by Lea Tassie
"You look wrecked," Charger R/T said. With a laugh, he reached down and yanked Jet's broken body from the floor and dangled him in the air for a good look, twisting him about this way and that. "Yep, pretty fucked up. Does it hurt when I do this?" Charger R/T jammed his large fingers into Jet's ribs.
Jet winced at the pain but tried not to show it. After a minute, he could no longer tolerate it and cried out, "Yes it hurts! Stop! Please stop!"
Charger R/T twisted Jet like a rag doll, wondering why the man was still present. "So, where is that other waste of oxygen, your friend Abarth?" Charger R/T growled, as he yanked Jet's face close to his and focused those blank white eyes on him. He had no concern for the pain he was causing. Had he known Jet's story, Charger R/T might have taken pity on the guy. Maybe.
Because Charger R/T now had Jet dangling in mid-air, it was clear that the padding had failed to some degree. That Jet was still alive and had survived Abarth's deception was obvious, but that he would continue to survive was clearly in question. He was partially paralyzed from the strike, and had limited mobility.
"I know where Abarth is but, better still, I know when he is," Jet said, as blood spilled from his lips to run down his chin. Charger R/T just looked at him with that blank stare, so Jet guessed Charger R/T didn't understand. "I can send you after Abarth, but we have to hurry. The systems are beginning to corrupt, a side effect I never expected when I first sent something back in time. It seems a lock on a locked particle is a two-way street. If you lock on a particle, it also locks on you."
Charger R/T's right eyebrow rose as if to say, 'What?'
"That's right, he and I were supposed to go back in time together, but just as I activated the QEP drive to jump, he attacked me. As you can see by my predicament, I probably don't have long to live. So if you want to get to Abarth, you're going to have to trust me."
Trust was something Charger R/T had little tolerance for. "How about I just kill you and piss on your dead body?" Charger R/T growled.
"What you fail to understand, my friend, is that time will catch up to us. Abarth has gone back in time and is probably changing events, which may change our existence here all too soon."
Charger R/T's schooling had not included studying theories about time, and he simply stared at Jet.
"If you want to kill Abarth, you have to do as I tell you," Jet tried.
Charger R/T just responded with, "But you just said he has gone back in time, so it's not my problem. He and the rest of you can go fuck yourselves!"
Jet then realized what he had to do, for Charger R/T would never willingly help. Jet had sent Abarth back in time, but he went without the benefits of science. Abarth had arrived on planet Crest without his longevity benefits and without support from science. He landed as a simple old man with only the tools of deception he still retained in his powerful mind. He was expert at using trickery, a tool employed by religion for thousands of years as the easiest method of deceiving the human mind.
Jet knew that if he could send Charger R/T back in time, there was every possibility he would arrive as he left, with those still uncharted god-like powers that mystified science. Jet made his move. "My death is assured. You can do me a favor and kill me now, or you can watch me die in agony." Jet sensed that this appealed to the beast, so he pressed on. "Please, I beg of you, don't put me down in that chair. Hanging from your arm relieves most of the pain I feel."
Charger R/T looked over at the chair, then looked back at Jet and smiled, revealing the four fangs. He tossed Jet like a bag of garbage at the chair.
Jet desperately strove to land upright. He hauled his body into place and rested his arms on the control panel. A few fake moans for effect, then he continued. "I think the end is near, I just want to call my wife and kids to tell them goodbye." Jet frantically reset the controls and locked onto Charger R/T's body.
As Charger R/T started to move toward him, Jet cried out. "Ah, the pain! I'm in agony. Please have a heart and kill me, I beg you."
Charger R/T stopped his advance and smiled at the possibility of witnessing the spectacular death of a human who had been responsible for so much death.
Jet continued to ham up his act with fake moans, fake cries and a fake conversation with a wife as he desperately tried to restart the QEP drive.
Charger R/T was truly impressed as Jet spit up blood and sprayed it around the control panel.
Once Jet was certain that the control systems had a solid lock on Charger R/T, he spun up the drive system and turned to Charger R/T. "When you find Abarth, kill him. Don't wait around. Just do it."
Charger R/T gave Jet a puzzled look, then felt the jump system hit him square in the chest as before. Unable to react or to stop, he was sent on a sporadic course. He had gone back through time.
The damage to Jet's QEP system was severe; programs that kept the processes stable were failing at an alarming rate. The impact of focusing onto a locked quantum particle transferred to every nearby locked particle along the path Abarth had taken. The effect was clear.
What took Abarth seconds of time to achieve took Charger R/T a year. He would arrive shortly after Abarth on planet Crest, but Charger R/T's travel was disorientated and disjointed, causing him to bounce in and out of random locations at random times.
Chapter 14 Dwarves investigate giants
Two hundred years after the four worlds recovered from Abarth's attack and replenished their population, the residents decided life had become too easy, therefore boring. Diversions such as being a character from mythology became all the rage. The Martians voted for living as Elves on that desert-rich world. Earthers went retro, sort of steam punk. New Eden people became futuristic techs and called themselves Techno-creeps because their acquisition of knowledge was slow and careful. Ceres people took the body forms and lifestyle of Dwarves from mythology.
Another three hundred years passed and Brick, a Ceres Dwarf, decided to look into the history of Charger R/T. He'd been just a student during the war Abarth fomented between humanity and the beast known as Charger R/T. He was fascinated by this demonic aberration in humanity’s history and spent hours in libraries reading scientific journals and trying to decipher the Charger R/T story. In old histories, he had been regarded by the people of New Eden as some type of demon, though others referred to him as a god.
One day, Brick chanced upon a dusty old manuscript jammed in the back of a jumbled drawer in a university room crowded with rows of shelves. The author was a woman named Deleray and her story was written more in the style of a myth than as solid scientific observation. One clue that her account might be mythology was that she referred to the beast as Charger, not Charger R/T. But she might have been the first human to actually see Charger R/T, and so he spent a long time trying to decipher the messages hidden beneath the obvious language on the pages. Deleray ended her story by saying that one morning she witnessed the beast explode in a great ball of fire as it stood before a giant oak at the edge of the forest.
This perplexed Brick immensely. How could Charger R/T have been destroyed by fire and still be present in the world today? It made no sense. Brick again read through every page Deleray had penned, studying the history of New Eden. It came as a shock to realize that Pennington, the famous religious woman who had gone missing and was later found buried in concrete in an old elevator shaft, was the great great granddaughter of Deleray. Then it was noted, as an afterthought which would have been very easy to miss if Brick hadn’t been reading carefully, that Charger R/T's remains were still in humanity's possession. The people of Deleray's time had retrieved the remains and built a grand altar to their new god. Deleray herself had eventually become his first priest.
Early one morning Brick blinked to the world ship, where he intended to search for this altar to Charger R/T. The world ship, the black rogue planet that the people of Mahoud once occupied, had had many upgrades in its time. Humanity's possession of this small planet once called Neo Terra had led to several technological revolutions.
Most of the cities occupied by the people of Mahoud had been destroyed by progress or by the depredations of the Gray hybrids Abarth had used to attack the four planets. But a small lake with foot bridges to a central island remained. History recorded that a statue once stood on the island, but that was no longer evident. This was where Brick decided to start his search.
It took months of research, asking questions of locals and poking about in old dig sites before he managed to decipher the words "Visha the immortal" written on the large, badly damaged rock that once held the statue. From there he traced the story back to a small village which had existed close to the lake, but was now farm land.
Thinking there was nothing more to be found, Brick finally returned home, back to the city of Kings Beard. Planet Ceres was a romantic and wonderful place to grow up in, where every street and building had the appearance of some place out of mythology. Love of mythology and history was what had inspired Brick to search for Charger's origins.
Brick had almost given up when he chanced upon a badly mauled book of uncertain origin in a local book store. What caught his eye was the word 'Deleray' on the cover. It was not a book written by Deleray, but a book about her. On the inside cover were the words, "The great god Haspha burst into flames under the still standing oak tree. Authored by Oppsy, brother of Deleray." Here, for the first time, Brick read stories written at the time of Deleray by someone who had known her. Most important, it told where the burned remains of Charger R/T were to be found. Brick was so excited that he blinked to the world ship without even bothering to pack clothes.
He appeared, looking like a beggar, in the clean, orderly streets of a small town just a few miles from where the main door of the old city complex had stood, the door behind the waterfall. He didn’t know that he was standing on the ground where Deleray and Oppsy had grown up, only that the remains of Charger were said to be somewhere close by, just under the surface.
It took some doing to persuade the town's leaders to allow him limited digging of their roads, but he was sure that the book by Oppsy was fairly accurate. The trees and rocks were still visible as described by Oppsy, and the bend in the main road still remained, even if it had been paved over several times. Brick was certain he knew exactly where to dig, and when he gained permission, he employed the latest technology of the dwarves. Long past the need for shovels to move the soil, they now employed a handheld device that used pressure waves to part the soil and create a hole.
Brick could hardly contain his excitement when the first 'clunk' echoed up from the hole he was digging. On his very first try, he had hit the stone lid of the box that held Charger's remains. Carefully he dusted the soil away and prepared to lift the lid. A few locals had gathered to witness the event. Anticipation was rewarded with disappointment. The box was empty. Although Brick had found Charger's sarcophagus, he did not know that the Taskoids had gotten there first. Long ago, they had taken Charger's remains because they needed his DNA in order to resurrect him as Charger R/T.
Brick was sorely disappointed, but his discovery did prove one thing. Charger had been killed at some time in the past, and this knowledge might be of value someday.
***
The Dwarves were an industrious people and found it natural to explore all the caves of Ceres. Della had just graduated from college, held an honors degree in anthropology and was considered by her professors as one of the best and brightest students to come along in several years. As a graduate student, she had discovered the crypt, an ancient room deep in the heart of a complex that housed the remains of many honored people of humanity's past. She now spent most of her free time lecturing on her findings, which was how she met Brick.
They hit it off almost immediately. Brick had just returned from searching for the remains of Charger, a quest most thought foolish, and was in attendance on a day Della was lecturing.
"There is so much about our early history that we still don't know," Brick said to Della as they sat together in a small café after Della’s lecture had finished. "By Kings Beard, I am positive that my theory is correct! I believe that the beast known as Charger R/T existed in our past and that he was responsible for starting the first civilization on the world ship."
"Well, that is a radical thought, I would think. But you have to be certain that you're considering the ramifications of what you're thinking, I would think," Della said in the rambling way she used around people she really liked. Della was pudgy and short, had had few boyfriends and even fewer girlfriends, so she was a bit socially awkward.
"I see where you're going. Kings Beard! If I'm right, then the world we think we know is not the world we ought to know." Brick replied, almost as awkwardly. Several other patrons in the café noticed and smiled at the two young people, sensing that love hung in the air.
Della's communicator rang. It was her professor saying that he had discovered something of importance. "Where are you? I'll come to you," Della said. The professor was at the collection department, so Della and Brick both decided to go.
They blinked to the room and the professor welcomed them. He had found a small book among the relics in the crypt. It was the Book of Danny, which told Charger's history as well as that of the other Hyborgs and their part in the wars. Here, for the first time, was a written account of the time before time, and it was marvelous, full and exact.
But the writer was not the Danny who had been world president; this was a descendant through the lineage of Suzie, a descendant three generations removed from President Danny Opinhimmer. This Danny had been named after his great grandfather and, if one could judge by his writing, was a cantankerous individual. He told of how the Hyborgs were created by men and how they fought for humanity; he told how humanity eventually treated them badly, driving them out of existence, all but one.
Charger was one of the first Hyborgs and he was also the last. Here was proof that humanity owed its existence to Charger, but he was not the Charger they knew now as Charger R/T.
The findings were hotly debated for years as Brick and Della stood alone facing a tide of disbelievers. People simply would not accept that they owed their existence to such a creature. When the threat of an attack by the giants of Crenel loomed, Brick and Della tried in vain to make the Elves, Dwarves and Techno-creeps, along with the steam punk Earthers, understand that when the giants attacked, and it was certain they would, the only way of stopping the chaos which Spyder was fomenting would be through Charger R/T.
They needed to prepare now. They had to create a Reader, someone above humanity, someone capable of taking humanity and its history into the future, and hiding it somewhere safe.
***
"By the gods of the underworld, I hate visiting these Martians! They always act so smug and superior," Della grumbled as she packed her belongings for another trip to Mars. Della was a member of the Red Dwarf clan, who regarded the Elves of Mars as enemies. "And it makes no sense why someone would take the Elf body form when the Dwarf form is so much easier to keep clean."
"Now then," Della's boyfriend, Brick, replied in a teasing manner, "if everyone looked as good as you, I'd have a hell of a time keeping faithful." Brick laughed at his own comment and Della tossed a bowl of berries toward his head, just missing it.
"Bottlehead, you better keep your eyes down around those Elf girls. Catch you gawking and I'll pluck them out."
"Your fingers are too chubby to fit inside my eye sockets." Brick laughed again, as he headed for the bedroom.
After more playful banter between the two lovers, they finally had their belongings packed and were ready to leave for planet Mars. Travel to that planet was a simple blink rather than real long-distance travel.
When they arrived, wearing their hobo-style clothing and with bags at their sides, the looks of revulsion they received from the Elves reinforced Della's opinion of their smug superiority.
Della scowled but Brick ignored the looks. The two were considered by most Dwarves as the finest and most learned anthropologists Cer
es had to offer. The event they were attending had most of the Elf community upset, for the Elven study of the Crenels had produced little useful information.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
Crenels? Didn't I say? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. But we really don't have much time. The giants are on their way and you must know the rest of the story before you fly to safety.
The Crenels are a race of giants who live on a super-massive world. Planet Crenel is three times the size of Jupiter, with a surface which is sometimes liquid and sometimes atmospheric, an exceptionally powerful gravity, and a population of billions. These giants spend most of their five-hundred-year life spans swimming, flying, or walking around the surface of their planet, depending on whether their world is covered with liquid or air.
Yes, they do look kind of weird.
They're advanced technologically in that they have housing, practice farming, and understand sophisticated mathematics. The sun their planet orbits can barely be seen by the naked eye. It radiates light waves in the infrared, so that everyone on the planet feels heat and warmth, but they live in perpetual semi-darkness. Unfortunately, they're also a race bred to brutality and conquest.
You want to know if you're the Reader that Brick and Della were talking about? Of course! Now you understand why you have to know the history of mankind.
I have no idea where you're going. That will be up to Charger R/T.
***
A multi-discipline group of Elves and Techno-creeps from New Eden had spent two years studying the inhabitants of Crenel. Now these two great races of humanity turned to the Dwarves for help in understanding the subterranean nature of the giants.
They had learned that homes of the Crenel giants were huge caves in mountains. These caves had been created by living beings, however, not by geological action. Billions of giants lived in billions of mountain caves arranged in rows like the houses in cities of Earth before the Night of the Black Rain wiped them all out. No natural process could produce caves like that, and at no time did the researchers ever witness the inhabitants creating a home. There was plenty of research for Brick and Della to examine, and it was hoped that these two could shed some light on the processes involved.
