Well, fuck, this wasn't exactly going well so far. First it turned out that the Fomorian rebels had been wrong about getting all of Wreth’s control virus or whatever out of their ships. He had simply let them think they got it all out so they would run around the universe doing his work for him in trying to find that rift. He'd wanted them to find it all along, just so he could use it instead. And why not? It wasn't as though allowing them to think they were free and had control of the ships had actually cost the bastard anything. He made a show of pretending to chase them just so they wouldn't be suspicious, and to push them to keep going. And now that they had the right place, he had completely shut down everything in those ships to trap all of them in there. He could deal with all of them at his leisure. Probably after he sent himself and his entire armada through the rift to reach the future.
So we were trapped in this place, while he had that whole rebellion essentially locked in their own rooms. Just like that, it seemed like none of us were able to fight back or escape. The dude really thought he’d won already, that much had been clear. Which was enough to make me even angrier than I already was. Turning to look at the other two, I snapped, “Let’s get the hell out of here and make this guy sorry he ever--” I stopped then, because I’d been focusing on teleporting back to the battlefield where we’d been before coming up to this ship, but nothing was happening.
“Parallel universe,” I remembered as my hand smacked off my own forehead. “Right, yeah, duh. Apparently my ‘teleport anywhere on or near Earth’ doesn’t count if it’s a parallel Earth. Oops.”
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. When was it ever? Now we were completely shut out, locked away from our own Earth. I couldn’t use my transportation power, and now we--what? What the hell could we even do now?
The others were just as annoyed as I was. And their own creative cursing came out loud, which I enthusiastically joined in with. Even the robot dinosaurs seemed irritated, though they didn’t really vocalize it as such. Mostly they just gazed around the room like they wanted to ram themselves into a couple walls to see if that would help. I was tempted to tell them to go for it.
All three of the sapient, two legged members of the group-- four with Locke’s help, took just a couple seconds to make our feelings on the whole subject very verbally clear. It might’ve seemed like a waste of time that we couldn’t afford, but we needed it. Expressing anger that way helped clear our heads so we could think.
“Okay,” I finally started as soon as I’d decided those three seconds were all we could afford to waste and we had to focus, “so what do we do now? How do we deal with this? There has to be a way to get back to Earth, right? He’s locked us in here, and I can’t teleport. Maybe I can just use another transport spell, I know a couple of them. Theia, you know a few too, don’t you?”
Her head bobbed quickly, the Seosten girl bouncing up and down agitatedly. “Yes, but mine and yours probably all have the same problem. You need a lot of information, more than we have, about where we are before the spells can work to take us where we want to be. Maybe if we were in the same universe they would work, but a parallel one? Too many factors, too many problems. You can’t just throw down a transport spell and hope it works when you’re crossing universes like that. It’s like trying to use your human Bystander computer directions maps program to get somewhere without knowing where you’re starting from. It’ll just break everything if you use a spell like that.”
Locke let me know that Story and the others back in our library were all reporting basically the same thing. We couldn’t just cheat by using one of our transportation spells like that, because we didn’t know anything about this parallel universe we were in. Which was just fantastic, of course things couldn’t be that simple. We were going to have to figure out more about this place. But how? Was there even anything outside this room for us to look at if we broke out? And if there was, what would that accomplish? Analyzing spells. We needed analyzing spells to figure out everything we could about this space, but those were going to take time that the Fomorian rebels didn’t have. Who knew how much damage Wreth was doing while we were stuck here?
While Theia and I took a moment to try to talk through everything we could do to analyze this area quickly enough to actually matter so we could use one of those transportation spells, Jazz simply stood to one side. Her head was tilted as she stared off at nothing, seemingly lost in thought. At first I actually thought she had just completely frozen up thanks to everything we were dealing with. I really wouldn't have been able to blame her for that. Except she wasn't frozen. From the corner of my eye, I could see the girl mouthing something to herself. She was thinking quietly, running something mostly through her head without interrupting Theia and me.
Suddenly, the other girl straightened up and blurted, “Just stop, why are we even bothering? He already won, okay? He locked us in another universe, so we can’t even get to the fight to help. Why the hell are we bothering to talk about this like we can actually get out of here? The dude tricked us into being here, and now he’s gonna deal with those rebels. There’s nothing any of us can do about that.” As she said that, Jazz was already walking to one of the walls, smacking the thing. “Unless you guys know some way of breaking out of this whole room and out of an entire universe, I don’t think we’ve got much chance of saving those people.” She marched right over to where that throne was, smacking that as well. “And why should we? They’re Fomorians. What are we even doing here? Why should we be killing ourselves just to find a way to escape this place to save Fomorians? What difference does it really make?” She kicked the throne, moving to the opposite wall from where she’d started, smacking that one as well. “It’s all total bullshit.”
Through all that, Theia and I waited and stared at her in silence. We didn’t argue, didn’t jump to ask what she was talking about. We just stood there, watching her go through that whole thing. Jazz crossed back to where we were, held up both hands like she was completely frustrated, and then touched the coins she had hidden in her palms while saying three quick words in some other language. I felt a quick wave of magic energy emanate from her and go through the room.
As soon as it ended, Jazz slumped a little. That had obviously taken a fair bit out of her. She wiped an arm over her forehead and accepted the bottle of water Theia produced from one of her pockets. “Thanks. Okay, that should do it. I uh, I’ve been studying illusion-type magic, since-- well, I can’t really go to Hollywood and get into the movie-making business now, not with all this going on. But I can sure as hell practice the stuff I’d do if I could make movies with literal magic. Which, seriously you guys have no idea just how fucking cool movies could be with a little magic help. The special effects possibilities alone are-- never mind, focusing. I just had to prime the spell with an idea of what I wanted it to show. So now all the cameras that dude has in here are seeing me ranting on and on about how we should just give up because he’s too special and smart and shit, with you two trying to interrupt now and then. He can’t see or hear us.”
My eyebrows rose. “And you have an actual plan you didn’t want him to hear about, I take it?”
She was already nodding while gesturing back toward the walls. “Yeah, we break all his shit.” When Theia and I both blinked at her, the girl continued. “Look, I don’t think he was lying about what this place could do. It’s a hidey-hole that protects him from being hurt. When it gets attacked from one universe, it shifts into one or more of the others. We just have to convince the room that it’s being attacked from every universe except the one he’s locked us out of. Then it’ll shift back into that one and we can get the hell out. I mean, assuming all that works right.” Even as she finished explaining her plan, I could see a mix of nerves and uncertainty cross her face.
Theia obviously noticed too, giving me a quick look before replying, “Absolutely, we can do that. We just have to figure out how the computer system that existed over a hundred million years ago and was created by a completely different alien species actually works well enough to fool it perfectly so it puts us exactly where we want to go. All without letting the evil warlord dictator figure out we’re tricking him and without blowing ourselves up. And we have to do it very soon, before said evil warlord dictator manages to go through a rift and change the entire timeline.” There was a very brief pause after she finished saying all that before Theia added in something of a soft stage-whisper off in my direction without ever taking her eyes off Jazz. “That was supposed to be encouraging, did it work?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but sort of,” I replied with a shrug despite myself. “At least it laid out exactly what we need to do, and why it’s important. So let’s do it. Do you have any ability to control computers, or at least understand them?” I asked that while looking hopefully at Jazz.
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Unfortunately, she shook her head with a slight grimace. “Nothing that would be very helpful, sorry. I think we’re gonna have to do this the hard way. You know, as if it wasn’t hard already.”
“Is the hard way just trying to break stuff until we get a reaction?” Theia asked, already drawing a long, sharp knife from one of her pockets. “Because I am really quite good at breaking things.”
Hold on, Locke quickly put in, I’m gonna switch with Rig, she should have better luck with this.
Telling the other two what was going on, I took a moment to make the switch. All while trying not to let myself fret too much about how long this was taking. Damaging the system enough to make it think it was being attacked from the other universes so it would shove us into the one we wanted was a decent enough plan, the best one we were going to get, really. But would it actually work? And if it didn’t, were we just wasting all that time we could’ve been using to try something else? Was it too much to ask to pick up a checkpoint sort of power so I could mark this spot, try what we were talking about, then come right back here if it didn’t work? That was a totally achievable power request, right?
Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I straightened as Rig took over. “Sweet!” The word popped right out of my mouth while a lopsided smile appeared. “I’ve been waiting to jump in and help avert the end of the universe as we know it. Nothing like a little pressure on your first time out in the real world to help clear your mind and sinuses, am I right?” My body shifted, hands rising to point at both of the others. “Let’s lock in, cuz I don’t think we’re gonna get another chance at this if we screw something up here.”
It was pretty clear that Theia and Jazz had a lot they wanted to say about that whole thing, but now wasn’t the time. Instead, the two of them gave quick, crisp salutes, waiting for instructions.
After a quick internal conference, Rig and I worked out an easy system. She would shift our hair to be bright blue whenever she was the one talking. Not that we thought it’d be that hard to tell the difference, but still. She did that while striding hurriedly up to that throne in the middle of the room. On the way, the tech-savvy ‘sister’ of mine was already producing our silver knife as she muttered out loud to herself (to ourself?) about how much this whole room looked like it really belonged to something called a Kuolde Sphere, whatever that was. Rig had seen a lot of very ridiculous mechanical things, and worked on most of them. She had spent basically all of her time when we were… uh, separate helping this group of mechanics who had been working at an old spacestation fixing up ships as cheaply as possible It had been a few million years before our normal time period (so over a hundred million years ahead of now), and that whole group of about fifteen incredibly talented and brave techs had been slaughtered by a Reaper attack on the station when they stayed behind to help fix as many ships as possible so everyone else who was stuck there could escape the oncoming fleet. They knew what was coming, that they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to get out of there in time, but they stayed anyway to help all those people. And they were killed for it. Rig had appeared on the remains of that station and helped the ghosts of those fifteen techs come to terms with what had happened to them. They, in turn, had spent much of that time teaching her everything they knew about fixing mechanical things.
All of which meant she had the best chance out of everyone in the Flique of actually being able to do something with this shit. Sure, the technology here was very different from anything she had actually worked with, but the basic underlying principles should be roughly similar, right? Please?
Using our silver blade, Rig pried open a panel that was almost entirely hidden on the inner part of the throne’s armrest. I was honestly surprised she’d found it so quickly. All she did was give the thing a quick once-over, before moving right to it to shove the blade into the nearly invisible crack around the panel. It popped off, revealing a tangled mess of wires and glowing lights that were attached to what I was pretty sure amounted to their version of a circuit board. This one was kind of round, and bright orange rather than the green I was accustomed to humans using.
Giving the wires a quick look, Rig drove the blade into the side of the chair next to the opening she had already created and started to cut into it. At the same time, she called out to Jazz. “Hey, you’ve got that ‘make objects intangible’ power, right? I need you to go right over…” She trailed off, using the blade to cut a hole in the back of the throne. It wasn’t easy, but the knife was very sharp, and we were incredibly strong, so she made it work. With effort, she managed to cut into the structure of the thing, tracing a wire with her fingers before pointing off in the direction it seemed to be running. Our item sense was helping with all that. And hopefully this time it wasn’t being tricked by overlapping universe shenanigans. “Somewhere halfway between this throne and the wall there. Use that power to rip open a spot there and find out what the wires from here are attached to. It should be some sort of energy source. Don’t break anything yet, just tell me what it looks like.”
While Jazz was working on that, Rig went back to studying the circuit board, assuming that’s what it was the equivalent of. She used a mix of her finger and the item-sense power to trace some of the wires through the chair and down into the floor, all while muttering to herself about other things she had seen that might be somewhat similar.
Soon, the other two reported back about what they’d found, and Rig talked them through what she needed them to do for the next part. It had to do with prepping the energy source they’d found to be overloaded, but only the right amount of overloaded. And only once she was ready on our end.
“The trick,” she murmured loud enough for the other two to hear, “is to figure out exactly where the bits that tell the room it’s under attack actually are. It must have three different systems for that. One measuring the damage the room has taken, one monitoring communications from other parts of the ship the room is attached to so it knows if there’s been an alert sounded, and one to keep track of which universe the actual attack is coming from. We’ll have to fool all three of those systems at once. But for any of that to matter, we need a…”
She had trailed off, our head turning to look over at the two robot dinosaurs. Both of them, stegosaurus and allosaurus alike, stared right back at us. It held like that for about ten seconds before we jumped up, Rig muttering soft prayers under our breath as she moved to the allosaurus. “Hey, big guy, give me just a second here. I promise I won’t hurt you.” Rubbing his metal back, she felt around one side of the thing until she’d found a small circular hatch about six inches across. With some effort, and a bit of help from the knife, she pried it open. There were about six different crystals in there, of all different colors and sizes. She touched several of them, murmuring to herself before running back to the throne. It didn’t take her long to tug out another of those circuit boards, disconnecting that one before carrying it over to the robots. On the way, she dug around in our pocket before coming out with a roll of copper wire, wrapping one end around part of the circuit board before connecting the other to one of those crystals.
For almost a minute after that, Rig set up an assortment of spells leading from the allosaurus to the throne, assuring Jazz that she wasn’t about to blow up the girl’s robot. This had something to do with bypassing the something or other with the thingamajig. Whatever, the robot had a thing in it that helped, that was all I knew.
After getting all that done, Rig gave a quick grin toward Theia and Jazz. “Seriously, isn’t this fucking cool? When will we ever get a chance to do anything like this again? How many people out there can say they’ve done this?”
“Eh, she’s got a point,” Jazz agreed with an easy shrug. “This is pretty unique. We’ll have a cool story to tell. And if I could make movies like I wanted, I swear this would be my magnum opus.”
“Maybe you should make movies,” I pointed out, making my hair blonde so the others would know it was me. “I mean, for the rebellion. And for the other side to see. We need propaganda. Wait, that sounds like a negative thing. Just good propaganda? That’s definitely a thing, isn’t it?”
Before the others could respond, my hair shifted back to blue. My hands had been messing with the exposed wires that whole time, and now Rig called out, “One of you use a light electricity spell or power on that part of the floor after I count down, at the same time that I say zero! Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen--” She continued on like that while the other two quickly produced a bit of metal with a shock spell on it. They put it in position and waited, Theia ready to set it off.
As soon as Rig got to zero, she yanked a wire out with two of our fingers and touched a coin of our own with a prepared shock spell on it to another bit of one of those circuit boards. Simultaneously, Theia did the same over where she and Jazz were. A bright, blue-silver flash filled the room, followed by a frankly dangerous-looking arc of gold lightning that jumped from where we were to where the other two were. We all jumped backward, a chorus of curses echoing from all four of us (Rig and I took turns).
Then it all stopped. Everything stopped. An eerie silence settled over the room for several seconds as we looked at each other. The silence held until…
“Ghosts!” I suddenly blurted out loud, jumping a bit. “I feel the--we’re back, we’re back at our Earth, I can feel all the--we’re back!” And almost as importantly, a glance to the side confirmed that the allosaurusbot was perfectly fine. Thank every god out there, because from the way Jazz had been staring, I was pretty sure she would’ve been tempted to throw us back in that other universe if we had actually damaged him.
My hair turned blue, as Rig quickly put in, “Of course we’re back, it worked, I knew it would. I am a kuflun rockstar.” Her voice shook a little despite the claim, and a goofy, relieved smile kept forming on my face.
I had just started to ask if the room could just shift us out of here immediately, but even as the silent words came, my hand was already ripping out a few more wires. Not anymore, Rig informed me without the need to even put voice to my thought. No more shifting until they fix this.
“Well, what the hell are we waiting for?” Jazz demanded, jumping to her feet.
“Let’s get out there and see what we missed. That Wreth guy needs a good asskicking.”
Joke Tags: It’s A Good Thing Jazz’s Illusion Trick Worked? Because Her Plan B Was To Get The Robo Dinos To Fool Wreth With An Elaborate Sock Puppet Show In Front Of The Cameras
