Eternity Gate

by Traci Harding

  ‘Then, keep this to yourselves, and we’ll meet in my conference room in an hour.’ Lucian stood to depart, and looked to Taren. ‘Can I have a quiet word, my dear?’

  She hated when Lucian called her ‘my dear’ as it always meant she had earned his disfavour. ‘In your office?’ she guessed.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ He sounded none too impressed as he led off towards said destination.

  Once inside the captain’s office, the door closed. Lucian sat on his desk, folded his arms and raised his brow in expectation of a confession.

  ‘What can I tell you, it’s the truth.’ Taren held both her palms outwards to appeal her innocence.

  ‘So you are telling me that I learned not only how to teleport and time travel, but how to project my consciousness into a past life incarnation that wasn’t even in this universe?’ He was sure he was being led down the garden path on this one. ‘I know things have been a bit boring on board lately but why pick me to torment?’

  ‘It is because we were playing a waiting game with Khalid at this point of time, that Zeven picked now to return to AMIE,’ Taren stated. ‘I kid you not. During our time on Kila this time around, you even tapped into your eternal memory, and could again, if you’d just let Telmo instruct you. You only need to log back into that memory and get an update, then you’ll know we’re not bullshitting! There is some serious shit going down on Kila. I saw you slain before my eyes not a few hours ago.’ The shock of it came back to haunt; Taren began to physically tremble, and took a seat to stay her nerves.

  ‘You’re not kidding.’ Lucian came to sit beside her on the lounge, sounding rather disappointed to be finally accepting of the idea.

  ‘I wish I were joking,’ she assured him.

  Taren was concerned that if Lucian did obtain total recall of the events in that other universe, he would also recall her pregnancy, which she rather hoped to reverse on the quiet. Wanting a child as he did, Lucian might object.

  ‘That must have been distressing, seeing me killed?’ he allowed, whereupon he was overwhelmed by a hug.

  ‘It will never come to pass. Once we are done, Ji Dan will have a very different end.’ Taren considered that was true in more ways than one. If Hudan refused to marry Ji Dan, she would also have to avoid becoming involved with him once Rhun brought the timekeepers together at Bayan Har Shan — that was going to prove harder than destroying the mind-eater virus.

  ‘If you are bluffing, then you’re a consummate actress,’ Lucian decided, at which point his hug was replaced by a whack to the gut.

  ‘I’m not lying!’ Taren stressed again and stood frustrated to pace about. ‘How many more times am I going to come to you with something like this, which, I might add, always proves to be true, before you will realise this is me you’re talking to and strange situations are bound to just spring up out of nowhere! I thought you’d figured that out before you married me?’

  ‘Ouch!’ Lucian rubbed where she’d hit him. The muscles there were like stone from working out in the gym, so she knew she hadn’t physically hurt him. ‘So this is the way you treat your dearly departed husband, is it?’ He grinned to imply he did believe her.

  ‘So, you’re in then?’ She sat back down, returning his amorous smile.

  ‘I might be persuaded to come on board,’ he suggested, lying back on the lounge and placing his hands behind his head. ‘You’ve got about three-quarters of an hour to win me over.’

  ‘I doubt it will take that long.’ She lay herself face-down on top of him, eager to take up the challenge.

  ‘So, were we lovers in this past life we visited?’ he asked.

  ‘I was a vestal virgin of an ancient order of shamanistic priestesses, and you were a widowed and celibate sage of the royal house of Ji,’ she told him honestly.

  ‘That does not sound very promising,’ Lucian grinned, realising how sex starved his soul mate must have been.

  Taren grinned and shrugged. ‘We have a lot of catching up to do.’ Her kiss conveyed her great eagerness to be compensated.

  ‘I feel more disposed towards your cause already,’ he allowed as Taren raised herself to strip off her clothes.

  ‘The best part is, we have to sit this mission out, you and I.’ She discarded her suit and crawled back on top of him in her underwear.

  ‘I am definitely in,’ he submitted, and Taren laughed.

  ‘That took all of two minutes,’ she claimed victory for the challenge, leaning in close to him to invite another kiss.

  ‘Which means we can spend the remains of the hour far more gainfully …’ Lucian proposed, ‘not talking at all.’

  Zeven arrived in the conference room fifteen minutes early for the meeting, in order to do some preparation. In accordance with the law of three requests, he summoned Lord Avery and his companions forth from the Otherworld to brief them on the plan, which they were all most eager to hear, once Zeven had explained his reasons for delaying the conversation until now.

  ‘It was a smart move,’ Rhun considered, and even Avery had calmed down.

  ‘Are you all familiar with your Grigorian personas?’ Zeven asked.

  ‘Sacha,’ replied Avery.

  ‘Armaros,’ Noah confirmed with a smile.

  ‘Not a clue,’ announced Rhun.

  ‘Penemue,’ all his associates advised at once.

  Rhun was a little taken back by the verbal onslaught. ‘Okay then … thanks for the heads-up.’

  ‘Penemue is important because I need him to prevent Ereshkigal from stealing the seals from cryogenics in the Leviathan,’ Zeven explained.

  Rhun frowned, distressed. ‘I definitely have some homework to do on this one.’

  ‘It’s a very small window of opportunity you are talking about here,’ Noah was concerned. ‘There were only a few hours at most that the virus was actually incubated and contained.’

  ‘I know exactly where I was at the time,’ Zeven pointed out, ‘as Azazèl’s phantom came to see me right after he saw the virus contained in the labs of Ninharsag.’

  ‘I was in the great library with Enki,’ Noah confirmed.

  Zeven looked to Rhun to advise him, ‘Penemue was on the Leviathan.’

  Rhun nodded pleased to have been accounted for, and they all looked to Avery.

  ‘I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ he admitted, and Rhun was doubly pleased to learn he wasn’t the only one with regression work to do.

  ‘Oh, damn.’ The captain entered to see Zeven’s company, which confirmed his prior story beyond a shadow of a doubt. ‘Harrowed to see you gentlemen,’ he explained his reaction, as Taren entered behind her husband and gasped to see their colleagues from another universe inside.

  ‘Best hope that Ringbalin and Mythric are nowhere about.’ She was relieved when the door closed behind her.

  ‘I’ve met my past-life incarnation before and there was no harm done,’ Noah advised.

  ‘I haven’t,’ Rhun obviously felt kind of weird about that.

  ‘Ringbalin doesn’t remember any of that; for him it hasn’t happened yet, and Mythric doesn’t even know about your universe, let alone his place in it.’ Taren frowned. ‘We’d best keep all this on a need to know basis.’

  The door opening behind Taren gave everyone a start, until they saw it was Jazmay and Telmo.

  ‘Even when I’m on time, I’m late,’ Jazmay commented removing her dark glasses, when she saw they had company.

  ‘Gang’s all here,’ Telmo rubbed his palms together.

  ‘And I thought we were going to have a fairly simple, straightforward year this year,’ the captain commented, taking the seat at the end of the conference table as Taren locked the room closed.

  ‘Never mind, we’ll have this done and be out of our way in no time,’ Taren took a seat, and looked at her team mates hopefully. ‘Right guys?’

  Everyone’s perplexed expressions did nothing to reassure Lucian, and he resigned himself to just co-operate. ‘So tell me then, what do you need from AMIE?�
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  Lucian had no qualms with hosting this mission, his only sticking point was getting Leal and Swithin involved.

  ‘Leal, or rather Sariel, was with me at the time in question,’ Zeven explained, ‘it would help a lot to have him consciously cooperating, because even then he was one of our best telepaths and a technological whiz.’

  ‘I see,’ Lucian considered this. ‘What about Swithin?’

  ‘I don’t know where he was placed in all this, only that Bezaliel, his Grigorian counterpart was there,’ Zeven said. ‘I just figured the more Grigori we had on side the better.’

  Lucian frowned. ‘Well, I will not order my crew to comply, but I can have them paged, and you can put the case to them and let them decide for themselves.’

  ‘Good call,’ Zeven gave Lucian the thumbs up, fairly sure that Leal would come on board. He was not so sure about Swithin, however.

  ‘I would also recommend we brief Kassa on all of this, and get her medical assessment of the risk.’ Lucian put forward.

  ‘We’ve done this kind of thing before,’ Taren posed, wanting to get as few of the crew here involved as possible.

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ Rhun pointed out, ‘as you’ve never actually attempted returning to a body you have left behind in an unaltered timeline before, you’ve only jumped into bodies of the timelines you were altering.’

  ‘My head hurts,’ Jazmay complained. In her hungover state she was having difficulty following all the quantum time theory.

  ‘What Rhun is trying to say,’ Telmo pointed out, ‘is that if we misjudge our return, our bodies could shut down, as we are really placing them in a voluntary state of coma.’

  ‘And that being the case,’ Lucian felt his suggestion warranted, ‘I will feel much easier about this with our medical advisor overseeing the proceedings.’

  ‘Are you out of your fucking mind!’ Swithin was strongly opposed. ‘I was born in this universe and here is where I intend to stay!’

  ‘Where is your sense of adventure and discovery?’ Zeven appealed. ‘Isn’t that why you joined the AMIE project in the first place?’

  ‘No,’ Swithin insisted, sharply. ‘I joined AMIE to make money! Which, by the way, I didn’t!’ he reminded the captain, who was also his brother. ‘I didn’t ask to be a psychic space pirate! I think we are already in enough shit, don’t you?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Lucian granted, ‘you can leave.’

  Everyone’s attention turned to Leal, who appeared wide-eyed and rather overwhelmed by the premise also. ‘Sure, I’m in … sounds like a hoot.’

  Kassa, AMIE’s doctor, who was also Leal’s wife, frowned to indicate that she felt her husband was being rather flippant.

  ‘Aww,’ Swithin waved Leal off as an idiot. ‘You’re all insane.’ He moved to leave, and Lucian caught his arm to stop him.

  ‘Not a word of this to anyone,’ the captain instructed.

  Swithin frowned, as if his brother was daft. ‘Who the fuck would believe it?’ He exited the room and the door closed behind him.

  ‘Charming fellow,’ Avery commented dryly.

  ‘And always wasn’t,’ Rhun added to the mirth of those who remembered Caradoc from the dark ages.

  ‘Good to have you on the team,’ Zeven was relieved his co-pilot had agreed.

  Leal shrugged off the decision as simple. ‘It’s not every day you get to work with people from another universe and a being from another dimension,’ Leal grinned — his spirit of adventure was alive and kicking.

  ‘Kassa, what are your thoughts?’ The captain sought her professional opinion.

  ‘I am inclined to agree with Swithin,’ although she was sorry to curb their enthusiasm. ‘What you are doing could be very dangerous.’

  ‘But if you were monitoring their bodies throughout the event, you could minimise that risk?’ Taren pointed out.

  ‘Well yes, but I would still strongly advise against it.’ She looked to her husband, hoping that he would appreciate her judgement and decline.

  ‘I left my body for much longer periods in ancient Zhou,’ Taren informed Kassa.

  ‘How long will the mission itself take?’ the captain queried.

  ‘As far as you are concerned it should be practically instantaneous,’ Telmo estimated, which was a relief to Lucian.

  Kassa was also becoming a little more well disposed. ‘Should it take longer, I have equipment in the medical rooms that could aid to sustain you indefinitely, but if all goes to plan, that should not be required.’

  ‘So you will help us?’ Taren clarified, hopefully.

  ‘Better that than to have you all wake up dead,’ she resigned herself to giving assistance reluctantly.

  ‘What are the chances of us failing to return as planned?’ Leal was looking a little more worried.

  ‘We haven’t failed yet,’ Zeven assured. ‘You just return to the minute you left.’

  ‘Then we head off to our next meeting point,’ Telmo concluded.

  ‘Which will be?’ Lucian was curious.

  ‘We’ll decide that once this first phase of the mission is completed,’ Zeven advised. ‘But rest assured, you shall wake tomorrow morning, and it will be as if none of this drama ever happened.’

  Lucian didn’t appear to quite believe that, or if he did, he felt a little odd about it. ‘Do you need me to do this past life regression?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Taren piped up to say, ‘we are not needed for this phase of the mission, and the you we left behind on Kila remembers everything.’

  ‘The dead me,’ Lucian stated with a good serve of irony.

  ‘The day before we returned here, you were perfectly fine,’ she assured him.

  ‘So,’ Lucian was perplexed by the unfolding paradox, ‘shall I remember the sum total of what we’ve been through in the end?’

  ‘You should do,’ Taren allowed, after thinking it through. ‘A large part of it, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zeven agreed, ‘whether we revisit you on Kila or just meet up with you in ancient Zhou, you should return with memory intact, including this memory, but excluding the past-life regression you did before your untimely death … because Dan got killed, so that memory will be wiped if we go back and change the situation. As we already know what Dan learned from that regression, there is no need to revisit it and expose you — him — to death by Dragonface again.’ He backed Taren up, suspecting why she would rather Lucian remain ignorant to the situation they’d left behind on Kila.

  ‘Well then I guess I should take most of you down to the meditation chamber in module D, and see if we can’t get you remembering the period in question.’ Telmo stood to get them organised. ‘It should only take a few hours to get everyone up to speed.’

  The captain nodded to concur. ‘I’ll seal off access to the recreation module for the day, so the rest of the crew should remain ignorant of your presence here. ‘When you are ready to embark on your quest,’ Lucian ordered, ‘we’ll get you up to the medical quarters where Kassa can monitor the proceedings.’

  ‘Right you are, Captain.’ Telmo gave him the thumbs up. ‘Follow me, all.’ He vanished — Rhun, Avery, Noah and Jazmay followed.

  ‘I feel rather inadequate suddenly,’ Leal commented aside to Zeven.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Zeven grabbed his crew mate’s arm. ‘We’ll have you jumping time and universes in a few hours.’

  Leal appeared a mite concerned about that, as did Kassa, as Zeven vanished with him.

  ‘I’d like to learn how to do that, too.’ Lucian was undecided about foregoing the session in the wake of their departure.

  ‘You will,’ Taren assured him, ‘about a year from now.’

  ‘But don’t you intend to change the event that lands us in another universe?’ He figured he would never end up on Kila.

  ‘True,’ Taren agreed, ‘but the you who will return with us just prior to those event changes will have already been through everything of which we speak.’

  ‘This is making
my brain hurt,’ Kassa frowned as she attempted to wrap her mind around their conversation. ‘Why did you have to pick the hangover day from hell to do this?’

  ‘We all remembered it,’ Taren stated the simple truth.

  ‘We certainly will now.’ Lucian said, still a little perturbed about the whole affair. ‘How can you be so sure this is the right thing to do? That you won’t just create some huge inter-universal time disaster?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Kassa concurred.

  Taren rested her hand against the piece of stone that the timekeepers still residing in this universe at this time wore on their upper arm as protection.

  These amulets had been dubbed Juju stones, as they linked every one of the timekeepers to the entity who was the sum total of the Grigori — their group soul, Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi. The same entity whose exit from their universe they would seek to safely facilitate one year from now, in hopes of preventing their sabbatical in the universe parallel from ever eventuating. The Juju boosted their own psychic power, prevented others from seeking them via psychic means, and linked them energetically to the cause of their highest good.

  ‘When I think about what we are planning,’ Taren answered them both, ‘I feel no pain from the stone, so I can only assume that our oversoul is at peace with our decision.’

  If their intention was not in line with the highest good, the Juju stone let them know by causing their arm to ache. Lucian, who was well aware of this, was placated, as was Kassa to a degree.

  ‘I cannot argue that reasoning,’ Kassa admitted, heading for the door. ‘I’ll be in my office when you need me.’

  Taren was quietly comforted also, and when she considered reworking her last few days in ancient Zhou, there was no protest from the stone either: not that Taren imagined there would be, when she would most likely be setting history back to the way it should have been.

  When they received Telmo’s ‘good to go’ message, Lucian and Taren headed down to the medical chambers to see their team off and await their return.

  ‘My main concern is for Leal to be comfortable doing this and not feel obliged to go on this mission, which is way beyond the call of duty,’ Lucian explained to Taren, as they the entered the medical room where the team were gathered in the waiting area.