Earth – Universe 999, December 2, 2157
Her breath pounded in her ears, seeming to echo in the helmet like the roar of a tornado. Watch for shadows that move! Hah.
Jesus, she felt out of shape, and then she saw it out of the corner of her eye, twisting to her left, she fired without thinking. Fluid splattered across the pavement and a shriek she barely heard through suit echoed across the street as the shadow dissolved. She paused then, turning to look back after the two Australian officers.
Both women had stopped, and were firing at what appeared to be a massive wall of shadows coming from within, and around the sides of the Anderson Homstead. When the heavy cannon wielded by the Captain tore holes in the shadowy creatures, Shawna could almost feel the shrieks and pain of the shadowy death. Still she moved up to join the two other women, the crack of her pistol adding to the fire. She didn’t even note the arrival of three other suited figures until their automatic energy weapons began throwing beams of pulsating light towards the shadows, and yet the shadows continued to get closer.
Over the comm channel in the helment, she heard Time Shadow issue a command. “Flower Petal, execute.” She had no idea what the hell that meant, but the massive captain reached out and pulled her close in, firing the heavy weapon the entire time. She wanted to ask what the fuck was going on, but all of a sudden a massive pulse of light and shadow entertwined flew out from their little party, and then they were inside a building and her stomach flew up…….
Don’t puke in the helmet, dumbass……a mantra she imagined she heard Brett saying, and it helped long enough for her to claw the helment off, and then she spewed all over the nice, sterile corridor.
…………………………………..
She rested on one knee, the helmet lying beside her for a few moments, the chaos surrounding her before she slowly stood up to watch a medical team carting someone away in a gurney.
She saw the giant form of the smiling Terestria, the smile gone and a grim look upon her face. Then one by one the remainder of the personnel turned to look at her, faces drawn, worried, sorrowful. Last, Whitley, turned, her massive support weapon lowered but held carefully in her hands.
“Orders Commander?” she questioned softly.
A smartass retort bubbled to her lips but then she paused, looking at the faces of everyone and she remembered something Jacob had told her one night as they lay together.
You don’t have to know everything Shawna. Most people know what they need to do. That’s their job, they know it. They just want to know that in a time of pain and stress that its what they should be doing. Command is leading the people to do what they are trained to do, and providing those people, your people, with that calm and authority. To know that someone is in charge, some one that they trust.
Swallowing, she said in a remarkably calm voice, “Double the security shifts for the next eight hours. Nobody moves by themselves, even to the break facilities. Make sure all the base defenses are online.” She noted that the Captain smiled very briefly. “Terrestria, please escort me to the infirmary,” and the giant woman smiled shyly again, and nodded.
As she turned to follow Terrestria, “Captain, I’d like a report on the incident in thirty minutes, please.”
“Yes, Gleam Shimmer.”
“Terrestria, please explain this nonsense to me please,” Shawna stated a few moments later as they strode quietly down yet another corrider.
“Yes, Mum. Which nonsense is that?”
“The idea that everyone turned to me for orders. I’ve only been here a few days.”
“Oh, that. I’m not really one for the fine details but everyone knows that during wartime, right, that if the commander is out of action, the next in charge is the most senior Alliance team member. I mean, technically I guess, you should probably have been in charge over the Colonel anyway, as the original commander but I think they were probably trying to give you time to get oriented again.”
At this point, Gleam Shimmer wasn’t too sure about the intelligence level of Terrestria. Nice, super nice, really large, but……, so she sighed and said, “I thought all the original Australian Alliance members had died.” Cringing inside, she was unsure whether she should be pushing that button.
“Not completely true, Mum. My grandmother, Banarang died about twenty years ago. Your husband, Ghost Venom, died during the Battle of Time, about fifty years ago I guess. Time Warp, well, obviously, yea, we would not turn command over to someone who betrayed the Alliance. Although he went missing shortly before Ghost Venom died of course. It’s been hard on the Colonel since you disappeared just a few years after her Dad died. Losing both her parents in such a short time. Thankfully she’s such a strong woman. But since you were missing, not dead, you weren’t inactivated as far as the command protocols were concerned. So….you’re back. Reinstated. Its so great that your back, younger and rejuvenated obviously, like Grandmum’s prophecy said. Too bad the Colonel’s so sick but I know you’ll find a way to fix that. Oh here’s the medical bay Commander. You’re looking a little peaked. Should I make you some tea?”
Nodding absently, too stunned to speak, Shawna walked into the medical wing.
Chaos reigned. A sea of medical personnel swarmed around a surgical table. “Get Whitley up here STAT. She needs a fucking transfusion right now.”
Shawna stood back from the organized chaos and watched.
“Jesus fuckin’ christ. How the fuckin’ hell did it spread so fast. We’re going to have to do a bilobectomy on the right lung and a fuckin’ wedge resection on the left and hope that she heals quickly enough to survive. Get Whitley up here and then find three O- negative volunteers. We’re starting the surgery now because the cancer is literally growing in front of my eyes.”
Shawna sat down in a chair and tried to tune Olivia’s commands out. If they needed a commander, they knew where she was, but she had no fucking clue as to what the real threats were. What the hell the shadows were. And now she was listening to her great grand-daughter perform surgery on her daughter, who was over one hundred and thirty years old, and she was pregnant with twins and this all was not fucking real. Just NOT REAL.
She’d closed her eyes, and must have fallen asleep. She didn’t wonder how. After multiple years of war, you slept when you could, regardless of stress or worry, but now she needed to fucking pee again.
An item that was quickly resolved but did not relieve any of the acid she had riding higher in her stomach. She still slipped back into the armored suit, it was getting easier, but she left the helmet off and trooped back over to the medical bay, where the surgery continued but at a less volume.
“Commander?” the young male voice made her turn her head. The kid was also in some sort of fucking uniform. Jesus, did anybody not wear one around here. Maybe he was fourteen, who knew, he seemed so young. The irony of his age did not escape her.
“So I’m told.” The reply wasn’t even sarcastic, just tired.
“Captain McDowell asked me to take you to the command room. For a briefing?”
“I can’t possibly be more excited,” and then feeling bad for the kid, “Lead on.”
She’d kind of expected some Star Trek type super bridge, but, other than some obvious differences, it didn’t look much different than the one Brett had been building at the Paragon Base when they’d disappeared what seemed like eons ago now.
As she walked into the small conference room, the young man shut the door behind her, so she set the helmet on the table and sat, looking at the back of the head of the only person in there. Then she heard the whine, as the chair turned slowly around to a reveal a grey haired Aboriginal woman.
When she spoke, her voice was both quiet and rough, “You may wish to sit closer, it can be hard to project for long.”
Nodding, Shawna stood and shuffled to the end of the table, and sat down again next to the woman, and who she could see sat in some sort of medical support chair.
“Thank you, dear,” the older woman said. “My name is Gili. I’m her ta give you as much of a briefing as ya want, or maybe need, or perhaps a combination of both. Where would you like to start?”
“The beginning is probably too much to ask…..so, first things first, is this base and its inhabitants in any immediate danger?”
“No, unless the defenses fail. But I will know before that happens.”
“Then why aren’t you in charge?”
“A number of reasons, but most importantly because I refuse to be. It is not my path.”
“But it is mine?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not, that is still ta be seen. For a version of you, yes. For this version, 
a number of paths are still possible.”
“Well, that is sooooo helpful.” Gili nodded, a peaceful smile upon her face. “Then why am I here?”
“Would you prefer to be dead?” the old woman asked in reponse.
“Of course not.”
“Then you are here,” then taking a deep breath, “but you have the patience of youth and wish direct answers. They have been looking for you. By all probabilities you should be dead and in a thousand universes, you would be, pregnant or not, just dead or twisted when originating from a world dominated by the soulless creatures. And yet, here you are, with twins of mutated parentage. Strange yes?”
“Strange, I guess, yes, that I lived and all my friends died.”
“From that dimension yes, they did. No amount of kindness or grief will undue their deaths, and yet, at least one of them made sure that there was a chance for you to live. Should that choice be honored or should it be mocked because it failed so many times? Is it the result or the action that honors his sacrifice?”
Shawna sat staring at here hands for several moments. “How does that help me here and now?”
“It does not. It will not. It is……something to think on when you make decisions in the future. You are alive. The children will be alive. He is not. Would he consider that a good outcome? Do you?”
Tears leaked down her face……”Yes, he would.”
“But you don’t want to believe it yet. It is understandable. Survivor’s guilt is a real thing. It is wise to be honest with yourself. Pain is pain. Maybe you will survive it, and maybe you will not. Only you can choose.”
She rubbed angrily at her cheeks, “Tell me about this world and what the Colonel was trying to show me. Why was she dragging it out?”
“To understand, you must know that Henri has spent decades protecting the people of this world, this base, and searching time streams to find those she could save, searching for her mother, searching for her brother. She mourns for the ones she has lost, as much as you do. She feels guilt for the stains her family line has brought on many timelines, the guilt of the darkness of Mokoi. In the end, she thinks that you, and your children may finally break that darkness, not just in this world, but across many times.”
“And yet, shockingly, I don’t understand, because I have no information.” The slap of her hand hitting the table echoed across the small conference room.
“I understand. I will tell you a story of this world, but it is just an example. It will not have been the same in others. Do you understand?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Very well.”
Gili started with the divergence, “Since Henri already brought it to your attention, I guess that’s where we can start. First, you should know its not a divergence from your time line, because that was earlier, when the team wiped out Experion in the original battle.” She paused, her voice quiet, “Are you sure that you want to hear this about the father of your child? It is not……a pleasant tale.”
When she nodded, “I’ll keep it brief then. From what I understand it was before you and he married, although to be fair neither of them really discussed any of that with me, I only know what my mother had mentioned. So this is…..more from the histories of the world and Alliance history than what I heard from them directly. Brett Anderson never spoke of it, that I am aware of, to anyone……after. The Brett you knew was a dangerous man, a soldier, broken by experimentation and death of family. The war with Anubis had the Alliance. . . exhausted, on the ragged edge. They had not yet discovered that Ghost Venom’s experiments had triggered an expansion of his abilities, although they knew that he survived because of his healing powers. What was missed was the secondary powers that had been hidden by the damage the infamous and notorius Project Eyes Open had done to his mind. Buried in the trauma of Brett’s mind were two minor capabilities inherited from his family line, abilities in dream precognition and empathic links. Nothing major of course, certainly untrained, undeveloped. But……..but 
he had a link to his daughter Olivia.”
Shawna interrupted, whispering, “He knew he had a daughter?”
“No, well, maybe, but probably not consciously anyway. But he could feel her, and felt it when the link was severed by her death at the hands of the malevent spirit Mokoi.”
Her hand covered her mouth, “He felt her die?” At Gili’s nod, “What……what happened?”
Gili sighed and moved her automated chair towards the bar in the corner, and pulled two bottles from a frig that had obviously been built in such a way as to be accessible to all. She opened both, before rolling back over and placing one in front of Shawna, “It will be good for you. For us both. And for the babies to not feel their mother so distraught.”
“Well, ain’t that fuckin’ awesome. Everybody thinks I’m so distraught that the lesser of two fucking evils is to feed alcohol to the lady that’s preggers from a couple dudes that have been dead for a hundred years, or fifty years, or six months ago, or maybe just not dead yet,” and the hysterical laughter only cut off when she leaned her head back and drank half the bottle in multiple swallows before coming back up for air with an enormous belch.
After taking a couple of much smaller sips, Gili answered. “Nothing happened right away. Nothing overt anyway. The Alliance witch Brujeria felt a momentary burst of extreme pain and rage. She found him loading weapons into an aircraft. Everybody went with him back to Port Hedland.” She stopped to take another drink, “My mother told me that Rook and Titan figured out a pattern of attacks and disappearances. They hadn’t had a chance to figure out what exactly had happened when Brett went to his daughter’s house. Nobody noticed at first. He……killed the stepfather. in a way that took a long time for him to die. And then he disappeared. Even Brujeria couldn’t find him
after that. When they arrived, they found the body, and a mother broken with grief from a dead daughter she hadn’t been able to protect. A woman full of pain and regret and suffering.”
“Two days later, Anubis attacked the world, starting with the United States. Nobody really knows if Ghost Venom would have made a difference. Eventually some other powered individuals joined in with the Alliance and drove Anubis offworld. But……not until after about fifty million people in the world had died at the hands of Anubis and his followers, maybe half of that in the southwest United States and California. Anger at homecons skyrocketed, blaming them for the deaths, the injuries. More and more hate, battles, wars. Maybe another three hundred million died in the battles across the world in the next five years. Civilizations and governments began to fall.”
“But you want to know about the man you married, yes?”
Pale and stunned, Shawna could barely nod. So much death.
Gili took another drink of her beer, before calmly asking, “Do you know what an empath really is?”
“Yea, I studied that a lot in between battles and sex apparently,” but the sarcasm was muted underneath the horror. She rubbed her face, standing up to stretch her aching back, before sitting back down and trying to get comfortable for yet another horror story. Sighing, she replied, “Someone who can feel or sense emotions, right?”
Gili nodded. “What do you think happens to an empath surrounded by pain, violence, fear, trauma?”
“I’m sure its a fucking bouquet of flowers.”
“And someone who is trained to kill others? Who kills others?”
“They grow to enjoy it……or maybe go insane.”
“Or perhaps both?” She paused again, “A soldier, with an undiagnosed ‘gift’, trained to be a ghost, to commit violence, and to bury those feelings, who feels his daugther die?” She took another sip of the beer. “It took him awhile, of course, working by himself, to find a link to Mokoi. A year after his daughter’s death, he made a deal.”
“A deal?” Shawna whispered.
“A deal to return his daughter…to life, unharmed, sane.”
“And….what happened?”
“A sacrifice has to have meaning…..Mokoi takes children but there were some lines Brett wouldn’t cross even in his cold madness. You have to understand there is no real proof, there never has been. With the wars, the secrecy, its just a theory. Olivia died on July 28th, 2018, when she was thirteen years old. Technically, she disappeared along with about fifty other children from a church youth group gathering.”
“In July of 2021, the Australian SASR was officially disbanded. It had suffered over two thousand killed, “in action and at home”, on duty and off. Hardened, experienced soldiers, elite special forces personnel. Men, women, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Every single one of them was somebody’s……child.”
“Time Shadow wants to figure out a way for you to see….the necessity of the horror I guess. In some ways she’s not wrong. Brett Anderson is, was, the most dedicated father and husband my mother said she ever knew, and all I really remember is a man who played hide and seek with me. On the other other hand, during one period of his life, Ghost Venom, or as the public came to know the killer of the SAS, the Sand Ghost, was…..one of the most efficient killer’s ever known.”
“Why do I need to know this? Why even tell me?”0
“Because she is afraid to tell you the truth. Brett spent the rest of his life fighting to curb Mokoi’s power. The blood line that flows through Brett, and necessarily his children, was linked to the dark side of Australian spirits long before Brett’s time. Not by choice necessarily, but linked nonetheless. The sacrifice of two thousand hardened warriors changed the balance of power, mystically, at least in this timeline. It’s what led to Time Warp’s corruption, the ravages of the flow of time that sped this universe ahead of all the others.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I know, dear, I know. There is a prophecy which she has latched onto, and she’s probably not wrong. Its how she found you. But it comes with a dilemma, and you can read it when you want. But…..if your twins are born here, in this time, by the nature of the deal Brett agreed to, they will be defenseless against Mokoi.” Ignoring the gasp, Gili continued, “He of course considered the terms an impossibility a fantasy of time travel and extra dimensionality, so he agreed to it……The catch is that regardless of what people used to believe in fiction, you are a person out of time. You cannot exist for long in a universe where “the other you” is alive. Perhaps Captain McDowell can explain it if you want, she’s quite brilliant. The sum of it is this world needs you. You will likel die quickly in another time, well, at least any time that we can realistically help you get too. If you stay for more than a few days. On the other hand, if you’re children are born here, they will die or be taken.”
The rest of the story took hours, and of course still glossed over one hundred years of history. It took awhile for her to grasp that Experion had been defeated, and she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then eventually had to have Gili repeat herself when it finally broke through. Gili waited patiently as she pain and guilt arrived in waves as the knowledge of that particular nightmare ending finally broke through.
Gili ordered food and tea for them both a couple of times, with small interruptions for briefings, and a longer one when Dr. McDowell finally came out of surgery. Henri still lived, and if her body could hold on for twenty four hours the immediate danger might be at an end. Shawna numbly promised to come down later to check in and then ordered the doctor to bed.
The words just flowed over her, numb, she was numb, that’s it. She wanted to blame the damn pregnancy, to blame Brett, to blame Jacob, to blame anybody else, and especially Gili for the pain her friends had suffered, even though, intellectually, she understood, they weren’t her friends because the other one had been here suffering with them. She’d been relieve to be away from Experion, but this world didn’t seem to be much better. Another, longer war, or wars, ones the “good guys”, whoever that encompassed, was losing.
Hours after the mind numbing tale concluded for the day, after she had visited the infirmary, the cafeteria, the armory, just being……seen, she collapsed into a bed sans power suit. Huddling into as much of a ball as she could, she sobbed into a pillow.
She could choose to be with her children, or she could choose to make them as safe as possible.
It really wasn’t a choice. It just took a few weeks for the Captain to find him.
“Thanks Chief.”
“For what, Sarah?”
“For this……for arranging all this…..” and she waved at the tables full of food, coffee, juice and water standing in front of more tables loaded with backpacks and clothing, grooming supplies, and various hygiene procuts.
He grunted, “I just signed some forms…..you and the shift leaders put in all the effort.” She was shaking her head by the time he finished the sentence, but he barely noticed as he watched the brunette woman handing out a backpack and helping select the best clothing for scarred young woman in front of her. He smiled slightly as his eyes moved to the teenager handing out fruit and sports drinks.
“What’s that Sarah? Sorry, I got distracted…..” as he turned back to his ebony skinned executive officer.
“Nothing, Oliver, nothing,” she said, smiling brightly at him, before her smile dimmed a bit. “Actually, Oliver, can we talk for a second?”
“Of course, Sarah,” he answered as his feet shifted slightly to allow him to face her directly.
“Good, this won’t take long,” before pausing, gathering strength. “When you hired me several years ago, I needed a change. I still don’t really know how I was fortunate enough for the Center to recruit me, but after Lenora’s death, I was numb. I’ve never really thanked you for the opportunity to help people and also have that change of focus,” and as he started to wave her away her thanks, she grabbed his hand, stunning him into mobility, “and that’s not what I’m doing now either.”
“I’m a damn good detective, Oliver, or I was, and pretty tough, to have reached Lieutenant as a black, gay, female officer in the NYPD. My point though, is, all of that aside, I was happiest because I got off my ass and proposed to her. We had ten good years before the cancer diagnosis. Another fifteen months after that where she fought, we fought, and lost.”
He stood there, holding her hand that she had grabbed, awkwardly, wondering where his subordinate, and friend, was going with this story.
“You are a closed book to everyone, Oliver, but some things are obvious. Whatever military background you REALLY have, you’ve seen violence, combat, let alone the crap we’ve seen at the Paragon Center in these troubled times. I know that you know bad things can happen to good people, and for no reason.”
“I don’t know what happened with you and the girl who always dyed her hair.” She paused, taking a deep breath, “I know though, that the perfect time will never happen. Take it from experience, I spent too long waiting to open up with Lenora, to really be with her. Maybe we could have had a couple more years before we did if I hadn’t been so concerned about my career and timing, along with some other things. So, here it is, my completely unsolicited advice. Quit overthinking. Enjoy the time you have. Don’t leave anything unsaid.”
She took a deep breath, eyes shining, before dropping his hand, before he answered, “Sarah, I……,” smiling, he continued, “I’ve been working on it, but thank you.”
He nodded again and then walked towards his daughter and her mother.
He was too far away when he saw the portal open and the armored figures come through.
October 28, 2020, Universe 19
His breathing shifted, mouth opening slightly to allow the forked tongue to extend, tasting/scenting for threats. A brief smile touched his lips, as the tastes of a few hours ago reminded him of the night, while the touch of her body lying next to him calmed him like almost nothing else could. After a calming deep breath, he slithered from beneath her arm, sitting up quietly, back against the fabric of the padded headboard he had installed after one night had been too…….exuberant.
Smiling in memory, he picked up the green notebook on the end table, and began to write down everything he remembered of the last few hours of dreams, the last had seemed so real, but he still hadn’t learned to determine what was important, what was a clue, what to study. So, instead, he wrote, as Whitley had suggested.
After he set the book and the pen back down on the carved driftwood nightstand, he turned towards the sleeping woman sprawled across more than half the bed, and began to run his fingers across her back, before sliding downward to caress her lightly with the rough edges of the tongue he had hated for so long, no matter what those who loved him had said. Finally, he was beginning to think that, maybe, just maybe, his serpentine features and abililties were more good than bad.
He felt the moment her body moved from sleep to hungry wakefulness, how her breathing hitched, and then he forgot the dreams and concentrated on her, the woman fate had reuinited with him after so much loss and pain.
After, as he lay there, spooned behind her, holding her for a bit longer, he murmured, “I’m going to go for a swim this morning, before the the morning workout, then I need to go into the Center. Want to join me for lunch with Livy?”
“Of course, did you forget already?”
“Forget what?”
“Olivia Smith Racing? Meeting with Sarah right before lunch with Livy and I, and you of course, to coordinate for the final details about the charity event next Monday? You know? Two days after Halloween because you didn’t want to interfere with the traditional party?”
For the briefest of moments, he tensed, but she felt it like a shiver through the night. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just forgot is all. I’ll be there, her office is right next to mine, remember?”
He kissed her on the back of the next. “I’ll be back in just a little while. I’m only going to swim a couple miles. If you aren’t dressed, then maybe you can help me make sure I got all the salt water off.”
November 2, 2020, Universe 19
“Thanks Chief.”
“For what, Sarah?”
“For this……for arranging all this…..” and she waved at the tables full of food, coffee, juice and water standing in front of more tables loaded with backpacks and clothing, grooming supplies, and various hygiene procuts.
He grunted, “I just signed some forms…..you and the shift leaders put in all the effort.” She was shaking her head by the time he finished the sentence, but he barely noticed as he watched the brunette woman handing out a backpack and helping select the best clothing for scarred young woman in front of her. He smiled slightly as his eyes moved to the teenager handing out fruit and sports drinks.
“What’s that Sarah? Sorry, I got distracted…..” as he turned back to his ebony skinned executive officer.
“Nothing, Oliver, nothing,” she said, smiling brightly at him, before her smile dimmed a bit. “Actually, Oliver, can we talk for a second?”
“Of course, Sarah,” he answered as his feet shifted slightly to allow him to face her directly.
“Good, this won’t take long,” before pausing, gathering strength. “When you hired me several years ago, I needed a change. I still don’t really know how I was fortunate enough for the Center to recruit me, but after Lenora’s death, I was numb. I’ve never really thanked you for the opportunity to help people and also have that change of focus,” and as he started to wave her away her thanks, she grabbed his hand, stunning him into mobility, “and that’s not what I’m doing now either.”
“I’m a damn good detective, Oliver, or I was, and pretty tough, to have reached Lieutenant as a black, gay, female officer in the NYPD. My point though, is, all of that aside, I was happiest because I got off my ass and proposed to her. We had ten good years before the cancer diagnosis. Another fifteen months after that where she fought, we fought, and lost.”
He stood there, holding her hand that she had grabbed, awkwardly, wondering where his subordinate, and friend, was going with this story. He felt like he couldn’t move, her words muffled by a barrier of air.
“You are a closed book to everyone, Oliver, but some things are obvious. Whatever military background you REALLY have, you’ve seen violence, combat, let alone the crap we’ve seen at the Paragon Center in these troubled times. I know that you know bad things can happen to good people, and for no reason.”
“I don’t know what happened with you and the girl who always dyed her hair.” She paused, taking a deep breath, “I know though, that the perfect time will never happen. Take it from experience, I spent too long waiting to open up with Lenora, to really be with her. Maybe we could have had a couple more years before we did if I hadn’t been so concerned about my career and timing, along with some other things. So, here it is, my completely unsolicited advice. Quit overthinking. Enjoy the time you have. Don’t leave anything unsaid.”
She took a deep breath, eyes shining, before dropping his hand, before he answered, “Sarah, I……,” smiling, he continued, “I’ve been working on it, but thank you.”
He nodded again and then walked towards his daughter and her mother, slowly trying to get his legs to move faster.
He moved directly towards them but he still wasn’t there when the portal opened, dropping two figures onto the sidewalk not far from his…..family. He started drawing the weapon he always carried.
One pulled her hood back, revealing an older woman with white hair, something about her familiar, blood dripping out of her nose, a bit of blood spraying outward whe she looked directly at him, before saying, “Please, help her.”
Both Amelia and Livy were less than ten feet away from the two, and neither one of them hesitated. Memory triggered, and he froze, sensing something, just for an instant, waiting for whatever horrific event would target his family, but nothing did. Instead, something, someone pulled at his mind, and he smiled, before rushing towards the small group.
Friday, January 28th, 2167. Universe 999
October 30th/2025, Universe 19
The portal opened and they stepped through, the good-byes echoing in their ears. Then ten steps on this icy moon in an unstudied timeline and then another portal…..home. Rebuilding and refugee relocation awaited. But…….it was going faster with two of them who could open the right kind of portals. No one knew whether Time Shadow’s cancer would come back, but Rook had healed her, pulling the tar like substance from her body 9/5 years earlier, but she was training Shawna just in case. And still commander of the Australian Alliance, a job Gleam Shimmer willingly abdicated for the time being.
Whit, Captain McDowell, had spent six months studying the topic of transuniverse colocation and had determined that three days, twice a year should likely be safe. So a long birthday weekend it was, and then six months later in the spring, every year for the last five years of their lives. It was longer and more painful in hers, but it was worth it. And the time gap was slowing, stabilizing. The work was paying off.
She could never meet her other, twin was the only term she ever seemed to be able to use,……but Brett and Amelia said she was great with the kids. Not mum, but definitely favorite aunt. She didn’t look like Shawna either thanks to an old enemy so there was no confusing the kids either. The kids loved her but the twinge of jealousy was…..acceptable. Stepping back through the portal always meant a lot of sadness, but even more pictures and videos of Jacob and Bridget. With their aunts and uncles, their sister Olivia, and the terrible two younger twin siblings. “Good thing Dad never sleeps,” Livy had joked. They were as safe as could be with their father, at least one of them. Her Jacob didn’t exist in that world, not really.
This world, her inherited world, still suffered from a century of war and darkness. There were no guarantees. She’d already lived a decade longer that she was supposed to and she had a family, remote though most of them may be. Maybe the prophecy would come true and they would grow up to destroy Mokoi. Right now it didn’t matter, they had a loving family. One that still included her, at least part of the time.
She’d found a way that wasn’t death or abandonment.
Prophetic destiny could fucking suck it.
Now she had work to do.
Heroes always do.
Last Dreams 