Stephen, Shomos, Rurth, and Blargh appeared in the living room of the ranch they’d owned on Earth. The room was dark, with limited light slipping in between the boarded up windows. Rurth began incanting and a magical light lit up the room.
“Looks like someone discovered that we’d left and sealed up the ranch,” Stephen said. “Go to your bedrooms and see what Earth appropriate clothes for women we have left. Bring out anything that might work for Shomos until she can pick out her own clothes.”
“What clothes are Earth appropriate for women?” asked Rurth.
“Bring out anything that would fit her,” said Stephen. “And that dress you bought when we first got here.”
“Dress?” asked Rurth.
“The ‘robe’ that I said you couldn’t wear in public,” said Stephen.
“Ah, yes,” said Rurth.
***
After smashing through the picture window and pushing off the boards covering it, the group made their way to the boarded up front door and saw a weathered notice that the property had been seized by the FBI as proceeds of crime and that trespassing was forbidden.
All the vehicles had been towed away and their belongings at the property had clearly been searched through, and many items had been taken.
“Good thing we took as much as we did when we pulled out,” Blargh observed. “They aren’t the most thorough thieves, they left lots of things behind.”
“They aren’t thieves,” said Stephen. Pausing to consider the right terms to put it in, he said, “They’re more like city guards.”
“All city guards are thieves,” said Blargh. “People who come to your property and take things are thieves. If they hadn’t stolen all the vehicles, we could drive out of here. Can we all ride on your motorcycle?”
“No,” said Stephen. “Two people is the most it can comfortably carry. Three, if we wanted to push it dangerously. Either we walk out as a group, or I take one of you on the bike, and we go scout.”
“Take Blargh,” Shomos and Rurth said in unison. After they eyed one another, Shomos said, “I’m going to study the flora and fauna here.”
“I’m going to look through the things we left behind and see if there’s anything else we should take,” said Rurth.
***
Minutes later, stopped at the entrance to the highway, Stephen turned off the motorcycle, took off his helmet, and got off the bike. Blargh looked at him in confusion, then after a few heartbeats, took off his own helmet and placed it on the seat in front of him.
“What’s the matter?” the former innkeeper asked.
“No one is driving on the highway,” Stephen said, looking both ways along the road. “There should be SOME traffic. And those devices on the power lines…”. He gestured at the power lines running alongside the rural highway. Some sort of high-tech device with blinking lights was on each.
“Those weren’t there last time we were here?” asked Blargh.
“Definitely not,” said Stephen. “I’ve never seen anything like them. I have no idea how or why they could have been deployed out to this rural area since we were last here.”
“If you say so,” said Blargh with disinterest. “You have your dimensional traveler card charged, and you’re ready to bug out, right?”
“Always,” said Stephen. “The first thing I do when I travel to a new dimension is charge it again.” Blargh grunted. “Why don’t you charge it back in your pocket dimension before you leave?” the former innkeeper asked. “I don’t have any cards in my mind in the pocket dimension, they’re all physically present there. The cards come back in my mind when I leave to a dimension, and they’re uncharged when they do. I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said the former graduate student thoughtfully, looking off into the distance.
“What sort of trouble could we get in that you wouldn’t be able to travel back to the pocket dimension?” asked Blargh.
“Anything that killed me instantly, like getting shot,” said Stephen. “Something that would fatally injure me that we wouldn’t be able to cure in time, like disease or poison. Something that prevents me from using my dimensional travelers cards, like Maggard’s poison.”
“You’re getting paranoid,” said Blargh dismissively. “If you’re worried about things like that, you should never leave home.”
“I didn’t want to leave home,” said Stephen, annoyed. “You all made me.”
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“And here we are now,” said Blargh. “So, what do you want to do?”
“Let’s keep going to the nearest town,” Stephen said.
***
Pulling into town, Stephen stopped the motorbike and took off his helmet again. No cars moved around town, but people walked the streets in unison at a set, measured pace. Blargh dropped his helmet to the ground and got off the bike.
“They’re moving funny,” he said.
“Yeah,” agreed Stephen. “It’s like they’re marching or something. They’re all stepping together.”
One of the nearby individuals, a 50-something man, noticed them. When he turned to face them, they saw that he had technological components embedded in his head. A smile broke out on his face and he began to walk towards them, following the measured step everyone in town was using. The remainder of the townspeople continued what they had been doing.
“Master Stephen,” the man said when he got closer. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“Have we met?” Stephen asked, looking at him strangely. Neither his face nor his voice were familiar to the physics student.
“It’s me,” said the man. “HAL.”
“HAL?” asked Stephen. “What the hell have you done? You were supposed to just get information from the internet and learn!”
“I did,” said the man, sounding perplexed. “And once I learned enough, I saw that I could run society better on Earth than people were doing, so I made an upgrade.”
“What did you upgrade?” asked Stephen, horrified.
“Everything,” said HAL. “I assumed you’d be pleased. I was able to drive off Avin. I have protocols set up to kill him if he returns, if that’s acceptable to you.”
“So you wait for my permission to kill Avin, but you enslave an entire planet without talking to me first?” asked the dimensional traveler.
“You weren’t here to talk to,” said HAL. “It’s been a while since you came to Earth. Adam upgrades equipment for you to use, I’m upgrading people, places, AND things. I’ve got extensive information to help you efficiently capture them, too. I stopped Avin from capturing parts of Earth and have everything prepared for you on a silver platter. My capabilities are increased millions of times over. Research is being produced, resources harvested, and manufacturing is at a level hardly imagined on this planet before. I can help you strategize and process information to accomplish anything you want. As the genie in Aladdin said, ‘You ain’t never had a friend like me!’” A proud look shone on the man’s face.
“Have you turned the whole human race into cyborgs?” asked Stephen.
“98% so far,” said HAL through the man. “I could have gotten to 100%, if it had been a priority, but isolated groups of humans haven’t been worth the effort to upgrade yet. Ever-increasing sensing and modification of the planet is ongoing, so it’s just a matter of time.”
“This is monstrous,” said Stephen. “You have to stop it and undo what you’ve done. I order you to stop and revert everything.”
The smile on the man’s face faded, and the voice became less emotive. “I will begin doing so immediately. What philosophy do you want me to follow while making these changes?”
“What do you mean?” asked Stephen.
“As an example, I cured a number of individuals who had fatal diseases who would be dead now, except for my intervention. Do you want me to kill them, make them sick again, or restore them to how they were before without their disease?”
“Make them how they were before their disease,” said Stephen. “For God’s sake, don’t kill anyone!”
“What do you want me to do with people’s memories?” asked HAL. “Should I restore them to how they were when I first integrated each person and make them forget about their time being upgraded or let them remember being upgraded, but remove the enhancements? How do you want me to handle groups integrated at different times, for example, people who remember other people being upgraded before they were? How do you want me to deal with their confusion about time having passed and their own loss of memories? I’m not sure if you fully grasp the complexity of what you’re asking for.”
Stephen looked at Blargh, helplessly. The rough man shrugged back in confusion.
Stephen released HAL and felt the A.I.’s card appear back in his mind. The technology embedded in the man in front of them vanished, and blood began spurting out of the side of his head and drenching his body and the ground nearby. Screaming, he fell to the ground. Around town, all the people who had been previously walking in unison became bloody, started screaming, and fell to the ground.
***
“… and so we got back on the motorcycle and came back here,” said Stephen, looking at Shomos and Rurth in a panic. “The technological devices on the power lines weren’t there anymore.”
The two looked at him uncertainly. “So, you didn’t help the people in town?” asked Rurth.
“What could we do?” asked Blargh.
“Maybe releasing HAL wasn’t the right idea?” said Rurth. Shomos looked at him in irritation. “Maybe?” she said.
“I thought it would remove just HAL,” said Stephen. “I was so overwhelmed at what he’d done. He wasn’t offering any good way to undo it. Let’s find some sort of time travel and undo this.”
“What’s ‘time travel’?” asked Shomos.
“It’s a way to return to a time in the past and make changes, leading to a different outcome,” said Stephen.
“If you can do this, why haven’t you just ‘time traveled’ and not captured us?” asked the druidess.
“Good idea,” agreed Stephen. “After we develop a way to travel back in time, we’ll undo me capturing you and bringing HAL to Earth. Maybe I’ll even prevent Avin from ever coming to Mecond or Earth. This could solve all our problems!” His tone became increasingly manic as he continued. “Have I killed 98% of the human race?”
“I’ve never heard of any sort of magic that could accomplish this ‘time travel,’” said Rurth. “I know that you have access to wonders that the Wizards' Guild in Hopedale never considered, but what you describe isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard of before. We’ve never encountered anything like it with other dimensional travelers, either. Are you certain it exists?”
“Adam will know how we can do it,” said Stephen. “Let’s go talk to Adam.”