BEATRICE:

Did my changes to the timeline work?

I woke up in my Kiln Room and summoned Alpha with a remote. “Alpha, what’s your status?”

“Gathering the remaining one percent of data to build redistribution protocols,” it answered over radio signal.

My scheme didn’t work, and I was out of slipstream possibilities to explore. I had to fix this in the here and now of my physical reality.

My usually serene demeanor faded completely as I raced through the halls of Camp Claudi.

“Out of my way!” Gilda, from the skincare department, gripped her clipboard and hugged the wall as I flew by.

I always made it a point to never look frazzled or in a hurry, but this was a genuine emergency.

“Hurry.” I pressed the elevator button a dozen times. The lift didn’t come fast enough.

I rode the elevator down to the tech room and scanned my Universal DNA Identifier to enter the top secret R&D department.

Twenty of the world’s top robotic engineers worked on replicas of Alpha, digging into the core mechanics to figure out how to shut them all down. Solutions in the slipstream weren’t guaranteed, so answers had to be enacted covertly in real life as well. Always have a back up plan.

“Someone give me good news or payroll will be a lot lighter tomorrow,” I yelled. “Haven’t you heard? It’s the year of efficiency.”

Threatening to fire someone always got the best results, but these idiots still had nothing to say.

“You…” I pointed to the tech guy nearest me. “Tell me something good.”

He turned pale at the unwanted attention and didn’t even muster the guts to look me in the eye. All my employees were cowards like that.

He stammered, “I… well… so…”

“Spit it out!”

“Basically, in layman’s terms, the drones are locked. There’s a source code we can’t penetrate. Even though these replicas were all made recently, they’ve somehow downloaded this cryptic programming. It’s wild! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I asked for good news!”

He stared at me blankly. Looking around the room, no one else made eye contact with me, either. Cowards. All of them.

“Figure it out, people! And fast! I’ll be back in an hour.”

My confidence waned. Alpha would go into annihilation mode soon. Not knowing what else to do, I went to check on Jackie. I needed the support of my family now.

I walked into Jackie’s Kiln Room, expecting to find her passed out on the couch. Her stupid notebook was there, but she wasn’t. Maybe she finally mastered taking her physical body into the slipstream.

“Jackie?” I called.

I heard sniffling and found her in the corner, curled up in the fetal position.

“Jackie? Are you okay?”

She looked up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks, wearing her party dress from days ago. How long had she been in here, working the slipstream to the detriment of her health? Preoccupied with problems of my own, I hadn’t noticed.

“Jackie, what’s wrong?”

She mumbled something incoherent and rubbed her face. Her eye makeup smeared. I sighed with disgust at how sloppy she was.

“Where… which stream is this?” Jackie asked. “Where’s Grace?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Where’s my mother?” Jackie asked accusingly. “Is she okay? Did you see what they did to her?”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time to rehash the past. We had bigger fish to fry.

“Get a grip, Jackie. Grace is gone.”

“What have you done to my mother?” Her eyes darted around the room, trying to piece together where she was.

My disdain turned to pity. Jackie was lost in it all. I put my arms around her shoulders.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“Don’t worry. I’m here. We’re together. In this reality, right here and now. We’re together. Isn’t that enough? It is for me,” I whispered.

Jackie became enraged and pushed me away. She stood up and paced like a wild animal, spouting nonsense.

“They did this to her, and you let them! You did this to her! You did this to all of us! You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

“Stop this, Jackie. You’re losing yourself, losing sight of the truth. The here and now is escaping you…”

“I can’t stop,” Jackie replied. “I won’t stop. Not until I save my mom. I need to save Grace, Zayne, and Baxter, too.”

Her eyes lit up with fury. “You lied to me about Baxter! And now you’re up to something worse!” Jackie shoved her dirty finger in my face. Her hand shook, unsteady and unhinged.

“What are you talking about?”

“The drones! You unleashed them into the slipstream, and now they’re infecting everything. They’re taking people’s souls!”

“Souls? Don’t be so dramatic. Sure, they’re taking data, but—

“So you know about this?”

What did Jackie see in the slipstream to make her think the drones were stealing souls? After seeing the shell of a man Feraz was this morning, I had to assume she was right on some level. What could I say to calm her? I quickly settled on the truth.

“I’m sorry, Jackie. I truly am. No matter what I try, I can’t stop them. They’re running the final simulation, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“What do you mean, final simulation?”

“They’ve collected massive amounts of data and they’ve decided…”

I choked up. I hated to deliver such horrific news.

“What? Tell me already!”

“They’ve decided to eliminate ninety-nine percent of the population.”

The words felt like bile coming out of my mouth. Jackie looked at me in disbelief.

“They say it’s the most efficient use of…” Finishing that sentence made me want to vomit, but I cried instead.

I needed comfort in that moment. Instead, Jackie ridiculed me.

“The kingdom has fallen under your reign, Queen Beatrice. Admit it. You’ve made so many mistakes. You’re not the mastermind you portray yourself to be.”

“Like you can do better?” I scoffed. “You’re a slipstream junkie! Always stuck in the past like your lowlife father.”

Jackie laughed. She actually laughed at me! Then she said with spite, “You’re so focused on winning the future that you miss the point. You’ve inflicted so much pain on other people as a means to your end. Your happiness shouldn’t come at the expense of others. You think you’re so great, but you’re a monster!”

That stung. I screamed back, “I had no choice. I always had to look to the future, explore the probabilities. Don’t you see? That’s all I had left. My body was paralyzed, but my mind wasn’t. Don’t judge until you’re trapped in a wheelchair, okay? Anyone in my position would weigh their options. I chose life!”

“Well, this life sucks. Take away this cursed phoenix gene. I don’t want it. I never asked for any of this. I can’t live in this unjust world for eternity.”

Jackie continued her barefoot pacing. It broke my heart to see her in such a state. It pained me to have another daughter choose anything but me and the life of luxury I provided.

Despite trying to make things right, well, here we were. Why couldn’t they appreciate what I offered? Was I a monster for spoiling them?

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “The true cost of choosing my own life was too great. I lost Mark, Grace, now you’re slipping away from me, too. I always end up alone. It’s the most probable outcome, I guess.”

Jackie stopped pacing and came to me. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “We’ve got to go back in time to fix things. Make massive changes. Have you tried that to stop your creepy robot sidekick?”

“I’m sorry Jackie, but you can’t change the past.”

“I don’t believe that. Firestorm made it seem like… I won’t stop until I figure it all out.” Jackie grabbed her notebook and riffled through its pages, as if the answer would magically appear.

I sat on the couch, defeated. I rarely conceited defeat, but the Alpha problem was critical and none of my simulations in the slipstream worked. Despite my sincerest attempts to the contrary, Life Rite left a deluge of suffering in its wake.

I could justify the mutations, and even the fire fields, but I could not in good conscious let Alpha kill billions of people. It hurt me to see Grace fall ill, even after she threw me and Mark into the volcano, but to watch Jackie unravel was the last straw.

I had high hopes for the future, but saw all the flaws in the design. Even with the most powerful tools at my disposal, I couldn’t change the probability of Life Rite’s path of destruction.

“You’re right, Jackie,” I finally said. “I lied to you.”

“I knew it! Baxter died in the street. You never tried to save him.”

I forgot I told her that. Seemed better at the time to ease the blow of his death for her.

I shook my head. “Not about that. I lied about changing the past…”

“What do you mean?” Jackie asked with an insatiable desire to know dancing in her wild eyes.

“I can’t control the knock-on effects, but there is a key decision that’s the root cause of it all. If…” I choked on fear. The thought of it made me sick.

“What? How? Change our fates, B!”

Tears streamed down my face. “I can’t focus on the past. It’s too hard. I felt trapped back then. It was worse than a cage… I can’t go back. We need to keep going forward.”

Jackie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Maintaining my well-crafted composure was no longer an option. I blubbered, “I’m not a villain. I’m a hero. Did you know there’s a fine line between the two?”

Jackie softened at the sight of my watershed tears.

“A villain will sacrifice the world to save a chosen few. A hero makes personal sacrifices to save the world. Either way, sacrifices need to be made. I have to stop Alpha from ending it all.”

Jackie grabbed my hands and looked me in my eyes. “Let’s be heroes. Let’s change the past. It’s the only way to save our future.”

“What about the empire I’ve built?”

Jackie shrugged it off so easily. “Life Rite only benefits the rich, and let’s face it. They’re not using infinity to make life better for anyone but themselves. They’re getting richer, and everyone else is barely getting by. That’s why Alpha thinks most people are disposable trash. There is no chance of survival in this cut-throat world. We have to go back, B.”

I shook my head and said between sobs, “I can’t. I’m not ready.”

“Fine. Maybe the drones will kill me, too. After all, I’m just a janitor. A useless slipstream junkie…”

Jackie left me alone with my sorrow. I sat on that couch for a while, lamenting my options. I couldn’t go all the way back, could I?

Refusing to believe my circumstances, I wiped my tears and walked back down to the R&D department.

“It’s the eleventh hour… Tell me something good!”

Those imbeciles didn’t have any news for me, so I went to the operations department in the basement next.

On my way there, someone asked me to sign payroll, approve photos for an article, and some other task that was meaningless now. I waved them all away and focused on the only thing that mattered. Changing the biggest decision in the course of history…