Moving Earth

by Dean C. Moore

  Satellite, who had retreated along with the rest of Alpha Unit far enough away on the transparent catwalk spanning the skyscrapers—that as far as Leon could tell, extended from one end of the city to the other—to get an improved vantage, scurried back as ears pricked. “According to Mother, Sonny has found clear evidence that the Dead Zone’s Lucky Streak space station has at least 5 TGCs or TGEs on its radar in this universe alone.”

  “How do you avoid confrontation with them once getting on their radar?” Leon asked the old man with a level of urgency that his combat training should have suppressed for fear of giving away too much.

  “We can manipulate the quantum realm to make us little more than a mirage for them,” the old man explained. “Every time they come hunting, they realize they’ve been had. The mirage has simply moved relative to where they thought our civilization existed.”

  “You think we could borrow that tech?” Leon asked.

  The old man smiled. “You would need someone like your Sonny to pirate it away from under our very noses, I’m afraid. He would be only too happy to, I’m sure, to increase your indebtedness to him. But it’s strictly against our laws. We simply do not intervene in affairs that do not concern us.”

  Leon groaned. He knew of Sonny in the other Leon’s reality aboard the Nautilus, of course, but had never met him. “A bit callous for people who have evolved this far.”

  “We think of it more as not coddling. If our policy were different, your evolution would slow. The primitives, particularly, do better evolving out of life crises than out of more comfortable circumstances.”

  While Leon couldn’t fault his logic, it didn’t stop him from wanting to strangle him and his jovial attitude, bordering on indifference to their fate.

  Leon and entourage were clearly being managed on several levels. The old man looked like the wizard Gandolf from The Lord of the Rings, the image and persona perhaps plucked from their heads to help calm them. Primitives, after all, went in for a certain amount of magic. Leon surmised he was little more than the city’s avatar that greeted all visitors. He gazed up to one of the levels above, where another wizardly type, complete with robes and magical walking staff, greeted other newbies to the city beaming in, materializing a split second after they did, confirming Leon’s theory. Perhaps, considering the surfeit of space archeologists the city sported, many portals had been left on worlds with “primitives” to facilitate these encounters. It was a strange approach to take for a civilization with a non-intervention policy. Maybe you were allowed to take away only what you could infer on your own from their existence.

  “Any chance we can evolve that space mirage tech for ourselves?” Leon asked, returning his attention to Gando. He noticed the Alpha Unit teens, still soaking everything in, couldn’t be bothered to react to anything the old man was saying, though it was doubtful they were out of earshot.

  Gando shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to find another way. The Nautilus, as impressive as she is, especially for a Sol civilization, couldn’t possibly send ripples through the divine ground sufficient enough to protect herself and the Earth and its moon.”

  “Maybe…” Leon didn’t articulate the rest.

  “You’re wondering if Solo can do it,” Gando said. “How our space archeologists would love to get our hands on him. He alone, no, but possibly making the most of the fourth brain, as you refer to it, to the synergy of minds aboard the Nautilus…and…the question is, can you come up with the solution in time?”

  “And…?” Leon asked.

  “I’ve already said too much. Even if I revealed more, the city AI would erase your minds’ ability to recall this encounter at all, and that goes for your devices. It can even reach through to the Nautilus and beyond—anywhere your teens have already forwarded this information.” Gando craned his head to the Alpha Unit teens and winked. “They are most impressive, again for a Sol civilization. Even now they’re hacking their way, like burrowing ticks, into the city AI. She is amused by them, but they shouldn’t get their hopes up.”

  “Can I throw him over the edge now?” Cassandra asked Leon, perfectly serious. “He has outlived his usefulness.”

  Gando just smiled at her. Not feeling the least threatened, judging by his expression and body language. But then he was old; old people of any race tended to view mortality with a bit more detachment than most, maybe even old avatars.

  “The other TGCs,” Leon said, addressing the old man and ignoring Cassandra, “Might we receive help from one of them?”

  “The multiverse is big, and if I read Satellite’s mind and his device correctly, Sonny is already working on procuring you a scanner that can find TGCs and TGEs throughout the entire multiverse. With time, you might well find one that will intercede on your behalf. But you should be warned that politics on our level is even uglier. I doubt even Sonny could swim upstream of it, but he would have the best chance. If only you had the time and the luxury.”

  “So,” Leon said, his eyes falling away from Gando, “The Kang Dynasty cannot do much with TGCs or even TGEs, depending on the nature of their cloaking mechanisms, but it can gobble up smaller entities, like Sol systems, engage with them for sport.”

  “Your best defense might be a good offense,” the old man said. “Might I suggest you find another GE for them to knock heads with, one that won’t run and hide, but be all too happy to duke it out with them, as it were.”

  Leon nodded his head. “The thought had occurred to me. But there’s the element of time, as you said.”

  Gando nodded to Satellite, Skyhawk, and Ariel. “Some minds are every bit as good at tunneling through time as our latest tech. I hold out hope for you.”

  “And if we perish as a race, how will your space archeologists benefit from that?” Leon said, bristling.

  “Oh, we can move freely through time. It won’t even slow down their research. It might even hasten it now that you’ve gotten on our radar. There’s nothing those fellas like more than a dead civilization to uproot in time.”

  Leon fought to hold Cassandra back, but he shared her sentiments right now. Besides, why start a fight you can’t possibly win?

  “If this is a dead end,” Cassandra said, breaking free of Leon’s hold, “we should get going.”

  “Not yet,” Leon said. “Maybe we can learn something from those space archeologists we’ve been invited to meet.”

  The old man smiled. “I see why Sonny likes you. Hopeless situations do not deter you. I wish you the best of luck bleeding the city AI for secrets it doesn’t wish to give up.” He bleeped out as if he were just a hologram or a mirage to begin with, as Leon surmised.

  “Patent!” Leon snapped, rubbing the pressure points where his nose met his forehead. “What have you and your teens got for me?”

  All four of them double-timed it back to his position, exchanging roosts with Omega Force who worked to establish a perimeter, standing at the ready to fight off Techa knows what. Leon couldn’t blame them; it was better than standing around looking stupid.

  “I’ve gotten the Soma City AI to agree to teleport us anywhere we’d like to go in the city,” Satellite explained.

  “I recommend we visit those space archeologists first,” Ariel interjected. “There may well be civilizations the Kang have conquered. We may learn from the space archeologists how they fell, and how we can prevent the same thing from happening to us.”

  “And what about trafficking in forbidden information?” Leon asked testily. “Specifically getting what’s useful back to my clone on the Nautilus.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Skyhawk replied. “I’ve already found a few loopholes. It appears that insights we arrive at on our own and capitalize upon with our own reasoning does not qualify for information blocking. We just can’t avail ourselves of any cheats, such as making away with superior tech—at least for now. Give me time.”

  Patent squeezed Skyhawk’s shoulder affectionately. Skyhawk winced in pain. “I really wish
you’d be a little less fond of me, sir. I like my chances of survival better.” He shoved the display in his hand in Leon’s face.

  “What am I looking at?” Leon asked.

  “Oh, sorry, forgot for a moment you were a tech-moron.”

  Patent squeezed a little less affectionately on the boy’s shoulder to impart his zero tolerance for disrespect headed Leon’s way.

  “Urgh,” Skyhawk groaned. “It’s a grand unified theory Earth’s scientists started working on circa 2018 or so, suggesting that gravity and time aren’t real. The idea is that both gravity and the weak-electromagnetic affect could be explained entirely in terms of quantum dynamics. And according to this theory, dark matter itself is not actually dark matter, and there’s no need to account for it.”

  “I think what the kid is telling you, Leon,” Patent interjected, “is that he’s already got the beginnings of an answer for how to apply the Syntha TGC cloaking technology to our situation.”

  “Yes, well, small disclaimer,” Skyhawk said, “by the time I work out the calculations for how we can possibly channel that much power without blowing ourselves to bits—and before the enemy can blow us to bits—we might well be on to our next transgalactic war—assuming, of course, we survive this one.”

  “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Skyhawk,” Leon said. “An easier, more doable solution might prevent itself, but you won’t find it if you’re all in on that one.”

  Leon sighed and pinched the pressure point at the ridge of his nose again. The tension migraine was mounting. “To Cassandra’s point, time’s a wasting,” Leon said. “Get us to these space archeologists.”

  Satellite put through the teleportation request and they were gone.

  To somewhere else in Soma City.

  ***

  “Whoa!” Satellite, his face buried in his scanner, jumped back, the instant the group materialized, and he got a little too up close and personal for his taste with the space archeologists of Soma.

  Cronos smiled. “Theta Team would love these guys.”

  Leon noticed that Soma’s space archeologists could indeed pass for Theta Team operatives in a pinch—their biomodifications were so extreme.

  “A pleasure,” their leader said, extending his hand. “I’m Tortos. We’ve been expecting you. I understand you have some questions for us.”

  Leon was still getting used to living in AI- and nano-saturated worlds himself, in which thoughts were never entirely one’s own, and conversations assumed to be private were anything but. The one greeting him looked like he might pass for a Ninja Turtle—sans the shell, of course. He was every bit as green, muscle endowed, big-mouthed, big-eyed, his voice a bit croaky. Maybe a mix of frog and turtle genes could have procured him—if his particular genetic cocktail had been stirred together on Earth.

  “We’ve done what we can to adjust the atmosphere and gravity in here so you’re more comfortable. We want to encourage you to stay as long as possible, of course.”

  “So you can pick our brains, no doubt,” Ajax said, speaking with the residual testiness of earlier. “Don’t know if you’ve heard, pal, but weak people revenge, strong people forgive, intelligent people ignore.”

  Tortos smiled at him. “Yes, we’re particularly curious to study your adages, sense of humor, and penchant for laughing in the face of adversity. I believe a proper reply for you would be, “When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you’ll have more opportunities.”

  Ajax frowned. “Touché, but not all that funny. Better for a smiley face like you is, ‘Be Happy. It drives people crazy.’” Ajax paced and tried to quiet himself. His timing was good because Cassandra was about to knock him unconscious. Leon wasn’t far behind; he should have known better than to intervene in a potentially ticklish diplomatic situation.

  “I’m afraid we came to pump you for information,” Leon said. “We don’t really have time for you to bleed the turnips of our relatively small minds.”

  Tortos waved him off dismissively. “We’ve already downloaded everything there is to download from your minds, your scanners, and from the Nautilus. We have plenty to study. Go right ahead with your questions.”

  “Which civilizations have you encountered that didn’t survive the Kang, and why?” Leon asked, noticing the other scientists—each of an even fiercer variety of bio-enhanced humanoid—flinched at the mention of the name.

  “Yes, well, perhaps better if you didn’t know. Seems downright unsporting to dump all that on you. You have enough of an uphill climb.”

  “He’s not doing half bad with the adages,” Ajax mumbled, gritting his teeth from the looks of his bulging jaw muscles.

  “We’re a glutton for punishment,” Crumley said, responding to Tortos. “Feel free to pile on. You can never have enough suffering to carry about with shoulders like mine.”

  Tortos continued to take an obscene delight in their very presence, as if he’d dug them up out of the ground himself and found that after winding them up, they were no end of fun.

  “Come this way, please,” he said, sobering a bit, but not much. He led them past his fellow scientists that Omega Force eyed warily, refusing to drop their guard.

  Patent noticed one of the scientists getting good and drunk and decided to make friends. He spied his favorite whiskey, which the archeologist must have pulled out of his mind. “Studying how more primitive types got good and wasted, are you?” Patent took up a seat beside him. “Might I join you?”

  “Please, even for such as I, it’s terrible to drink alone.” He held up one of the samples he’d just whipped up from the DNA evidence in the fossil record, from another class of humanoid, “though I must say, this gives being alone new meaning.”

  Patent had already grabbed his favorite bottle of whiskey, 1964 The Glenlivet ‘The Winchester Collection’ 50 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whiskey, Speyside, Scotland (750ml)—he kept reading the label over and over and trying to get his brain to accept the truth—which retailed on Earth as early as 2018 for $30,000.00. The thought of setting it down for the alien grog tore him up inside. He just knew these people had better food synthesizers than Mother had; it stood to reason. But when in Rome… He set the whiskey aside to entertain the prospect of this alien brew in the name of blossoming TGC relations.

  The Alpha Unit teens broke away from the pack a few more strides in to the depths of the space archeologists’ live-work space, getting lost in one of the excavation projects involving “arcane technology” from a long perished civilization. They jumped right into the puzzle solving of how to put the pieces back together and make the tech work again. The young space archeologists recognized like minds, even across generations, cultures, and TGCs, and didn’t miss a beat making room for them in their party.

  As Leon and what was left of Omega Force by his side receded further into the cave-like interiors of these humanoids—all of whom could pass for gnomes, gargoyles, dwarves and the like of Middle Earth—just a bit fiercer looking, more of the party dropped off.

  Cassandra got sucked into tech another of the space archeologists had dug up and was having trouble making sense of. She took to the challenge immediately, recognizing it as a battle training simulator. The various probes were not meant to be studied in isolation as the female space archeologist was doing, but allowed to work collectively.

  Cassandra’s nanites hacked the more primitive chips on the droids readily enough and sent them into orbit around her, and then proceeded to fend off the various attacks on her, dodging, leaping, tumbling out of the way, kicking back, firing back with lasers from her own eyes, punching, etc.

  The female space archeologist beamed with delight.

  Cassandra continued to put the tech through its paces, apparently more as a self-soothing device than anything else. She became itchy when she wasn’t killing something.

  She made room for the female space archeologist who couldn’t resist joining the workout any longer, eager to try the t
oy and Cassandra as a sparring partner.

  “Play nice, Cassandra,” Leon muttered, leaving her behind.

  Omega Force got lost chiseling out antique weapons from bygone civilizations, determined to get them working and give them a try, right alongside the Soma specialists in this area.

  Leon continued moving in sync with Tortos. By the time he showed Leon what he had to show him, Leon was the only one in the party still in tow.

  It didn’t matter that Leon had lost his posse. He trusted his people not to treat this as a vacation. They would be sucking up intel in their own fashion that may or may not be of any help. They were all on a fishing expedition.

  Leon noticed on the tables and tables of miniatures—scale models of ancient ruins, cities, and artifacts unearthed in one part of the universe or another—that the portal on Earth was one of the sets on display. He stopped by the representation done to scale. “What happened?”

  His guide paused his forward progress and stood beside him and sighed. “You were more advanced once than you are now. That gateway between our civilizations was created then, hundreds of thousands of years ago—your time. But you weren’t advanced enough to duck planet-killing asteroids.”

  “Did some of them escape?” Leon asked.

  “We are not permitted to say.”

  “If only I had more time to dig through the clues from the past to find out, with the Nautilus’s scanning tech,” Leon said. “There may well be one or more TGCs out there, seeded by our ancestors, who might be very motivated to help us.”

  His guide smiled feebly and not at all reassuringly before resuming his hike further back into the cave.

  They finally came upon what Tortos wanted to show Leon. He wondered idly if Tortos was even his real name. Possibly Leon would never be able to pronounce it, or perhaps it would create tonal reverberations inside his head that might be too mind-expanding, and thus violate their noninterference prime directive. It was believed ancient languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin did similar things to the mind. Leon, returning his attention to the subject at hand…