ARC OF THE IMMORTALS/ Book 1
Pursuit: 21 / Showdown, Part 3
Recap: Bendel appears in La Maz / the Levelz as the two Jacs fist/kick fight. Touzdae appears and is held captive by Bendel with a laz-knife —
Recap continued: — to Touzdae’s throat. Bendel shouts at the fighters to stop. Bendel sends thoughts “to stop fighting”.
Caves within caves… In a time dilation space of 12 seconds, they looked at each other. Vast downloads of thoughts: shared. It was within a femtosecond*.
P-Jac and Jac stopped and looked at Bendel holding the laz blade close to Touzdae’s throat.
Blink, blink, and blink.
Enter Touzdae the null force instigator, the link, and Supernova Black Hole:
The Supernova Black Hole with two bodies, two humanoid bodies, transforming.
Two bodies torn apart, crushed, mangled, vaporized, molecularly depolarized, atom-smashed through the eye of a needle and out into form, come home.
The love.
Jac and Touzdae appeared in the cave. Jac was radiant. And he was wearing P-Jac’s tan clothing. Bendel was gone.
“I feel — different. Home,” tears rolled down his cheek.
Touzdae had a sly half-smile on her face.
“What happened?” Jac wondered.
“You’re the Jac I knew before the Levelz collapse so long ago,” she said.
“O — my — Spirits, it is your love that pulled us together as one,” Jac said. The full realization of what had happened hit him. He faltered. He fell down to one knee. Tears of joy streaked his cheek.
He stood and took a step forward and she stepped forward. They embraced. They breathed together as one. They kissed.
“I am grateful for your love, for our love,” Jac said.
A few moments passed. They separated.
“What happened to Bendel?” Jac asked as an afterthought.
Emboldened, Touzdae laughed. “I tapped into the Platform and this transdimensional space. I banished him to the Needlecraft in the Hinterland.”
“You’re amazing,” he told her.
She drank it in.
“What do you think?” they both looked at each other and blinked.
They were aboard a single J-TouzNez escape craft.
They both blinked again. But it remained still.
Jac sat at the controls. He turned the craft around and headed out through the open iris. On the other side, in the hinterland, the craft disintegrated bit by bit. And they standing in a fog, so thick it produced water on their faces and clothing. They walked forward.
The restored Jac had slowed while Touzdae ventured ahead.
“Oh, my Spirits. No!” she shrieked.
“What!” Jac bellowed as he sprinted. He caught sight of her moving out of the dissipating fog.
Jac stopped.
Nez was gone. The Needlecraft remained. He broke into a sprint.
Jac climbed down into the restored Foray Needlecraft. New reboosters manifested into place replacing the burnt units. Contact with the Platform was spotty.
It was definitely a small cockpit even for one person. Jac’s memory of it was fuzzy, but then he found the transdimensional space extender. It wasn’t very efficient. It took a lot of power from the main engine to keep it running.
He felt rushed. He knew that only forward motion would help him resolve the inefficiencies of the engine. It was unlike Forae’s original design. A rough plan to rescue his surrogate Ma, Nez Fish, was forming. It came from images he received. They came from Great Spirit of the Multiverse.
Touzdae came up the ladder into the cockpit. As soon as she was aboard he saw an anomalous piece of landscape that solidified out there.
“Hm, that’s not supposed to be here,” he mumbled to himself. “Honey, I’ll be in a minute or two. Checking something out.”
“Okay,” she yelled out from the interior and he climbed down the ladder to the ground.
The shops appeared and were consumed by a misty shroud. He stepped into the fog. It was the bosom of the gatekeeper’s realm.
In the envelop of fog, a stocky man clad in a shabby overcoat appeared and scurried down the cobblestone street. Jac walked hurrying slowly in his path. As if he had blinked he was inside the gatekeeper’s shop. The stocky man transformed into a man of medium build. He had fine impeccable features and was soft-spoken:
“I see you are well once again and whole — one person instead half of two. You seek talents? Just a moment,” and he disappeared into a curtained interior space as Jac shrugged.
He returned morphing into a woman.
He laid three cards on the countertop.
“I was mistaken, you need three potions,” the woman whispered.
“These are potions? They look like talents to me,” Jac said.
“Both,” she stated in a clear voice that cut across the shop. Jac peered at the cards in the dim light. “Besides they are not for you. They are for her,” she said as she changed again into the tall man with a white coat and long bony fingers.
“What do I do with them? How can I repay you?”
“Take them like this,” he held each card to Jac’s forehead. The image disappeared from the card leaving it blank save for the frame drawn there.
“Your father’s credit is good here. These will help her to face her truth.” Instructions in the form of pictures flashed through his mind.
“Got it?” the gatekeeper was a frail woman again. Jac nodded in the affirmative.
Jac was dizzy and bewildered. He put his hand out to steady himself and found his hand was on the ladder to the cockpit of the Needlecraft. The shops were gone.
His mind cleared and he climbed the ladder up to the top of the ship. In his left coat pocket, he found the three cards.
Touzdae had squeezed behind the seat. She was in the transdimensional cabin where Pursuer had launched his attacks into the Fish. It was a replica of the Captain’s cabin aboard the Space Fish with a bed and a view through the rear transom.
“Jac, have you seen this, it’s your cabin on the Fish.”
Jac was fitting himself into the cockpit. “We’ll have to shut down the transdimensional space until we’re clear of Gata.”
“Got it. Shutting it down,” Touzdae said managing the controls.
“Strap in. I’m firing up the reboosters now.”
The Foray Needle craft quivered as it rose, the engines vibrating. It rose several feet above the floor of the hinterland and rotated a half circumference. The iris from the hinterland into ordinary space was open.
Here we go.
The Needlecraft lurched and sliced through the gas clouds out into space. Three short-range scout craft fired repeatedly at the aft shields. Laser canons bombarded the shields from two heavy cruisers in the decimated harbor. Jac dialed up a transdimensional jump tube. They slipped inside. Three medium-range Delta Wedge Attack crafts joined their escape route.
Note:
- Smaller than a nanosecond a femtosecond is one-quadrillionth of a second.
- Thanks to Dr John Frederick Rose for editing/publishing the part 1 chapters.
The Contents of Part One is completed:
Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. (If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):
Barbara Murray | K. Pearson Bradley | René Beauchemin | Dougfrombk | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr. Preeti Singh | Pene Hodge | Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | David Price | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Libby Shively McAvoy |
