The idiot stopped moving, and Shaun ceased firing to admire the handiwork of his first kill. He was disappointed to see that there was barely any blood. Now that Shaun thought of it, it was strange that the person didn't react at all to the volley of bullets. If he didn't know any better, the only conclusion would be that all of his shots missed. That was impossible, he was a great shot, he practised every night. Shaun had heard that some people don't even realise they've been shot until several moments after, shock or something, maybe that's what this person was experiencing. The figure — he was still unsure if it were male or female — didn't appear to be too encumbered by the bullet wounds he or she had suffered, as the student was now running towards him at quite a speed. His surprise at this turn of events and the apparent lunacy of the student caused him to laugh unexpectedly. He levelled the rifle at the student and released another barrage, but was instantly confused when his irrefutable direct hits had no effect at all. Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result was a symptom of insanity, and if any more evidence were needed, Shaun kept right on shooting at the body charging towards him, never achieving that contrary response. Some of the bullets must have caught a section of metal on the student's clothing as he thought he felt a bullet ricochet in his direction, narrowly missing his head. Is this shithead wearing body armour, Shaun pondered as the student ran directly into him, taking him off his feet and displacing them two feet off the ground. In the short time that he had the girl in front of him, he noticed that she was pretty and imagined she would no doubt be one of them, the ones that liked to belittle him, but then her eyes began to glow red and her face blurred like a pixelated video stream. Shaun's last thought before his skull made contact with the ground was those jerks are never going to let me hear the end of this.
∆ ∆ ∆
Spencer managed to slip away after leaving Shaun's unconscious body on the tarmac, ducking behind a car. She stayed low and snuck her android avatar back into her mother’s car, keeping out of sight behind the dash. Spencer had no problems remaining covert as the guards were more concerned with the unconscious young man and his rifle. She breathed a sigh of relief that the rescue had been successful. Spencer could have used the nanobots that the android carried within its chest panel to render the youth unconscious before he even got out of his car, but the guards needed to see his intentions; otherwise, he might have tried again in future. Instead, she'd used most of the nanobots to spread out and search the parking area for any suspicious activity, the news report had shown images of the boy using the front entrance after gunning the guards down, so she knew where to start looking. Once the bots had spotted the student in his car, and Spencer was able to identify the shooter, they hovered at his location, ready to render him unconscious should the need arise. The remainder of the nanobots were supplying a face to her current form. The android's body was completely covered in clothing, and the hood obscured the head, but to pass closer scrutiny, the faceplate of the android had a layer of nanobots to give the illusion of a human visage. The body beneath was as bulletproof as it could get. The team had edited the SARA schematics for the chassis plates, changing their construction material to diamond. This had been easy enough to achieve after Simon had written new software to work hand in hand with the SARA’s current firmware.
Spencer waited until the boy had been carried away and no one remained in the car park before starting the engine and pulling out. She left the school premises and headed back to her portal, sending a return code to the teleporter on arrival at the storage unit. The hoops were fitted with a thumb plate, set to recognise the prints of the PRE-Innovations team, so only they could operate them. Since androids have no thumbprints, this new model was automatically issued with a return code before her outward journey, for use on the return trip. She was surprised to find that the hoop reported that the return code was invalid and assumed there must have been a bug in the transmission. After making a second attempt, still to no avail, an explanation emerged in her mind. She had changed the future. She had stopped the shooter, and no one had been hurt, this had caused her previous reality to be deleted, or at least superseded by this new one. In this timeline, she would have had no reason for taking the droid, since the shooting attempt had been foiled and there was no rescue to perform, so no return code was registered at HQ. Her android still had the code from her deleted reality, but there was no record of it here. The droid was now a part of this new timeline, leaving her with no way of getting it back to her previous reality. This would be the first time that anyone in the group had physically travelled back in time using an android, she had been so intent on changing the past that she hadn’t stopped to think of the consequences. Consequences like being stuck in a reality that’s not your own. If she had arrived here in her own body, her thumbprint would have allowed her into any subsequent timeline since it would remain the same no matter how she changed the past; she cursed her non-biological body.
There was one thing that she didn’t yet understand; if her previous reality had been replaced, how was she still functioning? Her body was still in her original reality, controlling the android here in this new reality. She theorised that the digital connection between her mind and the android had never been severed, unlike the portal connection, which had closed once she had stepped through. It scuppered their theory on deleted timelines, however, as her original timeline was still in existence, on another plane, since the droid was still receiving the transmission. This was valuable information that she knew she had to tell the others, she just didn’t yet know how. She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. This digital stream of her consciousness was still in effect, which meant that her reality’s Simon was still waiting for her to come home. Before this new revelation had revealed itself Spencer had presumed that, when she returned to her own time, she would tell Simon to disconnect her from the android and she would be back to her own body. Now there was no way for her to let Simon know he had to break the connection. Eventually, when she didn’t return, Simon would begin to worry, he would shut the connection down, and her mind would return to her original timeline. Spencer realised that she wasn’t entirely stranded here after all and relaxed a little. It was now just a question of how long it would take Simon to decide Spencer had been away long enough. That might take some time. He might think that she was engaging in important work, and bringing her back would put that work in jeopardy, she’d given him every reason to think so when she forced him into allowing her to take the prototype droid. She had no other choice but to wait.
Chapter 51
PRE-Innovations assembled a meeting to discuss the next stage of their strategy. They knew that their continuing work would be an easy ride once they had this next step checked off their list, so they decided to make it their top priority. There had been one naysayer in an otherwise unanimous vote, Victor, who had wanted to spend a lifetime learning hand to hand combat and ranged weapon techniques before sending the knowledge back to himself in the present.
“Okay, I’ll concede," Victor said. “Would have been nice, though. We have the resources of Bruce Wayne, who knows what I could have achieved. I would have loved to spend some time with the monks, learning the skills.”
“I’m not sure that the League of Assassins is a real thing, hun," Sarah responded.
“I’ll find something, somewhere. A Shaolin monastery maybe.”
“What about us?” Jules asked. “Can you spend a lifetime away from us?”
“You can come with me, we can come back to where we left off once I’m a super ninja.”
“I’m not sure you understand the life of a monk, Dad," James said.
“All joking aside, I don’t think I could stay away a lifetime, even knowing that I’d have many other lives to follow.”
“Maybe we can find you a course that’s a little less intense and all-consuming," Sarah said. “A little bit here and there in each loop.”
“I’ll never be a
Dark Knight like that.”
“It depends how many loops you go through, accumulatively it could add up to a full lifetime, and your memory is eidetic.”
“You have a good point.” He thought for a moment. “Another way would be to decipher the consciousness inside a backup, we could pick out individual skills and implant them into the minds of others.”
“I think we’re still a long way from decoding that," Simon said. “I’ve experimented here and there, but I’m still none the wiser.”
“Experimented how?” James asked.
“Well, just simple tests so far, I’ve compared two of my backups, before and after learning something new, trying to make sense of the changes in the data. The quantum computer can see the new information, pick out the changes and isolate them, but your brain processes many different trains of thought at once, we can’t pick out individual subjects. The smaller data packages in the updates are easier to sift through, but it’s like decrypting Enigma times a million.”
“Leaving the family it is then," Victor said.
“Hey!” Three voices complained in unison.
“Well, it’s not like I’d actually be leaving, that’s not how works for us, is it? I’d just take a note of the time, go over to the computer and there are my ninja skills.”
“That’s true, but there’d be an alternate universe where you did leave," Sarah said.
“But we never experience that ourselves, do we?”
“Wouldn’t that be taking advantage of yourself in a way? Making another version of yourself do all the work for you?”
“He would be deleted, so he wouldn’t care.”
“We aren’t entirely certain that that’s the way it works yet," Simon interjected. “Maybe deleted is the wrong term, since we know that the reality still exists to the point it’s changed, like a dead end. We know that for sure because we managed to retrieve your backups from Stan’s reality.”
“That is true," Beth said. “If we got that part wrong, what else might we have gotten wrong?”
“Are you feeling okay, Spencer?” Jules interjected, "you look like you’ve seen a ghost".
The rest of the team looked to Spencer.
“She’s right, Spence," Sarah said. “You’re all flushed and sweaty. Are you feeling OK?”
“Am I? I suppose I am feeling a little under the weather. Maybe it’s something I ate.”
“Do you want to go home? We can manage?” Simon said.
“And miss this momentous occasion? Not likely. Maybe once we’re done.”
“Okay, then let’s get underway, so we’re done before you feel any worse.”
“Excellent," Zack said, the member of the group most eager to get things back on track, his dreams were about to become a reality. “Let’s make a note of the time so we can get this ship into space.”
“Righty-ho," Simon said, tapping keys. The video conferencing software began to jingle, and the call was answered.
The video stream revealed an image of the whole group, gathered around one camera, looking no different to their present selves, besides the change of clothes.
“Hey there.” Older Victor said. “It took us some time, as you can see in our tired old faces.” He laughed. “Seriously though, the teleportation hoops work wonders. No surgery needed.”
Zack took centre-screen, getting directly to the point. “We’ve decided to take some more of the burden off your shoulders.”
“Yeah, since you’ve had so much to do and we had a spare thirty or forty years.” Older Jules said from the right edge of the screen. She did, in fact, look older, but not due to changes in her biology, there was something behind her eyes indicating the wisdom of experience.
“We finished the FTL craft, but we’re not going to give you the specs," Zack said.
The team from the present timeline looked to each other, some in panic — especially Zack — others thinking they had another Stan situation on their hands. Their attention was drawn back to the screen as Older Zack continued.
“Whoa, it’s okay," he said, sensing their shock, even via the digital medium. “I meant that we’re going to be sending you the craft itself, through your extra large teleporter. It should save you a few days of construction.”
The present-day group visibly relaxed.
“We could have sent you the specs, but we’ve placed them in the databanks of the craft itself, so they don’t spoil the surprise.”
“That does sound like a better idea.” Present Zack said with a grin.
“I thought you’d like it.” His older self replied, superfluously.
Androids had hollowed out a large underground car park beneath HQ, the SARA had made excavating the space much more straightforward, modified devices removed cube-shaped blocks from the earth and recycled them for reuse later. Observing the task gave the impression that the androids were in the world of Minecraft, creating space block by block. When they ceased burrowing, and the space was securely even, they added several portals in varying sizes, a pair of standard hoops for personal use, two for cars, one of transit van proportions and another large enough to allow an HGV to pass through. The two car-sized portals had been pre-paired with Zack and Spencer’s portals in the US, saving Simon the need to connect their transfers, but they could still be temporarily paired to other portals should the need arise.
“Will the craft fit through the HGV portal?” Victor asked.
“Transit size should be enough.” Older Zack said.
“Oh. I was expecting something as large as the Enterprise originally, then I thought it would be something a little smaller, but I didn’t expect it to be Viper size.”
“Well, we realised quite early that we don’t need anything large, just something to fit an android pilot, the engine, instrumentation and a personal sized portal.” Older Simon informed them. “With the android pilot, we save space and energy on life support. There are no computer panels, the craft communicates directly with the android. If we decide to mind-control the android pilot, we will see virtual display panels. Also, we can launch it under the guise of a company personal satellite.”
“Why have an android pilot at all if it’s automated?” Victor asked.
“Well, once we find a suitable planet, we’ll need the android to explore, take samples and test the atmosphere, then it will need to set up the portal on the ground so we — or you — can travel there.” Older Zack replied.
“It’s a little bit disappointing that there’s going to be no manned space travel after all," James said.
“There are several cameras placed around the body of the craft, we can take in the sights at any time, without having to leave earth.” Older Simon said. “We just decided that it was extraneous to our plans in this instance, it is the destination that’s that’s important, not the journey. We could have created a much larger craft that allowed us to teleport onboard and back home at will during its journey, but it seemed like a personal extravagance.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” James said “I’m psyched for the whole thing, I just pictured all eight of us in Starfleet uniforms wandering around a ship that has its own bar. I know that’s all fantasy. I still want to get started right now.”
“Okay then,” Future Zack said. “Once we send the craft through, we will cease to exist, since your future will be changed. So we also stored our mind backups on the craft databanks, we have a lower capacity version of the yottabyte drive in there, it’s enough to store our minds.”
“Okay then," Victor said. “Let’s move this party to the basement and see what you have for us.”
Chapter 52
The group were gathered around the basement transit portal.
“You know,” Victor said. “Exciting as the FTL spacecraft is, I think I’m just as excited about meeting my future self in the flesh, this is going to be so epically strange.”
“I have to agree," Sarah said. “This is going to be awesome in a lot of ways.”
James brought a t
ablet, so the video conference could continue. The future version of the team was busy with preparations for the craft’s transfer through the hoop, when all was ready they re-entered frame.
“Are you ready to receive us?” Older Victor asked.
“Ready as we’ll ever be.” His present counterpart replied.
“Okay, sending the request for pairing.”
“Right on.” Present James said before accepting the pairing request from the future.
The teleportation hoop began to spin, and the aperture grew smaller and smaller until the surface was complete.
“Coming through now.” Older Simon’s voice called, far from the microphone, no one was currently in-frame.
The back end of a trailer began to emerge from the surface pool of the portal. The progress was slow as the vehicle tested the limits of the hoop’s diameter, the receiving party speculated on whether the HGV portal should have been used after all. Regardless, the trailer made it through without a scrape, stopping just before the coupling breached the surface.
“We just finished unhooking the trailer, if you want to give it a bit of a yank from back there,” Older Sarah instructed via the tablet stream.
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