So Close to Home

by Galen Surlak-Ramsey

  “No,” I said. “But not by much.”

  Jack offered his hands again. “Then indulge me. I think we’ve earned a little R&R.”

  I sighed with a smile. He had me there, but for no other reason than my own entertainment and I wanted to make him work for it, I balked. “Maybe. If you’re a bad dancer, it’ll hardly be R&R.”

  “You still owe me that kiss,” he said, still staying playful. “I’ll consider this more than a fair trade.”

  “Fine,” I said, feeling a little impressed he was trying not to be the complete jackass he was in the very beginning. I took his hands so that we were in a perfect position to start a waltz, but before we took a single step, I added one more demand. “But if you really wanted to impress me, you wouldn’t have picked Bach or Beethoven, just so you know.”

  “I know,” he said. Jack looked over my shoulder and gave an uplifting nod toward Daphne. Our former-ship-AI-turned-droid beeped a couple of times before she started playing Chopin’s “Waltz in A Minor.” And once the first note hit the air, Jack whisked me around, and we started our dance.

  “I thought Chopin would be more to your style,” he said once we sank into the rhythm.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said, laughing. “Daphne told you.”

  “True, but after she told me, I then had the thought Chopin would be more to your style.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” I said, settling into his lead.

  “And gorgeous,” he said. “Don’t forget that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you really going to ruin it?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m only trying to keep this light.”

  “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have picked this particular waltz,” I said.

  “Touché.”

  For those of you who don’t know, Chopin’s “Waltz in A Minor” is hardly an uplifting piece that makes hearts soar. It’s a simple melody that is beautiful on any grand piano, but it’s filled with sadness and a story around lost love and times gone by. Still, it did have its uplifting parts, and there is a thread of hope throughout, which now that I think about it, the song actually might have been perfect for the situation. Here we were, lost, beaten up, stranded billions of light-years from home and across an unfathomable amount of time, but we still had a thread of hope that we might somehow see our family and friends again.

  I settled into his lead, although admittedly it wasn’t terrific. Passable, but his skill in the waltz was nowhere near the size of his ego. As critical as I was being, I wasn’t going to call him out on it. I honestly did enjoy what we were doing, but I don’t know if my toes would’ve agreed with me, especially after the third time they were stepped on.

  “Sorry,” he said, finally acknowledging one of the blunders. “It’s been a while.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied. “Given how hard Goliath knocked you across that arena, we should probably be impressed you are even standing, let alone waltzing.”

  “Thank the armor for that one,” he said. “As luck would have it, the Progenitors spared no expense when it came to dampening energy from hits.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I shut my eyes and tried to think back to more pleasant times. Even though I brought up the conversation, I didn’t mean to rehash recent events. I looked over my shoulder at Daphne. “Could we get something a little more uplifting?”

  “Another waltz?” she replied, momentarily turning away from whatever she was doing with the archive cube. “I have a considerable library available.”

  “Any Tchaikovsky?”

  Waltz of the Flowers came on in response. Jack was a touch slow on the uptake, but with a little bit of a friendly nudge to get him to lead, off we went. How I loved hearing the entire orchestra, from woodwinds to flutes to French horns, serenade us as we glided across the floor. The melody swept me off my feet and put my mind at so much ease I forgot where we were, and to a degree, who I was with. This latter part became even more pronounced when Jack actually danced well, and as such, I could shut my eyes and take in the mood.

  I took in the mood so much I ended up resting my head on his chest with a stupid, happy smile on my face. I didn’t even realize the music stopped until Jainon spoke, breaking the spell.

  “A full day of offering says three weeks,” Jainon said with a semi-hushed voice.

  She stood a pace inside the apartment with her sister at her side. Both had amused looks on their faces.

  “They gestate longer than that,” Yseri semi-whispered back.

  I planted my feet and snapped to attention. “Who’s gestating what?”

  Without missing a beat and in complete seriousness, Jainon flicked her tail toward the two of us. “You two, of course,” she said. “I bet a day’s worth of tithes that you’ll be ripe with a kit before we leave this planet.”

  Yseri nudged her with an elbow. “They call them babies.”

  “No one is having babies,” I said with a shocked laugh as I pulled away.

  “Your mating ritual says otherwise,” Jainon replied. “If you would allow, I would be honored to petition the goddess Inaja to bless your womb. There is still time.”

  “I think I’d like to get home before I waddle around like a penguin,” I said. “The whole lost in spacetime thing doesn’t put me in the diaper-changing mood. What are you two doing here anyway?”

  “Goshun wishes to see you both,” Jainon replied.

  My stomach tightened. “Why do I get the impression this isn’t going to be fun?”

  “We’ve been invited to an improv show. Of course it’ll be fun,” Jainon said.

  I perked. “Improv…like comedy?”

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t help but snort. “You guys actually tell jokes?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?” Jainon said with a huff.

  To that, I held my laughter. Sort of. Okay, maybe I didn’t. “Do I really need to answer that?”

  “No,” she said, sounding nowhere near as amused as I was. “Regardless, be sure to mind your manners and clean your plate. To leave even a morsel on your dish is a tremendous insult to both the chef and the house.”

  “And make sure you and Jack don’t end up mating on the table,” Yseri added.

  “That falls under minding manners,” Jainon said with utter seriousness.

  I snorted. “That’s something coming from the two of you.”

  Jainon blinked. “Us? When have we ever been rude at the table?”

  “You know what, never mind,” I said after I buried my face in my hands to keep from laughing too much. “Let’s go. I’m famished.”

  With that, I grabbed the archive cube, gave myself a once-over in the mirror, and zipped out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Improv

  The four of us had barely left the suite when Tolby intercepted us in the hall. He gave me a non-creepy up-down because let’s face it, how could the big furball ever be creepy with me? I wasn’t three meters tall or bristled with fang and claw, not to mention he had a thing for luxurious coats of fur, and I liked to stay so smooth, I really should’ve invested in razor companies the moment I had a single credit to my name.

  “You honor your species with your beauty,” he said with an approving nod.

  Despite his overly formal tone, I blushed at the remark. “Thanks.”

  “I’m glad to see the tailors could interpret my instructions well enough to marry your culture with mine,” he added.

  “Me too,” I said, and feeling like he’d given me the perfect excuse to twirl and show off a little more, I did so. “Because I’ll be damned if I’m not rocking this. Hey, you know what? We should start a fashion line when we get back. Evening wear for the intrepid time traveler. We could snag designs from across the universe and come up with stuff no one would have a prayer of thinking up on their own.”

  “You? A leader in fashion? I don’t believe it,” Jack said.

  “I like to diversify. What can I say?” I replied with a shrug. “Also, I can think of
the catalog text for it right now.”

  “Oh, do tell.”

  I cleared my throat and smiled. “Combining expert artisanal craftsmanship and coveted Progenitor aesthetics, the Dakota Series IX cocktail dress is the pinnacle of fashion for the intrepid time traveler. With its patented ChronoWeave™ technology, it keeps the user cool and looking good whether she’s enjoying the nightlife or battling a rampaging goliath. Furthermore, with its extra-dimensional pockets, wearers can store anything from personal protection devices to breath mints without having to sacrifice a stunning profile.”

  “How are you going to sew extra-dimensional pockets into it?” he asked.

  I shrugged again. “I don’t know. That’s for the boys in R&D to figure out. Any rate, investing in this line will give us another excuse to travel as far as we possibly can in both space and time.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think you need an excuse,” Jack said with a chuckle.

  “Or encouragement,” Tolby tacked on.

  I grinned sheepishly. “Guilty as charged. Anyway, where’s Empress? Is she coming with?”

  Tolby flicked his tail down the hall where the turbolift was. “She’s still with Goshun Yamakato, filling him in on all that’s happened.”

  “All that’s happened? Or like, the gist of what’s happened?” I asked. “Like did she talk Armageddon or leave that part out? Because I don’t know how your peeps take things around here, but where I come from, the moment you say you’re from the future and bring up the end of the world, they stick you in a madhouse.”

  “I doubt she’s said anything of the like,” Tolby said. “If she brought news of war, they’d be mobilizing as we speak.”

  The conversation paused for a few moments until we were in the lift and headed down. At that point, I tackled the proverbial elephant. “So we never really talked about it,” I said. “Are we going to stand around and pretend like we’re not looking at a bunch of ghosts? You know, big impending war and all.”

  No one had an immediate answer, but Tolby, not surprisingly, broke the silence. “I don’t think saying anything would be beneficial,” he said. “No one will run. That is not in our culture, and if these are to be the last couple of years everyone will have in peace, I see no reason to stop that.”

  I figured he’d say that, and as morose as his words were, my eyes brightened and my voice lifted. Maybe I was being a little delusional, or manic, but I felt like a shining angel at this point, ready to show her people the path to the promised land. “What if this didn’t have to be their last couple of years?”

  “What do you mean?” Yseri asked. “You said before that we couldn’t go back in time to change the past without causing a paradox, which the universe will never let us do.”

  “I know,” I said, beaming. “But we’re not going in the past anymore. We’re already here. The Nodari invasion is our future. We came here on accident.”

  “Does that matter?”

  I shrugged. “Hell if I know. But I do know if we do nothing, the Nodari are definitely coming, and they’re going to treat all your systems like one big smörgåsbord.”

  When the twins stared at me blankly, Tolby filled them in. “It’s a huge buffet table.”

  “Right,” I said. “But if we warn the Kibnali now that we’re here by accident, we might be able to stick it to the incoming Nodari fleet. What’s the worst that can happen, anyway? Whatever we say doesn’t matter. The Nodari come, steamroll the galaxy, and nothing changes.”

  Jack snorted. “From what I remember you saying, a hell of a lot worse can happen than that.”

  “Like?”

  “Like cracking open a galactic supercluster? Erasing all of humanity? Collapsing spacetime? I don’t know…take your pick.”

  I shook my head and kept my grin. “Nah. All that takes a lot more spaghetting of a timeline.”

  Jack straightened. “Did you just say ‘spaghetting’?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “That’s not even a word.”

  I shrugged. “It is now. Look, the most likely worst case is I’ll explode since I’m without those safety discs for paradox protection.”

  “Or we will,” Jack corrected. “We’re time travelers now, too.”

  I nodded, conceding the point. “Fair enough, but that’s hardly the galactic quadrant, let alone the universe. I think we can risk it.”

  Jack pressed his lips together, folded his arms, and then shook his head. “No,” he said. “We’re saving Kevyn first. You swore, and that doesn’t even take into account I don’t want to explode at all, even if I don’t take the rest of the universe with me.”

  To my shock, both Yseri and Jainon seemed to agree. “You did promise him that,” Jainon said. “Your oaths must be honored.”

  “Why are you guys arguing with me on this?” I said, throwing up my hands. “I’m not saying we fight a war here. God, no. What I am saying is, we can certainly bestow our soon-to-be-in-dire-crap Kibnali buds here with some Progenitor tech and/or knowledge that they could use to save themselves. Two years is a lot of prep time. Or at least, it beats being suddenly attacked out of the blue.”

  “And if the Nodari are defeated, how would we ever come back here when the new timeline catches up to your day and age?” Tolby asked. “That’s still a paradox if there’s not a solid explanation.”

  I shrugged yet again. “The Universe can figure that part out. There has to be hundreds of thousands of potential reasons why I’d time travel here again and drop some fancy Progenitor knowledge on the Kibnali that would then save their bacon.”

  Tolby continued giving me his skeptical look. “Hundreds of thousands?”

  “A rough estimation,” I replied. “Look, maybe we write ourselves some notes that convince the next generation of us to just go through the motions. Or…wait, I got it. The museum will always be there right?”

  “Yes…” Tolby said, his voice trailing off.

  “All we need to do is build some robots, make them look like you guys, and program them with vivid memories of the Kibnali losing the war. The new me won’t know the difference, so bam! There’s your reason to keep the cycle going.” I stopped and crossed my arms, but my triumphant pose ceased when a new thought came to mind. “Wait. You guys aren’t robots, are you?”

  “Do I look like a robot?” Tolby asked with a deep laugh.

  “Never really thought about it,” I said. “Maybe you’re a cybernetic organism—living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.”

  “I’m not.”

  “That’s exactly what we’d program you to say.”

  “As dangerous as this idea is, I think it has merit,” Yseri said. “We should try.”

  “Thank you,” I said with relief.

  Tolby glanced at Jainon, and the twin seemed to mirror her sister’s belief. “If we do try and influence events, we need to put a lot of thought into it. I don’t want to wind up like the Progenitors and get wiped from existence.”

  “Of course,” I said, flying on cloud nine.

  “I mean it, Dakota,” he said. “You can’t say anything until we’ve thought this through, and Empress has given her approval.”

  “But—”

  “Remember the museum?”

  “But—”

  “Do you remember the museum?” he said, much slower this time.

  “Yes,” I said with a groan. God, I hated it when he was right like that. “Fine, but what if Goshun starts asking questions? I still shouldn’t say anything?”

  “Especially if Goshun starts asking questions,” Tolby said. “He has power and influence. Him catching wind of something he shouldn’t know could have a lot more consequences than an ordinary citizen.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, then I just won’t talk to him.”

  Jainon made a face, which Yseri mirrored.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Goshun wants you to sit next to him. Apparently, he has a keen interest in aliens.”

  It was at this point I realized the l
ift was taking an extraordinarily long time to zip us down a hundred and fifty floors. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was barely descending. I mean really, what were we in, the Stone Age and some monkeys were working the pulleys? Cripes. I didn’t have time for this kind of stuff. My eyes darted upward to where the display was. It said we were on the fourth floor, which right then and there, I should’ve known we were in trouble.

  Stupid number four. How I loathe thee.

  I was about to open my mouth when the lights flickered, and the elevator ground to a halt.

  “What in the Frapgars fury is this about?” Tolby asked.

  Before anyone could answer, the lights went out.

  Chapter Eight

  Yet Another Lab

  “Forget to pay your light bill?” I asked with a nervous chuckle.

  “What’s a light bill?” Jainon asked.

  I shook my head, which was utterly pointless since we were smothered in total darkness. “Never mind.”

  “Don’t you guys have emergency lighting?” Jack asked.

  “We do,” Tolby said. He moved in the elevator to do something, and I only know this because he bumped right into me, nearly sending me to the ground in the process. “Sorry.”

  “If you do, why isn’t it on?” Jack asked.

  “Good question.”

  My gut tightened. Whereas moments ago, I was annoyed and simmering at the prospect of having to sit in an elevator—hopefully not in the dark—while the furball engineers worked their magic to either get us out or get things moving again, now my imagination ran rampant. Emergency lighting was supposed to work, always. That was the whole point. If it wasn’t working in an actual emergency, what the hell good was it, anyway? And when you’re trapped and starving, especially with a Nodari invasion coming at some point, it’s easy to get worked up.

  A comm that Okabe gave me while I was in the lab vibrated in my pocket, scaring me half to death. “Dakota,” he said, once I’d collected myself long enough to fish it out. “Where are you?”