Oh, just great, this guy knew about the Roundabout, or at least the Reaper ship that would eventually become the Roundabout, and wanted to take it from me. As soon as he said that, I gave a short, sharp laugh. I tried to inject as much scorn and dismissal in my voice as possible. Which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly difficult.

  “You know, I'd argue with you about that, but frankly, good luck. See, you're right, I do have access to a pretty strong ship. Or part of one anyway, it's a long story. But it is really dangerous. And in most cases, I'd rather die than let you try to take it. But that won't be a problem. Because the fact is, you can't get to it. the ship isn't even in this time. It doesn't exist yet. It is pretty old, absurdly old really, but it's not quite this old. The beings who create it probably aren't even advanced enough to make fire yet. Not in this time period. So you’re shit out of luck there. And even if you could get to it, I feel sorry for the puddle of whatever would be left of you if you tried to get into it.”

  That was the benefit of being so far in the past. The Reapers were incredibly ancient, but even they weren't the power they would eventually become yet. We were so far back in time right now that the whole universe was different. The Reapers had become a universal threat something like five or six million years or so before our normal present. That was over a hundred million years from right now. Even if my estimate was off and they were actually from twice as far back, that was still nowhere near this time. We were dealing with a scale that was practically impossible to really comprehend. A hundred and fifty million years, or something like that, was far too huge.

  Our host took in my words and the scorn in them before giving a soft chuckle of his own. He didn’t actually sound at all concerned. “As I said, I’ll just go through that rift into the future, then take the ship from you. How does that sound?”

  Before I could answer, it was Jazz who spoke up. “Dude, if you really think this ship you want to take is so powerful, doesn't it seem like it might be harder to take over then you're acting like it is? The ship only listens to Fl--Jacob. Even if you could find it and get to the thing, it's not going to do anything you tell it to. You don't have any control over it, he does. And believe me, better and stronger people than you have tried to control he--him before. It's really not as easy as it looks.”

  If Wreth was worried about anything either of us were saying, he really didn't show it. His hand simply gave a quick back and forth sideways motion with the palm down, a gesture that I somehow knew was an indication of dismissal. Probably thanks to that advanced translation device he was apparently using. “Oh don't you worry one little bit, my dear. That certainly won't be an issue.” He gave an odd, twittering giggle that echoed through the space we were in and made me shiver with an odd feeling of anxiety that I quickly pushed down and tried to ignore. “By the time we are all through here, each of you will be quite ready and eager to help the cause in any way you can.” The man smiled. “I have my ways of being very persuasive when I want to be.”

  God, I really didn't know exactly what to do here. Not that I was scared of this damn guy, though I certainly wasn't going to dismiss him as a threat. My real problem was that I wasn't sure how far we could or should go. If we actually killed him, how much would that change the future? Yes, yes, we were so far in the past it shouldn't matter, but what if he did end up going through the rift at some point and got closer to the present? Or rather, what if he was supposed to go through the rift? Sure, even that was pretty far back, hundreds of thousands of years, but still.

  And even beyond that, there was the whole issue of this guy being the leader of a massive, interstellar empire. If he simply disappeared and the empire fell apart, it technically could potentially have a lasting effect on the universe, couldn't it? What if him dying allowed some other new universe-spanning threat to develop that wasn’t supposed to be around, that hadn’t existed before, and they did something to alter the development of other species that should have existed in our present? It could happen. Anything could happen in this sort of situation.

  But on the other hand, what if he was supposed to die here? I had been so worried about doing something to change the future, but there was also the chance that we were always supposed to be here and that this was the actual place and time he was supposed to die. That was the real trick with this, if I chose not to do anything, that could change everything as well. If we didn’t kill him, that could alter the future as much as killing him could, if it was supposed to happen.

  God damn it, all of this so stupidly difficult and complicated. I just wanted to have somebody here to make this decision for me so I didn’t have to. I wanted one of my parents, one of my teachers, or somebody I could trust and believe in to show up and make the choice so I could do what they said and not have to figure it out myself. I wanted someone else to be responsible.

  But there wasn't anyone else coming to take over. Jazz and Theia were here with me, but that was it. It was down to the three of us to figure out what to do here, and how to solve this situation. Well, the three of us and everyone in my head, the rest of me. Speaking of whom…

  Yeah, we're working on it, Locke informed me immediately. We've got a lot of conflicting information about this guy and his whole empire. Wait, let me clarify that. We have very little information. Just a little bit here or there, barely anything. But what we do have conflicts with itself a lot. Most of it is just a few scattered words about an ancient empire of collectors that might fit this general time period. We're trying to sort through the details to figure out how much longer this empire went on and what made it collapse eventually, but it's like trying to figure out the entire plot of Lord of the Rings when all you have is a dozen or so pages from random parts of the books. Some of which are written in completely different languages. You might have to stall a little bit.

  After taking all that in, I silently told her I would do my best on that front before focusing on the man in question once more. “If you're talking about those cybernetics of yours, I suggest you think again. We're not going to let you install them in us, and we're not exactly the type of people you want to try to force that on. You may be accustomed to getting your way, Wreth, but it's not going to happen this time. I'm going to give you one chance to pull back from this world and go.”

  I let him absorb that request before speaking again, keeping my voice firm and shoving all my doubts away. “Go back to your own empire. You already have plenty of power over this universe. Let those people go, give up your idea of trying to take that ship from me, and leave. No one has to lose anything else today. You can go back to controlling all those other planets and call this a draw. Believe me when I say, that is in your own best interest. Take your people and walk away.”

  Obviously, I didn't actually think he was going to listen. But the longer I kept talking, the more time the rest of the Flique had to sort out what little information we had on him and his empire. And, even more importantly, the more time it gave my other ghosts and the Fomorians down there to find the rift, make certain it was really the right one, and start sending all of their people through it.

  So, I definitely wasn't surprised at all when the cyborg figure simply giggled again at my threat. Even if it was still an incredibly creepy sound that managed to make my stomach twist itself into knots. Oh, that wasn't an accident, of course. Belatedly, I realized that the reason the giggle of his sounded so strange and made me feel like that were connected. He wasn't actually laughing, not really. He was using some sort of Sonic device that sounded like a laugh, sort of, but was clearly turned to affect someone's mind and throw them off balance. It was meant to scare them, meant to dig into their minds and cause that unnatural reaction just from the sonic effect. Yeah, this guy was definitely very good at what he did. And I had no doubt that he had more tricks like that.

  I exchanged a look with the other two, still seated on their dinosaurs, and the expressions on their faces made it clear that they had come to the same conclusion. None of us said anything, but that single glance was enough to know that we were all on the same page with that. I was pretty sure if we were also on the same page when it came to wanting to smash this sick fucking bastard's face in until it was pulp.

  Instead of (immediately) fulfilling that desire, I looked back at the man and spoke evenly. “Well, we were here to negotiate in good faith. But if you’re just here to try to threaten us and use your little sonic toy, maybe the negotiation part of this whole thing is over.” Part of me sort of thought this was a bad idea, that I shouldn’t be threatening to end the discussion while we were still waiting for the Fomorians to find and identify that rift, let alone get everyone through it. But I had a gut feeling and went with it. I really didn’t think this guy actually wanted things to go that way yet. He was accustomed to dealing with all his adversaries from an extreme advantage, and he didn’t have that here. He didn’t know enough about us. He was still trying to feel us out a bit.

  There was a brief pause before the cyborg figure made that dismissive gesture again. “No, no, we are negotiating, of course. My apologies, yes. That’s simply a force of habit for how I handle discussions with much… lesser beings than yourselves.” He chuckled, and this time the sound was closer to something normal, not as weirdly high-pitched and vaguely disorienting. “But the fact remains, when this negotiation is over, I will be taking control of that ship from you in order to continue to spread my… organization.” His head tilted then, a note of curiosity entering his voice. “Hm, that word sounds odd in your language, and is only half as long. Organization.” Again, he paused as though listening, and I realized he was hearing the translated version of his own voice coming back to him a moment after speaking. Which--oh, he was trying to learn our language. He was literally multitasking by having this discussion with us and hearing the words in English so he could try to learn it as we went on. Which-- at least he wasn’t a lazy dictator?

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Finally I felt a tug from my ghosts, taking a second to look through Grover’s eyes. Good, they’d found the rift--or rather, rifts. Very deep through the maze of underwater caverns they had finally made it. The Fomorians were using the drones to run scans on the twin rifts, realizing quickly that they really did lead to two different times and locations. They just had to identify the right one, the one they were supposed to go through. But they did know that it was one of those two, so the word had already gone out to the rest of the Fomorian ships scattered across the whole galaxy.

  With that alert sent, the other ships would be using their one-time teleportation abilities to send all their people here. Their entire species-- well, the ones who were still free in any case, were going to be going through that rift. Which would let the Fomorians make their way into the future (well, a few hundred thousand years prior to my usual present) so they could eventually end up with their entire species being ripped apart and used as basic building blocks for the creation of a gestalt species responsible for the genocide of trillions of living beings across whole galaxies.

  So… yay?

  In any case, I couldn’t change things now, tempting as it was to try to save these people from their eventual fate. Even telling myself that these particular Fomorians would be long dead by the time Cronus showed up and that it was just their descendants I was dooming with this didn’t help that much. I felt a dark, insistent twinge of guilt no matter how much I tried to push it down.

  Jazz was talking, taking over for me while I was checking on all that. “You have to know how wildly cliche you’re being right now, don’t you? I mean, you have an entire empire that spans huge parts of the galaxy. You own dozens of worlds and have billions, let me say that again with an emphasis on the b. Billions of servants. You won capitalism, dude. I’m pretty sure that if you took all your material assets and put it in a big pile, you could set off several nuclear weapons through the whole thing and only have your net worth go down a few percentage points! If that!”

  “Nuclear?” The cyborg dictator tilted his head, absorbing that before chuckling once more. “How utterly quaint. Hm, yes, that could be rather interesting, a throwback to simpler times. Perhaps I will try nuclear weapons again, in another war. The Ultsoah have been acting a bit uppity recently. Maybe it would be good to try a war with such primitive and barbaric means of attack, just to make things fun again.”

  I knew he was messing with us-- well, he was probably telling the truth about finding that sort of thing interesting, and probably even being genuine about considering using nuclear weapons on his enemies just for fun. But he was also messing with us. He wanted us to be angry, wanted us to be upset about his words and off balance. The man was trying to provoke us into a reaction. But why? Why would he want us to be angry? For that matter, what was he doing here? I knew why I wanted to stand here and keep talking, so we could keep him busy, but why was he so willing to accommodate us on that? Why would he be so willing to stand here and chat like this?

  “You want this to happen.” That was Theia, practically reading my mind as she abruptly spoke up, her body jerking with that sudden realization. “You don’t actually want to stop the rebels from locating the rift and calling the rest of their people, because you want all of them to be here in one place.”

  The small cyborg Fomorian gave a wide metallic smile at that, raising both his metal and flesh arms in a cheerful, excited gesture. “Very good! You truly are such impressive specimens, I can’t wait to have you strapped to a table so my assistants and I can get in there and really find out what makes you tick. You’re so interesting, and my scans can only tell me so much, you know? What I truly need is a chance to dig into your flesh and figure out the very best upgrades for you. So you can better serve the needs of my, ahem, organization, of course. Still such an odd word.”

  “Well,” Jazz muttered under her breath with a glance at me as she slid down from her mount and patted the metal Allosaurus on its side, “at least that part sounds familiar.”

  I was still confused by this. Yes, he was fine with us being here and talking to him because he wanted the entire group of rebel Fomorians to show up in one spot so he could (try to) capture them all at once rather than try to chase them down all over the universe. That part made some sense, and I could even believe that he thought he could really accomplish it once they showed up. But why would he be so confident that he could keep us here and that we wouldn’t stop him?

  I’ve got a bad feeling about this guy, Locke put in. And so do all the others. Something’s wrong.

  She was right, something was very wrong here. I checked on the Fomorians through my ghosts, and everything seemed fine. Well, as fine as could be. The battle between the robot dinosaurs and Wreth’s forces was still going on outside, but our side wasn’t being totally overwhelmed or anything. In fact, they seemed to be holding out pretty well, all things considered. There was a steady flow of new robots emerging from the crashed ship, and Wreth’s people were being driven back away from both that and the lake where the submarine was. With help from the ghosts that I’d left out there, the robots were keeping the rebels safe enough to start bringing the rest of their people through.

  That part had already started, actually. Ships had begun appearing all around the lake, one after another. They were literally teleporting here from all across the universe, dozens of them, an entire fleet. Wreth’s own ships, including the one we were on, were suddenly surrounded on all sides by so many rebel vessels. All of which were aiming their weapons our way. Which, yeah, I had no doubt his full fleet completely dwarfed this one. There was a reason the rebels had to flee so much, after all. The man ran a whole interstellar empire, he probably had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of ships he could pull in here at the drop of a hat. But right now he was outnumbered. So why didn’t he seem more concerned about all that? Why did he want this to happen? What were we missing? Was it as simple as him believing that he could bring in his reinforcements to stop these guys before they actually went through the rift? Or even simpler, that he figured he could go through the rift after they did and catch them before they spread out?

  “Have you figured it out yet?” That was Wreth himself, the short cyborg man looking right at me, his voice an equal mix of taunting and curious. “You’ve been so very impressive up to this point, but have you sorted through the noise and distractions to learn my itty bitty secret? Do you know what’s really happening right now, and what is about to happen? Please tell me you did. There’s only so much fun I can have with people who can’t think for themselves and see the truth. I need someone, one of you, all of you, to figure it out. Please, just tell me you know what’s happening.”

  That was when the words of Kaur from earlier played through my head, his explanation for why it had been so difficult for his people to escape in the first place. Most of the technology, the ships from their homeworld, had been controlled by Wreth. They’d only been able to find a relative few that they could rip his control systems out of and use safely. But what if--wait, hold on… Oh. Oh no.

  “The ships were never in their control,” Jazz abruptly put in, the words coming in a rush. “You let them escape, you let them take the ships and run all over the universe, but…”

  “You wanted them to look for the rift.” That was Theia. “They were doing that for you, even if they didn’t know it. You had a whole fleet of rebel ships flying all over the universe searching for the rift that you wanted to use. That was the point the entire time, you were just letting them do the work for you.”

  “Excellent!” Wreth cheered happily, bouncing up and down. “Oh, I knew you could do it. Now let’s see.” His head turned as though he was talking to someone we couldn’t see, someone who wasn’t in this version of the room. “Ahem, Captain Oornve, go ahead and take control of those ships, if you would. And put it on-screen down here.”

  A hologram appeared in front of us, showing the battlefield around the lake, with all those hovering ships. One by one, the rebel vessels all turned their weapons away from Wreth’s handful of ships and targeted the robot dinosaurs below. With a quick volley of blinding lasers, the robots were completely destroyed, the battlefield cleared out for the cyborg Fomorian’s forces to quickly head for the crashed ship and the lake.

  “And now all my little rebel friends are locked in their vessels, waiting to be collected. No doors will work for them, no weapons, nothing,” Wreth informed us, sounding giddy. “They’ve done their job, completed the mission I allowed them to leave for, and now they can be brought back into the fold. Just in time to go through the rift and achieve my true destiny.”

  “If you think we’re just gonna let you walk out of here,” I started sharply, already taking a step that way.

  “Let me walk out?” That metallic smile came back. “My dear friend, don’t you remember?” As he said that, Wreth moved my way. My hand rose, but despite the fact my item-sense had told me he was right there, he just walked… right… through it. He walked right through me, then back out again, hands raised with a metal grin.

  “This chamber is layered across multiple parallel universes. And as of right now, my body is in one, and yours are in another. Speaking of which…”

  Abruptly, I felt my connection to my ghosts snap, even as Wreth disappeared. We were completely cut off from the rest of his ship, and from the actual Earth itself. We were locked in this pocket universe with no way out.

  “The three of you can just sit in timeout until this is over and I have time to start dissecting you.”

  Joke Tags: Boy? Thinking You Have Flick Completely Trapped With No Options Left And Then Walking Away Ranks Only Slightly Below Asian-Based Land Wars In Tactical Blunders