“Is it time travel or not?”
“Who’s to know?”
“I, for one, would like to know if what we’re doing in other Realities is going to destroy us. I mean, what happens if we step on the wrong flower and everything around us changes?”
“That hasn’t happened so far. In fact, the opposite has.”
“Opposite? You’re being intentionally obtuse.”
“Well, look at it this way. The gates lead to the same spot every time. The planet must be there for the gate to have something to go to. We’ve never even gated to a place with a different time of day. The moon is in the same place in the sky. It’s confirmed to be the same day as we left.”
“Ok, What about Verne? It’s like a funhouse mirror of our history with anthropomorphic animals instead of humans. They even have the same countries, and most languages are similar. But they are exactly three-hundred years behind us, to the day.”
“First of all, that’s incredibly speciesist. You wouldn’t want Vernians calling us Anthropomorphic Apes. Secondly, the stars are in the same place as where ours are. It’s not time travel to three-hundred years ago. Thirdly the multiple worlds theory proves it’s not. They are parallel Earths.”
“Then why haven’t I seen myself in these worlds?”
“Parallels! Not copies….”
Excerpt from the radio show “This Odd Life”
November 12 th , 2188 ESC
Northeast Outskirts of Teerstadt
Near the Pine Mountain River
Reality of Edelweiss
December 17 th, 2188 ESC
The sliver of a waning crescent moon didn’t illuminate much after the sun had gone down just before 1700 hours that night. The last two days had been annoying to both Althea and Ticualtzin. They were heading back to the barracks at Teerstadt base, about twenty-five kilometers to the southeast. The day had been a bit rough; this was a very undeveloped Reality, and as such, the roads were little more than cleared dirt strips. Mosquitoes, the size of a pinky joint, were harassing them when they got near the river till the sun went down.
Still, the scenery is pretty, thought Ticualtzin. The area looked much like before settlers on her Reality: grasslands, scrub oaks, Pine trees here and there. The snow in the hills and the occasional fat snowflakes shaped like six-pointed flowers that fell from the sky were new to her. Also new were the herds of pronghorn, camels, stocky thick-necked horses, and the occasional herd of mammoths. She also saw packs of thick stout wolf-like creatures that roamed up and down the fences separating the settled areas from the unsettled ones.
The river that on her world was called the Santa Ana moved in a slow flow towards the sea here. It was much better looking than the paved in flood control concrete slab that it was back in Annasheim. The huge section of fencing that Althea and herself had been looking after stretched for miles. They repaired the Mechanese monitoring pylons to tell the local security forces when a breach happened. At this point where it crossed the river, the tangled mass of thick metal piles and heavy wire that lay downstream attested to its ineffectiveness at keeping out the local creatures. In this case, a herd of mammoths foraging at a copse of avocado trees nearby.
The motherfuckers like guacamole too, she thought as she looked over at the mess of fencing. “So, Althea, you gonna tell those guys at HQ that the fences are crap?”
The other woman looked to her as she drove the eight-wheeled transport and repair crane. She gave a ghost of a smile, “The animals here have no interest in eating the fences, ba lidoza bizi. But I can say with certainty that the sensors we are using to replace Mechanese ones are mass produced GmbH crap.” Althea said this with the expressionless flat delivery she was known for, but there were swirls of cat coloring on her skin here and there.
Ticualtzin gave a little laugh. “Nah, they just like knocking them over like they’re made outta toilet paper. And yeah, they're a lot cheaper and easier to work with than your sensors.” She blushed as Althea kissed her on the cheek. “Whoah, slow down, kitten,” she said. “We don’t have much privacy yet. Two weeks, remember.” The other woman looked away and pouted with her cat coloring flushing.
“I thought you would be the one missing techuute every other day, and I am the one,” she said with a huff.
‘Emotionless’ my ass, Ticualtzin thought. They just keep it all bottled up inside. The biofem was strange, but she wasn’t a robot or insanely violent like the rumors said. She’d had over a year to understand Althea, most of that in her relationship.
She smirked, thinking, She’s old and acts like a teenager. An incredibly awkward, socially shy, nerdy one. The smirk grew. The day she caught her geeking out and singing her heart out to that Imperial Japanese show’s theme when she thought no one was around was too precious. Althea had made her promise to never tell anyone. She had looked so intensely embarrassed. It was the first real emotion she had ever seen on the other woman’s face.
Ticualtzin blinked and looked at Althea looking at her. She then looked at the steering wheel and how no one’s hands were on it. “Hey! Who’s driving?!”
Althea tilted her head and said, “I am.”
Raising her hands in protest, Ticualtzin said, “Eyes on the road!” She pointed at the dirt road illuminated by the headlights. The night was completely black other than the headlights of the truck. The only things visible were the chaparral and Joshua trees on the side of the road.
Shrugging, Althea turned back to the front and said nonchalantly, “I was controlling the electronics. It is a rather primitive… huh….” She stopped talking and slowed the truck. Then, blinking, she wrinkled her nose as she peered out the front. “Ake tsana tsi.”
What the hell is she doing now? Ticualtzin thought. Althea had several weird behaviors that she had learned to put up with, such as checking new rooms for data leaks and not knowing how to do her own laundry. This might be another one.
Althea rolled down the window a little bit and sniffed the air. “I smell blood, and there is a heat signature ahead of us,” she said. There was an odd goosebump-like movement on her skin, and her leopard coloring shifted to solid. She pointed to the rifles in the racks in the middle. “Arm yourself. We will check it out.”
Data poured into her implants from Althea and the main Storm League channels detailing a map of the area with overlays of the terrain features and the IR signatures that Althea had spotted. Ticualtzin blinked. This had never happened before, even during her combat training. “Umm, Thea, are you doing something to my implants?” she asked with trepidation.
“I have linked you into the battle net as much as possible. So you should have sensor data from all of the towers and me,” she said, nodding. Then, pointing, she said, “I think there is a truck with a slowly cooling engine and maybe a couple of bodies. I think some predators may have breached the fences.”
Her hair stood on end. They had been told about the predators here. Sabertoothed cats, packs of wolves, lion-sized cheetahs, and a bear with long legs that was fast and huge. That plus the regular packs of coyotes and other scavengers. “Umm, how big are they?” she asked as the truck slowly edged towards the other one. It looked like a red civilian truck with a flatbed, only six wheels. The lights were on, and blinkers were flashing a dull orange.
She grabbed a rifle from the center dash rack, an older model Hartmann & Weiss slug thrower. She checked the side for the tell-tale sign of a smart gun. It smoothly booted up, and she could use its multi-spectrum sight as her own where she pointed it. “Mi Novia,” Ticualtzin said. Althea looked over at her, her face gone expressionless as she concentrated. “Have you contacted the base yet?”
Nodding, Althea said flatly, “The base’s computer wants us to check it out and see if there are any casualties. But, unfortunately, they also can not contact the bunkhouse nearby.”
Ticualtzin shook her head, “Thea, vocalize that stuff in the future. I know it feels slow, but I need to be kept in the loop. It helps with tactics and assessing the situation.” Althea looked at her and nodded. She could tell the biofem was chagrinned but focused on the situation.
“I am sorry, Tiki,” she said quietly. “I get like this when combat or situations seem to require haste. I forget even with your implants, other species do not have the speed of communication of my people or computers.”
Picking up the radio microphone in the truck, Ticualtzin keyed it and said, “Control, this is Special Repair team one. We have what looks to be an abandoned vehicle on access road fifty-seven. Possible casualties, possible predators within the fence.”
“This is control,” came back a male voice. “Which marker are you at?”
“Twenty,” Althea said, still staring out the window. She turned off the vehicle’s headlights to allow for their eyes to adjust.
Keying the microphone, Ticualtzin repeated, “Twenty. I have also been informed that a nearby bunkhouse isn’t responding.”
The reply returned after a few moments, “Umm, right there is. It’s just in the log. We hadn’t gotten to reviewing it yet.” There was a long pause then the radio picked up again. “Be careful. We’ll send out a guard unit in twenty for the bunkhouse. Investigate the truck in front of you, and report back.”
“Will do,” she said. Then, hanging up the handset, she said to Althea, “Can you see better now?” She awkwardly pointed the rifle out the window and saw some blobs in her own vision where the IR beam was distorted by the glass.
“Sa,” Althea said. “Yes. There are at least two dozen scavengers out there. Some are large, but at least no hyenas. Since we are only in our winter clothes without armor, the creatures are quite dangerous. We may have to kill many of them to drive them off.”
Pointing up with her finger, Ticualtzin asked, “Hatches and fire once to see if that will scare them off? I have general soldier training, but I’m not special forces like you.”
Nodding in the dark truck, Althea said, “We can try, but if they killed the people in that truck, they might be used to hominids.” Althea swiftly unlocked the hatch above her and popped her head and shoulders out to look before she had finished talking.
The smells of the night came in. First, the chaparral and sage smell of the desert and a carrion smell of rot and the copper of blood hit her. Then the rank feral smell of the animals hit along with the stench of shit. It was altogether unpleasant. It must be worse for Althea, who had a sense of smell keener than her uncle’s hunting dog. “Oh, that’s nasty,” Ticualtzin commented.
Althea’s gun roared, and then a yelp as one of the coyotes went down. The rest of the animals scattered then regrouped to look in the truck’s direction. That's strange, Ticualtzin thought. normally they flee at the first sign of danger or noise.
After that, the animals started tearing into whatever they were trying to get at with more haste. “That has put them in a frenzy. We may have to kill many more for them to leave. Permission?”
Ticualtzin joined her by opening the hatch above her seat and pointing her rifle at the animals. Now that she wasn’t in the enclosed cab, the stench was more pungent, but she could see better. Pointing the gun in the direction of the other truck, she saw at least four dozen coyotes. “Oh, shit, there are humanoid bodies out there. Yeah, shoot the fuck outta them.” She pointed and fired her own rifle, hitting a coyote in the chest. It went down, and others picked up, eating the corpses where it had left off.
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A roar of what sounded like automatic fire came from her left. Althea started mowing down the animals, pulling the semi-automatic trigger at a high rate. She looked to her side and the biofem reloaded by clicking the magazine release and popping in a new clip without looking away from her targets. She began firing again.
“Uh Thea, that’s enough,” she said as the pack broke and fled, only three or four still living and running away with their tails between their legs.
Althea stopped firing, lowered her weapon, and said quietly, “Acknowledged.” Then, she turned to Ticualtzin and asked, “May I check the perimeter so we aren’t snuck up upon?”
She had gone fully leopard-spotted. She’s probably in combat mode, Ticualtzin thought. I get scared for her when she’s like this. Her personality gets submerged. “Yeah, sure, Thea. Be careful.”
Althea just gripped the side of the hatch with her left hand and pushed down, launching her body out of the truck cab. She flipped and landed a few meters away in a crouch, the rifle held out in her hand and the other gripping the dirt. Then she ran off quicker than Ticualtzin could see and was gone.
She could see where Althea was due to the data sharing that the other woman had subjected her to. She was moving about as fast as a dirtbike as she ran in a large circle around the site.
“This is Control to Special Repair Team One. So what was all that firing out there?” The radio squawked. “Sounds like a warzone.”
She slid back down to the seat from the overhead hatch. Picking up the radio microphone, she said, “Special Repair Team One to Control. “Looks like a couple of dead workers out here by the truck. A pack of coyotes and wolves was scavenging the bodies. d’Argus uh, took care of the scavengers. We’re securing the perimeter just in case there is something larger out here.”
“Roger that,” they replied. “Place flares so that we can find it. This is not a good night. We will hurry the guard unit. Stay put and await a medical unit. We have to recover the bodies.”
“Got it,” she replied. Then she went to yell out the window.
Acknowledged. There are fifty animals out here that are dead. In addition, I have found three dead sentients in the area. Two men and a woman. ( ◣ _ ◢ )
The thoughts appeared in Ticualtzin’s mind. It was like text messaging, complete with emoticons but purely thought-based. She blinked as a small map appeared on the side of her vision with markers for each. Ticualtzin had heard of Mechanese rapid communication and the ability to do this with her own implants. Still, she had never seen a need to do it before. She reached out a hand to the map and found she could manipulate it with her fingers zooming in and out with ease. Ok, this is a great toy, she thought.
The truck shook for a moment, and she saw Althea’s dot next to hers. Then she was off again, and green lights bloomed in the night as flares were lit then placed precisely in six spots marking the site. Ticualtzin got out of the truck, carrying her rifle so that it could point in the direction she was looking, so she had IR vision.
She walked the distance from their crane truck to the pickup. In the bed was a large Elk or deer. The workers had most likely shot the creature and were in the middle of bringing the meat back for a winter grillen. The bodies of the coyotes and wolves were still warm but slowly cooling. The sentients had been badly torn apart. One may have been a human or other similar species. She thought the second male was possibly a Humanocat or Tigré, but it was hard to tell with the IR gear, and she felt that looking at it in natural light would just make her throw up.
The smell was horrendous. It was all the Texican could do to not throw up. She wondered how Althea put up with it.
I turned off my olfactory senses, popped unbidden into Ticualtzin’s mind.
Althea, she thought. Do NOT read other people’s thoughts. It upsets people. She thought white noise to try and get some privacy for a moment.
I am sorry, Tiki, came a reply after a moment. ● ︿ ● I will turn that off. I was just worried one of the animals might not be dead and attack you. I tend to respond without thinking. My people use this mode of communication all the time. ^^;
A sense of muting returned to her, and she knew her thoughts were private again. I love you, mia dulce, but sometimes you get a bit too much Surveillance State. Don’t need my girlfriend being the thought police.
She picked through the grisly scene. That was weird. The two bodies near her looked like they had limbs and arms ripped off and not from the animals here. The bites were huge, and the largest wolf’s jaw wasn’t that big. “Hey, Thea! I think that….”
There was a squawk, and Althea’s blip moved in a direction ninety degrees from her previous heading. A yowl like a huge cat’s made her blood turn cold, and she started running that way. Finally, the IR scope saw Althea, and she was off the ground like she was being tossed in the air. She tucked into a ball and somersaulted to land in a roll, coming up in a crouch. Some of the chaparral moved, and the absence of heat in the area drew her eyes. She switched to Ultraviolet, and there was a shimmering cat-shaped blob. She had the UV scope increase power, and a large cat about two meters long came into view. It had a short bobbed tail and gigantic thirty-centimeter fangs. It tracked Althea low to the ground and was getting ready to pounce her side.
She fired the rifle, scoring a hit on its back, and Althea’s head whipped towards the sound of its scream. Again, the animal took off to the side. This time Althea could see it as she turned and started firing into it. The animal made about four strides before pitching forward into the ground head first, flipped end over end, and flailed about, claws flashing. The Biofem stood up and cooly shot it twice more, staying away from its death throws.
Running over to Althea, Ticualtzin saw big tears in her clothing that were starting to darken. “Are you OK?” she yelled.
Althea ignored the question and replied flatly, “How did you spot it?”
Blinking, Ticualtzin said, “Ultraviolet. But you’re hurt!” The darkness was spreading on the clothes.
Althea nodded and lifted her rifle up to check the area. “I was careless. I didn’t think someone would use a standard Sidhe stealth spell.” She fell to one knee and looked up at Ticualtzin with a small smile. “At least it went after me and not you. Is the Medical unit on the way?”
Rushing to Althea’s side, she said, “Come on, babe, let me help you to the medkit in the truck. Damn, she’s heavy, she thought. It wasn’t so bad when Althea could move independently, but now that eighty-nine kilos was almost dead weight. “I thought you had that armor stuff under your skin?”
A short snort came from the biofem. Maybe a tiny laugh or a grunt of pain? “Only stops bullets up to two-thousand joules,” she hissed. “Not energy or things like claws or knives. I would look like a chitinous insect if it did. I am just as vulnerable as anyone else to those things.”
Looking at her, Ticualtzin saw silver goo mixed in with blood at the wound. Then, relieved, she said, “Your regeneration seems to be kicking in.”
Althea nodded a little, “I would still like a medical facility. The nanos are just keeping my internals from falling out.” She hissed as they made it to the truck. Leaning against the sloped side, she said, “Report in. They are apparently not checking my data reports. They need to check UV and see if there are any more ambushes. There may be a beastmaster out there.” She gave Ticualtzin a lopsided smile with one fang out, “I guess my fangs were too small for this fight.”
Shaking her head with a smile of her own breaking out, Ticualtzin said, “Don’t try to make me laugh.” Then, grabbing the medkit from under the seat, she turned to the radio. “Control, this is Special Repair Team One. We just took down a sabertooth. My teammate was wounded by the damn thing. It was cloaked in an umm….” She looked at Althea as she took the proffered medkit from her. “A stealth spell that can be seen with ultraviolet sensors.”
There was a crackle and silence for a few moments. Then, “Acknowledged, Special Repair Team One. Prepare for medevac.” Ticualtzin let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in and slid next to Althea, who had her shirt up and was applying tape to four massive claw tears in her right side. Blood was everywhere mixed with a silver sheen of internal nanobots trying to hold her together.
A bit of bile forced its way up into Ticualtzin’s throat. Althea’s cat patterning had receded to a light trace on her skin. She looked up at Ticualtzin and said flatly, “Maybe it thought I was a can of cat food?”
The Texican woman knelt next to her and placed her forehead on Althea’s, meeting her eyes. “Mia novia, you are gonna give me a heart attack.”
There was a distant whine of jet engines that got steadily louder. Then, finally, it split in two directions, and one of them increased towards them. An actinic light lit up the area they were in as a large blocky craft circled their position. Off to the north, there were the brrrt brrrt sounds of rotary cannons as they fired at unseen enemies. Finally, the fat ugly troop transport circling their position alighted near them, a medical team rushing out to check both of them and the corpses.
###
Two days later, Althea had somewhat recovered and was walking in what passed for downtown in the boomtown of Teerstadt at night with Ticualtzin. Neon ads stuck out from rows of one to three-story prefabricated buildings separated by muddy dirt roads. Wires snaked from building to building haphazardly. The prefabricated buildings were ugly boxes made to be flat packed and shipped in on skyship transports. However, once in place, they could be unfolded and linked to create more complex buildings complete with plumbing, electrical, and data infrastructure. They walked on the boardwalks placed in front of stores and other structures to keep out of the muddy streets.
“Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t you be in bed still,” Ticualtzin groused, her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She mentally brushed aside the augmented reality ads that still floated around here and there. The GmbH still had influence even in a Storm League resource town like this. She looked her girlfriend up and down. Althea was dressed similarly to herself, with boots, a jacket, and loose cargo pants. Both wore ten-millimeter pistols on belts for varmints, with Althea also carrying a machete strapped to her left side. However, she was moving less gracefully than usual
Althea shrugged, her elfin ears drooping a bit. “I was bored. I wanted to be out of the stink as well,” she said after a moment. “I may never come here again, so I wanted to see this place.” She looked at Ticualtzin with her periwinkle eyes. “Besides, I wanted to see it with you.”
Feeling her ears and nose heat up, Ticualtzin turned her head away in happy embarrassment. “I uh, well, umm. Yeah, I think that’s cool.” She made a little happy dance in her head but tried to act collected. Yes!
Smells of curry powder and cooking meat wafted through the area. Althea stopped and sniffed deeply. “Hmmm, it’s close,” she said. Then she turned to the Texican and asked again, “Are you sure there are no Fess-T-Burgers here?”
Snorting a little, she replied, “No, Althea. Only knockoffs. I looked, and they didn’t open a real one here. Maybe after they pave the roads.” The woman was obsessed with the fast-food place. Althea had taken to some of the Texican food that Ticualtzin introduced her to. But she would eat only that nasty Mechanese nutritional paste or hamburgers if left to her own devices.
Althea’s nose led them to a small non-descript building with a small sign: Hamburguesas y Mas. There were small Texican and GmbH flags on either side of the door and a Storm League one on top. Althea opened the door and entered to a slight bell tinkling. The smells of grease, cooking meat, and spices hit their noses.
Hey, not bad. I smell some Indio Viejo and Gallo Pinto. Maybe Altheas’s gut didn’t steer us wrong this time, Ticualtzin thought.
The room was filled with oil workers of various sentients from many Realities, mainly humans. They looked at the pair of women briefly and back to their food. Looking up at the menu, there were indeed a lot of traditional Texican dishes, even some from her home state of Nicaragua.
Althea looked over the menu and ordered a cheeseburger with extra sauce, papas, and salsa. The person behind the counter was a heavyset human male with a huge handlebar mustache who took the order with a small smile. Althea moved aside and gestured for Ticualtzin to order. She ordered both the soup and the rice that she had smelled, in the dialect of her hometown. The man smiled hugely and replied in a slightly different dialect from one of the larger cities near her home.
Althea paid with some of the almost square paper money the GmbH used in less-developed worlds. She then scooped the change and tossed it in the tip Jar before heading to one of the multi-colored tables to sit gingerly, avoiding her right side.
She slid into the chair next to Althea on her left and kissed her cheek. Althea leaned against her and let out a happy sigh. Soon the food arrived in large portions. Two glasses of purple-pink chicha maize also appeared, she looked up, and the owner smiled at her. “Oye, solo una muestra de hogar para ti y tu novia, ¿De acuerdo?”
Ticualtzin thanked him and sipped the thick, sweet drink, instantly transported home, her mom in the kitchen and dad watching futbol on the televisor. Her brothers were teasing how she was a scrawny feminine boy that would never get a girlfriend. Proved them wrong, she thought. I wasn’t a boy, and I got a hell of an awesome girlfriend.
She tucked into the soup and started into a spoon of her rice. Oh god, it had been so long since she had had this. All the stuff on the base was from the northern states of Chihuahua and Sonora.
Althea tucked into her burger and poured the salsa on her fries. She methodically ate them, looking thoughtful.
“Pfennig for your thoughts,” Ticualtzin asked between sips of the soup and spoonfuls of rice.
Wiping her mouth, Althea replied, “I am concerned about the attack.” She then chewed on a plank fry thoughtfully. “By the way, thank you for the suggestion of this sauce. It goes well with the potatoes.”
“You’re welcome. So what about it’s got you worried? They got the stealthed cats and saved the people at the bunkhouse besides the poor hijo de puta who wandered outside,” Ticualtzin replied.
Althea sipped her drink and wrinkled her nose a bit. “Too sweet,” she muttered and drank from a glass of water. “Why were they stealthed? Who cast that spell? I had to turn my olfactory sensors off to be able to function near the stench of the coyotes and wolves. There is no sentient life on this Reality.”
Ticualtzin hmmed and tore off a tortilla to scoop up some salsa and rice together. She said after a minute, “You said it was a standard Sidhe stealth spell?”
Nodding, “It was a known failure of the spell matrix to emit a small amount of ultraviolet radiation.” Pausing, Althea sipped some water. “I was very arrogant and assumed I was dealing with dumb animals,” she chastised herself. “It was a beastmaster of some sort, I am sure. I would assume they’re a Sidhe based upon the spell used.”
The ground started to shake a little bit. Probably a large truck, Ticualtzin thought. The oilfields were lousy with them. They used them to build and repair the oil rigs. They also used them to transport the oil to the skyships that, in turn, transported the oil to refineries and plastic factories. After all, it was a major source of income for the Storm League.
The shaking increased, and Althea stood up, the chair slamming against the wall. “What’s going on?” Ticualtzin said, standing up suddenly alert.
“The data sphere just crashed,” Althea said.
A trumpeting of mammoths came from outside the café. The howling of dire wolves accompanied it.