In fact she was jogging around an empty corner of R&D as the fourth day of hiding began. Angela was having a great time. She could get lost in the labyrinthine research caverns for days. It might even be fun to outfit herself with provisions and do just that. No, she’d miss Daniel too much. She thought of his smiling face, actually he’d probably enjoy wandering around with her, camping in the caverns was very much a Daniel-ish idea. Trouble was if she suggested it he would probably drag her into Gene’s office for a full medical check to make sure she really was his wife.
Angela stopped outside of an empty cubicle and teleported herself a doughnut. Munching on it she briefly contemplated the state of her nervous breakdown. Avoiding work and responsibility was either a last ditch effort to prevent that breakdown, or it was the onset stages of it. What did it matter, Angela was working very hard to be Angela, and the Chief was having a harder and harder time stopping her.
Angela munched messily on her doughnut and on impulse crouched in a corner of the cubicle. It felt like a children’s fort. She remembered playing as a child it was wonderful how a flimsy cardboard box could protect you from anything when you were five. Now, she was hiding from even her friends.
“There you are cousin!” Tina’s exasperated voice called through the open cubicle entryway.
Angela briefly regretted not setting up a barricade across the opening to her private sanctuary, “What do you need?”
Tina grimaced, “For one you could check . . .”
“Yes, yes, I should check my e-mail more often and leave word where I am to be found in case of emergencies, or I should work in my cruddy-blue, feng-shuied office!” The words spilled out of Angela’s mouth as though she didn’t have one shred of impulse control. She slapped a hand over her errant mouth smearing chocolate icing from her doughnut around her face.
Tina entered the cubicle and sat down near Angela, “You aren’t yourself today cousin, do you want to talk about it?”
Angela held her hand over her mouth to prevent verbal spillage. There was nothing more she wanted than to talk about it but suddenly embarrassment allied itself with duty and held her mute. Wasn’t herself? She was actively trying to be more >herself’.
“Stress?” Tina asked.
Angela nodded mutely, lowering her chocolaty hand.
A wet wash cloth appeared in Tina’s hand and she gently cleaned the chocolate from Angela’s face and moved on to her hands, “What happened?”
Angela tried to put forth an answer, instead one just spilled out, “Qualline Jharra, an achillean from Trilanta. She had no family. And now she is dead. She isn’t the only one, several factors have disappeared along with the dimensions I sent them to.”
Tina frowned and folded the washcloth, “You feel responsible?”
“I am responsible! People die and I’m the one who sent them to their deaths. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t,” Angela broke down into tears, slumping into the corner. It was out, the secret truth, finally someone knew.
Tina wiped at Angela’s tears with the clean side of the washcloth, “I understand. Everybody comes to you and gives you all of the problems and you have to fix them. Nobody wants to fix yours. I’ll put forth a medical restriction on you, you can act like you’re fighting it if you want. Take some time, get a hobby.”
Angela wailed, “A hobby! I tried a hobby! I started painting my office and they came in and redid the whole thing! I can’t stand it there anymore!”
Tina nodded and retracted the washcloth.
Angela looked at her cousin, there was real concern behind Tina’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, what was it you came looking for me about?”
“I came to find out if you’d read my report on Yllera,” Tina answered, “but it isn’t important.”
Yllera? Another problem with Yllera? Angela straightened up, rising to her feet, assuming something of the chief’s bearing. She liked the girl and felt responsible for her, after all if Angela had only moved more quickly she might have been able to save the girl’s mother from torture by the dark. Then again if she had rescued Yllera’s mother then Yllera, a child of rape, would never have been born. Causality sucked! “What’s wrong is she going to be okay?”
Tina rose to her feet just as quickly, to keep eye contact with Angela, “No, I told you it was nothing important.”
“You wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hunting me down if it were nothing! Spill, that’s an order!” Angela was fully in Chief mode now, her tears dried up on force of will.
Tina chuckled, “Okay, but you’ll see it wasn’t important. I hunted you down because I wanted to see your reaction. Yllera called me frantically the other day because she thought something was wrong. She sprouted feathers. An Agurian has officially regained the ability to shape shift! What’s more she was beginning to shape shift into a non-hominid. They didn’t used to be able to. She’s like a super Agurian.”
Angela cracked half a grin, “She was scared? What did you tell her?”
“I told her not to worry, and if the feathers bothered her that much she could lick Tatia and it would probably get rid of them.”
“Lick Tatia?” Angela laughed, a talk with Tina was what she needed, “Now, about that medical leave. . .”
- - - - - - - - - -
Annette yawned, it was too early for this. One foot in front of the other, she jogged around the track. Behind her trailed a string of students. She set the pace. Tawny waited at the bleachers for Annette to bring the class after their run. Annette found it almost ironic that she had spent so much time working hard like the kids behind her only to end up back in the same place.
She had woken up at five to lead Tawny’s pre-trainees through their paces. Fortunately she was almost done, for the day. It was the last lap and then Annette could turn over the kids for their lecture. Then Annette was free to wolf down breakfast and head to class. Later, instead of physical training with the rest of her class, Annette would help Tawny with organizing and locating materials for the diversity class.
“Time Prima?” Annette asked worried about her schedule.
“Six-forty, pick up the pace.” Prima replied.
Annette sped up. The kids behind her groaned and she heartily agreed with them, but she didn’t want to fudge time if she didn’t have to. It was too early to have to run so far, so fast, and her legs hated her for making them cooperate. Her body was no longer as willing as it once had been. Though her newly longer limbs had the potential to make the run easier and smoother, but they had forgotten how to do the job. The four weeks she’d been Tawny’s assistant hadn’t proven enough to get them back in line.
Finally, Annette reached Tawny. A little out of breath she sat next to her towel and sipped at her water. A strange low un-sound vibrated through Annette. She almost wanted to put it off as her pounding heart, but it felt different, almost ominous.
“Tawny, do you hear something?” Annette asked as the sound began to dissipate.
The android cocked her head, and turned it searching for a sound, “I assume you mean something which is out of place, the answer to which is no.”
The sound had passed, leaving only a sense of foreboding Annette could not shake, “It’s gone now.”
“What was it like?” Tawny asked as the last of her students finally arrived.
“Disturbing,” Annette rose taking up her towel and water, “I have to head to the showers, see you later.”
Tawny nodded goodbye and turned to begin her lesson for the day.
Annette headed for the locker room. At her locker Annette shrugged out of her jumpsuit and transferred Prima’s remote to the collar of purple sun dress. Her floor was the top ranked one and her floor mates had insisted she take advantage of the privilege. Then she drug herself to the shower and washed off the sweat. Still wet and smelling better, Annette pulled on the dress and tossed the jumpsuit back into her locker.
Next on her to do list was breakfast. She was early, but that was to her benefit and the joy
of her floor mates. It meant she could stake out the best table for them. They’d also been pleased by her assistantship, in general they were happy to have her. She had become a part of their routine, their functioning, their well oiled machine of efficiency. Annette handled anything that was more easily done by hand than telekinetically, and she had found a solution to Scope’s homework allergy. The girl was a terrible typist and had horrendous handwriting so Annette had requested authorization for a dictation program. It went through smoothly and now so did Scope’s homework. After that success and a few other suggestions which had proven fruitful, everyone even Carl, asked her opinion with difficulties. They were almost looking to her as a leader.
Annette shook that thought off, only a few months ago Annette had been a part of the class she just left, with little hope of attaining her dream, and no friends or sense of belonging to speak of. Time changes almost anything, but hard work helps. Annette arrived in the cafeteria. She went to the favored table and flipped the card in the center to mark it as occupied then she collected the breakfast tray waiting for her at the counter.
She ate slowly, rereading her homework as she ate. At a trickle then a flood the cafeteria filled, Carl and the others joined her with their trays. Annette smiled in greeting, and carried her tray to the recycle chute. When she came back the others were engaged in an animated conversation.
“I hear the temporal physics module is one of the hardest classes in the program,” The instructor is brutal, he can turn any answer into a wrong one!” Popper groaned.
Annette was instantly intrigued, being that today was the first day they would be going to the class. She sat quietly.
“I hear it is more philosophical than physics,” Net replied.
Carl grinned, “I think therefore I can’t go back in time to kill my grandfather.”
“Huh?” Toaster asked, from across the table.
Annette smiled admiring the dark purple suit he had chosen to wear.
“You know, >I think therefore I am,’ and the old grandfather paradox. Never mind,” Carl stuffed his mouth and shut up.
Annette smiled at him and went back to her reading, focusing her attention as much to push away the noise of the room as to study for the test. Annette was so focused that she missed the floating microphone as it took its place at the raised platform, and Niri rising to meet it. Carl came to her rescue, stealing her pad and gesturing towards Niri.
Niri tapped the microphone softly, “Good morning people, I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is that most of you will be switching modules today. The bad news is that this Friday will be assessment day,” Everyone groaned loudly, and Niri paused, “Don’t worry everyone this assessment won’t be as grueling as the last one. You’ll go to your first class and will be testing on dedicated pads. It’ll be over before you know it. Then the rest of the day you’ll have to yourselves.”
A muted round of cheers passed through the crowd, Annette made it through with Carl’s telekinetic help. Niri held up her hands and the room quieted, “Good luck with the new modules.” Niri stepped down from the platform and headed out the door. That ended the announcements and breakfast.
Annette’s group rose quickly from the table and moved almost as one out of the cafeteria to their new classroom. Carl led the way having had the foresight to preplan the shortest route. They were the first group to make it to the room and they quickly staked out the front row as their territory, slinging backpacks over the backs of the chairs and slapping down their pads in front of them. Annette sat, while the others stood keeping an eye on the door.
The rest of the class trickled in and one by one the chairs filled with purple jumpsuits. Everyone sat, focused on the front of the room, and waited. Time passed and Annette telepathically sensed every time one of her classmates would succumb to the desire to check the clock. She was almost driven to it herself. Still the teacher didn’t show. Finally, a moment before Annette too felt the need to glance, a man appeared at the head of the class.
“Welcome everyone to temporal physics. Though that really is a misnaming. This class is about time and about the realities of traveling through it, though in a sense you all are quite expert at it,” The teacher launched into lecture quickly.
“My name is Janu, I happen to be Tanerian, from a family of catalysts and I am a time traveler, though I am quite a bit better at it than all of you. You all are still stuck in the single dimensionality of time. Like people once thought the earth was flat, most of you think time is a string and that it has one strict direction. Or at most you admit that it has two directions forward and backwards. I’m here to tell you time is more than now, or now or now. It is a fluxing, flapping, flying thing existing with a backwards, a forwards, an up, a down, a left and a right. The trouble is that we are caught in the linear dimension of time by our very natures. We really can’t see its other dimensions. On the other hand my theory is that god is temporally three dimensional; he sees the past present and future like we see left, right and up, and he most likely doesn’t even have to move to do it. Enough about theology,” Janu paused.
“You can call me Janu, or Mr. J. I don’t much care which. I’m passionate about time. In his book, The Time Machine H.G. Wells theorized that time travel was like jumping up into the third dimension of time. Let’s accept that. On Quantum Leap the theory was that time was like a piece of string that you could ball up, and when you did you could leap through it where it touched itself. Let’s accept that. Heck accept any theory you like on how time works, that’s not what this class period is about. Today we are about the ethics of time travel. Is it right to go back and change things. If someone had gone back and killed young Adolph Hitler in his crib would they be killing an innocent version who might have grown up to do good or are they pre-deposing an evil tyrant? Answers?”
Carl raised his hand and Janu nodded towards him, “Both? Because he had the potential to be either.”
“Good answer, it brings me to the real core of time travel the fact that anyone meddling in it is working in a real gray area. One which all to easily becomes a dark area. Any factor considering working trans-temporally needs to keep that in mind. The fact of the matter is that most of you will at one time or another be placed trans-temporally just because of time differentials or directionality. It would be nice if all time moved exactly the same but some dimensions run slower, some faster, some backwards as compared to Sanctuary. That truth can aid you in time travel, but bear in mind that any foray into the past risks your remaining there forever.” Janu fixed his eyes steel gray eyes on Annette and seemed to be talking just to her, “Time travel is risky. Don’t forget that. And sometimes you can have an effect even when you aren’t meaning to.”
Annette shivered, and nodded to him. He smiled back at her and turned his spooky eyes on someone else.
- - - - - - - - - -
Yllera fluffed her hair and the few feathers still scattered through it. She hadn’t licked Tatia, instead she had kept the feathers. They were proof of her ability to shape shift and she had increased her status with them. Over the course of the last few months she had even made a daily visit to the aviary just to assure they would remain to impress the natives.
There had been a few dodgy moments when they arrived in the warren. No one wanted to believe she was Yllera. Again the seer had been called to confirm her veracity. The seer had taken one look at the feathers and nearly fainted, and trembled as she licked Yllera, The seer immediately knelt dramatically and held Yllera’s slimy hand to her forehead declaring the chosen one had indeed arrived. The slime trail the old woman left on her hand itched. Yllera almost felt her insides changing, and a few feathers fell out, but no dramatic return to normal beyond that had been forthcoming.
Little had been asked of Yllera after that, instead most of the community fought over what they could do for her. Someone had turned Yllera’s pile of snake skins into a jacket during her absence. Common styles meant it looked almost how she wanted it, it was
a long duster sewn to fit her former size. The woman responsible for it hastily offered to resize it based on Yllera’s new proportions. Yllera had to patiently refuse, typing the refusal into her pad and allowing Tatia to translate.
Yllera had spent much of the last few months eating, and growing. That growth had outpaced Tina’s estimates, Yllera was practically back to normal, or as close to normal as she ever would be again. Another occupation of her hours was time spent with the seer. The old woman had gleefully agreed to teach Yllera everything about their heritage.
Yllera had learned much about the pre-plague culture. The old woman had been in late childhood, just learning the skills of shape shifting and reading DNA when the plague struck. Three quarters of the warren died within days. The smell of death had permeated the tunnels. It took months to bury the dead, many more died from re-exposure to the pathogen. When it was over no one could shape shift, and many of the survivors died prematurely. The only good the plague had done was to increase the Agurian birthrate. That was all that had saved the race.
In addition to history the seer shared what she could remember of the ancient shape shifting skills. Unable to show Yllera, it was difficult but Yllera had picked up the rudimentary ability to alter her face and through complex muscular skeletal manipulation even decrease or increase her height.
The major impediment to Yllera learning even more was her inability to talk. She had moved beyond silence, adding primal grunts and moans, but it had only been a matter of days since her first recognizable word passed her lips, now she her voice had almost fully returned.
That word had been food. No surprise since her rapid growth meant a titan sized appetite. Thanks to the generosity of the natives that appetite was satisfied best by native foods. Somehow the diet prescribed by the seer satisfied Yllera’s hunger better and longer than even the artificial nutrient solutions Tina ordered her to eat. Yllera might have incurred Tina’s wrath if the native diet hadn’t proved so effective.
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