ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2

Time Rifts: 2 / Time Streamer — Touzdae

Jac slumped down in his chair, asleep as the tutorial to the Time Hoppers completed itself. Touzdae retrieved the holo-player and placed it on the long rough hewn table. She covered him with a thin blanket and opened the next holo-lesson.

She watched the entire section on environment controls. And at the end she laid her head on the table and dozed.

She awoke on a hard black surface baked in sunshine, clear sky overhead. As she lifted herself up on one arm a half-ton boulder flew over her head. A whistle sounded. Two military personnel with full gear ran up; weapons drawn. The barrels of each rifle stared at Touzdae. A small electric vehicle emerged from a dark cavernous space into the sunshine. It halted. A tall robust man with a large girth almost tumbled out of the vehicle and strode up towards them. Touzdae found him comically inept. She suppressed a laugh.

“At-ease, men,” he said looking down at her.

She looked up into his eyes and wept. He saw the whole of her — her entire life. He accepted her in toto. Assisted her to her feet he escorted her into the vehicle.

He drove back into the covered part of the building.

“You are Touzdae are you not? Bonded with love to Jac?”

“Yes,” she admitted aloud taken aback. He can see everything about me.

The man in charge continued to drive the vehicle to the far wall of the building as he chuckled.

“Get those men out of the zone and reset the parameters,” he spoke into a microphone headset.

She woke. Dreamtime? she thought.

No, real enough, I am. Welcome to a real vision, in a place once outside time, he sent the thought to Touzdae.

Who are you? she wondered. But his presence was gone. Touzdae found herself with her eyes open, awake, curious, and a longing for the great presence of the man. Her longing and curiosity drifted — a slow out-going tide in a large bay surrounded by an unknown ocean.

Jac climbed into a Time Hopper and shut the outer hatch. He scanned the controls left to right. It was one of the Hoppers that had translations for every control on board. He switched on main power and engaged the internal chronometer. He coordinated the board meters with the exit tube ejection systems. He set the secondary chronometer for a thirty-hour trip back through time. He set the time space coordinates on the tertiary chronometer for the return trip. But there was nothing, no response. He shut it all down and started again without the desired result. He tried a third time and stopped. He attempted to re-open the hatch without success. He found the communications panel and opened a link, but it shut down immediately.

He found an Obz tutorial and began a translation, but he did not have enough of it and fell asleep.

Sixty hours later the hatch opened on its own. Startled by the sound, he climbed out. Touzdae was in her rack. He attended to the needs of his body, ate, and waited.

He told her what had happened.

Later, Touzdae and Jac crouched in the Hopper bay.

Touzdae (in a serious tone): A large hopper is always accompanied by a smaller one. This keeps the time streams stable and enhances observation. The large hopper is locked for our protection. It explains in the manual.

Touzdae (continued): Would you like me to guide you in a practice dry-run?

Jac (looked down abashed): Yes.

In ten minutes with the hatch open she talked him through the first tutorial. In the next five minutes she handed him the holo-player and a separate recorder. Within the next twenty minutes Jac launched a smaller hopper and then his own. It slipped out of the bay and into the time streams. He used the separate recorder, plugged in to the training module on-board. And he switched on.

The smaller hopper released the past, present and future streams. They displayed a kaleidoscope of shifting rainbow colors. His hopper went out of the bay about 15 feet from the smaller hopper. A tether connected to the smaller hopper. Almost ten minutes passed. The jets on the larger hopper returned it into the bay. Grappling hooks grabbed the machine and pulled it inside and anchored it to the deck. The second smaller hopper sailed passed him. It went into a second holding bay and detached the tether.

The decompression lasted less than a minute.

The outer hatch released. Jac climbed out.

Touzdae hugged him.

Jac: Worried about me?

Touzdae: A little bit, yes.

Together they left the bay.

Jac: How many times have you been out?

Touzdae: Besides the practice run I’ve been out on three short trips of thirty minutes each.

Jac: Really? Where did you —

— A man in tattered red clothing ran through the foyer yelling incomprehensible words. He disappeared down the main corridor. The building rumbled and the deck rippled between them. The deck was torn asunder in two equal halves. It rocked the station and they slid down the deck to the opposite sides.

Touzdae (cried out): Jac!

next chapter:

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Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings on your journeys and odysseys. (If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):

Alison Hollingsead | K. Pearson Bradley| Dougfrombk | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr. Preeti Singh | Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Libby Shively McAvoy |