chapter nine
Transtemporal Vehicle Kleio
Transverse, non-congruent
“What do we have so far?” Raibert asked, joining Philo, Benjamin, and Elzbietá around the command table. A see-through depiction of Hostile-One’s wreckage floated over the table, the icons of reconnaissance remotes and conveyor drones sweeping through its mangled interior.
“Not much so far,” Benjamin said, “but what we do have is . . . interesting.” He nodded for Philo to proceed.
“First, the interior is an absolute mess. Kleio is trying to map out what it looked like before the impeller blew, but one thing is already clear—the crew was entirely abstract.”
“No bodies?” Raibert asked.
“Not just no bodies.” Philo highlighted the areas of a TTV typically reserved for crew quarters. “No accommodations for bodies, either organic or synthetic. No bridge, no sleeping quarters, no medical bay, no synthoid charging stations, no compensation bunks. The exterior hull and drive systems may resemble SysGov TTVs, but the interior has been completely redesigned.”
“By whom?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Along those lines,” Benjamin said, “we’ve managed to isolate parts of the infostructure. The programming is blatantly rooted in SysGov standards, but we’re encountering two problems. One: many of the nodes were damaged when they overlapped parts of the ship. And two: looks like the crew made a last-ditch effort to scrub the evidence.”
“Some of the data is recoverable,” Philo added, “but it’s a jumbled mess. All sorts of fragmentation and missing sectors, and that’s just what hasn’t been overwritten with obvious garbage. If I were to guess, I’d say the crew initiated an emergency purge right after your warning.”
“Fantastic.” Raibert sighed wearily. “And once again the multiverse penalizes us for trying to be reasonable.”
“Cheer up, buddy.” Philo gave him a virtual pat on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t want people thinking you took lessons from the Admin, now would you?”
Raibert snorted.
“It’s not all bad news,” Elzbietá said. “Ben and I have been doing a little brainstorming.”
“Our encounter with Hostile-One didn’t sit well with me from the start,” Benjamin began, “and nothing I’ve seen so far has changed that. First of all, what are the odds of us stumbling upon this strange TTV and just happening to come up right behind them?”
“Pretty low,” Raibert replied, wondering where Benjamin was taking this.
“Exactly. Which makes me think they spotted us first, not the other way around. Also, where were they coming from?” He shifted the schematic aside and brought up the transverse map, then traced a path from Q3 back through their first contact with Hostile-One. The line eventually ran off the map.
“Q5 maybe?” Raibert offered with a shrug, his eyes following the path through an otherwise boring patch of the transverse.
“But why?” Benjamin asked.
“I . . . ” Raibert frowned. “No idea.”
“Same here. For the moment, let’s assume the only reason they led us to Q3 was to use the locals against us. If we assume that, then they weren’t coming from Q5’s direction at all. Instead, they must have made a course change right after they spotted us—but before we spotted them—in order to mask their original heading.”
Raibert’s eyebrows shot up. “Aha.”
“Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?”
“But then, what was their real flight plan?”
“Don’t know,” Benjamin admitted. “Maybe we’ll find something in the ship’s infostructure. Or perhaps we can piece together an explanation by taking a deeper look at their actions throughout the encounter.”
“Well, stay on it, Doc. I think you’re onto something here.”
“Will do.”
“Speaking of the ship’s infostructure . . . ” Philo looked up with a tentative smile.
“Got something?” Raibert asked.
“Maybe.” Philo shifted the transverse map aside and opened a new display. “Kleio just finished her first pass through the data, and I think we might have something here. She was able to retrieve several text fragments from the TTV, and while they’re incomplete, certain key phrases appear in them repeatedly. Anyone ever hear of the Phoenix Institute?”
The others at the table shook their heads.
“Neither have I,” Philo continued, “but if I were a betting AC, I’d wager this Institute built Hostile-One.”
“Anything else in there besides the name?” Raibert asked hopefully.
“A few things, but the meaning is less clear. I ran through it briefly after Kleio finished her pass, but we simply don’t have enough context to make sense of it. There’s mention of something called Revenants, but I have no idea what they are. And there’s talk of a three-phase plan to do . . . something.”
“Nothing good for us,” Benjamin said.
“Any mentions of Reality Flux or the Admin terrorism?” Raibert asked.
“Only one reference to Reality Flux along with an Institute member named Ijiraq, but there isn’t enough there to say more. At the very least, it’s a strong indicator they were involved somehow.”
“Would it be too much to ask for a map to their secret lair?” Elzbietá quipped. “Maybe a detailed manifesto and a complete member list?”
“If this job was easy, anyone could do it,” Benjamin replied with a friendly smile.
“I’m not looking for easy,” Elzbietá continued. “Just something to show for our efforts. So far, we don’t have much besides a name and a busted-up TTV.”
“That’s more than we had a few hours ago.” Raibert placed his fingertips atop the table. “Where to next?”
“We were attacked for a reason,” Benjamin said. “That tells me we’re at least close to something important, which means we need to search this zone of the transverse as thoroughly as possible.”
“We should head back to Providence Station first,” Philo said. “We need to pass on what we’ve learned and warn everyone to be on guard for other Institute TTVs.”
“That’s going to burn up a lot of time.” Elzbietá pulled the transverse map over and plotted a course. “We’re sixteen thousand chens from the station, so you’re looking at an eleven-hour round trip.”
“Good point, Ella.” Raibert brought up the estimated positions of other Gordian craft. “What if we pass on the message to another TTV? Phoebe is close-ish. We can swing out their way and have them deliver our findings while we get back to the search.”
“Let’s see.” Elzbietá adjusted the course projection. “That’ll set us back three hours.”
“Much better than eleven,” Raibert said.
“And we can use that time to crunch through the evidence a bit more,” Benjamin said. “Perhaps we can come up with a good place to start our search.”
“Then it’s settled.” Raibert pushed off the table. “We finish up here first, gather what evidence we can, then demolish what’s left. After that, we lay in a course for the Phoebe.”
* * *
“Telegraph incoming,” Philo said an hour and a half later. “Phoebe confirms receipt of our data and acknowledges our request. They’re setting a course for Providence Station.”
“Then our job here is done.” Raibert faced Elzbietá. “Turn us around.”
“Heading back to Q3.” Elzbietá swung the ship around and settled them into a course for the quarantine zone.
* * *
“Hmm,” Benjamin murmured twenty minutes after their rendezvous with the Phoebe, his eyes engrossed by the transverse map. “Hmm? Mmhmm.”
“Doc?” Raibert stepped over. “You’re doing it again.”
“Hmm?” Benjamin looked up. “Doing what?”
“Your thinking noise thing.”
“That’s because I’m thinking.”
“I figured. I figured,” Raibert said, nodding. He waited for Benjamin to fill in the rest, and when the information failed to materialize, he added, “What’re you thinking about?”
“Hostile-One and Q3.”
“What about them?”
“Well, the thing that’s been bugging me is why attack us at all? If they saw us first—and I still think they did—then why not shutdown their impeller and let us pass? Why take the risk of engaging a SysPol TTV when there was a much safer alternative?”
“Hmm.” Raibert rubbed his chin thoughtfully, but then realized he was inadvertently mimicking Benjamin’s noises and stopped. He cleared his throat and sat up. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.”
“The only reason I’ve been able to come up with is they felt threatened by our presence.” Benjamin shook his head. “Which implies we were close to something, but it couldn’t be Q3, since they led us there, so . . . ”
“Well, keep at it.”
Raibert turned back to the transverse map and considered the position where they met the Institute TTV.
Does it have to do with where they were headed? Or where they came from? Perhaps both? He considered this for a moment. Maybe, but—
Raibert stopped and leaned toward the map as if seeing it for the first time, the prominent icons of SysGov, the Admin, and Providence Station glowing near the center.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed, slapping the table.
Benjamin and the others looked his way, and he grinned at them.
“Doc, I think you’re absolutely right about them changing course just before we spotted them. And”—he raised a triumphant finger—“we have enough information to figure out what that course was!”
Benjamin’s face brightened, and he cracked a smile. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense.”
“First, let’s assume one end of their trip was their secret lair. Doesn’t matter if they were coming or going. Now, we already have one point along their course. That’s where we met Hostile-One. All we need is one other point of reference to extrapolate where their base could be. And we can figure that out by looking at recent events, such as the disappearance of Reality Flux and the Admin terrorism.”
“You think they were either heading for or coming back from SysGov or the Admin,” Benjamin finished.
“Exactly! Got it on the first try, Doc!”
“Then, let’s see . . . ” Benjamin highlighted their first contact with the TTV, then added SysGov and the Admin to form a narrow triangle with a line between SysGov and the Admin serving as its short base. He then mirrored the same shape on the opposite side of Hostile-One, creating a flattened hourglass.
“Now that narrows it down!” Elzbietá rested her chin on laced fingers. “There’s Q3, of course, plus quite a few human-inhabited branches beyond it. H14, H17, H20, and H21 being the most prominent. A few D’s in the mix, too,” she added, referring to the “dead” universes that lacked any sign of current or prior human presence. “Which one do you want to hit first?”
“That one.” Benjamin pointed to H17.
“Hey now!” Raibert gave him a cross look. “Do I go around stealing your thunder?”
“Sorry. It just seems obvious to me, given how close H17 is to Q3.”
“Why would it be the closest?” Elzbietá asked them. “Why not one of the universes farther away, like H20?”
“Because of how they reacted,” Benjamin explained. “If Raibert and I are correct, they took a shot at us because we were already near their base.”
“And this time,” Raibert said triumphantly, “we’re going to find it!”
* * *
“Got something!” Benjamin brought up the zoomed-in view of the local transverse and highlighted the universe immediately ahead. “H17’s outer wall has shifted position. Not by much, but it’s a strong indicator another universe has branched off from it in the opposite direction.”
“Now we’re talking,” Raibert said. “So, if we take H17’s past and present coordinates, then extrapolate them . . . ” An elliptical zone appeared on the map, highlighting potential locations for H17’s doppelganger. “Ella, put together a flight plan to search this zone. We’ll head there next.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll retag this universe as H17A and the new one we expect to find as H17B.” Benjamin inputted the new values into his virtual console. “We can figure out their official designations later.”
“Works for me,” Raibert said. “You want to take a peek inside H17A before we move on?”
“Just enough for us to establish a benchmark. We’ll know more once we find H17B. The original survey is solid enough, so we shouldn’t have too much trouble identifying which branched off of which.”
“Sounds good to me. Ella?”
“Adjusting course for entry into H17A.”
“What do we have on this universe?” Raibert asked, stepping up beside Benjamin.
“H17 branched off from T1 in 1917. In this timeline, the faction of the German high command that opposed unrestricted submarine warfare won the debate. Worse, from Wilson’s perspective, the Zimmerman Telegraph never fell into British hands. The combination made it impossible for him to get the United States into World War I until late 1919, and by that time, Russia had collapsed. Lenin had taken it out of the war, and H17’s version of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was even harsher than in T1 or T2. By the time the US did get into the war, grain from the East was offsetting much of the Royal Navy’s blockade’s starvation effect, and the forces freed up in the East had let Germany punch out France. The situation was a lot like the one in T1’s 1940, but the British Empire was a lot stronger and the US was fully committed once it did get in. That meant the war lasted much longer, and eventually it turned nuclear. The resulting destruction and the subsequent wars pushed this timeline’s technological and societal development back considerably. In some ways, they’re not much different from the early twenty first century back home.”
“Well, at least they didn’t nuke themselves into oblivion.” Raibert gave him a halfhearted shrug. “Glass half full, right?”
“More like glass half vaporized and the other half is an irradiated mess. World War I wasn’t the only conflict to go nuclear for them.”
“Yeah, figured. Otherwise, they’d be further along.” Raibert watched the distance to H17A’s boundary drop off. “Assuming we spot H17B, how do you want to approach this?”
“We need to first determine which one is the offshoot,” Benjamin said. “We have the survey’s topology breakdown and population estimates. If there aren’t any obvious discrepancies in that, then we dig deeper, starting with the branch in the timeline. Fortunately, because of Reality Flux’s atomic clock, we know when in the timeline the two split.”
“Forty years ago.”
“Exactly, and the Phoenix Institute is the most likely culprit. The question then becomes, what did they do in H17’s past that was disruptive enough to spawn an entirely new universe?”
“Does H17 have a functioning infostructure?” Raibert asked.
“Barely.”
“Something is better than nothing. We could shroud up and snoop around without too much trouble.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Benjamin said. “Have you ever heard of a device called a ‘dial-up modem’?”
“Um,” Raibert gave the other man a perplexed look. “No. Can’t say that I have.”
“Consider yourself fortunate. H17’s infostructure is primitive and heavily segmented. And slow. We’d be better off taking a different approach.”
“Speaking of H17,” Elzbietá cut in, “Outer wall in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . ”
Raibert grabbed the handrail built into the command table’s circumference, and the ship shuddered from crossing the dimensional boundary. H17A’s Earth appeared over the center of the table, a refreshing orb of blue and swirling white after the hellscapes of Q5 and Q3. Elzbietá maneuvered them into a low orbit around the planet, metamaterial deployed in a cloaking configuration.
Benjamin pulled up the original survey data, placing it next to H17A’s Earth, and initiated his own analysis of the surface. Data began to pour in, and sections of the globe turned green as their scopes failed to find any differences.
“So far, it looks like H17A is the original,” Benjamin said. “Either that, or the discrepancies are too subtle to notice from orbit. But let’s not jump to conclusions. We should complete a full survey of the surface here, then find and do the same at H17B.”
“And if we don’t spot any obvious differences?” Raibert asked. “You mentioned taking a ‘different approach.’”
“I did. It’ll be easier than trawling through the sludge of the local infostructure. But I’ll need some time to prep first.”
“Prep time?” Raibert’s brow creased. “You’re not planning anything dangerous, are you?”
“No, no. Perish the thought.” Benjamin gave the other man a strangely cheerful smile. “It’s just I need to decide what to wear first.”
* * *
Candice Bettenbrock took pleasure in the small parts of her job as a page at the Washington D.C. Ground Zero Memorial Library. It wasn’t a great job. Nor was it a great place to work, but Candice respected the importance of doing the work she was given dependably, and doing it well. It was a lesson her parents had drummed into her with such repetition that she’d eventually caved to their wisdom, her unruly teenage years yielding to her early twenties with a mental shrug that said “Well, maybe they do have a point there.”
Even if all she was doing was returning books to the stacks.
She enjoyed coming up with little games to play during the tedium of her part-time job, and stacking books provided many such opportunities. She grabbed another armful of thick tomes and glanced over their spines, mentally mapping a path through the stacks for optimal efficiency. She didn’t need to be efficient; in fact, all it did was leave her with more boring downtime, but the exercise provided her with some mild amusement.
She finished restacking the books and pushed her cart back to the main desk. She passed a row of tall windows, though little light leaked in from the outside. Rain drizzled from an overcast sky, and the few remaining hints of sunlight were fast retreating into dusk. The library was almost empty, despite not being scheduled to close for another three hours.
Another three monotonous hours, she thought glumly. One of the cart’s wheels squeaked with each rotation, like an annoying metronome, then squealed in desperate protest and locked up. She shoved the cart forward without a second thought, having gone through this exercise many times. The wheel unbound, and she continued her trek back toward the main desk.
Assistant Librarian Martha Esker looked up from a sheaf of forms, tapping a pencil against her lips, the back end chewed and glistening.
“Candice dear.” Everyone was something-dear where Martha Esker was concerned.
“Yes, Mrs. Esker?” Candice brought the cart to a squeaking halt behind the desk.
“Mind the desk for a few minutes, would you? I need a smoke.”
No, you don’t, Candice thought. What you need is a breath mint, you old chimney.
“Sure thing,” she replied instead, because unleashing her inner dialogue would only cause trouble.
“Thanks, dear.” The librarian rose from her creaking chair. She rummaged through the coat across its back for a pack of cigarettes, then headed through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, no doubt on her way to the covered porch near the loading dock where employees took their smoke breaks.
Candice dropped into the chair with a huff and glanced down at the engagement ring on her finger. The fake engagement ring. Most of the library’s unmarried female staff wore similar accessories because, if they didn’t, then they had to put up with patrons who thought it was perfectly acceptable to flirt with librarians and pages on the job. Some of the patrons still did, fake engagement ring or no, but wearing one seemed to reduce the number of incidents.
Candice leaned back for a thoughtful moment. The scarce traffic through the library today probably meant she wouldn’t have to deal with a creeper in the short time it took Esker to smoke a few coffin nails, so she sat forward and grabbed the book stashed underneath the main desk.
Her book. A (vaguely) historical romance titled The Lonely Flower, fourteenth in the long-running Amorous Garden series in which the ever-respectable Lord Captain Damien Upchurch and the wily-yet-lovable Bastian Shank once again dueled with wits, words, and deeds over the heart of Lady Pamela Cranberry.
Candice normally didn’t go for steamy romances—preferring the absurdity of actual history over fiction—but a friend had introduced her to the series a few years ago and she’d been hooked ever since. She pulled the dog-eared tome open at the bookmark and began reading the next chapter.
The front door chimed a few minutes later, and she looked up.
A tall man strode through the glass double doors, impressively broad shouldered, his face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat slick with rain. He took off his hat and shook off the precipitation, revealing a handsome face with piercing gray eyes underneath dark bangs. An aura of poise and confidence encompassed him, as if he knew exactly where he should be, and this was the place.
There was something else about him she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something off about his clothing, though not in a bad way. It was as if someone had taken the wardrobe from every male lead in every recent movie, mashed them all together, and then dressed him in the result. It was almost . . . heroic.
He swept his gaze from one end of the main lobby to the other, and for a moment his eyes met hers. The experience was . . . electric, like a pulse of excitement jolting through her body. The book slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, and she gasped, then scrambled to pick it up.
The tall man approached the desk, and a sense of apprehension filled her. He may have been handsome, but the last thing she needed was a flirtatious creeper pestering her in an almost empty library.
“Good day, ma’am,” he began with a courteous nod. “I was wondering if I could trouble you for some assistance.”
Good grief! she thought, her apprehension melting away. Even his accent makes him sound like he’s been plucked from a movie!
“Wh-w-wah?” For some reason, her tongue had transformed into jelly.
“Is something wrong, ma’am?”
Candice shook her head, trying to banish her sudden awkwardness.
“Fine, fine.” Why does he keep calling me ma’am? Her fake engagement ring drew her eye, and she shoved her hand underneath the desk, then smiled up at the man. “You said you needed something?”
“Yes. I’m working on a research paper and”—he took on an air of bashfulness that somehow made his face even more handsome—“as much as I hate to admit it, it’s been a while since I set foot in a library. I was wondering if you could help point me in the right direction.”
“Sure.” She tried to yank off the ring, but it caught on a knuckle. “What kind of paper are you working on?”
“History class. The topic is 2941, a year in review.”
“The whole year?” Why won’t this thing come off?!
“The whole year.”
“Not a particular event?” Get! Off! My damn! Finger!
“Afraid not.”
Candice let out a frustrated wheeze and pulled at the unwanted engagement ring. The ring slipped over her knuckle, and she winced as the back of her hand slapped against a shelf divider underneath the desk.
“Are you all right?” the man asked with genuine concern.
“Never better!” She smiled at him to mask the pain. “Are we talking about a particular country or worldwide?”
“Worldwide.”
“That seems awfully broad.”
“That’s what the professor gave us. Everyone in the class gets to summarize a different year, and my name landed on 2941.”
“Your professor?” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to the University?”
“That’s right. The current job is fine. It certainly pays the bills, but the passion just isn’t there anymore. So, I thought I’d go back to school. I’ve always had a fascination with history, and I thought why not give that a shot. Maybe even go into teaching.”
Candice’s eyes widened. Not only was this man movie-star-hot, but he apparently held a steady job and he loved history, too?
If this guy’s a creeper, she thought lustfully, then he can creep on me all day long.
“I-I want to teach history someday, too,” she stammered.
“That’s wonderful to hear. A lot of people don’t appreciate the value of learning history. After all, if we don’t know where we’ve come from, then—”
“We’ll keep making the same mistakes,” she finished brightly.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He graced her with a genuine, approving smile.
Oh my gosh! You are too perfect!
“Do you think you could give me a hand with—”
“Absolutely!” Candice sprang to her feet and hurried around the desk. “Let me show you to our history wing. I can even help you get started.”
“Thanks. That sounds like just the thing I need.”
Yes!
“This way, then.” She led him to the nearby stairs, then up two floors. “By the way, I didn’t catch your name, Mister . . . ”
“Please. Call me Benjamin.”