“Come on, they’re impossible to reason with when it gets like this. Let’s go back to reality, and we’ll visit again when they’ve got their head on straight.”
I nodded, and released my mental grip on the nothingness with a sigh. Like a balloon, I floated back upwards until I was in my body.
I sat up with a slight groan, rubbing my temples. The Meeting Place didn’t give me a headache per se, but it did leave me with a certain feeling of displacement that vaguely disconcerting.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
I glanced over to see Janix, sitting up at his bed and working on something in his lap. “Nah, just a bad dream. What are you doing up?”
“I could be creepy and say I was watching you sleep,” He said with a wry smile. “But really Viys’k woke me up on her way out the door and I haven’t been able to nod off.”
“I understand that. She almost makes me jealous of her lack of needing to sleep.”
“Yeah, but when you trade off the incredibly short lifespan, I don’t quite think it’s worth it.”
“I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.” I said, standing and slowly stretching. I noticed that Janix’s eyes followed me, almost glowing in the dark room. “So what are you fiddling with over there? Polishing a gun or something?”
“Heh, that would be a stereotype, wouldn’t it?” He held up a holopad that had obviously had its brightness turned all the way down. “Just playing a game.”
A game? Now that piqued my interest. “What kind of game?”
“Nothing you would be interested in, I’m sure.”
“Why, because I’m a girl?”
He shot me the most confused look that I was borderline embarrassed. “No, because you’re too smart for these kinds of things. You have saving the world and cross-dimensional whatever it is to worry about.”
Now I was laughing, and it took me several minutes to recover. “You have either vastly overestimated my intelligence, or completely underestimated yours. Scoot over, I wanna see.”
I crossed over to his bed and plopped down next to him. He turned up the brightness, and my eyes made out several figures that still looked vaguely futuristic, but not nearly as shiny and holographic as the era I was currently in.
“It’s set several hundred years ago,” Janix explained. “You’re a regular citizen that gets wrapped up in the crazy plot of mistaken identity and you have to clear your name.”
“Wow, well I identify with that on several levels.”
He gave a low chuckle. “Yeah, I can imagine. It’s an old game, but it combines a sleuthing kind of mechanic with building your teams and deciding what stats to beef up.”
“Oh, so kind of like a rpg.”
“You know what an RPG is?” He asked, surprised.
“Uh, duh. They’re only my gateway into the gaming world. Everyone knows RPGs lead into strategy games, and strategy games lead to first person shooters, and then you’re hooked forever.”
“I can’t believe you’re into interactive sims.”
“Is that what you guys call them?”
“Yeah, but I figured out what you meant by the video game thing. Different words, same idea.”
“Hah, I’m glad. So where are you in the story?”
“I actually just got out of a really intense battle so I’ll mostly be prepping for the next story segment.”
“Cool. Show me, if you want to, that is.”
“Sure, if you find that kind of thing enjoyable. I didn’t know people watching other people play games was s thing.”
“Trust me, in my world, there’s a whole genre of entertainment dedicated to it.”
“That is… decidedly strange.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Press buttons and do things please.”
“Whatever you wish.”
Perhaps it was strange to be so enthused by something so simple when whole worlds were hanging in the balance, but it was nice to have something I understood. Something familiar. The flashing lights and incremental challenges. It was a set of laws and algorithms that I knew, loved and had played in for years.
We sat there for hours, engrossed in the story, until our stomach grumbled in protest. I looked to the corner of the gaming device to see that it was early morning.
“Wanna go catch some food from the cafeteria?” I asked, stretching my legs as I stood.
Janix yawned and shook his head slightly. “I ate a big dinner. I think I’m gonna crash for a while. But you go ahead and get some grub without me.”
“Alright. I’ll bring you back something nice if there’s anything.”
“Sounds good.” With that he rolled himself up in the covers and shut his eyes. I left our room, surprisingly calm considering the whirlwind I had just weathered. I guess I had Janix to thank for that. I headed towards the general mess with a slightly lighter step. Sure, I had a terrifying and most likely deadly mission looming on the horizon, but at least I had people I could trust on my side.
I wish Jyra had had as much.
*
“I’ve found it!”
I jolted, and Viys’k nearly leapt off of her bed in attack mode. Janix was the only one who wasn’t bothered, and he just continued to snore lightly.
But Bajol didn’t take any of our reactions negatively. He stood, panting in our doorway but looking utterly elated. “It’s taken me an entire week of pouring through Jyra’s logs, but I’ve found your frequency, hers, and our violent cloudy friend. On another interesting note, his frequency is alarming similar to that of a Rabid Kodadt, which might explain how easily he’s able to summon them to surprise us at various intervals.”
“So, have you found a way to cloak us then?”
The smile faltered just a bit and a little touch of uncertainty. “Well, somewhat. Yes. In theory.”
“In theory as in there’s no way to be certain, or in theory as there’s a fifty-fifty shot that this won’t work and will send us to our doom?”
“The first,” He answered, sounding somewhat offensive. “I would not be so enthused about any plan that had less than half a chance of success.”
“Right, right. What was I thinking.” I plastered on my most appeasing smile. “So how are you going to cloak us?”
“It’s quite simple, actually. I create a small implant that will go just under your skin that will emit two frequencies. One that is the exact inverse of yours, and one that I pulled from federal databases.”
“I guess that sounds easy enough. But why the nerves then?”
“Ah, yes. Well you see, we can’t just put it in you and mask your signal. I’m sure that thing would realize exactly what was going on and just track your new signal.”
“That’s a good point. I didn’t think of that.”
“Yes, so I propose something a little risky. As far as I can tell from studying Jyra’s notes, this being exists on certain planes of existence. One of the reasons it doesn’t force multiple dimensions into Great Choices at once is because it can’t. It has to travel manually to them.”
“Very useful information. I don’t understand how that’s relevant though.”
“Wormholes!” The doctor said excitedly. “I don’t believe it can traverse through wormholes. Or at least not how we do. So, I propose we go through one of the wormholes, insert the device and come out the other side undetected!”
“But if we go into a wormhole and then just come out the other side sans Andi, won’t it put together what happened?”
“Well yes. I do think it’s capable of such deduction. So that’s why I think it will be necessary for us to, uh… jump wormholes.”
“What?” Janix blurted, sitting up in bed.
“There’s no way you heard that.”
“I’ve been awake since the whole I have a theory schtick.” He rubbed his eyes and looked to the doctor. “But I would swear I was still dreaming, because what you’re talking about is literally impossible.”
“Not… quite impossible. I’ll need to follow up
with Angel and her engineers I have no doubt are employed here, but I believe Jyra’s dimensional machine can be respec’ed to suit our needs.”
“You think? Or you know?”
“We’re talking about revolutionizing wormhole travel. It’s impossible for me to know anything until we do it. Everything else is just evidence based conjecture.”
“So… a theory?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
I sighed and ran my hands through my tightly curled hair. “Alright then. Go get Angel. Sounds like we’ve got some more rules of the universe to completely ignore.”
Viys’k let out a dry, chittering laugh. “Look at us, the three most wanted fugitives in the galaxy. It’s not enough to defy the Council of Six, we’ve got to break the laws of physics too.”
I snapped my fingers at her in double hand guns. “It’s what we do best.” I said with a wink.
She did some seem enthused by my response.
And honestly, neither was I.
Here we were going again, leaping off into the unknown because of my sorry hide. I was a danger to the lives of everyone around me, while at the same time being one of the only people able to save the lives of everyone around me. It was a gut-wrenching conundrum, but this was my life now.
However long that might be.
Chapter Three: First Days are Always Hard
It took an entire week of twelve engineers, plus Bajol, Angel and Jyra’s notes to modify the engine for a mid-wormhole jump. Of course, we kept the ship flying aimlessly the whole time, randomly changing coordinates in case our cloudy friend decided it wanted to make a move while I was on Angel’s ship.
I did wonder why it didn’t just give our coordinates to the Councilmen and let them swarm us, but Viys’k had a theory that it didn’t know where I was in regards to map-able locations, but rather could just sense the direction in which the missing part of it was and go that way. There was no way to tell if her theory was right or not, but either way we made it to the Krikus wormhole without any acts of sabotage or Kodadt raining from the sky.
I was in the medbay yet again, Bajol and Janix on either side of me, the former armed with an injector that was loaded with the little transmitter he had created. Angel and Viys’k here on the comm from where they were standing in the engineering bay. It was strange not to seem them in the cockpit, but I realized we were on a massive, thousand crew ship with illegal cloaking capabilities. It probably took a whole team of dedicated pilots specifically trained to handle this vessel.
“Alright, we’re one minute away from the jump. Any last words?”
“Very funny.” I retorted. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“You’re putting an awful lot of trust with what is essentially conjecture technology based off the recovered schematics from the equivalent of a juvenile Sierr and interpreted by people who’ve never met her.”
“I dunno,” A voice said that I didn’t recognize. “I thought we did a pretty good job.”
“Shut up Ciangi. You think anything you do is awesome.”
“I know. That’s why you hired me.”
I heard an exaggerated sigh from the Captain, and I couldn’t help but snicker. “Whatever. Just initiate the jump. If we all die, I’m blaming you.”
“Sounds fair.”
“So…” I murmured. “Is this a good time to mention I’ve never jumped through a wormhole before?”
“Don’t worry,” Janix assured me, patting my arm. “It’s nothing to be scared of. It gets a little shaky, and some people get headaches, but it’s no big deal.”
“Oh good. Because the last time I travelled between dimensions, it was pretty disconcerti-”
“Launch!”
“-ing…” Suddenly we lurched forward, and it felt like I was snapped rubber band. Every part of my body vibrated, and I seemed to stretch beyond all possibility. It was a milder, but still virulent version of my journey to this dimension.
“Andi! Andi, what are you doing?”
Confused, I somehow managed to look in his direction. He was gripping my arm, but the limb seemed to be phasing in and out of my vision.
“I… I don’t know.” I gasped. “I think I might be kind of… of… traveling? I think?”
“Well stop it!”
“I don’t know how!”
“What’s going on down there? We’re about to initiate the cross-wormhole jump now.”
My stomach churned in protest. “Wait, you mean you haven’t even activated the machine yet?”
“Negative. About five seconds until we reach a weak enough section in the tunnel.”
“Andi’s having a hard time down here. I don’t think she likes subspace travel.”
“I was afraid of that.” Angel murmured. “Andi’s not supposed to be here. It was only Jyra’s machine that was able to snap her into our dimension. Now that we’re technically outside of our reality, her body is trying to return home.”
“And you couldn’t mention this before?” I hissed between clenched teeth. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about this?”
“Uh yeah, but this is different.”
“How?”
“I dunno! It just is! Initiating the jump. Bajol, inject her…” There was an intense rattling and my body reacted in kind. I could feel myself flickering, a candle set in too windy a spot. Janix was yelling beside me, but his voice was getting further and further.
I was slipping away, I knew this, and yet I couldn’t stop. The medbay started to crack around me, and I saw flashes of things I shouldn’t. My bed. My own beanbag. My desktop, in sleep mode after having been left on too long.
Everything was hazy and seemed to be moving impossibly slow. Dust particles hung suspended in the air, and Janixs lips barely moved in whatever he was shouting at me now. Whatever halfway field of reality I was in was shaking violently, rattling my brain with it.
“Now!”
A sharp pain in my neck brought me back to the room, and I audibly gasped. Abruptly, all the seizing stopped, and I was back to the relatively gentle phasing in an out of tangibility.
“It’s in!”
“I cannot believe that worked,” Viys’k muttered. “We’ll be exiting out of the hole in less than ten seconds.”
“Come on, Andi. You can make it. I know it. This is possibly the easiest thing you’ve had to do since you came here.”
He was right. I just needed to find an anchor. I glanced to his hands again, wrapped around my arm in a desperate attempt to keep my there. I focused my thoughts to feeling his calloused fingers against my skin, and the warmth there.
It helped, but it wasn’t enough. So, I turned my mind to exactly what had brought me here.
Jyra.
I couldn’t leave. If I did, who would help her? She had risked everything because she was sure I would make the difference in saving her world. How could I prove her wrong?
I couldn’t.
And so I held on. I bore down with everything I had until my body rippled back into solid form.
“We’re out! We’re out!”
I sagged in relief, Janix practically holding me up. “Did it work?” I whispered, thoroughly exhausted.
“Well, it’s transmitting and according to my readings, it’s masking your signal pretty well. But as for if it’s working on our stormy friend, that I won’t know until he attacks us or not.
“That’s assuring.”
“That’s science. This is all an experiment, after all.”
“Yeah, well too many of your variables involve certain death for all of us.”
“Like I said; science.”
“Alright folks, now that we’ve survived one impossible thing, onto the next one.”
“On a side note,” I said, carefully getting to my feet with the help of my faithful Mooreerie. “Should we be sharing this ground-breaking discovery with the world or something? I may not be from around here, but what we did seems like a very big deal.”
“Maybe after we’ve saved th
e universe.” Viys’k retorted. “Right now, I don’t think technological advancements from known fugitives are going to be very well received.”
“Point taken.”
“If you guys are done, everyone meet in my cabin. It’s time for phase two.”
*
The lift I was in hummed as I waited for it to reach its objective. I was crammed between several other people who were no doubt just as nervous, but for different reasons. I ran a hand through my jet-black hair, thoroughly wrapped up in another one of Angel’s complete disguises. She really went even more all-out than she had before. I had on one of her genetically grown wigs, a DNA scrambler, finger print covers, a chest binder, my own identity; the works.
I was posing as a new hire for a janitorial job on the kodadt research station, and it was nerve wracking. At first I had assumed that someone else was going to do the espionage, but we had quickly realized that since I was the only one who was both immune to the virus being tested on here, and could sense the dark presence, that I was going to be the one gathering intel and setting the stage for our grand infiltration mission.
The doors opened, and we piled out into a pristine room that looked pretty much the same as every other orientation room I had ever been in during my short life. We took our seats and a hologram flashed to life in the center of the little circle.
The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Page 2
