoid her at the end of the school day, if she chose. Their timetables were almost a match - except last period, when Chartreuse had Physics while Carrie was in Drama. So the mystic girl made a point of standing outside the Art room at the end of lunch, before that class started, reaching out for Carrie when her friend arrived moments before the bell.

“Carrie…"

“Chartreuse, not today,” Carrie sighed, evading the outstretched arm.

“Carrie, please don’t make me do a reading. I want to help, and Laurie’s, you know, my friend too. Where is this headed?”

Carrie hesitated just inside the doorway. “I’ll call you tonight,” she yielded.

Chartreuse decided that was the best she’d get.

Carrie had opted to avoid having a major blowout with Glen at school. Yet her headache was flaring up again by the time she arrived at their training warehouse that afternoon, meaning she felt unable to project the proper amount of rage for their conversation. As such, she began quietly with, “When were you going to tell me that Lee was in possession of a microchip to resume time travel?”

Except she didn’t say that at all.

What came out instead was the more sensible, “When were you going to tell me that I had destroyed the microchip Lee had for time travel?”

“After the possible stress of our upcoming act for the school talent show was behind us,” Glen admitted. The words somehow addressed either query, regardless of the one she’d actually spoken.

Carrie pressed two fingers to her temples. “And how dare you keep things from me, like your threatening Lee using his job at the library?”

Didn’t say it. Hadn’t happened.

“And how dare you keep things from me, like the fact that I’m almost ready to make a time jump of such precision?”

“Again, I thought it prudent to wait for you to raise these subjects first,” Glen said, seating himself on the desk he’d obtained for the warehouse space. “We’re dealing with some rather dodgy timeline issues here, a fact I’m sure you’ve remarked on by now.”

Carrie grit her teeth. So were they in a new timeline now? Or rather, ANOTHER new one, again overwriting an old one, on account of her actions? And, of rather more importance, was this new ‘timeline five’ perhaps only a restoration of Glen’s ‘timeline three’?

“Yes, okay, let’s finally talk about this,” she decided. “About the timelines. About fact that you’re not simply here to train me, but rather to take me away. From this town, from my life, from everything that’s important to me!”

Glen eyed her. “Then I did tell you that, in the alternate timeline you mentioned to Mary Clarke?” He shrugged. “Carrie, that is what is meant to happen. You’ve even realized it on some level - seeing as you’ve put Laurie in charge of your squad.”

Carrie grimaced. She’d done that more to have the chance to process the temporal pain which had kicked in. After what Lee had said to her Sunday night (in either timeline), she rather hoped her headache wasn’t going to continue right through until whenever she took that trip back in time. But was Glen right, was it a sign they were again in timeline three?

“Glen, no,” she countered. “I’m not going to run away. I’m not going to let one of my… my…" She forced herself to acknowledge the truth. “One of my friends die!”

Glen leaned forwards. “I don’t think that has to happen. Not any more.”

Carrie flinched back. “What?”

“It’s as I said once to that boy Clarke - time resists universal change, but individuals still have the free will to screw things up locally. You rewrote history to save your friend? Very well, time is now attempting to compensate. To provide you with an alternative reason to leave with me. One that does not involve anything quite so drastic.”