by Reiter
“But I digress,” Freund said, hurling Cak and Poma so that they joined Boj in the energy wall. “The mortal concept of the word only grasps at the actual definition, for in truth, one could find a cosmos inside a single molecule. I say that to stress a point: in your stride to do whatever it was that motivated you to find me, it pushed you too far, too fast – for the three of you were silly enough to attack me inside a nexus of ThoughtWill! I can no longer ask if you have taken leave of your senses. It would appear you awakened without them! For if you were of your own senses, you might have recalled that I was there the day the lot of you decided to take your deepest sleep. Much to my disagreement, I might add. So, I was an entity before you went to sleep… and here you are, stepping into a place that is nothing short of my cosmos, attempting to strong-arm me! Oh yes, at the very least this Chorus needs work!”
“Perhaps they were simply a distraction,” Tilu stated, reaching her hand into Freund’s back, crushing his heart.
“And perhaps you simply don’t get it!” Freund replied but his voice came the chamber. “Just how do you think you can approach a nexus of thought and go unnoticed?!” The walls of the nexus revealed to all four Stars that the chamber they had entered was Freund’s hand. The four were easily crushed and dismissed.
The four Stars fell to the floor of their sleep chamber, bereft of any ability to move or engage any of their powers… they simply did not possess the mind for it. Instead, they remained on the floor of the room, wailing in pain, shaking in fright, and blind to the world around them. Naf came into the room and gave of his starlight to reconstitute his siblings. Even in his augmented form, it was a tremendous undertaking, as he had to emit enough light to ‘outshine’ the reality that had been imbedded in their minds. When Tilu lifted her hand to signal that he had been successful in his effort to restore them, Naf staggered back to the wall next to the door of the chamber.
“Perhaps we should start again,” Freund said, appearing in the center of the room, surrounded by a glaring amount of dedicated ThoughtWill energy. The swirling light absorbed all the ambient thought energy within its range, which was considerable, while it maintained its position as a first defense for its master, the Watcher of the Rims. “Normally I would say ‘pardon the intrusion’, but I’m of no mind to be polite at the moment. It’s so seldom that I get to flex my god-muscles, for rarely do I find a soul foolish enough to give me reason! To not do so now would simply be a failure of relishing what Fate has given me.” The doors of the chamber opened and Khiea walked inside.
The Conductor of the Chorus held her hands up in surrender. The notion of telling the chamber to disavow the flow ThoughtWill would not have served them against the living thought Freund had brought with him. To say that he had brought enough ammunition for this particular confrontation would have been a gross understatement. Since it was not a fight she wanted with the entity, it seemed prudent to simply talk to the blind one.
“This is something that serves no one,” Khiea said, though it was clear that she was resentful of having to concede the fight to Freund. “What my brethren seek is information, and you seem to be the only one who can resolve this situation.”
“I suppose now it would behoove me to be the bigger entity and cooperate,” Freund sighed.
“I can offer a trade, if that would motivate you more,” Khiea suggested. The light in Freund’s eye sockets faded and he lowered his head.
“Consider me motivated,” he replied. “I only ask for audience at a time of my own choosing, but with the full attendance of the Chorus.”
“Done,” Khiea quickly agreed, smiling at the notion that she had taken the higher ground of the moment. “Tell us of the entity of prophecy.”
“Which prophecy?” Freund bantered. “These are the Rims after all… there are a number of prophecies. It’s one of those things that go hand-in-hand with mortality. The first to come to mind is an old Olasson tale. Long ago, in the realm of–”
“You know of the prophecy I speak!” Khiea interrupted. “There is only one we cannot see. How was this done?”
“You cannot see it, because I cannot see it,” Freund shared.
“And it comes from a system called Deku by its inhabitants?” Khiea pressed.
“Truthfully, I would not know,” Freund answered. “I have not bothered to investigate the matter. You might have noticed that something has come here from Sol… the destroyer of Old Earth… the anti-life.”
“That is a matter for mortals,” Khiea proclaimed, signaling to her Chorus. Slowly, each of them turned to exit from the room. “Thank you, Freund. You have been most helpful.”
“I have?”
“A great deal,” Khiea smiled before stepping back to the door. “I apologize for the over-eager approach of my siblings. As you are pressed with the anti-life, we are pressed by the prophecy of this entity changing the Rims. That would mean it could also change us. We will endeavor to find the possibility this change might take before we will allow it to happen.
“You let yourself in,” Khiea said, turning her back to Freund, “I am sure you can let yourself out.”
“I suppose I can at that,” Freund stated, allowing his ThoughtWill to flush through the chamber before using it to return to his nexus chamber. There were plans he needed to make for the very near future.
** b *** t *** o *** r **
Beta-Chiaro walked with a slight smile on his face. His class time with the triplets had quickly become something that he looked forward to engaging. They were delightful children, and he was sure that they would each become women of note and great worth, even amongst the noted and worthy. They reminded the Light Priest of what it had been like to watch the young man often called Jobe grow and mature. The copy he had created of himself was just as exceptional and, in Beta-Chiaro’s eyes, stood apart from the other copies. The chip had indeed not flown far.
“I wouldn’t bother,” a voice called to Beta-Chiaro as he neared the classroom. The doppelganger turned to see BJ coming through the wall to stand and lean against it. He folded his arms, gazing at the floor tiles. “The triplets aren’t in there anyway.”
“Where are they?” Beta-Chiaro asked, concerned with the demeanor he was reading off of his counterpart.
“That’s only part of the question,” BJ said, shaking his head. “You know, with everything that blue bastard did after hanging around us for a short time, we really should’ve had our guard up over anyone he intentionally sent to us.
“BJ.”
“Gotta admit though,” the small-formed entity continued as his head kept shaking in disbelief, “… they didn’t make the same approach. I’m starting to develop a deeper appreciation for Dungias. With him, he said what he meant and meant what he said.”
“Such is the way with a number of intellects,” the Light Priest commented as he drew closer to BJ. In the time the small entity had taken to reflect, Beta-Chiaro bridged his mind with The Campus but it also did not know where Darthi, Tadreene, and Z’Gara were. “But what of the triplets? Where are they?”
“We were working on their computer project,” BJ shared. “They were building one… along with an operating system that could keep up with them. Seemed harmless enough, right?”
“Please continue.”
“Oh, you might as well go ahead and get your mad up, Beta-C,” BJ directed. “Not sure how we get out of this without someone throwing a major shit-fit!”
“Out of what, BJ?” Beta-Chiaro asked in a sharp tone of voice. BJ looked up at the Light Priest with genuine wonder in his eyes. He smirked and snorted a laugh.
“I keep forgetting you older-looking types are into the easy answers,” BJ said, coming away from the wall. “Okay, here’s the long and short of it: they’re gone!
“We’re making the finishing touches to the hardware, you know, getting it to look all super snazzy to present to Danatra. Next thing I know, Tadreene hits a switch. Wham, bam, thank you, my little bi-otch… BOOM… they are gone… and I me
an no longer present!” Beta-Chiaro took a step back and started to speak, but BJ spoke before he could take in a breath. “So I go to scanning. Because, you know, no one steals anything out from under me while I’m looking at! I have a rep to uphold here!”
“BJ, please.”
“And even though their trail was covered, I still manage to find their departure device. It was a Jump-Stride! A freakin’ Jump-Stride!”
“BJ, are you sure? We can’t track that means of transit.”
“No, you mean you can’t track it,” BJ returned. “I’m not going to have a Traveler out and about in our house sucking down our Intel without reading him up and down. Dungias might have been lousy at doing it, but his understanding of the process is unshakeable, and yes, that means I can Jump-Stride if I want to.
“Hoo-rah,” BJ snorted with seeping sarcasm, “… strike up the band and give me my Traveler’s badge. Anyway, I arm up, armour up, and I track the stride. I land in this room that’s been majorly prepped… and when I say prepped, I mean I barely got out of there, and I’m not sure I’d be able to do it a second time.
“So I get back to The Campus and I’m about to hit the Five-Alarm Fire button when a brace-com pops up right in front of me.”
“A brace-com?”
“Yes, Professor Echo, a brace-com. The second I touch it–”
“You touched it?!”
“Easy, Priest. Nothing just arrives here without The Campus allowing it, right?” Taking a moment to get a handle the incident, Beta-Chiaro reluctantly nodded. “Same thing can be said for students leaving The Campus. Just because we don’t know what’s going on doesn’t mean it’s not allowed. The Campus gave me no warnings, and it took a second before that dawned on me too.
“Getting back to the moment, the second I put hands on the thing, I know the workmanship. It’s one of Dungias’ designs.”
“The Master?” the Light Priest whispered.
“Each and every circuit,” BJ testified. “I get a message telling me that the children are safe and that I needn’t worry about them. So… I put the brace-com on and I wait for you to show up.”
“I think this situation is worthy of class disruption, BJ.”
“To do what?” BJ quickly asked. “Something aligned to the Master of The Campus took the kids. What exactly are we supposed to do with this… other than look like how we’re looking?” Beta-Chiaro looked at BJ for a moment; his mind raced through memories granted to him upon his birth and the ones he had accumulated since his awakening. But he quickly remembered he was standing in the corridor with the entity that was a most proficient master in getting around the rules, and he too was dumbfounded. He had started the endeavor of answering BJ with passion, but reason had taken hold of him and he lowered his eyes to the floor. “That’s what I thought.”
** b *** t *** o *** r **
Tadreene was the first to emerge from the simulation pod. She wiped the fluids from her eyes and slowly climbed down to the floor. It was there she received a towel from a robot drone and she wiped her face with it. She jumped in fright, hearing her sister scream as the pod opened. Tadreene smiled and turned to look at Z’Gara who burst from the pod, flipping over the lip and dropping to the floor. She landed nearly perfectly and lifted her head quickly to move her long, wet, black hair out of her face. Sisters locked eyes with one another, and after a very short stare Z’Gara started laughing.
The third pod opened and Darthi pulled herself out of the pod, using the lip of it like a pommel horse to flip around and land on the ladder. She then placed her hands and feet on the sides of the ladder and slid down to the floor. She looked at the ladder for a moment and then up at the device where she had just come from, learning more than she thought was capable. She leaned forward, kissing the left-hand edge of the ladder.
“Thank you, Z,” she said softly before turning to face her sisters. The look of astonishment remained on Tadreene’s face while the look of amazement burned bright in Z’Gara’s eyes. Darthi smiled and walked toward them. “I think it’s safe to assume that we all received the same message.”
“You mean the same request,” Z’Gara corrected as she received a towel.
“That’s what I mean. Tad, where do you stand?”
The young girl looked down for a moment, her smile seemed transfixed on her face, but she looked as if she had given the notion some thought. She shook her head ‘no’ and looked back Darthi, “How could I say no? Of course I’m in!”
“Z’Gara?” Darthi inquired.
“You just try to hold me back!” the young girl quickly returned.
“It wouldn’t be me doing it, trust me,” Darthi stated. “But just to make it official, I say we do it too. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but I think it’s the best way we can contribute to help Daddy Z with what he’s doing.”
“You know he wouldn’t agree with that though, right?” Tadreene asked.
“That’s what makes him Daddy Z,” Darthi quickly replied. “He would never ask, but if the option were available to him, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Well, it’s not available to him.”
“But it is available to us,” Z’Gara added. “I’ll prep a ship.”
“I’ll help.” Tadreene quickly added. “The last thing we need right now is for the automated systems to fail.”
Darthi nodded before taking the last towel. “While you two do that, I’ll make sure we have the proper coordinates and energy emission settings to get where we’re going. And once we get there, we get to work… on making a god!”
You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
Jim Rohn
(Rims Time: XII-4203.24)
Llaz checked in with LeRoy before walking into the Mess Hall. The Med-Tech was perfectly happy to simply watch and listen to what was about to happen. He had spoken with the Second Mate, voiced his concerns, and informed Llaz that he would ‘toe the line’ in accordance to whatever Llaz thought was the best response to their current situation.
“One down, everybody else to go,” Llaz thought as he rounded the bend. “That’s probably unfair of the Brain Trust though. They basically go along with the person in charge, making suggestions here and there.” Entering the Mess Hall, Llaz allowed his mind to drift through memories. This room had been the site for a few life-changing incidents. He had every reason to believe he was about to experience another. “The gods know I could use a few suggestions… I think!
“Okay, it looks like everyone is here,” Llaz said, clapping his hands together and looking around the room. There was a level of anxiousness he had expected that was missing in the eyes of the crew. What he did feel was tension and anger. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No, not really,” Agatha answered as Olreye stood up from his chair.
“Yeah, you did,” the man said and Agatha turned around to look at him. Llaz could not see all of her face, but the flare in her eyes told him she was trying to convey a silent warning to Olreye that he refused to acknowledge. “We were discussing how long you should wait before you assume command of the ship… as Captain.”
“As Captain?” Llaz asked, not quite believing what he had heard. He stepped forward and quickly lifted his hand. He could tell that he had tickled a nerve and everyone who had an opinion, and the stones to voice it, was about to speak. That had to be cut off quickly. “Settle it down, take a seat, close your mouths, and open your minds.
“Thank you for answering the question, Sonar,” Llaz said, nodding toward the man. “I appreciate the honesty, I truly do. I need to communicate something to each of you and make sure that you receive every word. There’s a reason why this ship operates the way it does. The simplest reason is that it’s the only way we know how to make it work. We have always had either Z or the Captain present to reinforce those perspectives. At this time, neither of them can be reached. It’s very easy to see how
we could fall easily into a concern, doubt, and fear… but let me prop a bridge across that hole. First of all, it’s not a hole, it’s a trap. If you truly think we’ll never see the Captain or Z again – and relatively soon – I need for you to wait outside. Because then I’m going to talk to the lucid members of this crew.
“Gulmar was not that long ago, people,” Llaz continued, pacing around the room. “For those who were not there physically, you should have reviewed the team logs by now. In short, we had a time when neither the Captain nor Z was with us. There were a few hiccups, sure, but we managed to pull it together, and that was because Cutter wasn’t about to alter course.
“And let’s not forget the Garnet Barony,” Llaz added. “The Captain, Z, and CeCe were not here. We pulled off a heist The Territories will be talking about for years! That was just a few days ago! So if short term memory is your thing, kindly recall your training schedules and your work details. This sort of questioning is usually the product of idle hands and frightened minds.
“Sonar still has a point though,” Llaz pointed out. “How long do we sit here, sticking to our day plan with no Captain? Good question, and believe it or not, there is actually an answer in the classroom simulations Z created: forty hours. The Captain has been out of contact for eighteen, which means we have the better part of a day before that time has expired. Five hours ahead of that time limit, I will convene a small board of team leaders to plan out our next course of action so that in the event the timer hits zero we won’t be twiddling our thumbs, wondering what to do.”
“Boss?” Hennix said as he stood up.
“What is it, Spike?”
“Who are these team leaders?”
“Tolip is team lead for the Pinion Project,” Llaz informed. “Shotgun is team lead for the Brain Trust, and the remaining general crew has Siekor.”
