ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2
Time Rifts: 5 / “72 Hours Variable”
Recap: Absentminded Jac plays with the neural interface manifesting future movements of his body and the hoppers. Touzdae reads Jac’s experience from inside his aura concluding — he stayed in observation
Recap continued: mode. Touzdae asks Jac if she can check and recalibrate Jac’s two hoppers. He agrees. The next day Touzdae with back-up from Jac they do Touzdae’s hoppers.
When he goes into the past he gives golden sparkles to himself on two separate occasions. Jac fails to file a flight plan and engages in dangerous behavior. Touzdae is furious with him.
Recap concluded. On with this week’s episode…
Touzdae opened a scope to view the two Hoppers. She set up a link to the computer in the kitchen, the bedroom, and the main hall. And she continued to search. She checked the logs for time out since launch: five hours. She sighed somewhat relieved.
“Computer, give me a readout of Hopper-One-monitor. Time logs from the start; externals visual.”
An ancient voice responded, it was at once familiar and alien with female wisdom: “Affirmative. Wide angle view emerging.”
She looked at the monitor. The back of Jac’s head and body appeared. She sighed exasperated. She waited, stood, paced back and forth, sighed, and yelled a long inaudible groan. And sat down as Jac stood — viewed by the monitor.
She laughed. He hesitated looking at something and then walked out of frame.
“Computer, hold image.”
The image froze.
“Computer, go back five seconds.”
The image popped back five seconds to a hold.
“Computer magnify.”
“Specify magnification factor.”
“Times four and continue with the still image.”
The image magnified. It read:
‘Excursion time: One Hour.’
“Computer, go forward one hour, five minutes and freeze image.”
The magnified image appeared:
‘Excursion time: Three Hours variable.’
“Computer, define the term: ‘variable’.”
“Open-ended excursion.”
“How? Why?”
“Insufficient data for both questions.”
“Computer, forward on view to five hours thirty minutes.”
The screen read: ‘Seventy-Two (72) hours variable’
She sighed again.
“Computer, end visual search.” She left the control room and stormed out and back in. She walked out to the portal and leaned down into a telescopic view screen. The hoppers were almost out of visual range. She stomped away.
She threw herself into a chair in the kitchen and heated up some leftovers. She pushed the food around with her fork. Tired and angry she strode aft, sat on the bed, and closed her eyes.
She opened her eyes and rose to a sitting position. Two hours had passed since she had slept. She forced herself to eat the leftovers. She went forward, climbed the steps to the control room, and looked at the elapsed time.
She fell asleep over a few Obz books. Jac walked in. He leaned down and kissed her on the head. He left and climbed into bed and collapsed into a deep sleep.
She woke and pushed the books away. She stomped back to the control room.
The screens were blank in the control room, except for the monitor that showed the hoppers in the bay. To the bedroom, she stomped. She pushed on him several times until he woke.
Touzdae (bellowing): Jac!”
Jac: Hi, my sweet.
Touzdae: Don’t ever do that again!
Jac: Do what? What are you talking about?
Touzdae: You were gone over eight hours.
Jac: No. No I was not.
Touzdae: Yes, you were.
Jac: The Hopper’s chronometer read one hour.
Touzdae (drilling):Why are you so tired, then?
Jac: The work I was doing was so very intense.
Touzdae (intense): You should look at the logs of your trip. You were gone at least eight hours, probably more. Much more, like ten hours.
She grabbed his hand and pulled on him. He rose and followed her to the control room. She called up the excursion on the keyboard.
“Computer, display time of Hopper One’s most recent excursion,” she said.
A moment passed and the screen read: ten hours, nine minutes, forty-four seconds.
Jac scratched his head. “I don’t get it.” He walked down the stairs to the Hopper Bay, opened the outer and inner hatches. He peered at the chronometer.
“No you don’t.” She reiterated standing behind him. “What happened to you out there?”
“You have to look at the chronometer in here,” he yelled.
“I don’t have to look at it and I won’t,” she yelled exasperated.
“You think,” she barked with adamant volume. “You think you are the only one hurting. You’re consumed with your pain and your suffering, and I’m sick with it. You deny it, explain it, and obsess over it as if this place is the key. The key to fixing it so you don’t have to lose — .” She sighed exasperated. “My Spirits, you are not the only one hurting here, Jac!”
“Just look at the chronometer. Please look,” he pleaded.
“No, no. If I didn’t have to stay here longer I’d leave your sorry worthless parts behind. I’d leave you to stew in the past with the pain you cannot face,” she said in a trailing voice. She made fists with her hands and shook them in the air in front of his face.
“I’m taking my Hopper into the future, into a future without you. I need space from your self-centered fatalism, you dung-pile!” and she stormed off.
But she didn’t go. She wept for hours in the library, in a bunk in the storage area, in their bed, in the kitchen, and finally; in his arms.
In the next natural day-night cycle they did not speak to each other. While he slept she took her Hopper and the second smaller one and went out into the streams. She logged a twenty-hour flight plan excursion.
He went to the control room and saw her flight plan. He pulled up the records on his previous excursion and re-checked the data three times.
“How could the Hopper log and the control room log be so different,” he wondered aloud.
“Deviation from excursion parameters,” a sagacious female voice uttered as he flinched, surprised.
Jac: Who said that?
Computer: COMSA, or COntrol Mission Systems Analysis or as Touzdae calls me ‘Computer’.
Jac: How did I deviate, Comsa?
Comsa: You examined the composition of the stream bundles.
Jac: Can I make an examination of stream bundles a mission?
Comsa: No. Too dangerous, you risk death and/or insanity.
Jac: Please explain.
Comsa: I cannot. Prohibited by my programming.
Jac: May I find out about the danger of this mission from the station library?
Comsa: No. Your friend Phorae, Geordae added data on this subject in the addendum guidelines. Do you want me to load it so you can view it?
Jac: Yes. No. Load it and put it on standby. Can you make a visual copy of Hopper One’s chronometer readings and transfer it to this monitor?
Comsa: Yes.
Jac: Then proceed, please.
Comsa: Proceeding.
Jac: Hmm, Comsa, make a visual copy of my examination of the stream bundles for Touzdae to view when she returns.
Comsa: No.
Jac spent some time describing what had happened on his last excursion into his ePad. It was a long message. He concluded his note with:
I’m going to go for a meditation now. I will come back to the control room to monitor your flight midway through. Of course, if I receive any messages from you, I will respond. I love you. Let’s talk, please. Love, Jac.
He was too agitated to meditate and napped instead with an alarm.
He awoke with a start. He had heard a voice — “Help me…” in the distance. He couldn’t be sure if it was Touzdae’s voice or not.
As he opened the cabin’s hatch a force ripped the hatch off its hinges. A vortex sucked him into the hallway. He grabbed the edge of the doorway and hung on. Below him was the Entu Monk hanging onto a frayed line. Jac looked at the line. It ran from the control room to the library and beyond — down the long corridor with a pulsing light at the end. The monk had climbed over the top of a crate and clung to the top of it yelling something.
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Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings on your journeys and odysseys. May you rise to your challenges and bathe in the light of your successes. (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 | May More 💜 Tales
