Leaked from the forums (1): Deja Vu

[ED] We've began posting some minimally edited forum materials into our website's reading samples. This forum thread here serves as a double/backup for that. Onnwaard!

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We’ve got a rich trove of material that hasn’t normally been exposed to the public viewing (or – sometimes – even daylight): the roleplay-writings of our forum’s “inner compound”, that shall now be featured among our reading samples. Such leaked-from-the-forum bits will be presented mostly unaltered, receiving only the most essential spelling and grammar cleanup, and cuts for clarity.

Deja Vu twists together some older and newer settings and characters, and adds an important dimension to our growing story-verse. This adventure marks a junction in the long lineage of forum posts, serving as a connection point and a recap tool between the older material, the upcoming stories, and the potential greater story-arcs to be woven into actual books. The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.

Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë

We’re excited that you are reading our work! Do tell your friends and send them a copy. We’re cool with non-commercial sharing – just credit the authors and link back to this page. If our story inspired you to create something new, please, check with us about sharing. When in doubt, read more about the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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It was happening again… Had it all been a dream?

As the groggy mercenary sat in his blood-soaked coat at the bar, roll-up in hand, his mind was an absolute mess. Through the haze however, he came to realize exactly where he was, and it shocked him to the core. ‘Tucker Nine…’ He quietly muttered to himself in disbelief as he stared down at his shoddy, half-smoked roll-up and empty glass. Without thinking, he slammed the empty container on the bar and demanded “Another!”
As soon as the words left his lips, a wave of disbelief flooded his entire body. Lifting the roll-up to his lips, he stumbled away from his stool and out the bar-door in a dizzied frenzy, his mind was racing.

It was slowly rolling in to evening on the small moon, most of the workers and their families had packed up for the day and were either on their way back to one of the outlying settlements, or heading for the bar to relax after a long day of hard graft. After gathering his thoughts, the mercenary pulled himself alongside one of the many hover-bugs charging in the last of the light and took a long hard look in the mirror.

“Wh… What?” He stuttered to get out. The wrinkles had disappeared, his hair had returned to its dark brown hue and was much thicker once more. It was as if the events of the last thirty-five years had never taken place. With renewed desire to learn more answers, he straightened himself out and headed back into the bar to clean up.

* * *

This is wrong… I’m out of time…

“Do you think we should wake him up?” One of the settlers asked with wide-eyes.

“Is he still alive?” Another replied, equally entranced by the visitors sudden arrival.

“We should take him into town, the doctor will know what to do,” came another suggestion.

The settlement was abuzz with conversation that evening – a bright light had been seen in the sky before the local grain-house had been blown into pieces. Investigating settlers had discovered a body crumpled in the grains and brought him out to the main yard.

The visitor suddenly lurched forward and coughed loudly, causing most of the settlers to jump backwards, some even drew their weapons. He was in a bad state, torn clothes seemed to cover him from top to toe, and had there not been any shape under the rags, it would have been acceptable to assume he had no limbs. As far as the settlers could see, his left arm was hanging down, while his right leg was bleeding heavily.

“He.. Hello?” He asked meekly, through nearly closed eyes.

“Easy son, you took quite the tumble…”

“Doc… Doctor…” He tried to say, only to be interrupted once more.

“You heard him! Matthews, we’re using your truck, you two, help me load him up!”

The settlers were quickly put to work, noting that the traveler was much heavier than they had anticipated. They moved swiftly to get him into the back of Matthews hover truck before speeding towards town.

* * *

This life feels new… Born from something… Unnatural…

Her eyes opened slowly and adjusted to the panels on the cooler panel above. After allowing a few moments of thought to try and clarify what was happening, the young woman tried getting to her feet. She stumbled from the bed with little control over her arms and legs, it was as if she’d only just been given this body. For a few moments, she tried to gain control of her arms and bring them into view. As she glanced across her nearly perfect skin, she noted that a network of silver coloured markings criss-crossed her entire body. She found the markings relaxing, and seemed to draw an energy from them. Slowly, methodically, the young woman got to her feet and, using the furniture in the room, pulled herself towards the door with little more than the bed-cloth around her.

“Miss Seraph!” Came the shrill voice of a woman from the other side of the door. “I have your clothes here, I shall leave them outside the door. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I hope to see you there!”

‘Miss Seraph…’ The young woman tried to say to herself, but with little control over her vocal chords, it simply sounded like mumbling. For the next few seconds, she tried as hard as she could to  say her last name, with little success.

As the sound of footsteps left the corridor, the young woman waited for a few more moments before reaching for the door handle and opening it slowly onto a tiled corridor painted with some-kind of thick white paint. It looked lumpy, but oddly familiar. ‘Miss Seraph’ reached for her clothes and retreated back inside her room. Things were slowly beginning to make more sense although clarity was not returning to the young woman’s mind. After a short struggle, she had pulled on her clothes before turning to face the mirror. Once she was satisfied that her appearance was satisfactory, she began searching the room for any further information while also trying to regain control of her voice.

“Se… Say… Sera…”

Upon opening the small, wooden wardrobe in the corner of the room, she discovered a quarterstaff of exquisite design, and a book titled ‘The Empyrean Code’.

“Seraph.” She suddenly said with perfect clarity. “Moirai Seraph…”

Her memories were beginning to solidify and form in her mind. With a deep breath, she took the book in one hand and the quarterstaff in the other.

She knew herself to belong among the Empyrians – the defenders of human homeworlds, at odds with their Reclaimer brethren. However facts like her location, how she came to be and why she was there still escaped her. With quarterstaff strapped tightly to her back and book at her side, Moirai Seraph stepped out into the corridor.

* * *

Things are the same, but different… What is this…

Now much cleaner, the mercenary stepped back into the bar and already knew that no-one would take his seat. He couldn’t explain his strange sense of deja vu but it was beginning to drive him crazy. He seemed a bit more sober for his clean-up too, and moved to clarify this by re-taking his place at the bar and rolling a smoke in preparation for what he knew was coming, often checking his remaining rounds or making sure his rifle was easily accessible.

And then, almost on cue, it happened, although something was much different.

He remembered having a companion alongside him for the coming battle, a face that he knew he could rely on. Although this time, he was no-where to be seen. And as this thought sunk in, an awful racket began to stir outside.

“We need a doctor!” Came the cry from outside before all hell broke loose. Townsfolk began to scream loudly, running frantically for cover as the sound of a ship came crashing down in the distance.

He steadied himself for the shock-wave and remained the only one on his feet as the windows blew in upon the ships impact.

“Everyone keep down and get to the bathroom!” He snarled knowingly, automatically, before pulling his rifle forward and turning to the door in wait for the Reclaimer assailants due any moment.
Three shots, almost predictive in their nature struck at three targets with almost divine accuracy as they attempted to breach the tavern. With renewed sense, the mercenary dropped low and headed for the door, taking out another Reclaimer as he rolled into the street.

A group of people had gathered around a truck and were using it for cover while trying to pull something, or someone, from the back. Since most of them seemed to be armed, and willing to fight for their rock, he decided to join up with them.

* * *

This doesn’t make any sense…

“Evening! Seems like I picked a merry old time to visit Tucker Nine!” The mercenary shouted over the sound of incoming gunfire.

“Make jokes or help us defend the place, your call!” Came the stern reply from one of the people trying to lift the traveller from the rear of Matthews hover truck. Again, the mercenary responded with almost predictive ability by taking out three nearby Reclaimers.

His attention then turned to the person they were trying to lift with little success.

Suddenly, the mercenary caught sight of the traveller’s left arm and a wave of hope flooded his body like no other feeling before it.

“Knux!” He cried out with almost euphoric emotion. The mercenary rushed to push the townsfolk away and reached for the engineers arm.

“Come on…. Come on…”

“You know this man?” One of the citizens inquired.

“Do I! Cover me, this shouldn’t take long…”

The mercenary found a switch on Knux’s arm and flipped it to reveal an opening to a network of tubes lining either side of a small control panel. With a couple of button presses, the mercenary rebooted Knux’s arm and began the nano-repair program. With that underway, he turned back to the invading Reclaimers and went to work dispatching them whilst keeping Knux safe. If anyone was going to know what was happening here, it would be the engineer with a history of inter-dimensional travel.

* * *

Our duty is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

The commotion in the street had drawn all sorts of attention, least of which from the diners at the hotel who had been enjoying their meal on the balcony overlooking town. Without thinking, Moirai had leapt from from the balcony, quarterstaff in hand, ready and willing to engage the Reclaimer invaders who had taken a shine to this seemingly insignificant moon.

Moirai continued onwards towards the pockets of resistance lining the streets.

“Ah! Glad to have an Empy fighting on our side!” One of the townsfolk mentioned as he took cover from a barrage of energy weapons fire.
Moirai joined a rugged mercenary behind the hovertruck. “What’s the situation?”

The mercenary fired a few rounds towards the buildings at the far end of the street before reloading. “I need to reach the bank…” He mumbled, “If I’m going to find out what’s going on then that’s where this all leads to.”

“Where this all leads to?”

“Look, I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but if it’s anything like the dry-run, then those Reclaimers just crashed down on the bank. They’re here to steal the money, but instead…” The mercenary’s eyes began to wonder the horizon, almost in a trance.

“But instead…?” She pressed.

“Sorry…” He shook his head, “Instead I steal their ship and escape to Ar-Kaos with a friend.”

“How do you know all this?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this run, but it’s different to before. For example, I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you before.”

Energy weapons fire registered hard against the truck, killing two of the townspeople and wounding several more. As the vehicle shook violently, Knux fell from the rear and began to regain consciousness.

“We… What’s going…. on?” He asked, groggy from the excess of Nanites in his system.

“I have no clue, but it looks like we’re on Tucker Nine, Thirty-Five years prior to the battle at the Void Cloud.”

Moirai spoke up, “What are you talking about? Thirty-five years? Void Cloud?”

Knux couldn’t understand what was happening, he needed a few more minutes to gather his thoughts.

“So what’s the plan?” Moirai asked.

“The plan?” Corey replied, “You sound like someone I know… The plan is, we reach their ship and steal it. Tucker Nine is later compensated, it recovers from this.”

“And what about your friend? He looks kinda heavy…”

“Just give him a minute or two, we’re not leaving him behind.”

“Do you have any other friends around here? Do I at least get to know your names?”

The mercenary nodded and ducked from another barrage of energy weapon’s fire.

“I don’t know where the rest of my team are, I’ve only found this one so far. He’s Knux Vee-One, but I know him as Elder Knux.”

“And you are?” Moirai pressed.

“Me?”

She nodded.

“I’m Corey Henderson.”

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 2-3)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://www.chaosnova.co.uk/wp_newsupdates/?p=209
Read previous post in this series: http://www.chaosnova.co.uk/wp_newsupdates/?p=212

The second part of this story has already been featured among reading samples as a stand-alone called “Space Junk”. Read it here: https://chaosnova.rpg-board.net/t636-space-junk-excerpt-1

And now onward to part 3!

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"Here, help me with him." Corey tried hauling Knux further onto the truck bed. Moirai glanced at him for a moment in confusion before taking the battered engineers other side and pulling him on.
Another hail of energy shots glanced off the vehicle before she caught something out of the corner of her eye and reacted sharply. Corey returned several rounds of his own.
Moirai had dodged a blow to the back of the head, and caught it into her shoulder. It hurt like hell, but with the sudden burst of adrenaline coursing through her body, she drew her quarterstaff forward and thrust at her would-be attacker. He dodged, but as he stepped backward, Moirai swept out his leg making the Reclaimer stumble. She drove the end of her staff towards his neck and, after a mighty crunch that seemed to echo off the truck, the Reclaimer's head fell backwards into the dust.

As she turned back to Corey, she noticed he was reloading from his latest burst. He turned to her with a frown. "We need to go, I assume you're coming along?"
Moirai nodded, "You seem to know what's going on, I will join you until I can find my own path or you do something that causes me to leave."
"When you find out what's to com-" The truck absorbed an energy-shot but some lashed at Corey's hand.
"Ow! Fuck!" He shoved his hand in his mouth.
"Are you alright?" Moirai gave him a concerned look.
"Bastards... I should have been expecting that. Come on, we need to go. Can you drive this?"
"I can try?"
"Good enough, I'll be in the back laying down some covering the rear. Bank's the last building on the left. Big hole in the wall, can’t miss it."
He leapt onto the bed of the truck and had begun firing. He tagged a few, and was aware enough to avoid another wound as Moirai drove the truck forward.

As they hit a bump in the road, Elder Knux began to stir.
"Aim for the wall?!" Moirai called out.
"No, no! The hole in the wall!”

/.../
[The group fights their way to the crashlanded ship among the ruins of the bank. Corey leads the way farther into the ship.]

"Get up here!" Corey radioed over the ship’s loudspeaker to anyone still alive to listen. It reminded him of how Alex…Trouble had directed him to join him in the bridge and for a moment he was lost in a day-dream.
"What do ya need boss?" Elder Knux asked as he stepped through the hatch, a weary but aware Moirai in tow.
"I need you to man that console. Did you get the cargo bay door sealed?"
"Safe and all. Those Recs won't be a problem anymore either."
"They weren't really a problem to begin with..." Corey muttered as he began to fire up the engines, "You've fought Reclaimers before. Didn’t these guys seem… obviously weak?"
Knux shook his head as he sat down, "Yeah. Not big on the fighting, these ones."

The ship slowly rose above the ruined building. Preemptively, Corey dropped the engines he knew to be dead. If this was anything like last time, the rest would be in pretty terrible shape, but enough to get them to a nearby system. That system would be Ar-Kaos.

"I can't believe it actually flies..." Knux muttered. "I mean, you've told me the stories, but I had no idea this is how it happened."
Corey shook his head, "It didn't happen like that... You weren't there, neither was..." He glanced up at Moirai, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
She took a deep breath and looked over from her seat near the back, "Moirai Seraph..."
"Nice name." He turned his attention back to Knux, "Neither of you were there, whatever Tahu did at the Void Cloud... It messed things up, I've got two theories. Either we've hit a parallel dimension..."
"Certainly possible..."
"Or we've time-traveled."
Knux frowned. "When I came back, I didn't bring a new being into existence with me. Something's wrong here and I bet those fucking invaders are to blame again!"
"Either way... It doesn't explain why you're here. The last I saw of you, you were about to rescue Tahu. Any time after that, we’ve been several systems apart."
"And where you have regressed in age, I appear to have maintained my elderly charm."
Corey smirked, absent-mindedly tapping commands into the console. They would reach a Transit-zone soon. "Ar-Kaos... I suppose we’re on our way to pick up Alexis and Eve."
"This is beyond weird, I just want you to know that."

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 4-5)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2ywHZSw

The fourth part of shis story has already been featured among reading samples as 2nd excerpt of “Space Junk”. Read it here: https://chaosnova.rpg-board.net/t655-space-junk-excerpt-2

And now onward to part 5!

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"We're coming in hot!" Knux called out as the entry burn began and the bridge flooded with red warning lights. "According to this, we're still at a funny angle... Reports say we're going to crash smack-dab in the middle of... New Haven?"
Corey ignored him, he was frantically trying to bring the retro-thrusters online to slow their descent. One fired, before ripping off, the other two failed to even start.
"Corey...." Knux muttered with worried tones.
"I'm working on it!"
Without warning, the main screen went blank.
"This isn't right!" Corey grabbed his hair. "I can't correct the angle! It didn't happen this way before!"
The ship shook as the final engine cut out.
Knux wrestled to get his safety harness off.
"Where are you going?" Corey asked.
"Where do you think??" He darted out of the hatchway and stumbled towards engineering.
"Twenty seconds until impact..." Moirai nodded calmly. "Fifteen."
"Try it now!" Knux called out.
"Ten."
Corey slammed his fist into the console which flashed a flurry of colours at him. Two thrusters fired and the ship shook, throwing everybody about.
Corey struggled with the controls as Knux came tumbling through the hatch, crashing into the main screen.
"Where are we going to hit?"
"The docks! Three!"
"Everyone HOLD ON!"

At the New Haven docks, people gathered to see the wreckage. The last minute burst made the difference between 'exploding fireball' and mere 'near-certain-death'. A tidal wave spread out from the impact area and people pulled farther from the water’s edge. Steam rose as the ship slowly resurfaced and bobbed on the water.

The bridge was pitch black, except for the sparks that flew from smashed consoles. Corey and Moirai dangled in their harnesses.
"Did everyone make it?" Corey tried to sound confident.
"I think... I think I'm still in one piece..." Moirai replied.
"Knux?"
Silence.
"Hey! Knuckle-head!"
Corey undid his harness and fell with a splash. "Come on, we've gotta get out of here." Moirai landed a lot more gracefully than he had.
"I'm gonna need some help here... Inflatable raft in the locker - grab it!
Moirai pulled out an inflatable life-raft and some life-suits.
Corey quickly spread out the life raft and rolled Knux onto it.
"It's getting a little too damp in here for my liking." Corey broke the raft’s seal allowing it to inflate. It instantly inflated into a canoe shaped boat, narrow enough to navigate the hatchways of the ship. Moirai grabbed the front of it and began dragging it over the water while Corey pushed from the rear.
"We need to get to the airlock, it's on the... right, down here. Took me a moment, I'm used to this thing being right side up."
Moirai waded through the rising water, pulling the raft behind her. Once at the airlock, she kicked the hatch out of the way.
The ship was already rolling dangerously.
"GO!"

Moirai and Corey clung to the raft, and smiled to the approaching group of local fishermen.
"Quite the show... You need help?" One asked with a welcoming grin.
Corey didn't skip a beat, "Five-hundred credits if you tow that thing to shore."
"Seven-fifty, I've gotta cover the cost of the pumps."
"Six-fifty."
"Seven-hundred?"
"Deal. Now get it to shore."
The skipper rallied his men to work, and soon a small fleet was tugging the wreckage.

"We could have used their help you know..." Moirai muttered, glancing at Knux.
"As long as he's still breathing, he'll be fine. He's almost impossible to kill thanks to that damn arm of his. Come on, you ready for a swim?"
As Corey turned to paddle away with the raft in tow, he glanced back at the ship and noticed a small vessel, stuck to the bottom of their ship. "Odd… That’s not supposed to be there..." His eyes lit up with hope. “Is that you, Trouble?”
Moirai frowned at him, "Are you feeling okay?"
"Never better. I'll meet you on the shoreline, keep an eye on our engineer."
"And where are you going?"
Corey smiled and began swimming back to the wreckage.
"I'm off to see an old friend I'll return soon!"

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 6)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2zwBInz

And now onward to part 6!

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Corey struggled with the unknown vessel’s outer hatch. He glanced at the tow crews who had stopped to re-align the floating wreckage - again. The irritation gave Corey strength, and he yanked the hatch off with one frustrated motion.
He stepped inside, looked around, and listened. Silence.

Begrudgingly, Corey allowed himself to rely upon his enhanced senses, and followed the faint shuffling sounds deeper into the shuttle. He found a human figure strapped to the upside-down pilot seat above his head.
“Nice shuttle.” He climbed over some burnt electronics. "Love the end-of-days decor!” Through the age-old command-stress crust, Corey's younger self was asserting itself.
The figure uttered some words but the headgear muffled them all.
Corey examined the figure in the chair, and noticed how the safety harness was cutting into the protective suit. It also became very clear that this was not his partner Trouble.
"Oh. Sorry, I was expecting someone else… Hi."
Corey dropped down and stumbled outside. He peeled a torn bit of metal off the scrap ship, then returned to the pilot to cut her down. Before severing the final straps, Corey readied himself and caught the stranger.

They made it out to the daylight and sat atop the wreckage. "So..." Corey offered his new acquaintance a smoke. "What brings you to Ar-Kaos? Besides us I mean. Fame? Fortune? A taste of the high-life?" He took a heavy drag on his own smoke and glanced back to the shore.

***

“... expecting someone else.”
The voice drifted away and got lost in a jumble of ethereal noises. Then there was light - proper daylight. There was sky, there was water, she was breathing. And then there was this guy, waving somewhere, talking apparently - she couldn’t quite concentrate to make any sense of it. She fumbled towards a shoulder pocket and pulled out a small multitool. With some effort she was able to break her visor’s seal and pop it off.
The guy was still talking.
“Those,” she croaked.
She pointed at his smoke.
“I got those. My shop... Paper... Licorice.”
She gratefully accepted the smoke handed to her. She only smoked on occasion, but this here certainly qualified as “occasion”. She leaned back and flicked some ash away.
“Who were you expecting then?”

His eyes narrowed, "I... I'm not sure anymore... I figured my old buddy had tagged along from Tucker 9, but instead I've met two new people and an old friend who has no business being here..." He took another deep toke and watched as the wind took the fresh ash before glancing back at the woman, "Name's Corey... Corey Henderson, Commander of the Alesha Last Defense Flee..." He trailed off before giving a re-assuring smile, "Eh... Just Corey, how about you?"

She watched the last embers fade atop the debris. Peeling gloves away, she extended her right hand.“Call me Smith,” she said. “I’m sorry I jumped your ship.”

***

Standing on the mountain, he watched the ship crash into the water. It was happening again. Things were different this time, of course. But they always were. He watched Corey Henderson climb from the wreck and thought of killing him right there to save time. But satisfying as it would be to watch him die, Corey was integral to making things right. Hopefully, the variations this time would allow him the opportunity to save-
It didn't matter.
The man turned back to his fighter. Once again he had the chance to make a difference. His ship rose from the ground, and faded from sight.

He had some time to see how things play out. The Alexis was here. Then again, Boats was not: this time he had run harder, faster, and had racked up a bigger debt; in this incarnation the debtors would claim more than just an ear or a finger. He had thought about stepping in to replace Boats, but too many changes in the timeline would prove just as counterproductive as too few.

***

Br'er Rose walked through the junkyard.The smell of hot metal, old fluids soaked into the earth, and... something always made her to enjoy these places. Many saw them as graveyards, but, unlike with ships, taking pieces from a long dead corpse wouldn’t bring another another person to life. She knew what she was looking for, she had seen it before - but it wasn't where she expected to see it. Not surprising, with the way things had a habit of changing.
Then she saw it - in a back corner, sitting crossways atop two others.
Mallory had run into an asteroid field, her drunken pilot relying too heavily on the autopilot; Yolanda's crew hadn't bothered with the basic filtration maintenance, had all asphyxiated before she crashed into the Lindos Space Station; Alexis was the trifecta, done in by a simple compression dampener. Between all three ships however, there were enough parts to put two into service. Now that she had found them, she hurried back to the salvage office and made the purchase.

***

Three men surveyed the damage on Tucker 9. Even without uniforms, their conduct was unmistakably military.
"So he finally made it?"
"That was the message, Commander."
"It appears to be the case, sir.” The second subordinate stepped closer. “I ran some interviews and looked over the security scans. Despite all the false alarms so far, it looks like this time Corey's really awakened."
"Thank you, Captain." The tall man gave the ruined city another look, wishing he had been able to prevent the loss of life. But certain events had to flow a certain way. He turned back to the others. "It's about time."

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 7)


Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2xZscYM

And now onward to part 7!

-----------------------------------------


"Welcome back!" Moirai called out. Knux was with her, his arm wrapped around her shoulder as she limped them both forward.
Corey jogged over to help. "How's he doing?"
"He seems to be recovering.” Moirai glanced over his shoulder towards Smith, "Who's your new friend?"
“You guys get to know each other, I’m going to check the ship.”

Their vessel was in a sorry state. Still upside-down, but rolled onto its right side. A pool of water and oil mix had congealed around the base.
He propped Knux against a large metal container.
"Quite... the mess..." Knux muttered, stretching out his natural arm.
"You're telling me..." Corey replied absent-mindedly, "How you holding up?"
"My bionics are pretty damaged... My eye is stuck on infrared, need to keep it shut and rely on my normal eyesight... And my arm..." He frowned at the mess of wires and goop. He pulled himself up the side of the container, Corey rushed to his aid, but was shunned away. "I've got this..."
"While that may be, we should be helping one another, you've got nothing to prove to me."
"I know that, I'm not proving anything to you, I'm proving it to myself."
"Bah, fine..." Corey muttered and turned his attention back to the ship.
Behind him, Knux managed to work himself upright. He reached to a release mechanism and dropped his useless bionic arm to the ground.
Corey jumped. “Gah! Freaks me out when you do that! A little warning next time?"
Knux ignored him and started tinkering with the bionics.

* * *

Corey had climbed atop the wreckage until he’d found a suitable hatch above the waterline. He worked his way in, and to the almost dry cargo bay, powered up his blaster and, with a shit-eating grin, aimed at the exit. The doors flew off and landed with a mighty splash.
"What the hell man!?" Knux spat out some mud.
"Oh relax would ya?” Corey skipped back to the shore “I got the door open!"
"You could have killed me!"
"With a cargo-bay door? You’ve been enough of a challenge for Cervonious AND the Skilf!”
"Ugh! Don't remind me."
“That’s…” Corey fell silent, rubbing his chin.
"What is it now?"
"I just thought of something. Who's our enemy here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well... We arrived back on T-Nine, but why? Who are we fighting? And more importantly, who sent us?”
“That should be easy enough to figure out. When you were on Tucker Nine originally, who were you fighting then?”
“Cervonius. Although back then we didn’t know it yet.”
“So what’s changed?”
Corey stomped the mud. “The Skilf.”
Knux wiped the last bits of sand off the arm socket. “If the timeline holds, then it’s gonna be a while until the Skilf show up again…
“Then my money is still on Cervo. He could be up to something, that’s why he’s pulling us back in time.”
“But we killed him and wiped out his entire network.”
“Exactly!” Corey paced back and forth, stabbing air with his index finger. “What if this… reality is his failsafe? A way to bring himself back?”
Knux set his bionic limb with a click. “But if Cervo could really manipulate time, why doesn’t he just…” He shrugged.
“Who knows what reasons he has? Then again, things are different here, too different. What if this is all a simulation scenario? What if we’re trapped in some sort of purgatory? Are you even real?” He ignored the Elder’s snort. “For all we know, we could be hooked up to an Educator right now!”
“What’s so different then? You’re pretty much on the same course: grab the ship on T-9, crash it on Ar-Kaos. All you need to do now is find and repair the Alexis, hire Boats, take the job from Zhao… and we’re back where we started.”
“You weren’t even there! And Trouble was! Where is he now? And what’s up with the new faces? I’m tellin’ ya something weirder is going on here.”
Knux offered another half-shrug. “So what do you want to do then?”
Corey action : “Go get the Alexis.”
“Didn’t you just say, we don’t really know what’s going on?”
“Doesn’t matter. We crashed here so that we could find the Alexis. So let’s go find the Alexis.”

***
As they were approaching the fence, Smith took in the glorious sight of towering scraps ahead. Oftentimes she’d feel overwhelmed, yet oddly blessed at the sight of industrial leftovers, especially in such large quantities. To shake off the excess sentiment, she turned her attention to the path ahead. The ground was now littered with small components and debris bits. She instinctively picked up a few nuts and bolts, carefully placing them in chest pockets, then paused and gave an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, old habits.”
They were almost at the gates now. She noticed a small heap of takeoff-obsidian discarded by the fence. This was too much. “Ooh! Shiny!” she exclaimed and skipped towards it. “I’ll be right back!”

A ship’s roaring overhead brought her back to reality. She hastily stuffed the handful of black tears into a belt pouch and hurried towards the gates.
The sight of her newly-found crew at a gunpoint made her drop into a crouch and slowly back off. She peeked in through the metal sheets and rubble piles, a thousand emergency scenarios and rescue plans rushing through her brain. She barely knew these people - but she felt oddly responsible for their well-being all of a sudden.


As Corey entered the scrap yard, a low vibration filled the air. From a far-away corner a ship was slowly rising into sight. A very familiar ship. Alexis rose, made a hovering turn, and took off towards the spaceport. Despite his older, wiser, and better-trained mind, Corey felt rage and despair rising in him. Yes, things were proving to be different here… but this was too much.
Then something hit him in the chest, twice. He looked down and noticed spots of blue ooze on his armour, soreness building up underneath.
"You're early, Fucker!" A shapely brunette climbed down from a pile of crushed shuttles carrying a customized rifle. "You were supposed to go for a 'We survived' drink first, and only come here tomorrow morning.” She slung the rifle. “You also need to work on your situational awareness. I saw you two staring like you've never seen a spaceship before. Almost felt bad about tagging you." She offered Knux a hand and a smile, "Almost."

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 8 )

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2m3MNe0

And now onward to part 8!

-----------------------------------------


"Briar..." Corey muttered through grit teeth.
"Briar?" Knux accepted her hand.
“That’s Briar Rose to you.” She grinned.
“Quite a thorn in my ass, too.” Corey added with a scowl. “So what brings you here? Last time we met, you had me at gunpoint, happily blabbering about your bright history with the good Doctor."
"Cervonious?" Knux broke the handshake and stepped back.
Corey stood his ground with a blank stare. “Not gonna lie, with all the weird stuff going on, I’m glad to see another familiar face. It’s not one I trust though.” He pulled out a cigarette. “And how would you know what we did “last time”?”

“The mixed feelings are mutual. Come, I will brief you on the way.” Briar waved them along, farther into the scrapyard.
“Now, technically speaking, you and I have never actually met. But I do know quite a bit about you two." She pointed at Knux and Corey. "A version of me met with you briefly, and explained some things concerning Dr. Cervonius that likely didn't make any sense at the time.”
She paused to pick up a compression control, looked it over, and tossed it back into the pile.
“The gist of it is that Doctor C has encountered your inter-dimensional boogieman, I mean, “the skilf” during his trans-dimensional experiments. One concept he learned from them was 'setting the deck'. This is how they fight. They pick a stream of spacetime continuum that has the parameters they like. They will then invade the sub-variations of that continuum, keeping the “parent-timeline” intact; they learn by making all the mistakes and suffering all the losses, and with that knowledge assure themselves a victory in the “main branch”.”
Rose continued leading the others through the junkyard. “That brings us to what Greg, I mean Doctor Cervonius is doing. We have been learning how to manipulate spacetime continua using similar principles. He is using their own tech against them, cheating the reality if you will. With some tutoring from his multi-reality counterparts, Greg's been gathering his own army. You are going to meet many people you know, people who are not the same. Like myself.”

Corey cut in. “Wait, if I was planted here, does it mean there was another me? Here?”
Briar suppressed a sigh. “What you need to understand is… This is the fabric of reality we are speaking of. Sure, we can change the parameters and “players” of any given timeline, but predicting where the reality takes it from there is another matter. Every new “traveler” brought in  will trigger more unpredictability; multiple inserts multiply the chaos effect. That’s why we generally avoid allowing duplicates in any reality.” She sent a quick side-glance at the elder Knux.
“But how-”
She kept walking, her eyes on the ground. “Often enough you can simply choose a timeline that is lacking your chosen “player”. Sometimes there are negotiation options. Sometimes… not. Enjoy your free rejuvenation and don’t think too hard, you will give yourself nightmares.”
Briar came to a halt. “This is my ride.” She hopped into a junkyard service vehicle and pointed beyond the nearest heap. “And there’s yours.”

Corey looked where she was pointing and his eyes widened. He looked at Knux, then back at the ship. “Is that…”
“Yes. That’s Alexis… With some upgrades.” She threw a security sequencer to Corey. “Get on board, re-acquaint yourselves. Any questions you’ve got, ask Alexis.”
She fired up the trucks thrusters and spun around. “I’ve got a couple people to kill, but I’ll meet back up with you at your camp after dark. Tell your friend she can come out of hiding. And try not to get yourself killed before I get back!”

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 9)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2A2TK2b

And now, let us continue to part 9!

-----------------------------------------


Corey took a long, thoughtful toke. “A recap of what the fuck just happened? Anyone?”
Smith stepped out from behind the rubble, barely able to contain her chuckles as she saw Corey’s contorted expression.
Knux tried to hide his own snicker. He cleared his throat and forced a serious frown on his face. “From what I gather we didn’t time travel. It only seems that we did, but in fact, we have been pulled into parallel reality. Dimension. Timeline. Or something.” He shrugged.
Corey’s face settled into a pout. “From where I’m standing, the things we see here have already happened a long time ago. So what’s up with that?”
“Apparently, the time flow is not synchronized between these realities? So if we travelled between timelines, we’d end up at a different… er milestone? Makes sense to me!”
Corey huffed and spat. “Since when are there parallel timelines that you can travel between? I mean, come on!” He began pacing back and forth. “This is stupid!”
“Perhaps-” Knux rubbed his stubbled chin - “perhaps that is how things have always worked. We just didn’t have a way of knowing about it. What if that’s just... how reality, well, is?”

Knux stood, happy with his ability to provide a logical explanation. He cast a gentle magnanimous smile towards the others and nodded. Then the smile vanished, and Knux clutched his hair, a wild look in his eyes.
Smith examined the Elder with a frown, and waved her hand in front of his face. “Hey… you all right in there?” She turned to Corey. “Uh, I’m not sure what just happened. Your friend here… looks like his brain just crashed. Do we need to restart him or something?”
“Uhh…?” Corey shrugged.
Knux sank to his knees, and began mumbling to himself. “...all for nothing… haven’t changed a thing...”
“Does he often get like this?” Smith crouched by his side and looked up to Corey. “Do you know what he’s on about?”
“Yeeeahhh…” Corey lit another smoke. “I get how this must sound to you, but... we thought we’d figured out how to time-travel. Go back, fix things, you know. We thought we HAD fixed things. Saved loved ones, prevented disasters, you know the drill. If we have merely… side-stepped to another timeline it means we never interfered with all that. Everything is still happening.”

Knux was rocking back and forth, still sobbing and mumbling. “...for nothing… still happening… all gonna die...” He looked up, his natural eye dulled by tears. “And there’s nothing we can do to help!”
“Unless you find a way to return to where you came from...” Smith looked at the two men’s despair and hoped they hadn’t heard her wondering-out-loud. She stretched to hide her discomfort and let her eyes wander across the junk piles. Farther on the path, next to the hull of a toppled cargo drone, there were three human figures approaching. “Um, guys, you know these people?”
Corey glanced at Smith. “What people?”
“Look, look! I think they’re headed here.”
Corey squinted: a guy, large in size, and two women, one of them taking measured strides, the other skipping along the path. He nudged Knux, and pointed at the approaching group. “Un-fucking-believable...”
The measured-strides-woman waved and smiled.
Corey flashed a huge grin at Smith. “Allow me to present: Tanikki Kall’ovyj, Reesto Chelik, Mia Loki! Some damn fine crew I’ve had the pleasure to work with! Never expected to see any of them alive again,” he added quietly.
Knux got to his feet and brushed himself off. “You know it’s not really them-them, right?”
“Shut up, you twat, you’re ruining my moment.”

As the group drew closer, Tanikki spoke up. “Look at you! Not too shabby for an old man!”
“You ain’t so bad yourself, haven’t you aged at-all?”
“Technically I’m supposed to be dead, so, no.”
“So what brings you to our corner of the scrapheap?
Mia poked her head out from behind Reesto’s wide back, her dark eyes shining. “We’re improvising!”
Tanikki chuckled with a nod. “Lil’ Miss Space Cadet is right. According to the original scenario we were supposed to take positions at the bar, act naturally, and once you’d arrived, pretend we belonged there. Here. In this... you get the idea. But then you…” She drew an arc in the air.
“Yeah-yeah. They told us. We were early.”
“Right. So our handlers decided to skip the spectacle and send us to r-v with you directly.”
“We went to a briefing!” Mia clung to Reesto’s arm, attempting to spin him around.
Reesto stood his ground, smiled, and extended his right hand.
“Oh, right!” Corey waved his arms around with an awkward giggle. “Soo, introductions. Smith, Reesto. He doesn’t talk much. Tanikki… and junior surgeon here-”
“I’m Mia!”
Corey caught her high-five. “The one and only. Er… And our resident cyborg here…”
“Oh, that is engineer Vee-One. We were briefed about you.” Tanikki moved in for the jumble of handshakes. “Didn’t say anything about you, though.” She tilted her head and looked at Smith.
“Oh… I guess I’m not really supposed to be here.” Smith drilled dirt with her bootheel. “I just kinda hopped in on the ride.”
Corey stepped aside and climbed atop a little dirt mound. Taking his best captain-y stance, he let his voice boom. “People! Now that we have all gathered here, let us board and see what good old Alexis has to offer!” He fumbled with the security sequencer until the outer hatch popped ajar. “Yes-yes… through here. Let’s locate the command centre. Naturally we can’t expect the layout to be exactly-”
Tanikki put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. We were just briefed, remember?”
“Right! Everybody follow Engineer Kall’ovyj!”
To himself, Corey mumbled: “That went well.”

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (Part 10)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.

Read more about the Forum Leakage project here: http://bit.ly/2gkGNrm
Read previous post in this series: http://bit.ly/2mGGryS  

And now, let us continue to part 10!

------------------------------------------------


Corey awkwardly stretched his body into a control seat and prodded at the console. “The interface looks familiar enough.”
Elder Knux crouched by another workstation, trying to get a peek of its underside. “‘Looks’ being the operative word. How do you actually run this thing?”
Corey grinned. “Heck if I know. Only one way to find out!”
He placed his hands on the controls.The console gave off a few encouraging beeps, then a display activated and the whole control centre lit up. “Nice. So it’s official, we have a new ship.”
“What do we do about the old one?”
“Ah, sod. I didn’t think of that.” Corey dug out his datapad and poked at Moirai’s tag. “Hey, it’s us.”
“Indeed, your identification is displayed very clearly.”
“Hmph, yes, very well. There has been a development, we have a ship.”
“Yes, I am aware of that too, I am guarding it.”
“Er, no, I mean… we have a new ship. We were… ah, it’s a long story.” Corey straightened himself in the seat. “What’s important is, we need to get our gear to the ship… the new ship somehow.”
“I see. Would it not be the easiest to bring the new vessel over to the landing site?”
“But… I mean… Surely we can’t just fly over.”
Tanikki dropped the manual she’d been reading. “Why not?”
“Oh! Right…” Corey turned back to the datapad. “Yes, what she said. We’ll be on our way shortly, Don’t let the other ship out of your sight.”
“Of course not, I am guarding it.”


Corey folded the datapad away and gave the console a determined frown. “Very well! Let’s see if we can get us to the beach.”

The lights flickered, and his console gave off an exaggerated audio chime, followed by a pleasant artificial voice. “All systems online. Airborne sequence engaged. Calculating vector: scrapyard-beach. Altitude adjustment engaged. Descending. Vector complete. You may now disembark.”


“Ah, we are done. That was neat.” Corey glanced around, trying to make eye contact with the others. “How did you do that?”
“Why you looking at me?” Tanikki shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”

The pleasant artificial voice spoke again. “It was I, Alexis. I extrapolated your intended command sequence based on the two-way interaction. I also cleared your personal pad of non-essential data.”
Knux chuckled. “There goes that gigasecond of smut.”

Amidst the suppressed giggles and snorts, Alexis spoke again. “You may now disembark.”

“Hmph, Well, alright then.” Corey stood and cleared his throat. “Er, ah, yes. Excellent! I thank you on behalf on my crew. We shall disembark now.”

Leaked from the forums: Deja Vu (part 11)

Copyright (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): 2017 David Noë
Co-authors/players involved: David Noë, Laura Loolaid, Kieyotie McDermott, Drew Eckhardt
The original forum thread ran from May 2014 to Oct 2014.
Read more about the Forum Leakage project here.
Read previous post in this series: https://bit.ly/2uq2Ref

And now, let us continue to part 11!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



“Remind me again, why did you guys bring so much shit?” Tanikki shoved a piece of beach-muck off the ramp with her boot. “And more importantly, why do we have to take it all to the new ship?”
Knux fell into step beside her. “I know it’s stupid, but just roll with it, at least he’s not talking.”
“Shush, don’t you say anoth-”
“Valued members of the crew! Gather round!” Corey had climbed atop a cargo crate and puffed his chest against the wind.
“Oh, great.” Tanikki rolled her eyes.“Our glorious leader wishes to dispense his thoughts.”

The group congregated in slow motion, their lethargy interrupted by Mia’s excited shriek as she slid down the tilted hull.
Corey cleared his throat and swept his arm in an artful arc. “I know things are looking a little bit tough right now. But I am convinced that together we can do this! Alexis, the new Alexis, is where we belong! We need to move on from the ship that was, and bring our future to the ship that is!”
“And by future, you mean the broken crates,” Tanikki muttered to herself.
“Fate and the twists of the galaxy have brought us here! Everything happens for a reason, and it is our duty to fulfill that reason. I will personally see to it!”
Knux folded his arms. “Are you quite sure you haven’t hit your head since we landed?”
Corey gave him a side-glance and carried on. “For now I need everybody to continue doing what you were doing before I summoned you.”
Knux opened his mouth to say something, reconsidered, then stomped off across the dunes.

Reesto and Moirai nodded to each other, then to Corey. “Instructions acknowledged. We shall resume work now.” They picked up the crate they’d been carrying before the gathering and resumed as if nothing had happened.
Tanikki followed them, pretending to support the crate from the side.“How can you guys be so calm? This is unnecessary and moronic!”
Moirai exchanged another mutual-understanding-smile with Reesto. “Indeed it is. We are fulfilling our obligations to the crew.”
Tanikki threw her hands up and wandered off.
She dodged Mia who heaved a fragment of heat shield, her eyes fixed on the rising tide, and caught up with Knux who was probing an open container in the cargo hold. They exchanged an exasperated look. “How long do you expect this to go on?”
Knux turned his attention back to the container. “Just look busy. He’ll understand this isn’t working eventually… hopefully.”
“I’m not so sure, man. He’s different. The Corey I knew… he would have rage-quit ages ago.”
Knux sent a wary glance towards the outdoors. “What was he like? Your Corey, I mean?”
“Well for one, he would be the first to carry the heavy shit... put his augmented ass on the line and such.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Fuck no. Bastard sold us out.” She paused. “Held a very touching memorial for us, according to the data feeds we were shown...”

Corey watched as the crew got back to work, then his self-assured grin dissolved as he saw Smith stomping across the sand, throwing menacing glances at wreckage and himself. She stepped up to Corey and folded her arms. “Hey. Look. I’m not claiming I get what it is exactly that you’re trying to achieve here but… just look at this mess.”
Corey offered a meek smile. “Shared activity… good for the crew development…”
Smith replied with an unashamed glower. “Look at those two - they would probably eat barbed wire on the captain’s instructions. Is that how you want to treat your crew? And Team Engineer-” she nodded towards the gaping hatch - “they have been shifting the same crate back and forth for a while now. And her-” they both ducked to avoid an incoming debris-frisbee - ”yeah. I see no shared activity or development here, only growing resentment. If that’s your goal, congratulations.” She turned and stomped back towards the wreckage.

Corey’s gaze bounced from group to group. “Uh… but... “ He frowned. “Alright… let’s try this.” He puffed his chest and let his voice carry across the dunes once more. “ good news everybody! We’re taking a break. You are all invited to accompany me on a little tour of our newly acquired vessel!”

Reaching Command, the confused bunch wa greeted by an on-screen projection of Alexis. “Oh. Hello again.”
Corey nodded with a knowing grin. “So… Our old ship has been outfitted with a proper synthetic personality now! Quite an advancement, eh?”
Knux pointed at the screen. “So this avatar *is* The Alexis?”
The projection flickered “Not the. Just Alexis please.” She ignored the awkward silence. “Would you like me to show you around? I will switch to 3D projection.”
A flickering wireframe of a humanoid figure in a battlesuit appeared in front of them. “Shall we?” She sounded amused.


The group moved chaotically through the ship, following the pointers from Alexis’ glimmering wireframe.
“Ah this, really takes me back.” Corey’s face lit up with a blissful smile. “A simpler time… when Alexis was just a wee vessel, pushing on with a factory thruster set… Wasn’t easy to make it all the way to the edge of mapped space… the region of danger and daring where this very ship became the saviour of the Vee-One siblings! Indeed the-”
Knux shoved an elbow to the chest. “You’re doing it again! Who exactly are you trying to impress?”
“I-” Corey frowned, rubbing his pecks. “Well, I mean, pointing out an inspirational moment, is all… I’m taking the lead!”
“And you’re helping nobody, only alienating! You don’t have a clue about this new ship and we all know it. Just watch and learn like we do.” He turned back to the group. “And don’t you dare bringing up my sister again.”

“They’d better sort their damned egos out soon or…” Tanikki had joined Smith on a detour outside the command. They came to a stop at a curving ramp that lead to an unseen level.
Smith frowned. “Hang on. Did you see this here before?”
“Huh… no? I’d say this whole junction looked quite different.”
“Something weird is going on.” Smith stepped up the ramp. “Come. Let’s see where this leads!”
“All right… wait-” she shouted down the hallway - “guys, ask the avatar thing what’s going on with the interior! It’s changed!”
A full-height projection appeared by their side. “Very perceptive, engineer Kall’ovyj. I am calibrating the ship to better suit the crew size and requirements.” The projection flickered. “Would you like to see the crew quarters, by the way?”


They looked at each other and were about to accept the offer, when the projection emitted a loud crackle followed by a cartoonish blue halo. Excited giggles followed the light-show, and Mia poked her head out from behind Alexis’ avatar.
“How…” Tanikki and Smith exchanged a puzzled look.
“She’s not a projection at all!” Mia giggled again.
“Very observant, miss Loki! I suppose I’ve had my fun with this masquerade…” The “projection” solidified, losing the neon wireframe, as well as her battlesuit’s headpiece in the process.
Smith frowned at Tanikki. “This… I thought you guys were briefed?”
“Not that briefed.” Tanikki chuckled in disbelief. “This is some next level shit.”
Alexis nodded. “Stowaway Smith, Engineer Kall’ovyj - pleased to meet you. Again. You shall be briefed on the ship’s, that is *my* full functionality soon enough. For now, it will be sufficient to know that my current form is possible due to Dr Cervonious’ Particle Programming Protocol.”
“Patent pending!” Mia squeaked.
Alexis accepted her high-five. “Indeed. It appears that SOME of the crew has gone beyond their curriculum. But now, let’s join the others at the Control. I am to give you an orientation to this particular reality."

***

The Command centre was filled with contemplative frowns, unasked questions, and tacit attention, all of it crowned by the utter concentration on Corey’s scrunched face. “So, like, we are not, uh… FROM here, strictly speaking… and yet we are connected with the “here”, is that what you’re saying?”
“To put in crude terms, yes. Most of you have been extracted from different space-time continua, whereas the “here” as you put it, represents a major, earlier offshoot of a parent-timestream.”
Corey rubbed his cheeks. “I don’t mean to be rude but... how many versions of us have you seen?”
“Oh not many” Alexis casually leaned her armored back to the bulkhead. “When it comes to Corey Hendersons, approximately eleven to the seventeenth power.”
Knux blinked rapidly, assigning some of his circuits to do the calculation. He gave Corey a dumb look. “That is… a lot.”
“What?”
“Oh… silly me.” Alexis displayed a glowing haze on her cheeks. “My knowledge has been merged with the… others. I was counting the sub-stream versions to the fourth layer of branching…” She adjusted her posture. “Let’s just say your particular rating is among the more suitable third. Quite far from the 100% mark, but nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“So what about that… 100% Corey?”
“Oh, he had to be contained, I’m afraid.” Alexis flashed a toothy smile. “Don’t worry, his most essential experiences were extracted and will be incorporated to your learning program.”
She cut into the awkward silence. “I believe this is enough orientation for the moment. You might want to carry on with your… teambuilding exercise. I have also taken the liberty of augmenting a multi-terrain tug with some extra tethers and hover modules for you. You’ll find it in the ground access bay.”
The crew spilled out of the Command with new excitement. Corey blinked to himself and set to follow them.
“Wait.” Alexis vanished and materialized on his way. “Perhaps you won’t learn anything from today, but here is one piece of insight I can give you. Throughout all the timestreams, all the variations, there is one dynamics that never changes. Corey Henderson is nothing without his crew.”