Metastasis, Part 15: Calm Before the Storm
Table of Contents available here.
Synopsis(spoilers ahead if you want to read the story from the beginning)
Victor Meta is a time traveler who lived with his wife Janet and his young daughter Mira in a quaint timeline on the edge of obscurity. However, one day he was ambushed by soldiers of the Legion, and was forced to ally with a con artist named Shuck to save them from certain doom. By carefully manipulating time, he was barely successful, thanks to additional help surprisingly provided by his own daughter, now an adult time traveler.
But all of that pales in comparison to the revelation that Mira brings. They were not alone in being targeted. The time traveling family of Meta has been attacked throughout history. Ghost, another Gatekeeper who helped Dante Meta escape the coordinated assault, has joined the effort alongside that same Meta to find the masterminds behind the attack. And now, they all are working together to unravel the mystery of the Legion's ability to coordinate throughout time.
Their investigation begins at the mysterious Misty Cove, where they discovered and opened a massive vault. Inside, they discovered a multi colored puzzle cube that Shuck couldn't solve. Victor managed to solve it, but then vanished. They eventually learned he had subconsciously been forced to jump to a time period, and now they must plan his rescue.
***
Ghost looked over the cube, intrigued. “You call this a Demiform? What does that mean, exactly?”
Shuck paced nervously, wringing his hands. “I was hoping you would know. It’s a rather obscure term for artifacts of impossible properties. The term doesn’t mean much more than just being a catch all term for something unexplainable.”
Ghost was twisting the sides, casually trying to solve the cube while he frowned. “I don’t see the big deal, it’s just a… oh. I see.”
Ghost set the the cube down on the table, and laid his head on both of his crossed arms as he looked at it closely. “It tries to get in your head… it knows your intentions? No, not quite… I think it detects if you know what you are doing, and actively works against you. It’s…”
Ghost stood back up straight, laughing. “It’s an anti-puzzle!”
Mira, who had been forlornly looking out a nearby window now that they were back in Pause without her father, snapped out of her daydream and rejoined the conversation. “What? What do you mean?”
Ghost picked up the unsolved cube and held it behind his back as he turned it in random sequences. “A puzzle is something that requires thought and understanding. To solve a good puzzle, you are forced to comprehend how it works and the principles at play, at least to some extent. But this device is meant to thwart that, to be entirely impossible to solve through proper methods. But the reverse is also true.”
Ghost revealed the now completed cube from behind his back. “If you don’t know how to solve the cube, or rather stop trying to do so with any logical process, it makes it so you successfully solve it.”
Shuck took the cube, spinning it around as he verified it was completed. “Is… that all? I had Mira keep an eye on the other side while I solved it, and it stopped changing.”
Ghost shrugged. “Sounds like you discovered another solution to the anti-puzzle. It won’t change colors while being directly observed, I suppose.”
Shuck placed the now rather uninteresting cube back down on the table as he took a seat across from Ghost. “So… you solved it. Does that mean you also know what I know? You barely reacted.”
Ghost grew more serious. “Yes. The device tried to override my will with one specific time period. Year 134… no month, no day. Hopefully, the Meta know a way to efficiently track someone down with a year being the search time period.”
Shuck waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, that’s not a problem. Timeline Synchronization will take effect, so we would need at most eight time jumps within that range to find Victor.”
Mira and Ghost gave Shuck a surprised look, which he answered equally dismissively. “...at least, that is how I would imagine it would work.”
Mira sighed. “Your imagination has a suspiciously accurate record… yes, you are right. We know the year, so we can go find him. But the fact he hasn’t immediately time jumped back to our own time is the larger concern.”
Ghost tapped his finger on the table. “You are correct. I can think of several theories, but only one I consider especially likely. We will see once Dante gets back from the record keepers…”
After several more minutes of overall pointless speculation and theorizing, Dante entered the room, distributing several copies of the same records. “Read for yourself, but to summarize, we have a problem. Year 134 is one of those blacklisted years.”
Ghost frowned. “So we can’t travel there?”
Dante shook his head. “We can, but it is strongly recommended not to. That is a year of an Eventual.”
Everyone except for Shuck grew silent. Shuck stood up. “What? What is the Eventual?”
Now, everyone looked at Shuck with disbelief as Mira spoke with disbelief. “You understand summoning card mechanics, inter-time period exchange rates, demiforms, and timeline synchronization… and you DON’T know what an Eventual is???”
Shuck grimaced. “Should I?”
Ghost began. “Don’t be too hard on Shuck… the time period we come from is very secretive about these events, even though one can learn about Meta practices if you look hard enough. The only reason I know of an Eventual is because I’ve been taken to see one firsthand.”
Now, Dante and Mira looked at Ghost with disbelief. Mira spoke softly. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”
Ghost continued. “To be frank… an Eventual is complete war. Nothing like any skirmishes you have been a part of in the past, Shuck. I’m referring to a massive, planet wide invasion of Vorpals. They slaughter everyone and everything, leaving human civilization in ruin. Many scholars believe an Eventual is responsible for the complete disappearance of the Gemones from history.”
Shuck commented, confused. “I feel like I should have heard of these things, if true… what were the Gemones, exactly? And why do you make this sound like such a devstating event? We deal with Vorpals all the time, they-”
“No! No, you aren’t hearing me. Gemones were a race that now no longer exist. We have some records about what they looked like and special characteristics they had, but all of that is meaningless. They are gone. It wasn’t a handful Vorpals that killed them, I’m talking about an invasion force made up of superhuman monsters that don’t fear death ten times the size of the entire planet’s population. Even class seven casters can last so long in such an environment.”
Shuck began to understand. “And now, Victor is stuck in the middle of that. Why hasn’t he come back?”
Ghost leaned back, letting out a defeated sigh. “The simple answer he is already dead.”
Mira shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”
Ghost looked at Mira. “Well… that makes things more complicated. He’s probably alive, but stuck. He can’t escape without our help, which means he can’t interrupt our efforts to get out of whatever mess he is in because that would cause a time toggle. We need to launch a rescue party into the single most dangerous environment I can imagine, completely blind…”
Dante dropped a thick, dusty book onto the table. “That’s where you are wrong. We have some records from the event, albeit limited as they are. We have a specific time where a large group of people actually did survive.”
Ghost opened the book to the bookmarked page, reading parts out loud. “… between one hundred and a hundred fifty people… multiple highly trained class sevens… maintained a safe zone for a full month before suddenly vanishing… ”
The infinity caster with red eyes closed the book shut, a smile slowly spreading. “Now that’s what I call a lead. That’s the safest point of entry to start looking. Everyone, make necessary preparations and proceed to time jump. We will all meet within that safe zone at the beginning of the detailed time period.”
The group dispersed to make preparations. Ghost and Dante left almost immediately, though it was anyone’s guess who would actually end up at the point in time first due to the inherent lack of precision with jumping hundreds of years. Shuck merely had a meal and a nap on a nearby couch within a hotel meant for exactly that purpose. Mira used the facility to take a shower, change into a fresh set of clothes, leisurely eat a meal, and then walk out onto a balcony now that she had exhausted the list of all preparations she could think of.
Mira looked out over the city. Blank, twisting, bland architecture, though supposedly the most advanced in all history, stretched out in all directions as the sun set. Even the sunset over the futuristic city’s landscape failed to make it interesting. What used to always bore her to tears, though, now represented a place of safety.
She jumped as Shuck walked up next to her, who after seeing her reaction questioned her with confusion. “What’s wrong, Mira? We are going into a safe zone, and you have already said that you know this isn’t the hill Victor dies on. Why so nervous?”
Mira sighed. “Time toggles go both ways, Shuck.”
“The rift does that mean?”
Mira looked at Shuck, ears filled with concern. “It means Victor isn’t the only one in danger. If I fail to do something that I was supposed to do, if I cause a paradox by inaction… then I can die. If I was to just runaway, right now, and never go save Victor… I might simply kill myself. I hate to admit it, but…”
Mira looked back over the cityscape. “I’m afraid to go. None of us, except for Victor, ironically, has any guarantee of survival.”
“But the zone is supposed to be safe.”
“To say it again… we have no guarantees. History books can be wrong.”
After a long period of silence, Shuck spoke matter of factly. “Well… I’m ready to go when you are. Your father is waiting for us. Oh, and Mira?”
“...Yeah?”
“We still need to negotiate my fee. I hope you and your father understand it won’t be cheap after all of this nonsense.”
Mira just looked out over the city again as Shuck walked back inside the tower. She heard him stop, to say one more thing before finally leaving. “Fold it all… forget it. Just forget the fee. I’ve made enough. But just realize that I’m not going to let this thing drag on longer than it needs to if I’m not making money. I won’t hold anything back.”
Mira smiled. As much as he tried to portray himself as only caring about money, he couldn’t hide the fact. He didn’t want anything to happen to Victor.
Maybe, he didn’t want anything to happen to her, either.
***
Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy some of my other published work on Amazon! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.
Gatekeepers, Book One: Unquestionable Truth