[fic][dp] Blue Fields, Blue Sky (part 2)
Title: Blue Fields, Blue Sky
Author: magistrate (draegonhawke)
Sliding Scale of Slash: Implied, Jack Harkness/Sam Tyler
Part: 2 of 5
Rating: T
Length Warning: This story is, at 26,000 words, easily the longest single thing I've written for this 'verse. That's why it's being presented in parts. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Beta Warning: As posted now this monstrosity is only about half-beta'd, because my lovely beta rionaleonhart is trying to secure herself a higher education and this requires a considerable investment of time and energy. Whoops! The author begs indulgence for the occasional typo and dialectic faux pas. Hopefully there won't be too much of Sam saying sure he'd like a pop as he tries to figure out the rules for this soccer game...
Fandoms: Life on Mars; Torchwood; Final Fantasy VIII
Summary: Jack and Sam make one last teleport from What Glass Splinters and find themselves on an island paradise which is, incidentally, in the middle of a temporal apocalypse. Of which they might be the cause.
-
Late in the night, long after Sam had drifted off, a light knock sounded at Jack's door.
He slid off the bed carefully--Sam had fallen asleep rested against his arm, as the beds weren't meant to accommodate two, but there was no particular reason to wake him. He almost extricated his coat, but decided against it and slipped out of it instead.
Nida was at the door. Jack looked at him, looked at the dimmed lights in the hallway beyond, and shook his head. "Kinda late."
"Lost track of time." He shrugged. "But I did find something interesting."
"Don't you sleep?" Jack said.
"I take cat naps when you're not around." Nida waved past him. "How's your friend?"
Jack looked back into the dorm. Sam was fast asleep, lying in a sprawl across almost exactly half of the bed. "Way better than me," he said. "Is there something you need?"
"Come with me," Nida said.
Nida led him to the elevator again, punching in the keycode and taking them down to the C-Engine. The door opened and Nida strode down the corridor, bringing him into the engine room proper. Jack glanced around reading unfamiliar equations. "What's going on?"
"We taught the engine to look for someplace with the same signature as Tyler's blood," he said. "We found one. Here." He snapped his fingers, and the screen above them activated--to show a ship's-eye view of the Earth solar system, as it looked in the early twenty-first century.
"That was a bit of showmanship," Jack said.
"Yeah, took forever to get the sound sensors tuned fine enough. This place look familiar?"
"Yep. That's Earth," Jack said. "Third planet from the--wait, just a second."
His watch was meebling.
He brought it up, reading the weak signal. "You're actually amplifying that time toward us, aren't you? Like picking it up with a telescope?"
"Basically," Nida said.
"Can I--" Jack began. "I mean, will it break anything if I try to send a message?"
Nida shrugged. "No more than it's already broken. We're planning to eject you from this timeline in that direction anyway; hopefully temporal gravity will keep foreign energy from seeping back in."
"Tossing your soup at the planet," Jack said, hunting out the Text Messager (2007-compatible) item in the program list. "I really want to see if this works. Ianto?" He brought the device to his mouth. "Ianto, are you getting this?"
"You're making a call through time," Nida said, tilting his head with a sort of Why can't I do that? expression. "Nice."
Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, if it works."
Nida looked bemused. "Any reason why, or did you just want to check in?"
"You need to get us far away from this timeline, right?" Jack asked. "Well, I think I can make that easier for you."
"How?"
"By magnetizing this device," Jack said, flashing his wrist. "Temporally. I just need to ask someone to hit a few buttons."
"Help from outside the timeline," Nida said. "Well, there's a strat we haven't tried before."
Jack's wrist warbled. "Looks like someone is listening. This'll just take a minute. Hold on."
"Holding on," Nida said, and watched him get to work.
-
Sam woke when the bed he was on shook, and opened his eyes to see Jack's face, centimetres away, grinning down at him with more enthusiasm than Jack had displayed since they arrived on Lusuosa. It was such an odd thing to wake up to that he instinctively froze.
"I have some really, really great news," Jack said. "They're fixing the timeline. We're going home."
-
Enthusiasm aside, actual progress took a bit longer.
Around oh-six-hundred, a SeeD introducing himself as "Mark" (which seemed an oddly ordinary name for a place like this) came and escorted them to cafeteria, where a disconcerting number of people were treating themselves to a breakfast of hotdogs. "They look young," Jack mentioned.
Mark looked around. He himself couldn't have been over twenty. "SeeD trains from a very young age," he said. "Headmaster Trepe became a SeeD when she was fifteen years old."
"Fifteen?" Sam asked. She'd looked young, but the idea of a fifteen-year-old woman joining a paramilitary group put a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was behaviour reserved for extremist groups and third-world countries, back on Earth.
"SeeD operates on the principle that the best operatives learn early and stay in constant practice." Mark looked at him quizzically. "Surely you realise that children are, by and large, more versatile than adults?"
It was a coldly pragmatic argument. "You don't think there should be time allotted for children to be children?" Sam asked.
Mark shrugged. "That's subjective. Our quality of life is no lower than anyone else's, and our efficiency is greatly increased. Children don't need to be protected from the world, they need to be equipped to survive in it." He brought them up to the counter, waving at the menu. "Help yourself; food is free. I recommend the hotdogs."
Sam politely declined.
After breakfast he took them on a more detailed tour of the Garden than they'd had to that point, giving them snatches of history in each area. "The Quad was rebuilt and expanded after damage obtained in aerial combat," for example.
"Aerial?" Jack asked.
Mark nodded absently. "The Garden has a flight system. In any case, the terrace gardens are only about eight years old...."
Quite some time later, after Mark had dispatched a hatchling dinosaur in a small interior jungle ("The Training Centre," he explained, "is maintained in precise ecological balance to provide practice in gauging enemy strength and performing various battle strategies." Sam would not be swayed from the conviction that maintaining a breeding population of Tyrannosaurus rex inside a boarding school was a bloody insane thing to do), an angry blur made her/his way up to them and skidded to a halt.
"Expats down to C-Engine," Miadok said. "They're ready for you."
Mark saluted. "SeeD Corey can escort you down," he said. "I don't have clearance."
Miadok waved them toward the doors, about as happy with the responsibility as he was with every other aspect of the world. "Come on."
The C-Engine room was staffed by both Garden administrators and a handful of other SeeDs at various consoles, apparently in a support role. Miadok took up position at one of the terminals at the edge without prelude when they arrived.
"The guests of honour have arrived," Nida announced. "It's ten thirty eight on a lovely summer morning, and you are outta here."
"We have the program set," Quistis said. "We'll charge this chamber and propel you toward your own time. Hopefully inertia will draw the rest of the disturbance out after you. We can begin at any time."
"Much as I like it here, I get the feeling that sooner is better," Jack said. "So, any time you're ready."
Nida hit a few buttons, and the apparatus in the centre lit up. "We're ready now. It was nice meeting you guys. Don't come back."
"Don't plan to," Jack said, grinning. "Hey, stay out of trouble."
"Don't plan to," Nida said. "Have a good trip."
He threw the switch.
The engine spun up, light dancing across its surface, and the B-Garden contingent stepped back. Jack walked up to it, casting a grin over his shoulder at Sam. "Feel that?" he called above the rising roar. "That's temporal charge gathering. It reaches a flash point, and--"
It flashed. But evidently it didn't do whatever it was supposed to--Jack spun around as a klaxon started up, and all the SeeDs dashed for the controls.
"What's going on?" Sam demanded. "What's happening?"
"Charge drain," Nida called back. "What the hell?--can anyone isolate it?"
Quistis tossed hair over her shoulder, typing impossibly quickly into the nearest keyboard. Around them, the roar was becoming a howl. "The charge is being grounded--it's dispersing through Gaen."
"Oh, you're kidding me." Nida hit something, and the ceiling lit up and split into segments. "I'm reading four bleeds--Tear's Point, the Pandora Crater in Trabia, Obel Lake and the DSRC."
"Shut this down," Quistis said.
"I can't!" Nida sprinted to a second console, calling up another set of displays. "There's too much energy in the system. It's going to--"
Every light in the room went out. The machinery fell silent.
"--discharge," Nida finished.
A series of green lights turned on around the periphery, flooding the room. "Emergency power is on," Quistis said. "Nida, take our guests upstairs. I'm going to access the crash logs."
"Yeah," Nida said. "I'll contact Squall. Tell him we're screwed."
Jack hung his head. Nida walked past, clapping each of them on the shoulder to steer them back towards the lift.
-
Squall picked up on the second ring. "Leonhart."
"Nida," Nida identified. "How's our friend the antibody?"
"The Weapon's level of activity has increased to about thirty percent of awakening," Squall said. "We're using a status cocktail to keep it down, but it will dispel as soon as it reaches nominal consciousness."
"Yeah, good luck Sleeping an angry Weapon," Nida muttered. "We sent some time energy your way."
"I noticed."
Nida leaned back. He was in one of the third-floor dens, surrounded by technical books and looking out the window over a deceptively serene plain. There was just enough room on the ochuwood desk to put his feet up, assuming he was careful not to upset the piles of papers. "Squall, we've got a problem. I thought we could charge the engine and discharge the energy out of the time line, blasting our stowaways out with it. But the charge grounded and shot out of the planet before it charged up enough."
"So don't let it ground," Squall said.
"If we don't let it ground, it can't pull in the energy from the disturbance in Rinaul. And it's not like we can build a second engine there."
In the background, Nida could make out the echoes of large rocks being moved. Squall considered.
"You've contacted the Institute of Chronetic Engineering in Esthar?"
"They referred me to Odine's office. You know how that went." Nida made a face. "'Zis is incredible! Ze hypothezees von, two, tventy-zeben proven! Ze eekzperiment must be rekreated at vonce!' And on like that until I hung up on him."
The sound of Squall not being amused translated surprisingly well on the connection.
"Squall, remember how we thought we'd need a refraction chamber big enough to encompass Balamb and Rinaul?"
"Yes," Squall said darkly.
"Do you think we could get away with one that encompasses the planet?"
"Do I need to order you to get some sleep?" Squall asked.
"Probably, but that's not the point. The energy grounds through Gaen. If we prevent it from discharging into space, we could build up the charge in the planet itself."
"Make the planet into a time engine," Squall said. "Do you have any idea what that will do?"
"Not a clue. And if I ask Odine, he'll show up here and demand we do it even if Gaen explodes."
Squall replicated the exact impression of a sigh without actually sighing. "I'll contact Laguna. He can lean on ICE and have them draw up predictions without involving Odine. In the mean time, send a Special Contingencies SeeD team up here just in case the Weapon activates; I'll clear it with Elder."
"You're coming back, then?"
"It seems necessary."
"Great," Nida said, checking the clock. It read 13:04. "I'll bake you a cake and hang a banner. Hope to see the Ragnarok over our skies tonight."
"Anything else?"
"No, not now," Nida said. "Zell is coming back in from Dollet in an hour or two; I can get his team on a RDV and send them up as soon as he hits Balamb. I'll call if anything weird happens."
"Do that. Out."
Squall hung up.
Nida closed his phone, reopened it, and punched in Quistis's number.
"O Great and Esteemed Headmaster," he said as soon as she picked up. "Guess what the plan is now?"
-
Sam found Jack in the Library, bathed in early-afternoon light and staring at a book titled Cultural Perspectives on Hell. Sam was seriously considering making a chart of warning signs. "How long have you been in here?"
Jack glanced up. "Since they kicked me out of the Training Centre," he said.
And there would be another one. "That area is exceedingly unsafe."
"I was fine." Jack flipped a page. "Apparently there was this one ancient tribe in Centra who thought that, rather than having an afterlife, your soul got reincarnated into every person you ever met, in this sort of eternal cycle. Everything you did came back to you, because sooner or later you were everyone."
Sam counted the number of shelves in viewing distance, and did the maths in his head. "There have to be at least five thousand other books in this library."
"None of which are quite as topical." Jack flipped the page. "And I'm pretty sure none of them have illustrations like this."
He turned the book around, displaying a woodcut print of a pair of nudes, standing calmly with their hands over their eyes, surrounded by art-nouveauish flames.
You have a strange idea of art appreciation. Sam watched him evenly. "I just spoke with Provost Nida. They're working on another plan. These people are experts."
"Sam," Jack said, "the Doctor is an expert. These people are bumbling through, doing the best that they can. Kinda like us, but with a slightly higher success rate."
I'm not going to win this argument, am I? He cleared his throat. "So. Hell. Anything interesting?"
"The Thorlgard up north calculated the exact number of wives a man could have before he was considered to be living in sin," Jack said. "Apparently zero was appropriate for priests, one was acceptable but frowned upon, two or three was good, and anything higher than four would mean you'd be stuck on your back in the frozen lakes of the afterworld with ice vultures tearing at your genitals for the rest of time."
Sam tried to come up with an appropriate response, but managed nothing better than "...I see."
"Some of these people just did not have any fun," Jack said. "So. Excited about this Commander guy? You seem to be getting along with the Headmaster."
"From what I've heard, Commander Leonhart is extremely competent," Sam said. "The people in Garden seem to be reassured to have him returning."
Jack gave him a vaguely leer-flavoured look. "You two should really hit it off."
Sam wasn't sure whether to be confused or offended.
Jack closed his book. "Assuming we get out of here," he said. "You had your accident in 2006. I can't go back there without crossing my own timeline."
Sam's stomach made an uneasy little motion. "I didn't expect that everything would pick up as normal."
"I mentioned that I worked for Torchwood," Jack said. "Special intelligence agency. Established by the Queen, way back when. Actually--" He chuckled uneasily. "Due to a kinda strange series of events, I kinda wound up in charge of it...."
Sam felt his eyebrows raise. "You're in charge of a secret intelligence agency in the United Kingdom."
"Makes you reconsider that nice sense of security you get from living in England, doesn't it?" He picked at his watch. It warbled uneasily. "Anyway, my point is that I could get you a job. I mean, you'd fit right in. I'd be tempted to recruit you even if we weren't--"
He stalled out on the last word. Sam frowned.
"It's not underhanded," Jack said, quickly. "I honestly think you'd be an asset to the team."
"We'll see what happens," Sam said.
"Yeah. Right--just an option." Jack shrugged, fumbling the wristband's cover open. "Whatever works best. Why is there a time wave coming our way?"
Thank you for the offer was on the tip of Sam's tongue. "--what?"
"Time wave," Jack said, leaping out of his chair and lunging at the window. "Look! There--"
A line of light was rolling toward them, searing away the Alcauld Plains. Sam couldn't tell what lay beyond it. "What the--"
"Get down!" Jack yelled, turning to cover him--and then the light hit, and then it was over them, and everything turned to darkness.
-
A noise like fading echoes comprised the world.
Actually, "comprised" was a bit strong. It was certainly the most noticeable aspect, but if one paid attention one could feel the temperature of the air, taste the adrenaline at the back of the mouth, even smell the faint dust of recirculated air. Sight was right out, though--until the emergency lights came on, illuminating C-Engine and the group of SeeDs around it.
"Is everything all right?" Nida demanded. First step--see to the damage. Figuring out what the hell just happened would come later.
Quistis was already moving to the terminals, accessing the crash logs. "I think we're all in one piece. Did anyone else just--jump?"
"I was definitely on the bridge," Nida said. "Then everything outside goes crazy, the ring starts to revolve, and I'm standing down here."
Across the floor, Harkness was looking around. "What time is it?"
"What?" Nida asked.
"Someone check. It was about four o'clock a few minutes ago. What time is it now?"
"Quistis?" Nida asked, jogging to the controls.
"...ten thirty nine," Quistis said. "Same day. Just after the discharge."
"How the hell did we get sent six hours back in time?" Nida asked. "What sort of sense does that make?"
Jack appeared next to him, looking over the consoles. "I don't know, but we haven't crossed timelines. We didn't double back, we went straight back. And I didn't think that was possible."
"It's not," Nida said.
Quistis's phone rang.
She had it open and up to her ear before the first ring ended. "Headmaster Trepe."
A pause.
"No, it's the same here." She waved to Nida, who produced a phone, typed something in, and raised it to his ear. Another pause followed.
"What the hell, Squall," Nida burst. Quistis winced. "No, I'd say you should kick the engines to full and get down here yesterday, because we just broke the laws of temporal physics."
"Nida," Quistis said.
Nida nodded vindictively. "Cake. Banner. See you soon."
He hung up. After a second, Quistis did as well.
"So, I get the feeling the Commander is coming back earlier than expected," Jack said.
"SeeDs," Nida snapped, "get every last bit of data out of these consoles. You two!" He gestured over Sam and Jack. "With me!"
He stormed toward the elevator. Quistis sighed and waved them off.
Nida hit the 1F button as soon as they were in, and the doors closed. "There will probably be a lot of confused people up there," Sam pointed out. "I would assume that in a situation like this, you could expect mass panic in civilian populations. Riots, vandalism--"
"SeeD gets to explain this, you know," Nida said. "I'm thinking this time we might just go for the 'spontaneous paramagical electrolysis of world's drinking water supply into mind-altering drug.' Haven't tried that one before."
The elevator slid to a halt, door sliding open. Nida stepped out, taking a deep breath--
--to find that the business of Garden was going on as it always had. SeeDs and cadets moved from place to place, chatted in corners or sat calmly on benches, utterly unperturbed. Which was itself somewhat perturbing.
"The hell?" Nida said.
Jack looked across the ring. "Wow, are they well-trained," he said.
"If they were well-trained they'd be at battlestations now," Nida said, jogging down the stairs and catching the nearest one's elbow. "SeeD, report! What's happened in the last fifteen minutes?"
She snapped to attention, mental wheels spinning furiously and looking for a trick. "Sir! It's ten forty. In the last fifteen minutes the Cafeteria has ceased to serve breakfast, the Rapid Deployment Vehicles in the Balamb dock have passed through the inspection queue, the--"
"That's enough, SeeD," Nida said, shooing her off on her way. "Go on."
"They don't remember," Jack said, stealing up behind him.
"Keen deduction, Odine," Nida said, looking around the halls. He looked worried. "We do, Squall does, no one here does. Squall wasn't in an engine, and what else accounts for this?"
Nida looked at Jack. Jack looked at Sam. Sam looked confused.
"Right," Nida said. "I'm going up to my office."
"Could I get--" Sam began, and stumbled on what exactly he needed. "Could I see the documentation of these phenomena?"
Nida blinked. "Yeah, sure," he said, pulling out his phone and dialling. "Quistis?"
Pause.
"Send Mia up here. Tell him we need his speed."
He flipped the phone closed. Sam tried not to grimace. "SeeD Corey," he said. "Wonderful."
Nida shrugged. "When you want something done fast," he said, and headed for the stairs.
-
Miadok deposited a third stack of papers on the commandeered Library table before Sam had made much progress on the first one. "Here's your fun-reading," s/he said, leaning on the stack. "Accounts from every member of the Sorceress Team who fought Ultimecia, as well as external reports on the effects of the Sorceress War. I recommend Commander Leonhart's. It has bullet points."
Sam put down a report on the refractive properties of wizard stones as compared to featherweights--a report that he suspected he wouldn't have understood even if he had any idea of the physics involved. "Why is it called the 'sorceress war'?"
"Because about four sorceresses were involved," Miadok said. "As well as a time sorceress named Ellone."
"I'm reading about--" He looked over the report. "Things like paramagic and sorcery. I've never seen actual magic before."
"Define 'actual,'" Jack said, appropriating a folder from beneath Miadok's arm. "Species develop telepathy. Telekinesis. These people stick an alien in their brain and it alters their cognitive functions. After a while, there are a few random mutations, and people become more susceptible to them. There's no reason to say that's not what magic is."
"GFs aren't aliens," Mia said, sliding into a chair. "They're native to this planet."
"Of course. Sorry." Jack grinned at him, flipping the folder open. "Didn't mean to offend anyone."
Mia rolled his eyes. "What are you looking for?"
Sam filed the report back where he'd found it. "I'm trying to understand the situation so I can make reasonable assumptions."
"Reasonable?" Mia asked. "Right. That'll happen."
"I wouldn't put it past him," Jack said. "Who is 'Irvine Kinneas'?"
Miadok snorted laughter, and refused to explain. "Reasonable assumptions aren't doing shit anyway. Our situation defies all reasonable assumptions."
"If a logical approach yields illogical conclusions, the most probable cause is an error in the underlying assumptions," Sam said. "Formal logic. The fact that we've discovered something that can't be explained by science means we should be looking for a different kind of science."
Miadok looked at Jack. "Your friend wants to rewrite physics," he said.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "He's ambitious."
Sam crossed his arms. "What do we need to know?"
"Oh, here we go, ten-minute thesis on special problems in temporal theory. Now you want me to be ambitious. Okay." Mia leaned back, swinging his legs to the top of the table. "Our timeline is like a sleeve made of a substance which we call time energy because we don't have anything else to call it. It's not exactly time, it's not exactly energy. I like to think of it as a kind of jelly."
Sam raised an eyebrow. Jelly.
"A while ago, our timeline got compressed," Mia said. "Someone in the future threw a hook back down the sleeve and pulled, squashing everything inside. A SeeD team--the Sorceress Team--went back up the grappling line, killed her, and rode the whiplash back. But that left a lot of ripples and rips and wrinkles in the sleeve, which the C-Engine is smoothing out at a rate of about five and a half hours ahead of us."
"Why would the fabric of time be jelly?" Jack asked.
"And, more importantly, is it coconut or hasberry," Miadok muttered. "Because if you poke a hole in one section, waves radiate out from it in uneven patterns and jigger other bits. Can I finish?"
"Five and a half hours," Sam said.
"Roughly, and I'll take that as a no. The number's not important. What's important is that its effects cover us right now. We're living in smooth time. Yogurt time, if you don't like jelly."
Sam and Jack exchanged a glance.
"You come in, you hit the sleeve in the smooth bit and you create more wrinkles. Scarring, actually. Like taking a hot knife to the jelly-yogurt and creating a skin. And you're still messing it up. So soon, these things who live on the moon and really like the taste of yogurt skins are going to come and try to eat the sleeve. The entire sleeve. Unless we can stop it."
"Right, gov," Sam muttered. Miadok and Jack gave him looks in varying degrees of "odd."
"So how did you plan to stop it?" Jack asked. "I guess you clapped a bubble over the skins and tried to expel them with a controlled blast."
"Yeah!" Miadok nodded. "Problem is, the blast didn't push you out of yogurt time. You're sticky skins. It built up and blasted out of the timeline all on its lonesome--path of least resistance--before dislodging you. Is anyone else hungry?"
"No," Sam said. "Please continue."
"And then a bit later we get a time wave crashing in on us and we're back in time. Now you know what I know. I'm going to go to the cafeteria," he said, sliding out of the chair. "Want anything? Hot dogs, sushi, special relativity primers?"
"Where did that energy go?" Sam asked. "When it discharged. It must have ended up somewhere."
"Special relativity primer, check," Miadok said. "And a big pad of paper. Back in three."
He jogged out of the room.
"Jelly," Jack said.
Sam nodded. "Five and a half hours, roughly. What time did you say the wave hit?"
Jack shrugged. "Sometime around four?"
"About five hours and twenty minutes after the discharge," Sam said.
Jack blinked, replacing his folder. "So they managed to do something to the timeline that the C-Engine couldn't smooth out?"
"Or this is an incredible coincidence." Sam shrugged. "It's worth investigating."
Jack stood. "I'll say. I'm going to see if Nida thinks so." He clapped him on the shoulder. "Enjoy your jelly."
Sam granted a dry smile as Jack headed for the door.
-
Elevators were elevators--they tended to be fairly standard across time and space. Jack stepped into the B-Garden elevator, found Administrative Offices listed under Bridge, and pushed the appropriate button--only to find that this particular elevator scanned him first and locked shut. A speaker fuzzed on, announcing [Bridge access requested. Intercom activated.]
Before Jack could think to protest, a calm voice sounded over the speaker. "This is SeeD Dryke. State your ID."
Well, at least it's a person on the other end. Jack bent down to the grille, adopting an innocent expression on the offchance that there were concealed cameras in the elevator car. "This is Captain Jack Harkness. I was wondering if I could come visit Nida?"
"Standby."
Jack inspected the panelling. The speaker clicked a few times.
"Right, you're cleared. Welcome to the Bridge."
The car rose smoothly. A few seconds later it slowed to a halt, doors sliding open. Jack stepped out.
The Bridge had much more of a classic aesthetic, aside from the huge wraparound window which composed the ceiling. It was panelled in mahogany with elegant carvings, reliefs of maps and vines. The doors to the bridge proper were open, and a number of SeeDs in more ornate uniform were milling about.
Nida was darting around the base of a huge pedestal, snapping orders left and right. Jack ducked into the room, trying to draw attention without being obtrusive. "Hey?"
Nida glanced at him. "News? Yes, no?"
"Five and a half hours is how long it took to throw us back in time and how far ahead the C-Engine functions," Jack said.
"Yeah," Nida agreed. "You know what's more interesting, though? We've lost contact with the DSRC."
Jack put his hands on his hips. "Lost contact. That's bad. What's the DSRC?"
"The DSRC," Nida said. "Deep Sea Research Center. Eight years of uninterrupted transmission and now we lose contact after a temporal energy bleed. You know what that means?"
Jack shrugged. "Not a clue."
"Join the club. We're having shirts made," Nida muttered. "What time is it?"
"Eleven fifty three," a SeeD said from behind the pillar. Nida dropped into a chair, switching on a computer.
"Anything else for me?"
"We think the discharge did something to the timeline," Jack said. "Made some kind of a temporal speedbump. We hit it, it sends us back here."
Nida hit an intercom. "C-Engine, this is the Provost. How's our fixer fixing?"
"Ninety-seven percent efficiency, five hour and thirteen minute buffer holding stable," came the prompt reply. Jack blinked.
"So, what does that mean?"
"If the buffer runs into something it can't fix, the buffer size decreases because it has to fix that before moving on to the next issue. We've been up to seventeen hours' buffer before, and down to about ten mintutes'. That was, by the way, an experience I never want to repeat. If we're stable, we're fixing the timeline at a rate of a second per second. We're looking for an event that threw us back, not something inherent in the timeline."
"Right." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "An event which unhappened as soon as it reset time. How do you plan on pinning it down?"
"With rope," Nida snapped, "with lots and lots of rope. Do you know what I was doing before you came up?"
Nida didn't sound happy. Given his composure over the last day, Jack was almost, but not quite, taken aback. "Trying to contact the DSRC?"
"Yes. You know why?" Nida didn't wait for an answer. "Because if we can put a Reflect over those temporal bleeds, we can contain the charge in the planet. If we can contain the charge in the planet, we can build it up so it expels you and your friend and any other scrap of foreign time. But as soon as I tell them to, the transmission cuts out and we can't re-establish it."
"You're moving forward," Jack said. "Same old plan."
"I have it on good authority that the theory is sound," Nida said. "Did you want something?"
"I want to help," Jack said. "Sam and I are down in the Library, trying to puzzle this out. If we can be more useful elsewhere--"
Nida stopped, digging his thumbs into his temples and lacing his fingers together. "Right. Sorry. Long day," he said. "We've got experts on two continents and a mobile lab looking at the problem, and no one's solved it. That thing of yours functions as a teleport, right?"
Jack glanced at his wrist. "Yeah, why?"
Nida glanced through his fingers. "How?"
"It's a minor function of the time jump," he said. "It sets the temporal coordinates to the coordinates of origin and only changes the spatial."
"No good, then," Nida said. "Can't ask you to hop over, check it out, and hop back; not if we're looking to avoid damaging the timeline." He dropped his hands onto the desk, drumming out a quick rhythm. "You know what you could do? There's a SeeD named Zell Dincht making landfall in Balamb pretty soon now. Go show him your thingy; he's a mechanic, he likes thingies."
"Time Agency Multipurpose Wrist Device with integrated vortex manipulator," Jack said.
Nida rolled his eyes. "Like I said. Thingy. Zell will be on a Garden-issue Rapid Deployment Vehicle; he's the one with the chocobo hair and the tattoo eating his face. You can't miss him."
"Anything you want me to tell him?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, 'Nida sent me, this thing's a teleport, can you make it not break time?' will work. Tell him there's a special catering order of hotdogs if he can figure it out."
"I'm hearing a lot about these hotdogs," Jack said, leaning into the back of Nida's chair. "What is it with them?"
"We spike them with antidepressants," Nida said, and the horrifying thing was, Jack couldn't tell if he was joking. "Were you aware that time is of the essence here?"
Jack stood, saluting. "Right, boss. Zell Dincht, fast ship, big tattoo. I won't let you down."
"Don't eat the fish," Nida said absently, and waved him away.
-
Sam was making his way through Commander Leonhart's account of the Sorceress War--an event detailed in what might have been more detail than 21st Century police reports--when a tray landed across two piles of reference books. Sam looked up, expecting to see Miadok standing over him, but it was Nida instead.
"Hey."
"Hello," Sam said, putting aside the report. "I assume--"
"Your friend showed up with your wild theory. Have you ever seen something like this before?"
"Like what?" Sam asked. "This" covered a lot of ground.
Nida waved one hand. "Setting aside the too-mundane-to-discuss, how much of this is familiar to you?"
Setting aside the mundane? He chuckled awkwardly. "Provost, 'mundanity' is a relative term. I still haven't absorbed the fact that the one force shaping your politics has been magic, more often than not."
Nida's mouth quirked up. "You're a time traveller, right?"
"Not by training," Sam said. "On my world, I was a police officer. A long time ago."
"Seriously?" Nida asked. He leaned forward, tilting his head. "You don't look it."
--what?
"And you wind up here, of all places," Nida went on. "One tiny little five-hundred-year-span in the universe of temporal possibility. Now, I could wax philosophic about the vagaries of fate, or I could assume there's a reason. Mia said you were hungry?"
"I wasn't--" Sam started.
Nida selected a blue-rimmed bowl, putting it in front of him. "He suggested yogurt and minced gelatin," he said. "If you want something a little less noxious, you can have one of my burgers instead."
Sam looked at the bowl. It was filled with something jiggling and sage-green, topped with a cool white sauce. He sighed.
"Harkness said you were hopping randomly around the universe. Did you notice anything weird but recurrent?"
"I really don't think I'm the one to ask," Sam said, pushing the gelatin aside. "I'm not trained in what to look for. I'm sure Captian Harkness--"
"Captain Harkness is on an errand for me," Nida said. "You know. Somewhere I'm not."
Sam didn't smirk. He'd learned not to smirk until no one was watching. "Is he becoming a bit much?"
"Well, I don't want to step on anyone's toes," Nida said, offhand. Sam frowned, and Nida smiled. "Should we keep discussing this, or get back on topic?"
Discuss the crisis at hand, or have you continue to speculate on the nature of our friendship. Difficult decision. He was perfectly aware that returning to the previous topic would resemble a retreat, but trying to explain would probably not be any less awkward. "What degree of recurrence are you interested in?"
Nida shrugged. "Anything that seems relevant."
Because I can accurately judge relevance. Right. He exhaled. "Well, this will be the third place I'll have seen the time dogs."
Nida perked up. "Time dogs? The chronines?"
"You showed us the simulation of the--" Sam started, and stalled out looking for the word he wanted.
"The Centra Lunar Cry. Those things?" Nida looked out the window. "How's the weather been? Cooler than expected?"
"I'm not sure," Sam said. "I haven't exactly had access to weather forecasts. It has tended toward coolness, yes--"
"Random time travel is weird and theoretical," Nida said. "But it's easier to travel to weak spots in time than tough ones. I'm going out on a big limb, but I'd guess--hold on."
Nida stood, ducking back into the corner and bringing his phone to his ear.
"I can't actually hear you. Is there some interference on your end?"
Sam frowned. Nida waved him off in a Don't mind--world's just ending way, and shooed him toward his food.
"Afterburner?"
Whatever was said, Nida frowned at it. He checked his watch. Sam looked up, trying to find a clock on instinct. He didn't see one.
"Right; be careful. I'd take a Weapon raid over blowing up the Ragnarok, any day. Try to get here in one piece."
Nida winced.
"I know you are. Just--yeah. I'll see you."
The phone vanished, and he sat down again. Sam nodded in the general direction of the conversation. "May I ask?"
"Commander Leonhart is having some problems," Nida said. "Anyway, you're probably jumping from weak spot to weak spot, which is interesting but not really helpful. You're developing a time residue on you that's a lot like the ones the Sorceress Team have, and a lot like the ones that I and Miadok have from getting involved in the clean-up, and--hey, you like patterns. Want to guess where this is heading?"
The Sorceress Team, Jack, myself, the Provost, and Miadok. What do I know that distinguishes us, specifically? Aside from the fact that we've become the task force dedicated to solving this.
What correlates with that? Investigating, overseeing, investigating specifically the--oh. His eyebrows raised. "We remember what happened before we were sent back?"
"Bingo," Nida said, selecting a burger from the plate. "So it's probably an effect of the time goop on us, so that means that whatever happened is time-goop-related, and do you know the significance of that?"
Sam was beginning to wonder if the prevailing popular image of time was actually gelatinous. "I don't believe I do."
Nida shrugged. "Wave dynamics," he said, and it was unclear whether the statement was supposed to reference something or whether he'd just chosen a discipline of physics at random and named it aloud.
"Excuse me?"
"You gonna eat that?" Nida said, nodding at the table. He bit into the burger, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. "'s probably not toxic."
"No, thank you, I'm really not hungry," Sam said, replacing the bowl of probably-food. "You were saying something about wave dynamics?"
"Well," Nida said, swallowing the first bite, "if we messed up the timeline, we could have messed it up in any one of a thousand different ways, which would manifest in any of a million different ways. If we messed it up in a way that reacts to the fact that we carry little disturbances in time, then all observable phenomena have to conform to laws of wave dynamics. Like dropping a rock in a p--" he trailed off. "Um, a pond."
It didn't take detectiving skills to see that something had soured Nida's thoughts. "Is that bad?" Sam asked.
"Depends on how big the pond is," Nida said, dropped his burger and ran off.
to be continued...
Author: magistrate (draegonhawke)
Sliding Scale of Slash: Implied, Jack Harkness/Sam Tyler
Part: 2 of 5
Rating: T
Length Warning: This story is, at 26,000 words, easily the longest single thing I've written for this 'verse. That's why it's being presented in parts. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Beta Warning: As posted now this monstrosity is only about half-beta'd, because my lovely beta rionaleonhart is trying to secure herself a higher education and this requires a considerable investment of time and energy. Whoops! The author begs indulgence for the occasional typo and dialectic faux pas. Hopefully there won't be too much of Sam saying sure he'd like a pop as he tries to figure out the rules for this soccer game...
Fandoms: Life on Mars; Torchwood; Final Fantasy VIII
Summary: Jack and Sam make one last teleport from What Glass Splinters and find themselves on an island paradise which is, incidentally, in the middle of a temporal apocalypse. Of which they might be the cause.
-
Late in the night, long after Sam had drifted off, a light knock sounded at Jack's door.
He slid off the bed carefully--Sam had fallen asleep rested against his arm, as the beds weren't meant to accommodate two, but there was no particular reason to wake him. He almost extricated his coat, but decided against it and slipped out of it instead.
Nida was at the door. Jack looked at him, looked at the dimmed lights in the hallway beyond, and shook his head. "Kinda late."
"Lost track of time." He shrugged. "But I did find something interesting."
"Don't you sleep?" Jack said.
"I take cat naps when you're not around." Nida waved past him. "How's your friend?"
Jack looked back into the dorm. Sam was fast asleep, lying in a sprawl across almost exactly half of the bed. "Way better than me," he said. "Is there something you need?"
"Come with me," Nida said.
Nida led him to the elevator again, punching in the keycode and taking them down to the C-Engine. The door opened and Nida strode down the corridor, bringing him into the engine room proper. Jack glanced around reading unfamiliar equations. "What's going on?"
"We taught the engine to look for someplace with the same signature as Tyler's blood," he said. "We found one. Here." He snapped his fingers, and the screen above them activated--to show a ship's-eye view of the Earth solar system, as it looked in the early twenty-first century.
"That was a bit of showmanship," Jack said.
"Yeah, took forever to get the sound sensors tuned fine enough. This place look familiar?"
"Yep. That's Earth," Jack said. "Third planet from the--wait, just a second."
His watch was meebling.
He brought it up, reading the weak signal. "You're actually amplifying that time toward us, aren't you? Like picking it up with a telescope?"
"Basically," Nida said.
"Can I--" Jack began. "I mean, will it break anything if I try to send a message?"
Nida shrugged. "No more than it's already broken. We're planning to eject you from this timeline in that direction anyway; hopefully temporal gravity will keep foreign energy from seeping back in."
"Tossing your soup at the planet," Jack said, hunting out the Text Messager (2007-compatible) item in the program list. "I really want to see if this works. Ianto?" He brought the device to his mouth. "Ianto, are you getting this?"
"You're making a call through time," Nida said, tilting his head with a sort of Why can't I do that? expression. "Nice."
Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, if it works."
Nida looked bemused. "Any reason why, or did you just want to check in?"
"You need to get us far away from this timeline, right?" Jack asked. "Well, I think I can make that easier for you."
"How?"
"By magnetizing this device," Jack said, flashing his wrist. "Temporally. I just need to ask someone to hit a few buttons."
"Help from outside the timeline," Nida said. "Well, there's a strat we haven't tried before."
Jack's wrist warbled. "Looks like someone is listening. This'll just take a minute. Hold on."
"Holding on," Nida said, and watched him get to work.
-
Sam woke when the bed he was on shook, and opened his eyes to see Jack's face, centimetres away, grinning down at him with more enthusiasm than Jack had displayed since they arrived on Lusuosa. It was such an odd thing to wake up to that he instinctively froze.
"I have some really, really great news," Jack said. "They're fixing the timeline. We're going home."
-
Enthusiasm aside, actual progress took a bit longer.
Around oh-six-hundred, a SeeD introducing himself as "Mark" (which seemed an oddly ordinary name for a place like this) came and escorted them to cafeteria, where a disconcerting number of people were treating themselves to a breakfast of hotdogs. "They look young," Jack mentioned.
Mark looked around. He himself couldn't have been over twenty. "SeeD trains from a very young age," he said. "Headmaster Trepe became a SeeD when she was fifteen years old."
"Fifteen?" Sam asked. She'd looked young, but the idea of a fifteen-year-old woman joining a paramilitary group put a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was behaviour reserved for extremist groups and third-world countries, back on Earth.
"SeeD operates on the principle that the best operatives learn early and stay in constant practice." Mark looked at him quizzically. "Surely you realise that children are, by and large, more versatile than adults?"
It was a coldly pragmatic argument. "You don't think there should be time allotted for children to be children?" Sam asked.
Mark shrugged. "That's subjective. Our quality of life is no lower than anyone else's, and our efficiency is greatly increased. Children don't need to be protected from the world, they need to be equipped to survive in it." He brought them up to the counter, waving at the menu. "Help yourself; food is free. I recommend the hotdogs."
Sam politely declined.
After breakfast he took them on a more detailed tour of the Garden than they'd had to that point, giving them snatches of history in each area. "The Quad was rebuilt and expanded after damage obtained in aerial combat," for example.
"Aerial?" Jack asked.
Mark nodded absently. "The Garden has a flight system. In any case, the terrace gardens are only about eight years old...."
Quite some time later, after Mark had dispatched a hatchling dinosaur in a small interior jungle ("The Training Centre," he explained, "is maintained in precise ecological balance to provide practice in gauging enemy strength and performing various battle strategies." Sam would not be swayed from the conviction that maintaining a breeding population of Tyrannosaurus rex inside a boarding school was a bloody insane thing to do), an angry blur made her/his way up to them and skidded to a halt.
"Expats down to C-Engine," Miadok said. "They're ready for you."
Mark saluted. "SeeD Corey can escort you down," he said. "I don't have clearance."
Miadok waved them toward the doors, about as happy with the responsibility as he was with every other aspect of the world. "Come on."
The C-Engine room was staffed by both Garden administrators and a handful of other SeeDs at various consoles, apparently in a support role. Miadok took up position at one of the terminals at the edge without prelude when they arrived.
"The guests of honour have arrived," Nida announced. "It's ten thirty eight on a lovely summer morning, and you are outta here."
"We have the program set," Quistis said. "We'll charge this chamber and propel you toward your own time. Hopefully inertia will draw the rest of the disturbance out after you. We can begin at any time."
"Much as I like it here, I get the feeling that sooner is better," Jack said. "So, any time you're ready."
Nida hit a few buttons, and the apparatus in the centre lit up. "We're ready now. It was nice meeting you guys. Don't come back."
"Don't plan to," Jack said, grinning. "Hey, stay out of trouble."
"Don't plan to," Nida said. "Have a good trip."
He threw the switch.
The engine spun up, light dancing across its surface, and the B-Garden contingent stepped back. Jack walked up to it, casting a grin over his shoulder at Sam. "Feel that?" he called above the rising roar. "That's temporal charge gathering. It reaches a flash point, and--"
It flashed. But evidently it didn't do whatever it was supposed to--Jack spun around as a klaxon started up, and all the SeeDs dashed for the controls.
"What's going on?" Sam demanded. "What's happening?"
"Charge drain," Nida called back. "What the hell?--can anyone isolate it?"
Quistis tossed hair over her shoulder, typing impossibly quickly into the nearest keyboard. Around them, the roar was becoming a howl. "The charge is being grounded--it's dispersing through Gaen."
"Oh, you're kidding me." Nida hit something, and the ceiling lit up and split into segments. "I'm reading four bleeds--Tear's Point, the Pandora Crater in Trabia, Obel Lake and the DSRC."
"Shut this down," Quistis said.
"I can't!" Nida sprinted to a second console, calling up another set of displays. "There's too much energy in the system. It's going to--"
Every light in the room went out. The machinery fell silent.
"--discharge," Nida finished.
A series of green lights turned on around the periphery, flooding the room. "Emergency power is on," Quistis said. "Nida, take our guests upstairs. I'm going to access the crash logs."
"Yeah," Nida said. "I'll contact Squall. Tell him we're screwed."
Jack hung his head. Nida walked past, clapping each of them on the shoulder to steer them back towards the lift.
-
Squall picked up on the second ring. "Leonhart."
"Nida," Nida identified. "How's our friend the antibody?"
"The Weapon's level of activity has increased to about thirty percent of awakening," Squall said. "We're using a status cocktail to keep it down, but it will dispel as soon as it reaches nominal consciousness."
"Yeah, good luck Sleeping an angry Weapon," Nida muttered. "We sent some time energy your way."
"I noticed."
Nida leaned back. He was in one of the third-floor dens, surrounded by technical books and looking out the window over a deceptively serene plain. There was just enough room on the ochuwood desk to put his feet up, assuming he was careful not to upset the piles of papers. "Squall, we've got a problem. I thought we could charge the engine and discharge the energy out of the time line, blasting our stowaways out with it. But the charge grounded and shot out of the planet before it charged up enough."
"So don't let it ground," Squall said.
"If we don't let it ground, it can't pull in the energy from the disturbance in Rinaul. And it's not like we can build a second engine there."
In the background, Nida could make out the echoes of large rocks being moved. Squall considered.
"You've contacted the Institute of Chronetic Engineering in Esthar?"
"They referred me to Odine's office. You know how that went." Nida made a face. "'Zis is incredible! Ze hypothezees von, two, tventy-zeben proven! Ze eekzperiment must be rekreated at vonce!' And on like that until I hung up on him."
The sound of Squall not being amused translated surprisingly well on the connection.
"Squall, remember how we thought we'd need a refraction chamber big enough to encompass Balamb and Rinaul?"
"Yes," Squall said darkly.
"Do you think we could get away with one that encompasses the planet?"
"Do I need to order you to get some sleep?" Squall asked.
"Probably, but that's not the point. The energy grounds through Gaen. If we prevent it from discharging into space, we could build up the charge in the planet itself."
"Make the planet into a time engine," Squall said. "Do you have any idea what that will do?"
"Not a clue. And if I ask Odine, he'll show up here and demand we do it even if Gaen explodes."
Squall replicated the exact impression of a sigh without actually sighing. "I'll contact Laguna. He can lean on ICE and have them draw up predictions without involving Odine. In the mean time, send a Special Contingencies SeeD team up here just in case the Weapon activates; I'll clear it with Elder."
"You're coming back, then?"
"It seems necessary."
"Great," Nida said, checking the clock. It read 13:04. "I'll bake you a cake and hang a banner. Hope to see the Ragnarok over our skies tonight."
"Anything else?"
"No, not now," Nida said. "Zell is coming back in from Dollet in an hour or two; I can get his team on a RDV and send them up as soon as he hits Balamb. I'll call if anything weird happens."
"Do that. Out."
Squall hung up.
Nida closed his phone, reopened it, and punched in Quistis's number.
"O Great and Esteemed Headmaster," he said as soon as she picked up. "Guess what the plan is now?"
-
Sam found Jack in the Library, bathed in early-afternoon light and staring at a book titled Cultural Perspectives on Hell. Sam was seriously considering making a chart of warning signs. "How long have you been in here?"
Jack glanced up. "Since they kicked me out of the Training Centre," he said.
And there would be another one. "That area is exceedingly unsafe."
"I was fine." Jack flipped a page. "Apparently there was this one ancient tribe in Centra who thought that, rather than having an afterlife, your soul got reincarnated into every person you ever met, in this sort of eternal cycle. Everything you did came back to you, because sooner or later you were everyone."
Sam counted the number of shelves in viewing distance, and did the maths in his head. "There have to be at least five thousand other books in this library."
"None of which are quite as topical." Jack flipped the page. "And I'm pretty sure none of them have illustrations like this."
He turned the book around, displaying a woodcut print of a pair of nudes, standing calmly with their hands over their eyes, surrounded by art-nouveauish flames.
You have a strange idea of art appreciation. Sam watched him evenly. "I just spoke with Provost Nida. They're working on another plan. These people are experts."
"Sam," Jack said, "the Doctor is an expert. These people are bumbling through, doing the best that they can. Kinda like us, but with a slightly higher success rate."
I'm not going to win this argument, am I? He cleared his throat. "So. Hell. Anything interesting?"
"The Thorlgard up north calculated the exact number of wives a man could have before he was considered to be living in sin," Jack said. "Apparently zero was appropriate for priests, one was acceptable but frowned upon, two or three was good, and anything higher than four would mean you'd be stuck on your back in the frozen lakes of the afterworld with ice vultures tearing at your genitals for the rest of time."
Sam tried to come up with an appropriate response, but managed nothing better than "...I see."
"Some of these people just did not have any fun," Jack said. "So. Excited about this Commander guy? You seem to be getting along with the Headmaster."
"From what I've heard, Commander Leonhart is extremely competent," Sam said. "The people in Garden seem to be reassured to have him returning."
Jack gave him a vaguely leer-flavoured look. "You two should really hit it off."
Sam wasn't sure whether to be confused or offended.
Jack closed his book. "Assuming we get out of here," he said. "You had your accident in 2006. I can't go back there without crossing my own timeline."
Sam's stomach made an uneasy little motion. "I didn't expect that everything would pick up as normal."
"I mentioned that I worked for Torchwood," Jack said. "Special intelligence agency. Established by the Queen, way back when. Actually--" He chuckled uneasily. "Due to a kinda strange series of events, I kinda wound up in charge of it...."
Sam felt his eyebrows raise. "You're in charge of a secret intelligence agency in the United Kingdom."
"Makes you reconsider that nice sense of security you get from living in England, doesn't it?" He picked at his watch. It warbled uneasily. "Anyway, my point is that I could get you a job. I mean, you'd fit right in. I'd be tempted to recruit you even if we weren't--"
He stalled out on the last word. Sam frowned.
"It's not underhanded," Jack said, quickly. "I honestly think you'd be an asset to the team."
"We'll see what happens," Sam said.
"Yeah. Right--just an option." Jack shrugged, fumbling the wristband's cover open. "Whatever works best. Why is there a time wave coming our way?"
Thank you for the offer was on the tip of Sam's tongue. "--what?"
"Time wave," Jack said, leaping out of his chair and lunging at the window. "Look! There--"
A line of light was rolling toward them, searing away the Alcauld Plains. Sam couldn't tell what lay beyond it. "What the--"
"Get down!" Jack yelled, turning to cover him--and then the light hit, and then it was over them, and everything turned to darkness.
-
A noise like fading echoes comprised the world.
Actually, "comprised" was a bit strong. It was certainly the most noticeable aspect, but if one paid attention one could feel the temperature of the air, taste the adrenaline at the back of the mouth, even smell the faint dust of recirculated air. Sight was right out, though--until the emergency lights came on, illuminating C-Engine and the group of SeeDs around it.
"Is everything all right?" Nida demanded. First step--see to the damage. Figuring out what the hell just happened would come later.
Quistis was already moving to the terminals, accessing the crash logs. "I think we're all in one piece. Did anyone else just--jump?"
"I was definitely on the bridge," Nida said. "Then everything outside goes crazy, the ring starts to revolve, and I'm standing down here."
Across the floor, Harkness was looking around. "What time is it?"
"What?" Nida asked.
"Someone check. It was about four o'clock a few minutes ago. What time is it now?"
"Quistis?" Nida asked, jogging to the controls.
"...ten thirty nine," Quistis said. "Same day. Just after the discharge."
"How the hell did we get sent six hours back in time?" Nida asked. "What sort of sense does that make?"
Jack appeared next to him, looking over the consoles. "I don't know, but we haven't crossed timelines. We didn't double back, we went straight back. And I didn't think that was possible."
"It's not," Nida said.
Quistis's phone rang.
She had it open and up to her ear before the first ring ended. "Headmaster Trepe."
A pause.
"No, it's the same here." She waved to Nida, who produced a phone, typed something in, and raised it to his ear. Another pause followed.
"What the hell, Squall," Nida burst. Quistis winced. "No, I'd say you should kick the engines to full and get down here yesterday, because we just broke the laws of temporal physics."
"Nida," Quistis said.
Nida nodded vindictively. "Cake. Banner. See you soon."
He hung up. After a second, Quistis did as well.
"So, I get the feeling the Commander is coming back earlier than expected," Jack said.
"SeeDs," Nida snapped, "get every last bit of data out of these consoles. You two!" He gestured over Sam and Jack. "With me!"
He stormed toward the elevator. Quistis sighed and waved them off.
Nida hit the 1F button as soon as they were in, and the doors closed. "There will probably be a lot of confused people up there," Sam pointed out. "I would assume that in a situation like this, you could expect mass panic in civilian populations. Riots, vandalism--"
"SeeD gets to explain this, you know," Nida said. "I'm thinking this time we might just go for the 'spontaneous paramagical electrolysis of world's drinking water supply into mind-altering drug.' Haven't tried that one before."
The elevator slid to a halt, door sliding open. Nida stepped out, taking a deep breath--
--to find that the business of Garden was going on as it always had. SeeDs and cadets moved from place to place, chatted in corners or sat calmly on benches, utterly unperturbed. Which was itself somewhat perturbing.
"The hell?" Nida said.
Jack looked across the ring. "Wow, are they well-trained," he said.
"If they were well-trained they'd be at battlestations now," Nida said, jogging down the stairs and catching the nearest one's elbow. "SeeD, report! What's happened in the last fifteen minutes?"
She snapped to attention, mental wheels spinning furiously and looking for a trick. "Sir! It's ten forty. In the last fifteen minutes the Cafeteria has ceased to serve breakfast, the Rapid Deployment Vehicles in the Balamb dock have passed through the inspection queue, the--"
"That's enough, SeeD," Nida said, shooing her off on her way. "Go on."
"They don't remember," Jack said, stealing up behind him.
"Keen deduction, Odine," Nida said, looking around the halls. He looked worried. "We do, Squall does, no one here does. Squall wasn't in an engine, and what else accounts for this?"
Nida looked at Jack. Jack looked at Sam. Sam looked confused.
"Right," Nida said. "I'm going up to my office."
"Could I get--" Sam began, and stumbled on what exactly he needed. "Could I see the documentation of these phenomena?"
Nida blinked. "Yeah, sure," he said, pulling out his phone and dialling. "Quistis?"
Pause.
"Send Mia up here. Tell him we need his speed."
He flipped the phone closed. Sam tried not to grimace. "SeeD Corey," he said. "Wonderful."
Nida shrugged. "When you want something done fast," he said, and headed for the stairs.
-
Miadok deposited a third stack of papers on the commandeered Library table before Sam had made much progress on the first one. "Here's your fun-reading," s/he said, leaning on the stack. "Accounts from every member of the Sorceress Team who fought Ultimecia, as well as external reports on the effects of the Sorceress War. I recommend Commander Leonhart's. It has bullet points."
Sam put down a report on the refractive properties of wizard stones as compared to featherweights--a report that he suspected he wouldn't have understood even if he had any idea of the physics involved. "Why is it called the 'sorceress war'?"
"Because about four sorceresses were involved," Miadok said. "As well as a time sorceress named Ellone."
"I'm reading about--" He looked over the report. "Things like paramagic and sorcery. I've never seen actual magic before."
"Define 'actual,'" Jack said, appropriating a folder from beneath Miadok's arm. "Species develop telepathy. Telekinesis. These people stick an alien in their brain and it alters their cognitive functions. After a while, there are a few random mutations, and people become more susceptible to them. There's no reason to say that's not what magic is."
"GFs aren't aliens," Mia said, sliding into a chair. "They're native to this planet."
"Of course. Sorry." Jack grinned at him, flipping the folder open. "Didn't mean to offend anyone."
Mia rolled his eyes. "What are you looking for?"
Sam filed the report back where he'd found it. "I'm trying to understand the situation so I can make reasonable assumptions."
"Reasonable?" Mia asked. "Right. That'll happen."
"I wouldn't put it past him," Jack said. "Who is 'Irvine Kinneas'?"
Miadok snorted laughter, and refused to explain. "Reasonable assumptions aren't doing shit anyway. Our situation defies all reasonable assumptions."
"If a logical approach yields illogical conclusions, the most probable cause is an error in the underlying assumptions," Sam said. "Formal logic. The fact that we've discovered something that can't be explained by science means we should be looking for a different kind of science."
Miadok looked at Jack. "Your friend wants to rewrite physics," he said.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "He's ambitious."
Sam crossed his arms. "What do we need to know?"
"Oh, here we go, ten-minute thesis on special problems in temporal theory. Now you want me to be ambitious. Okay." Mia leaned back, swinging his legs to the top of the table. "Our timeline is like a sleeve made of a substance which we call time energy because we don't have anything else to call it. It's not exactly time, it's not exactly energy. I like to think of it as a kind of jelly."
Sam raised an eyebrow. Jelly.
"A while ago, our timeline got compressed," Mia said. "Someone in the future threw a hook back down the sleeve and pulled, squashing everything inside. A SeeD team--the Sorceress Team--went back up the grappling line, killed her, and rode the whiplash back. But that left a lot of ripples and rips and wrinkles in the sleeve, which the C-Engine is smoothing out at a rate of about five and a half hours ahead of us."
"Why would the fabric of time be jelly?" Jack asked.
"And, more importantly, is it coconut or hasberry," Miadok muttered. "Because if you poke a hole in one section, waves radiate out from it in uneven patterns and jigger other bits. Can I finish?"
"Five and a half hours," Sam said.
"Roughly, and I'll take that as a no. The number's not important. What's important is that its effects cover us right now. We're living in smooth time. Yogurt time, if you don't like jelly."
Sam and Jack exchanged a glance.
"You come in, you hit the sleeve in the smooth bit and you create more wrinkles. Scarring, actually. Like taking a hot knife to the jelly-yogurt and creating a skin. And you're still messing it up. So soon, these things who live on the moon and really like the taste of yogurt skins are going to come and try to eat the sleeve. The entire sleeve. Unless we can stop it."
"Right, gov," Sam muttered. Miadok and Jack gave him looks in varying degrees of "odd."
"So how did you plan to stop it?" Jack asked. "I guess you clapped a bubble over the skins and tried to expel them with a controlled blast."
"Yeah!" Miadok nodded. "Problem is, the blast didn't push you out of yogurt time. You're sticky skins. It built up and blasted out of the timeline all on its lonesome--path of least resistance--before dislodging you. Is anyone else hungry?"
"No," Sam said. "Please continue."
"And then a bit later we get a time wave crashing in on us and we're back in time. Now you know what I know. I'm going to go to the cafeteria," he said, sliding out of the chair. "Want anything? Hot dogs, sushi, special relativity primers?"
"Where did that energy go?" Sam asked. "When it discharged. It must have ended up somewhere."
"Special relativity primer, check," Miadok said. "And a big pad of paper. Back in three."
He jogged out of the room.
"Jelly," Jack said.
Sam nodded. "Five and a half hours, roughly. What time did you say the wave hit?"
Jack shrugged. "Sometime around four?"
"About five hours and twenty minutes after the discharge," Sam said.
Jack blinked, replacing his folder. "So they managed to do something to the timeline that the C-Engine couldn't smooth out?"
"Or this is an incredible coincidence." Sam shrugged. "It's worth investigating."
Jack stood. "I'll say. I'm going to see if Nida thinks so." He clapped him on the shoulder. "Enjoy your jelly."
Sam granted a dry smile as Jack headed for the door.
-
Elevators were elevators--they tended to be fairly standard across time and space. Jack stepped into the B-Garden elevator, found Administrative Offices listed under Bridge, and pushed the appropriate button--only to find that this particular elevator scanned him first and locked shut. A speaker fuzzed on, announcing [Bridge access requested. Intercom activated.]
Before Jack could think to protest, a calm voice sounded over the speaker. "This is SeeD Dryke. State your ID."
Well, at least it's a person on the other end. Jack bent down to the grille, adopting an innocent expression on the offchance that there were concealed cameras in the elevator car. "This is Captain Jack Harkness. I was wondering if I could come visit Nida?"
"Standby."
Jack inspected the panelling. The speaker clicked a few times.
"Right, you're cleared. Welcome to the Bridge."
The car rose smoothly. A few seconds later it slowed to a halt, doors sliding open. Jack stepped out.
The Bridge had much more of a classic aesthetic, aside from the huge wraparound window which composed the ceiling. It was panelled in mahogany with elegant carvings, reliefs of maps and vines. The doors to the bridge proper were open, and a number of SeeDs in more ornate uniform were milling about.
Nida was darting around the base of a huge pedestal, snapping orders left and right. Jack ducked into the room, trying to draw attention without being obtrusive. "Hey?"
Nida glanced at him. "News? Yes, no?"
"Five and a half hours is how long it took to throw us back in time and how far ahead the C-Engine functions," Jack said.
"Yeah," Nida agreed. "You know what's more interesting, though? We've lost contact with the DSRC."
Jack put his hands on his hips. "Lost contact. That's bad. What's the DSRC?"
"The DSRC," Nida said. "Deep Sea Research Center. Eight years of uninterrupted transmission and now we lose contact after a temporal energy bleed. You know what that means?"
Jack shrugged. "Not a clue."
"Join the club. We're having shirts made," Nida muttered. "What time is it?"
"Eleven fifty three," a SeeD said from behind the pillar. Nida dropped into a chair, switching on a computer.
"Anything else for me?"
"We think the discharge did something to the timeline," Jack said. "Made some kind of a temporal speedbump. We hit it, it sends us back here."
Nida hit an intercom. "C-Engine, this is the Provost. How's our fixer fixing?"
"Ninety-seven percent efficiency, five hour and thirteen minute buffer holding stable," came the prompt reply. Jack blinked.
"So, what does that mean?"
"If the buffer runs into something it can't fix, the buffer size decreases because it has to fix that before moving on to the next issue. We've been up to seventeen hours' buffer before, and down to about ten mintutes'. That was, by the way, an experience I never want to repeat. If we're stable, we're fixing the timeline at a rate of a second per second. We're looking for an event that threw us back, not something inherent in the timeline."
"Right." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "An event which unhappened as soon as it reset time. How do you plan on pinning it down?"
"With rope," Nida snapped, "with lots and lots of rope. Do you know what I was doing before you came up?"
Nida didn't sound happy. Given his composure over the last day, Jack was almost, but not quite, taken aback. "Trying to contact the DSRC?"
"Yes. You know why?" Nida didn't wait for an answer. "Because if we can put a Reflect over those temporal bleeds, we can contain the charge in the planet. If we can contain the charge in the planet, we can build it up so it expels you and your friend and any other scrap of foreign time. But as soon as I tell them to, the transmission cuts out and we can't re-establish it."
"You're moving forward," Jack said. "Same old plan."
"I have it on good authority that the theory is sound," Nida said. "Did you want something?"
"I want to help," Jack said. "Sam and I are down in the Library, trying to puzzle this out. If we can be more useful elsewhere--"
Nida stopped, digging his thumbs into his temples and lacing his fingers together. "Right. Sorry. Long day," he said. "We've got experts on two continents and a mobile lab looking at the problem, and no one's solved it. That thing of yours functions as a teleport, right?"
Jack glanced at his wrist. "Yeah, why?"
Nida glanced through his fingers. "How?"
"It's a minor function of the time jump," he said. "It sets the temporal coordinates to the coordinates of origin and only changes the spatial."
"No good, then," Nida said. "Can't ask you to hop over, check it out, and hop back; not if we're looking to avoid damaging the timeline." He dropped his hands onto the desk, drumming out a quick rhythm. "You know what you could do? There's a SeeD named Zell Dincht making landfall in Balamb pretty soon now. Go show him your thingy; he's a mechanic, he likes thingies."
"Time Agency Multipurpose Wrist Device with integrated vortex manipulator," Jack said.
Nida rolled his eyes. "Like I said. Thingy. Zell will be on a Garden-issue Rapid Deployment Vehicle; he's the one with the chocobo hair and the tattoo eating his face. You can't miss him."
"Anything you want me to tell him?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, 'Nida sent me, this thing's a teleport, can you make it not break time?' will work. Tell him there's a special catering order of hotdogs if he can figure it out."
"I'm hearing a lot about these hotdogs," Jack said, leaning into the back of Nida's chair. "What is it with them?"
"We spike them with antidepressants," Nida said, and the horrifying thing was, Jack couldn't tell if he was joking. "Were you aware that time is of the essence here?"
Jack stood, saluting. "Right, boss. Zell Dincht, fast ship, big tattoo. I won't let you down."
"Don't eat the fish," Nida said absently, and waved him away.
-
Sam was making his way through Commander Leonhart's account of the Sorceress War--an event detailed in what might have been more detail than 21st Century police reports--when a tray landed across two piles of reference books. Sam looked up, expecting to see Miadok standing over him, but it was Nida instead.
"Hey."
"Hello," Sam said, putting aside the report. "I assume--"
"Your friend showed up with your wild theory. Have you ever seen something like this before?"
"Like what?" Sam asked. "This" covered a lot of ground.
Nida waved one hand. "Setting aside the too-mundane-to-discuss, how much of this is familiar to you?"
Setting aside the mundane? He chuckled awkwardly. "Provost, 'mundanity' is a relative term. I still haven't absorbed the fact that the one force shaping your politics has been magic, more often than not."
Nida's mouth quirked up. "You're a time traveller, right?"
"Not by training," Sam said. "On my world, I was a police officer. A long time ago."
"Seriously?" Nida asked. He leaned forward, tilting his head. "You don't look it."
--what?
"And you wind up here, of all places," Nida went on. "One tiny little five-hundred-year-span in the universe of temporal possibility. Now, I could wax philosophic about the vagaries of fate, or I could assume there's a reason. Mia said you were hungry?"
"I wasn't--" Sam started.
Nida selected a blue-rimmed bowl, putting it in front of him. "He suggested yogurt and minced gelatin," he said. "If you want something a little less noxious, you can have one of my burgers instead."
Sam looked at the bowl. It was filled with something jiggling and sage-green, topped with a cool white sauce. He sighed.
"Harkness said you were hopping randomly around the universe. Did you notice anything weird but recurrent?"
"I really don't think I'm the one to ask," Sam said, pushing the gelatin aside. "I'm not trained in what to look for. I'm sure Captian Harkness--"
"Captain Harkness is on an errand for me," Nida said. "You know. Somewhere I'm not."
Sam didn't smirk. He'd learned not to smirk until no one was watching. "Is he becoming a bit much?"
"Well, I don't want to step on anyone's toes," Nida said, offhand. Sam frowned, and Nida smiled. "Should we keep discussing this, or get back on topic?"
Discuss the crisis at hand, or have you continue to speculate on the nature of our friendship. Difficult decision. He was perfectly aware that returning to the previous topic would resemble a retreat, but trying to explain would probably not be any less awkward. "What degree of recurrence are you interested in?"
Nida shrugged. "Anything that seems relevant."
Because I can accurately judge relevance. Right. He exhaled. "Well, this will be the third place I'll have seen the time dogs."
Nida perked up. "Time dogs? The chronines?"
"You showed us the simulation of the--" Sam started, and stalled out looking for the word he wanted.
"The Centra Lunar Cry. Those things?" Nida looked out the window. "How's the weather been? Cooler than expected?"
"I'm not sure," Sam said. "I haven't exactly had access to weather forecasts. It has tended toward coolness, yes--"
"Random time travel is weird and theoretical," Nida said. "But it's easier to travel to weak spots in time than tough ones. I'm going out on a big limb, but I'd guess--hold on."
Nida stood, ducking back into the corner and bringing his phone to his ear.
"I can't actually hear you. Is there some interference on your end?"
Sam frowned. Nida waved him off in a Don't mind--world's just ending way, and shooed him toward his food.
"Afterburner?"
Whatever was said, Nida frowned at it. He checked his watch. Sam looked up, trying to find a clock on instinct. He didn't see one.
"Right; be careful. I'd take a Weapon raid over blowing up the Ragnarok, any day. Try to get here in one piece."
Nida winced.
"I know you are. Just--yeah. I'll see you."
The phone vanished, and he sat down again. Sam nodded in the general direction of the conversation. "May I ask?"
"Commander Leonhart is having some problems," Nida said. "Anyway, you're probably jumping from weak spot to weak spot, which is interesting but not really helpful. You're developing a time residue on you that's a lot like the ones the Sorceress Team have, and a lot like the ones that I and Miadok have from getting involved in the clean-up, and--hey, you like patterns. Want to guess where this is heading?"
The Sorceress Team, Jack, myself, the Provost, and Miadok. What do I know that distinguishes us, specifically? Aside from the fact that we've become the task force dedicated to solving this.
What correlates with that? Investigating, overseeing, investigating specifically the--oh. His eyebrows raised. "We remember what happened before we were sent back?"
"Bingo," Nida said, selecting a burger from the plate. "So it's probably an effect of the time goop on us, so that means that whatever happened is time-goop-related, and do you know the significance of that?"
Sam was beginning to wonder if the prevailing popular image of time was actually gelatinous. "I don't believe I do."
Nida shrugged. "Wave dynamics," he said, and it was unclear whether the statement was supposed to reference something or whether he'd just chosen a discipline of physics at random and named it aloud.
"Excuse me?"
"You gonna eat that?" Nida said, nodding at the table. He bit into the burger, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. "'s probably not toxic."
"No, thank you, I'm really not hungry," Sam said, replacing the bowl of probably-food. "You were saying something about wave dynamics?"
"Well," Nida said, swallowing the first bite, "if we messed up the timeline, we could have messed it up in any one of a thousand different ways, which would manifest in any of a million different ways. If we messed it up in a way that reacts to the fact that we carry little disturbances in time, then all observable phenomena have to conform to laws of wave dynamics. Like dropping a rock in a p--" he trailed off. "Um, a pond."
It didn't take detectiving skills to see that something had soured Nida's thoughts. "Is that bad?" Sam asked.
"Depends on how big the pond is," Nida said, dropped his burger and ran off.
to be continued...