by Steve Hertig
Fractime Legend (Part 4)
Steve Hertig
All characters in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2014 Steve Hertig
ISBN 9781310939921
You can connect with other Fractime fans and the author online at Facebook: https://facebook.com/fractime
Version 2.0
This book contains mature content.
Part 4: Legend
"Time is the fire in which we burn."
- Gene Roddenberry
Chapter 33
Prime: 1 Jan 2000
John felt a weight on his chest as someone or something was pulling on his right foot. He struggled to understand incoherent words floating around him through the fog of his hangover. He cautiously opened his left eye as he steadied himself with a hand on the side of his poolside chase lounge. Perched above on the back of the chase, the Orange-Winged Amazon sat intently staring down at him. Cautiously shifting his one-eye gaze downward, the source of the familiar weight on his chest was clear: Angstrom.
"We have got to go, now!"
The words rang inside his head. He was just able to open the other eye to see who was now pulling his foot but a bright South Padre morning sun only silhouetted them. For an instant, he was on his back in the Dodec's singularity containment vessel again. He shuttered. Turning his head away from the intense light, he saw an empty and iceless pool and Jen struggling to sit up in a chase next to him.
"Huh?" he managed to mumble.
"We are leaving," the determined and almost recognizable female voice said just as Angstrom took advantage of the distraction to leap over his head. Barney narrowly escaped less one tail feather that slowly flittered down on John's nose.
"Tye, what's wrong?" Jen asked.
"I do not have time. I am sorry. We are going Minus," she said.
John, his eyes buried in the crook of his elbow, blew at the feather. It flew up then flittered down towards his face again, but he never felt it land.
RefPlane: 31 Mar 2045
The hangover did not help John's disorientation; neither did the fact he was certain his leg muscles now told him he was standing. He cautiously removed his arm from his eyes only to see a Tye staring emphatically at him.
"Sorry Captain," Tye said handing him civilian clothes.
She wore in a formal tunic of sorts that for some reason oddly reminded him of his foster mother. He shook his head. "No plaid this time?" he said noticing he was still wearing swim trunks.
"No. You needed to look professional."
"What's with the swim suit?" he asked thinking this was the first translation that he had not undressed beforehand.
"Agrona!" she said staring at him. "Are you okay?" she asked. "I cannot believe I forgot."
"I'm fine. A bit hung over. It was a great party," he replied slowly.
"Like Mick, the entities have accepted you fully," she said in awe with a puzzled look at his quick-dry trunks.
"Where and when are we?" John asked as he dressed. He had left his sat-chron in Sam and Sara's guest room, and he didn't recognize this room or any of the equipment filling most of the small space.
"Minus, March 2045," Tye said shaking her head as she pressed a hypo to his neck.
John instantly felt much better; he was sure it had been the Irish coffees rather than Guinness.
"What is going on?" John asked. "And where is Jen?"
"Downline is gone, best I can tell, and the rest of this sector's upline fractimes are degenerating at an alarming rate." Tye said solemnly.
"How is that possible?" he asked, growing frightened.
"That is why we're here," she replied.
"Not the Time Corps, I take it," John said.
"I do not think the TC has any involvement at all in these developments," Tye said. She explained she had made transit with Mick and Clare to the Trua Outpost in the early-morning hours of the Prime millennium party when the sector's increased instability became apparent to the Family and TC. Against orders, she barely made it to the Breeze with time enough to make one transit.
The sector's degeneration limited universe-universe transits, as Amhrán could not fully compensate for the instability. They were lucky to have made it to Minus alive. Jen and the rest remained stranded in Prime.
"Why me?" John asked.
Tye just looked at him; he knew her well enough to guess the reason from the look on her face. The inane legend was haunting him again.
"You think the erasure of downline originated in Minus in 2045?" he asked refusing to think more about his specter.
"There's a bigger picture that the family has been interested in for centuries in this sector and especially in Minus," Tye said, "and now you're family, your security clearance has risen significantly."
John looked at her. "So, the reason for protecting Minus is?"
Tye sighed. "I guess we have got a little time, so here is the big picture. In an ancient Minus city near the Danube in fifth-century BC, a Celtic noble woman was given into marriage to form a political alliance. She hoped to consolidate the two largest and powerful tribes of central Europe. But an alien of incredible power intervened into humanity's destiny and fell in love with the woman. The tribal alliance by marriage never happened but her resolve for peace was strong and together, she and the entity ruled for two centuries uniting all the Celts. But they had many enemies."
"Two centuries?" John interrupted her.
"The entity imparted to the woman extraordinary abilities," she replied. "Over time, the entity grew to know humanity and feared for the woman's life. He created a sanctuary for her far from their enemies. From there she consolidated and nurtured her family to protect Earth from more meddling and danger. But the entities kind eventually found their rogue child and banned it from humanity leaving the woman behind in anguish. That woman, called Zuinall, was my ancestor, giver of the living mail and the founder of the Family. John, I am from this fractime, and I am bound to protect it."
John was dumbstruck. "You're not joking."
"No."
"These entities, what do we know about them now?" he asked.
"There is speculation surrounding the entity in early Family archives but nothing entirely conclusive."
"And why are we here now," he asked, running his fingers through his hair.
"We have been observing temporal activity at various levels affecting Minus and the surrounding fractimes for a long time."
"You've been using Prime as an observation post," John surmised. "It needed to be stable, so you modified it as much as necessary, including creating the Star Trek fiction, to keep it that way. So much for an independent fractime and I guess that explains why we didn't have World War III," John said picking up and examining a large Erlenmeyer flask.
"Not to mention the associated post-atomic horrors, mind-control, and corporate quasi-government groups like the Optimum, Eastern Coalition as well as their European counterparts," Tye added.
"I'm not complaining," John said setting the flask on a nearby crate.
"Luckily, Luca just had time to compute an intricate confluence algorithm that produced this moment in history," Tye said.
"A confluence of what?"
"More of a confluence of whom. But there are significant risks."
"What else is new?" John said rhetorically. "Fuck. Do you think groups like the Optimum have Leadership ties?"
Tye did not answer. She did not have to; worry on her face said it all. "We need to talk to the asset assigned to observe the transit monitor," she said. "That monitor with slight modifications should show us
where the Leadership landed in Minus from null space. We will also need to find several others critical to adapting the device given the limited resources currently in Minus."
"Who?" John asked.
"Old friends. Ah, I guess, young friends would be more accurate. But now we are late."
"Where are we?"
"A Princeton physics lab," she replied. "We are attending the '45 regional physics society conference in Jadwin Hall on dark energy interactions with warp-field bubbles. There is a small list of attendees given the current political turmoil, but he should be here," she added, looking over her shoulder heading out of the lab.
John had to move quickly to keep up with Tye as they entered a small auditorium from a rear doorway. Scanning the room, he noted no more than thirty attendees, and most were milling around in clusters of three or four. The conference must be over or on a break, he reasoned. As they walked up to the nearest group of attendees, recognition dawned on him as he spotted long, red braids flowing down the back of a white lab coat.
"Dr. Higgs," Tye called out.
Higgs turned around, but his facial expression was one of caution.
John knew Higgs was a prodigy, but the reality of seeing him as pimply teenager was astounding.
"I'm sorry. Do I know you?" Higgs said.
"Kind of. Tye Brasca." She held out her hand.
Rodney's expression softened as he grasped her hand. John reckoned it was her warm touch characteristic for Family.
"Can we talk," Tye said, "alone?"
"I didn't see your name on the attendees' list," he said looking cautiously at John. "The conference just finished but I can give you the abstracts now and send you the conference vids if I can get your net address."
"My address is down at the moment," Tye explained. "I am sorry to have missed your talk on brief temporal distortions associated with dark energy."
"Are you a Physicist?" he asked, "I don't think I've seen you before, and the society is rather small these days."
"My specialty is more applied physics." Tye looked to John.
John extended his hand. "John Mackinac."
"First Nations?" Higgs asked shaking his hand.
"More likely the bridge and I'm just a geologist," John quipped remembering a substitute teacher in high school insisting he was a local Menominee.
"I am sure Dr. Mackinac is being modest," Tye said.
"Nice to meet you," Rodney said shaking John's hand. "Some of my best friends are earth scientists and First Nations. Lots of serious environmental issues affecting the world at the moment," he added.
John nodded agreement.
"A moment in private, please Doctor," Tye said.
"No problem. And it's just Rodney," he said and then led them to the nearby and now empty visualization space that had been reserved for conference presentations.
Tye took a deep breath. "Rodney, John is from an adjacent parallel universe, and I am from your future. We are here to save everything, everyone from imminent destruction, and we need your help."
Rodney looked at John and then back to Tye. He got halfway through a broad smile then caught himself. "You're not joking are you?"
John and Tye shook their heads in unison.
"I'll need some kind of proof, obviously," he said through a coy smile and with both hands on his hips.
Tye leaned closely against him to whisper into his ear. John could not hear her, but she took her time in whatever she was saying, so John feigned interest in the old visualization center equipment. When she was done, she kissed Rodney on the forehead.
"Holy shit," Rodney said softly.
"I will fill you in on the rest later," Tye said to him, "but first we have to find someone with the apparatus you will need. Is that okay, Rodney?"
"Sure. Of course," he said obviously still shaken up by what Tye had confided to him.
The emerald cloak appeared around Tye as her suit disappeared. "Amhrán will take us there. Intra-universe translations within Minus are still possible," she told John.
"Minus?" Rodney said.
"What we call your fractime or universe," John said.
"Kind of a negative connotation, don't you think," he replied.
"Not my idea," John said, "and I've heard the complaint before."
"Ah, there is one other thing," Tye said to Rodney. "You will need to give John all your clothes."
John was fascinated surveying their new surroundings as he handed Rodney back his clothes. It was obvious they were in a well-lit cave, but no light source was apparent; this incongruity sent an involuntary shiver down his spine. The space was large, several meters in diameter with two opposing openings.
He knelt down to get a look at the rock under foot; a cool breeze flowed over his face near floor level. The cave formed in what seemed to be mostly fine-grained, quartz sandstone. Unusual for a cave, as most were limestone, easily formed by acidic ground water. Swirls of shale and silt highlighted intricate folded patterns in both the floor and walls. He identified several fossil specimens on the closest wall: Calimities, Lepidodendron and Sigillaria; all Carboniferious aged plant remains.
"No hand lens, Doc?" a voice said behind him.
"My Lupe 10x would be nice," John said turning around. His brain needed an extra couple of seconds to recognize the person. A young, bald Jennifer Scott was giving Tye a hug.
"Rodney," Tye said, "this is Jennifer Scott. John you two sort of know each other."
"Good to meet you Rodney," Jennifer said, "And Tye speaks highly of you," Jennifer said with a wink to John. "And he is kind of handsome for an oldie," she added with a coy smile.
"Thanks," John said trying to not to stare at a Jennifer Scott now in her late teens; he failed, not able to take his eyes from her hairless head.
"Welcome to the Pruchlais," Tye said, "the Family's sanctuary."
"So I'm guessing, you are the Family asset," John said to Jennifer.
"And I'm guessing you are the legendary earth scientist," she quipped sarcastically, "here to save our universe."
"Thanks for the reminder," he said sullenly. She was all Scott.
Rodney cleared his throat as he finished dressing. "Tye says we are running out of time. So, maybe we should take a look at this universe transit monitor?"
Jennifer led them through passageways adorned with Celtic symbols and statuary relief-carved in to the sandstone walls. Numerous side passages suggested a large subterranean complex.
John pointed to a string of marks below a statue of what looked like a warrior queen. "I'm not familiar with these symbols; they don't appear to be Celtic."
Tye knelt and rubbed her hand reverently over the groups lines carved on the wall below the sandstone relief carving. "This is our first queen, Zuinall," Tye said referring to the statue. "The symbols are Ogham, ancient Celtic."
"They supposedly translate as 'knowledge'," Jennifer added.
Tye explained as they walked, "Since its initial construction the Pruchlais has undergone significant enlargement owing to several major Family missions over the centuries."
"Where is everyone?" Rodney asked.
Jennifer looked over her shoulder at Rodney. "A forced recall," she said. "Thankfully from which non-Family seems to be exempt," she added with a glanced at Tye.
"Any word from Micah?" Tye asked Jennifer.
"Flint's buggered off or recalled. I don't know which," Jennifer said tersely as they entered a large room. A bench surrounded by equipment, conduits, and cables filled the center of the space. "It's just us," she said and then added looking around cautiously, "Mostly."
"Wow," Rodney said softly as he surveyed all the apparatus surrounding them.
"Where are we?" John asked, recalling the Carboniferous strata that surrounded them.
"Good question," Rodney added.
"Deep beneath the Ouachita Mountains, south of Tulsa," Tye said.
John nodded knowing that would explain the 300 million year old rocks surrounding the cave as well as
the folding in the sandstone.
"The Pruchlais," Tye continued, "has no surface entrance. The only way in is by translation using Amhrán or Turas Luath. Even the Time Corps would have huge difficulty entering here."
"The monitor is over here," Jennifer said pointing to a small object hardwired to a standard pad on the bench.
Rodney picked up and stared at the pad, and then gave it a gentle shake. "No eye capture?"
"It's touch only," Jennifer replied.
Tye took the pad out of his hand with a smile, activated its holo display and then brushed the resulting three-dimensional screen.
"You won't like it," Jennifer said.
Tye sighed, "You're right. Luca feared the instability would hinder data capture."
"That's good news, right?" John asked. "This means the bad guys are close to our time frame in order to disrupt the fractime."
Jennifer looked at him with a subtle sigh. "Transit monitors don't work that way," she said. "The bad guys could be anywhere, any when."
"Exactly who are these bad guys?" Rodney asked.
"Good question," John said with nod to him.
Jennifer glanced at Tye. "I'd better get coffee," she said leaving through one of the several openings in the room.
John stared after her. Hairless was definitely a different look.
Tye slid onto a stool next to the bench. John and Rodney followed suit.
"As you know," she said looking at Rodney, "the United Nations is now disbanded. The US suspended its constitution; not to mention the Optimum has grown stronger by the addition of several European countries, including Great Britain.
"The Eastern Alliance or EA, now not only includes China but other Asian and Middle Eastern states. And although not official until 2053 by historical accounts, World War III has by many measures already started."
"I know the Optimum was ecologically focused in the early days, but not much else," John said.
"As usual the winners wrote history, if you could call anyone a winner of this war," Tye said. "The Optimum is responsible for starting this war. Nuking twenty-five of their own US cities to force the population to blame the EA and unite under the Optimum's storm trooper banner."
"Fuckers!" Rodney said in disbelief.
"The fractime instability," John asked Tye, "could it be caused by the Leadership intrusion into Minus? A symptom of a paradox."
"Luca gave that possibility a greater than 90 percent chance of occurring," Tye said. "However, the events of Minus are linked to a future, the Family's future, and that cannot be changed."
"How would you know?" John asked.
Tye began to speak but stopped herself.
"This Leadership?" Rodney injected.
John looked into the opening that Jennifer had disappeared through wishing for coffee as Tye's stimulant was starting to wear off. "The Leadership is composed of human collaborators to an ancient machine-ship, whose sole purpose was the destruction of all things organic," he explained. "They led the war effort fought for millennia through the multiverse. This war was stopped recently when we reversed of Earth's magnetic poles in my adjacent fractime that cut off any access from upline."
"You reversed the Earth's magnetic poles?" Rodney said skeptically.
"It was not a simple undertaking," Tye said as Jennifer arrived back with coffee for all.
John was tired, and the coffee smelled incredible. "The machine hid between fractimes and operated large-scale transit centers to amass human slaves and transport Leadership back and forth from a multitude of fractimes," he said. "So, it seems likely a few could be here now."
"Kind of a big coincidence your war and World War III converging here," Rodney said rubbing his chin. "And, I guess, these outside intrusions would create instability in this universe."
"And during extreme instability," John added thinking of the TIA again, "temporal loops, what you normally would call a paradox, only they aren't, are formed."
"Such loops as are the death throes of time. A symptom of time amok," Jennifer added solemnly.
"But we are now dealing with much worse," Tye said worriedly, "the ongoing, wholesale collapse of this entire sector's multi-universes. If Minus goes so goes the sector and perhaps beyond. We have to find and eliminate the cause. Those are our only options."
"We're going to need guns," John said more to himself than anyone else.
Rodney looked to Tye. "How are we going to find them? The transit monitor is not functioning."
"We need more power to boost the space-time envelope monitored," Tye said.
"I suppose you have a plan," John said with a smirk.
Tye asked Jennifer, "Can you get cold-weather gear for John and me out of storage, please? And two hemp robes."
"And guns," John added.
"Just the organic sub-zero stuff and subaqueous breathers," Tye clarified. "Our objective is the Arctic," Tye said. "Jennifer, you and Rodney are off mission. Continue to brief him on the overall situation. And Rodney, prepare for modifications to the transit monitor with a dual-energy conduit capable of flowing ten to the twelfth joules at your dark-energy feedback constant velocity. If all goes well we be back shortly."
"Shortly?" Jennifer asked.
"Because of the high degree of instability," Tye explained, "Amhrán is on the mission clock. We now have to account for duration."