Time and Time Again – I’ll Make Sure – Destiny x Marathon

“Saying it’s reconfigured for human pilots is all well and good, but can you move this thing?” Leela said. The drained sensation had returned, but it was much weaker than before. If it truly ran on Light, remaining in operation would probably require a constant supply. 

John nodded. “The controls resemble vehicles I trained in before. You ready?” The cyborg’s harness was different from hers, but then he was much heavier. 

“Let’s finish this.” Leela replied. 

John pulled a lever and the Sling was released from some docking clamp on its underside. Immediately it began to hover in place, shifting ever so slightly on the atmosphere that was being pulled through the tunnel and into space. Under John’s control it started forward and up, dashing through the tunnel at a velocity that accelerated rapidly. 

“Tycho, contact our jumpship and tell it to stay close.” Leela said. Within moments they had left the planetoid and were in space. Stars glittered all around them. Behind them was the shattered planetoid of the Sikhaan. The increasing quakes and the massive gap torn through it by the W’rkcacnter had doomed it; large cracks were already forming that would rip it apart. A glint of light shifted as Leela’s ship closed on them. It was unarmed, but she saw no reason to leave it behind here. 

“The W’rkcacnter has left; I believe it’s heading for Earth.” John said as he consulted a bank of instruments that resembled a radar.

“Makes sense; if it wants to consume Light, the Traveller is the greatest source of it in Sol, if not the entire galaxy.” Leela said and did her best to fight off her memories of the last time she had seen the Last City. This time would be different. 

“I’m not sure of the specific mechanics, but we need to get it into the Sun, and if not that then Alpha Centauri’s star. Those are our closest options.” John said.

“You’re not sure!?” Tycho exclaimed.

Leela agreed with Tycho’s worries, but now was not the time. “If we throw it into the Sun, will it disrupt the star?” 

John looked back at her, and she saw more hope than certainty. “I can’t say.” 

Leela nodded in understanding. How could any of them know these things? 

With that, John put the craft into the pursuit. Already it had lost the disk-shape they had found it in, and moreso resembled a fatter jumpship. The W’rkcacnter had already passed Pluto in the minutes since they had left the planetoid but the Sling was catching up, and by the time they were passing Uranus it was showing up on the short-range radar. Or rather, the short-range radar showed everything else but the creature. They could not truly see or perceive it with their instruments, but they could see around it, and thus it was detectable by where there was nothing. It only took Tycho a second to run through the instruments and plot the entity’s path; a straight line through Sol to Earth, and at this velocity it would be there within the hour. 

“Tycho, can we hail the City?” Leela asked while John kept up the pursuit. Their jumpship was somewhere behind them and falling behind. The Stellar Sling was frightfully fast. It occurred to Leela that if they were to reach Earth from beyond Pluto’s orbit in an hour, they were well past the speed of light.

“I’ve already tried,” Tycho said, “but they aren’t responding. There’s a storm growing on Earth and it must be disrupting communications.” 

“Could they realistically help us?” John asked and threw the Sling into a curved trajectory to bring the W’rkcacnter into view. 

The beast, hurtling as it was towards Earth at superrelativistic speeds, looked to Leela like a living fireball with a spherical center surrounded by undulating waves of matter. Every time she had an image of it in her head, it would shift and become something new. Anything that crossed its path, be it space dust or meteorites, was changed or deleted. Sol was fortunate that no major planets or moons had shared that fate so far. 

“Engaging!” John called out and dove the Sling towards the W’rkcacnter. Weapons from somewhere on the Sling opened fire and explosions rippled along the W’rkcacnter’s hide, but within moments they ceased, as the munitions were erased from reality in mid-flight and the creature changed course for a moment to charge straight at them. John and Leela were nearly tossed from their harnesses as it impacted with the Sling and sent them flying with a cacophony of alarm bells ringing in the cockpit.

Warning. Warning. Reality Integrity dropping. Hull Synchronicity below Recommended Levels.

“Reality Integrity is not a phrase I ever want to hear again.” Leela said with a grimace as John fought to right the Sling and regain control. The W’rkcacnter had already vanished from their line of sight as it resumed its route to Earth. 

Tycho turned to John. “The Sling is maintaining its own reality, but something is drawing processing power from its CPU.”

“I highly doubt an advanced Jjaro spacecraft uses a CPU.” John replied.

“Analogues. But I think it’s the shapeshifting. The Sling is trying to guess what you want, and that takes processing power away from the reality generator.” Tycho said.

“Adding reality generator to my list.” Leela muttered. 

“What can you do about that?” John said matter-of-factly. 

“Let’s tell it what you want directly. The computer should be able to understand.” Tycho said.

John looked at the bank of controls. “I can’t transmit that on my own.” 

“Then think on it, bring it up,” Tycho said and flew to John’s side, “I’ll send it over.” 

John looked at the Ghost for a moment, then nodded. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, then the cockpit was lit up by Tycho’s scanner. A moment later a second beam connected the Ghost to the instruments, and the Sling quivered. 

UESC SF-021 Interceptor schematics loaded. Shifting.

Leela blinked, and the controls were different again. 

“I made sure to load something that had two seats.” John said from the front. “I suspect the form doesn’t influence the Sling’s capabilities.”

Tycho was still connected to the computer. “Processing power being routed solely to the reality generator. Next time the W’rkcacnter tries something, the Sling will be ready.” 

They blasted off again. With space as the only reference point, judging their speed was impossible but Leela was sure they had increased tremendously. By the time they crossed Jupiter they passed the W’rkcacnter again, leaving a line of explosions across it with their weapons. The W’rkcacnter roiled for a moment then resumed its course, seemingly uninjured. Whenever it counter-attacked, they were able to avoid it or push through it, now that the Sling was focused on its defense. But every attack cost time, and soon Earth appeared as a blue dot against the void. 

“We’re running out of time!” Leela called out. She could not help pilot the machine, but she still served as the fuel source; as their pursuit had intensified so had the demands on her Light. She would not call the sensation painful, but neither was it pleasant. She was so unused to it that she had no frame of reference for how long she would be able to stand it.

John grunted and put the Sling into a spin through a barrage of attacks from the W’rkcacnter, then pulled a lever. The machine shook, and the screen in front of Leela lit up. Stellar Sling Device deployed. Supercausal entity within range. She gasped as the draining surged to painful levels. But as John launched the device, the W’rkcacnter opened around it to dodge it effortlessly, then spun and ducked away. 

The W’rkcacnter stopped in place for a moment, then rippled with a hunger that could be felt through space. It had sighted its prey; the Traveller that hovered above the City. It sped away with renewed energy and John went in pursuit. 

“John,” Tycho cried out, “Leela’s flagging. We can’t keep going for much longer.” 

“No,” Leela replied and touched Tycho’s shell, “keep going John, this has all been for nothing if we fail again.” 

John looked at her for a moment as the Sling caught up to the W’rkcacnter. Their eyes locked, and he nodded. 

Sighting its prey had pushed all other thoughts from the W’rkcacnter’s mind, and it ignored the matte-grey craft as it charged towards it and deployed the Stellar Sling a second time. John dived the craft straight into the shifting mass and pulled the lever again. Leela cried out in pain as the drain intensified.

Stellar Sling Device deployed. Supercasual entity within range. Engaging containment procedure. 

At that, the stick wrestled out of John’s hand as the craft took control. The W’rkcacnter howled through space as the device embedded itself and extended, forming a net of silvery strands so impossibly thin that soon they were invisible to the naked eye, only seen where they restrained the chaotic beast. The W’rkcacnter roiled and strained against the net, but it barely even buckled. The craft turned towards the Sun and set off at a velocity that forced John and Leela back into their seats with pained grunts. The viewscreen darkened as the Sun came into view and grew until it took up the entirety of their horizon, the speed of the craft growing and growing until it seemed to the trio that they would slam into the sun itself, but then with a judder that went through the entire craft, the net behind them detached itself and the craft rose out of its path, turning at the last moment before the net with the restrained W’rkcacnter slammed into the surface of the Sun. For a moment all seemed to stand still, then shafts of light-blue light erupted around creature and it began to sink below the Sun’s surface. Even in such conditions, the two seemed unharmed and they were below the surface in short order, until a mass ejected from the surface and spun into space.

“It’s just a coronal mass ejection,” Tycho said with clear relief, “the containment seems to be working.” 

“Is that it? It’s over?” Leela said after the cockpit had been silent for a long time. Even John simply sat there and stared at the Sun. 

“It’s over.” he said and leaned back in the seat. He looked relaxed for the first time since Leela had seen him.

Before she could speak further, the craft shuddered and turned before setting off. 

“It’s heading back, it’s going back to the planetoid.” Tycho said, and the screens lit up as to confirm.

Containment Successful. Returning to designated base. 

“But the planetoid is shattered, there’s nothing left.” Leela said.

“Tycho, can you cancel the return protocol?” John said.

Tycho shook his shell. “The security is beyond anything I have ever seen. Even the schematic transfer was handled by an intermediary program. I can’t do anything.” he said and flew to Leela’s side. 

“It’s likely that the craft won’t reactivate unless it is required for containment again.” Tycho finished. 

The trio waited in the cockpit until Leela’s jumpship caught up to them, and with some regret they abandoned the Jjaro craft to its fate. The cockpit of Leela’s ship was smaller than that of the craft, but they managed to fit, John gazing at the direction the craft had gone the entire way to Earth. 

They were unable to hail City Airspace Control until they were practically in sight of the walls. Again it was Liam that responded, with no memory of the time Leela and Tycho had hailed to confirm John’s story, and designated a landing platform for them. 

“So, what happens now?” 

They were sitting on a bench in Central Park each with their own take-away box of warm noodles. Tycho stayed close to Leela’s side as he trawled the local net for news and any mentions of their climactic battle in space. Due to the storm, the City had not noticed it with their own instruments, and Leela had no desire to explain it all right now. 

John postponed his reply with a mouthful of noodles and duck, then said. “I go back to exploring. Fighting W’rkcacnter isn’t all I get up to. I’ll have you know, before I came to your City I was on a fortified moon. Might go back there.” 

“Sounds interesting.” Leela said and took a helping of her own meal. 

John waited for her to finish. “You might be able to come with me, you know. Granted we don’t know the full details of how you were able to shift along with me, but it’s a possibility.” 

Leela chewed on that thought for a moment. “I’m an explorer at heart, John. It’s what I do, how I spend my own given immortality. It sounds like a golden opportunity, but I am going to decline your offer.”

She indicated the City around her with a wave of a hand. “This is where I live. This time, this place. I come back here when I need a rest, and I don’t intend to change that.”

“Besides,” she looked at Tycho, “I have some unanswered questions that I am going to pursue now, and I can’t imagine I will find the answers anywhere else other than Earth.”

“Fair enough.” John said with a smile and finished his food. 

“And you’re sure?” John said as he looked at the gleaming spacecraft. It was sleeker than most he had ever seen in his own time.

“I have others. This is one of my best, but I have others.” Leela said. They were standing in one of the City’s civilian hangars. Not many private citizens had craft of their own, but Leela was a Lightbearer, even if she wasn’t a Guardian. 

“Thank you Leela, I just hope it’ll come with me when I shift.” John said.

“Well,” Leela replied with a chuckle, “if it doesn’t then I just take it back.” 

“Is this it, then? Is this goodbye?” Tycho said after a moment and looked at John. 

“I suppose it is, Tycho, Leela.” John said and turned away from the spacecraft. 

“Sure you don’t want to wait out the storm?” Leela said and glanced out the hangar doors. The clouds above the City were practically black, and the City was losing communications beyond the Wall. It was going to be rough. 

“I’m sure. The storm might well not be there when I’m going.” John said and climbed the ladder into the cockpit. 

“Goodbye then, John. Good luck.” Leela said.

“Goodbye.” Tycho echoed.

John closed the canopy and saluted at them without a word, then bent to the controls. It seemed a little small for him, but he would make do. Leela stepped back as the craft began to turn to head for the exit. She followed as John taxi’d it to the runway, wondering if there was more she was supposed to say. Before she knew it there he was, ready for takeoff. 

Leela’s focus was broken by a blast of light and sound, and as she turned she saw the source; explosions were ripping through the Tower and along the top of the Wall. Bulky vessels emerged from the black clouds and descended towards the City. 

Leela turned back to John and she could see him looking at her. She waved in the direction of the runway.

“Take off, John, go! We’ll take care of it, I’ll make sure!” she shouted and waved again. 

John looked her in the eye for a moment then nodded. And just like that, the jumpship accelerated, took off and then vanished. The jumpship had followed John in his shift, and he was safe. 

“It’s the Cabal. They’re attacking the City.” Tycho said.

Leela sighed and reached for the pistol in her belt. She had really been looking forward to some rest.

FIN

Time and Time Again – Not A Trunk to Stand On – Destiny x Marathon

They found more of the egg-shaped Sikhaan vehicles in a garage on the outskirts of the residential district and a jolt from Tycho started their engines. Leela was glad to leave the oppressive shadows of the abandoned mansions behind. They had brought the alien fur and the tablet from the basement, the fur wrapped around Leela’s shoulders. The tablet was stored with John; the cyborg had a surprising capacity for storing objects about his person. The revolver he had used earlier was nowhere to be seen, but Leela had no doubt that if John needed it, the weapon would be in his hand in a heartbeat. 

An earlier quake had damaged the residential cavern but the serious damage had been contained to the edges, and navigating their vehicles around the cracked chunks of ice and rock slowed them to a crawl, with Tycho guiding them from the air above. Leela wished she had kept better track of the time from their first visit; she already felt like they had been in this Shift for a long time and could not escape the thought that, at any moment, the W’rkcacnter would escape again. 

Time and Time Again – The Woman, The Ghost and The Cyborg – Destiny x Marathon

The world warped around Leela as she reached out towards Tycho, but in the next breath he and John were gone, replaced by rows of ice-speckled pews. Her feet landed on a slick floor and she tumbled badly. It was pure luck that she didn’t crack her skull open on one of the pews. A wave of nausea rolled through her, but she kept it in as she surveyed her surroundings. It was the domed temple again with the icy sphere in the centre, though in this time the sphere had cracked some time in the past and was lying on the ground split in two. Remembering the vision she had seen upon touching it, Leela’s anxiety spiked, but when nothing happened she moved closer. The plinth that had supported the once-floating sphere was of some grey stone, with a hole in the centre that extended beyond Leela’s vision. Next she went to the Sikhaan refectory where they had found the first terminal and found the terminal already turned on, the screen idle on a Sikhaan message log. 

“Tycho, can you–?” She started but realised that she could not feel her Ghost anywhere around her. Her breathing quickened. 

Time and Time Again – Not This Time – Destiny x Marathon

As soon as Tycho had the data he needed from the tablet, John replaced the tablet on its plinth and stepped away. A few of the Sikhaan rushed to the plinth and examined the tablet, perhaps worried that the stranger had damaged their relic in some fashion. 

“The positional data I found points deeper into the planetoid,” Tycho said, “and that ramp seems as good an entry point as any.” 

“Okay, let’s–” John started, but he must have felt the same sensation that had passed over Leela and Tycho, for the trio turned and looked up the way they had come. A single figure stood there, its four arms slack against its side and blood dripped from a gash in the middle of its face where a trunk should have been. Four milky-white eyes glared at them across the distance. 

Leela’s anxiety spiked at the sight. “Tell me you two are seeing that.” 

John said nothing, but drew his revolver.

“What is it?” Tycho said and flew behind Leela. 

“It’s the creature that attacked me in the temple,” Leela replied and thought back to the occurrences and visions from their first visit, “and I think it’s been following me for a long time now.” 

“Trunkless.” John said and looked at Leela.

She caught his meaning. “Ra’Sikhaan. Whatever that truly means.” 

Time and Time Again – Lost in Translation – Destiny x Marathon

The terminal, though interesting, was a dead end. The information contained in the message they had read contained no clues to further information and the terminal contained nothing else of interest. But John had an idea; the message must have come from somewhere and so it stood to reason that the terminal was connected to a network. Tycho searched deep inside the terminal and found just such a network, but it was badly damaged, frayed by time and neglect. There were other terminals still connected but they were scattered far and wide throughout the planetoid. At the end of the network was a node that Tycho could only describe as ‘shiny and dangerous’. It was tagged Gellon-01. There was no method of remote interaction with the Gellon-01 node.

At John’s suggestion they travelled to the nearest functional terminal, a couple levels down. Leela’s mind wandered as they walked through the icy tunnels. The sight of the Last City under attack by the W’rkcacnter weighed on her mind and she wondered about the fates of her friends in the aftermath, even if, as John had said, they had left that timeline behind. Was she a stranger to this world, now that she came from somewhen else? She had a sense that she was the Leela of this time, that there was no doppelganger of her out there, but even so she would not be able to account for the differences between herself and that Leela. If she had gone left instead of right, she had no knowledge of what that had entailed for herself.

“You’ve been quiet.” Tycho said by her side. Their companion was ahead of them, in sight but perhaps out of earshot. 

“I’ve just been thinking.” Leela replied, then admonished herself for being so short with her friend.

“I’ve been thinking about what John said back in the alien rectory,” Leela continued, “about the differences between this time and our time.” 

“The Traveller still went right at Alpha Centauri in this time.” Tycho said with a wink.

Leela smiled. “Ha ha, very funny. I was thinking about us. How were we different here? What have we done? Did we go into that submarine in this time? Was I a Guardian here?”

In the silence that descended, Leela was aware of every grain of ice she crushed with her boots, every sound that echoed down the winding tunnels. 

When Tycho did reply, he spoke slowly, taking great care wth each word. “I don’t know the answer, Leela, but I know one thing for sure. In this time, in any time, you are still my Lightbearer. Nothing will change that.” 

Leela caressed Tycho’s shell. “Thank you, Tycho.” 

Time and Time Again – Unfortunate Fellow – Destiny x Marathon

The group set off from the transit hall and followed Tycho’s guidance as they descended the tunnels of the planetoid. The icy tunnels seemed at once both familiar and alien to Leela, as though someone had shaken up the surface of the ice but left the layout intact. Leela found it difficult to escape her thoughts, and so she fell behind the others. Tycho and John were still in sight but were metres ahead of her, discussing some aspect of their first visit. Leela was shaken from her thoughts by a sensation, the same eerie sense of being observed that she had felt often on their first time. With one hand on the pistol in her belt she stopped in place and looked around. In one of the side-tunnels, hidden in the shadows, stood a figure. It and Leela looked at each other for a moment in silence, until Leela realised she had seen it before. In the Last City, just before she had seen John. As she thought back to it she realised the shape had been humanoid, but not human. It had had four arms and trunk-like legs, just like the figure watching her now, and she was reminded of the figures from the murals; the Sikhaan that had lived here. But the figure took a step forward into the fading light cast by the others and Leela saw that the being had no trunk, and indeed in the centre of its face was a horrible gash. Its eyes were a milky white and it carried no expression.

“Leela!” A voice cried out and she turned in shock to see Tycho floating towards her. 

“Why did you stop?” Tycho asked and stopped at her side. She looked back at the offshoot, but the Sikhaan was gone, perhaps scared off by the sudden approach of more strangers. 

Time and Time Again – Two’s Company, Three’s a Surprise – Destiny x Marathon

The burst of cold was so unexpected that Leela stumbled onto the uneven floor. The pavement of the City was gone, replaced by millenia-old ice. Slabs carved of white stone were visible through the ice and as Leela looked up she could see that the sky too had disappeared and had been replaced with rock and ice. To compound her confusion, in the centre of the expansive cavern stood a familiar structure; a domed church of dark stone, an icy sphere visible through the open doors.
“Hey, you okay?” A man’s voice called out and Leela felt a hand touch her shoulder.
Every instinct in her body shouted the danger at her. She pushed the hand away and spun in place to see who was in the cavern with her. It was a man in a green, armoured space-suit, his face reduced to contours behind his toned face-plate. A backpack was slung over his back and a pistol rested in a holster on his waist. She did not recognise him, but he reminded her of the man she had met in the streets of the City. The Last City!
“Where am I? What happened?” She asked, glancing around the cavern again. How had she come here and how could she get back to the City? Surely there was something she could do.
“Where you are? Did you hit your head?” The man asked and looked over her shoulder. “Is she okay?”
“Leela is just fine, whoever you are.” Tycho said and floated in front of Leela, who struggled to her feet.
“What’s wrong with you two? It’s me, John Smith. We’ve been exploring this place for weeks.” The man said with a chuckle. The sound was hollow.
“The only John I know has never left the City, and his surname is Sullen, not Smith,” Leela said, “and Tycho and I left this icy dump in our ship.” Her head was throbbing and she was confused, but she was sure they had left.
At the mention of Tycho’s name, the man looked at the both of them with an inscrutable look, but said nothing.
Leela paid it no heed. “I have no time for whatever is going on here, with you or whoever you are. Take me back to the City.”
The man’s air of camaraderie faded away, like a mask falling to the floor, and it was replaced by a presence that filled the space around her. She felt afraid to move or even breathe; what was before her was less of a man and more of a weapon, a tool to point at something to destroy it, and she felt that she was in his way. But before she could act on it or say a word, she felt that twisting and churning of reality again.

Time and Time Again – First Responder – Destiny x Marathon

After their encounter in the depths of the icy planetoid, Leela and Tycho had headed straight for Earth as fast as their jumpship could take them, hailing the City and the Vanguard all the while. At first they had just received static and gibberish in response, as though through great interference. Then, around the time Earth and the Moon became visible to the naked eye, even the static cut out. There was radio silence in Sol, and it worried Leela greatly. She thought of the vision, or hallucination, she had seen in the depths of the planetoid; the creature from the planetoid hungering for the Light. 

They continued hailing space control as they approached Earth but were met with only silence. Tycho noted that the warsats above the Last City were missing, and then they both saw it. The white clouds had been replaced with smoke, and only the Traveller rose above it, the enigmatic machine’s marble-like skin broken in great cracks and rends. An amorphous mass rose through the smoke and passed over the Traveller, leaving further devastation in its wake. A blast of light erupted from the Traveller, but it seemed only to embolden the attacker further. 

Leela took the jumpship through the smoke-cover as swiftly as she dared, and what she saw beneath took her breath away. The Last City was burning. Plumes of fire and smoke could be seen throughout the city, from residential areas and parks and high-rises. The Tower had collapsed into the city to crush houses and workshops below. A single airship was still aloft, but even as the pair watched, it crashed into the streets below with a plume of fire and dust. They found an intact landing pad and touched down, Leela leaping from the cockpit before the engine had even spun off. No landing crew came out to greet them and no one called out at their arrival. Leela ran through the floors of the high-rise, calling out names, calling out for anyone, only to emerge onto the rubble-strewn streets alone. 

“Where is everyone?” Leela whispered teary-eyed as Tycho hovered to her side, his gaze fixated on the ailing Traveller. 

“I’m not picking up anything,” replied Tycho, “Not even static. I think the City’s lost all power.” 

“The bomb shelters.” Leela said and stood up. She felt disoriented and short of breath, all her thoughts tumbling around like someone had shaken their box without a care. Tycho followed silently as she hurried along the streets to the nearest shelter, but there was no one there. The door stood closed but was not locked, and when Leela shouted inside, she only heard her own echo. With rising panic Leela ran about the streets crying for help, for anyone, but there was no reply. The only sounds in the city were distant explosions, alarms and the crackle of fires. She fell to her knees and closed her eyes, struck with despair, when she heard a sound. A skidding rock. She was back on her feet running in the blink of an eye. In an alley, hidden partially by the shadow of arches, was a shape watching her. Leela called out but the figure turned and headed into the alley. Ignoring the shouts from Tycho, Leela hurried after them and found herself close to another shelter.

In the road, just outside the concrete entranceway to the shelter, stood a man looking into the sky. She was about to run to him, but then she stopped herself. All the instincts she had gained from her years of exploring shouted at her to keep away from the man. She stopped a few metres from him, breathing ragged from running but her mind focused on the sight before her. He was of medium height and dressed like someone from one of the pre-Collapse armies she had seen photos of. She saw no weapons, but Leela felt sure of her sense of danger. Even as the thought ran through her mind, the man turned around. His face was hard and his eyes spoke of bitter and brutal experiences. He reminded her of a Guardian for a moment, but she saw no Ghost.

Without a word, the man stormed up to her and grasped her by the shoulders. It was so sudden that Leela did nothing to stop him or move from his grasp.

“Do you know what that is?” His voice was rough and loud, like he was unused to speaking. When Leela did not respond, he pointed into the sky at the mass attacking the Traveller.

“It’s called a W’rkcacnter, we believe,” Tycho said, “and I’m afraid we–”

“We freed it,” Leela continued with tears streaming down her face, “It’s here because of us.”

The man made to speak, but a noise far above halted him. Looking up, they saw that the cover of black smoke had been blown away from the Traveller, but the great sphere was descending. Even from this distance, it was clear that it had gone quiet; whatever the creature from the planetoid had done, the Traveller’s Light was gone, and it was falling towards the City that had been built in its shadow. The creature still swirled in the sky, and though it had no face or head, Leela had the distinct impression that it was looking at them. The mass spun and roiled as it dived down towards the City and its prey. The man grunted and looked back at Leela. For a moment she looked him straight in the eye and she had a profound sensation of agelessness, before the world spun around her.

The Memories of Jack Edlund – Indepentional

18th April 1888, Boston Globe

GIRL SOLE SURVIVOR OF MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT IN ATLANTIC OCEAN

The Charioteer, a passenger ship sailing the Northwest Passage, has been found after a prolonged period of radio silence during which the ship’s location and status was unknown. The Kilmartin discovered her and radioed for assistance, to which the Calgary responded. The ship had a crew of 20 as well as 132 passengers. The rescue crews from the Kilmartin and the Calgary found a single young girl. Either due to being a mute or due to the atrocities she had witnessed, the child was unable to speak.

Contact was lost with the Charioteer on the 13th of April and was reestablished on the 16th around 18:30 when visual contact was made from the deck of the Kilmartin.

The girl is under the care of The Kilmartin’s captain Elias Price and the Charioteer is being towed back to the shipwharfs of Boston for examination and repairs.

__

29th of April 1888, Anchorage Gazette & News

DEEP SEA WHALE WASHES UP ON NORTH ALASKAN SHORE

Mr Argyle Lavett had a nasty shock this morning when he discovered, while walking his dog in the morning, the carcass of a marine mammal washed up on his private beach. According to Mr Lavett’s own words, the creature was the size of a blue whale but with appendages and limbs he had never seen before, which Mr Lavett assumed had been used for some kind of deep-ocean hunting. Despite these unexpected physiological traits, Mr Lavett is fully convinced it was a mammal and some species of whale. Much to the dismay of the academic world, Mr Lavett burnt the corpse before it could begin to befoul his private beach with odor.

Mr Lavett’s residence is in the area of Hooper Bay, but requested that the Alaskan Gazette & News not disclose his address, so as to avoid ‘nosy folk coming on account of this dead whale’. 

Mr Lavett is a geologist graduated from America who has on occasion worked with Anchorage University.

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Chapter 1 – Encoding

I dropped the newspaper clippings onto my desk with a sigh. I had barely spoken with my father for five years and now I had boxes and boxes of his belongings to go through, what to keep and what to throw away. If only he had remembered to do it himself before he passed. The clippings were nearly as old as I was, yellowed with age. When these were printed, I was but a few years old myself and my sister had not yet been born. Why my father had decided to keep these two clips, among his piles of old shirts, tools and maritime equipment, only he could say. On the back of the story about the ship was a portion of a weather report, but the back of the whale story caught my eye. Or rather, what my father had scribbled there. In pencil he had covered the other side with a symbol, all harsh lines and uncomfortable shapes, that I did not recognise, but over the following days I found it impossible to forget.

Hear No Evil – Indepentional

My name is Neill O’Shea. I was 10 years old when, on a family trip to Belfast, a car bomb went off outside the café my father had picked for our lunch. We all survived, God bless, but my hearing was badly affected. I say ‘affected’ and not ‘damaged’ for it always seemed to me that my family and the doctors made a much bigger fuss about it all than was needed. I could hear perfectly fine, and to this day I require no hearing aids and can carry conversation just fine, as you are witnessing. No, I say ‘affected’ because it soon became apparent to my parents that something had happened. I could hear things they couldn’t, not better as such but things. At first my father dismissed it as daydreaming or the fanciful thoughts of a boy but when it was noticed that I could hear dog whistles quite clearly, my father realised I had not been pulling his leg.

I had a difficult childhood. The Troubles in Ireland were only growing in severity at the time, eventually claiming the life of my mother and the sobriety of my father. I was bullied at school, given a variety of coarse nicknames I won’t repeat here, on grounds of my ‘special’ hearing and my father’s struggle with alcohol. One group of boys I remember especially took to carrying around dog-whistles to annoy me, blowing in the abominable things at all possible times. My drunk father was no help, and my extended family was scattered all over the Republic and thus out of reach. Nevertheless, I did well at school despite the obstacles before me, and was eventually offered a scholarship at the University of Dublin to study biology, a subject I had grown interested in owing to my condition. My father, a shadow of the man I remembered from my childhood, managed to keep himself sober for the last few days before I would leave my home for good and travel to live at the university. I have not seen or heard from him since.