🚀 go-pugleaf

(continued from part one...)

     Even though her eyes were shut tight, she could see the magicalypse, as
it began to erupt, far away, on another continent.   The expanding wave of
destruction, like the petals of a flower blooming, sweeping across the sands.
Those Chia Pets not under the sands would die, as would the Fresmen who had
not taken cover.  The desert would be stripped of magic, of all sentient
life, and it would be centuries before such would reappear.
     Then it was upon them, washing over the psychadaelic minibus like last
night's coffee, cold and gritty.  Zen was adjusting for factors that
Shadebeam could barely perceive, but knew to be important.  The wave was
growing stronger, covering the planet in its destructive embrace.
     Shadebeam felt Zen throw a switch, and saw a torrent of energy
leap through the power lines, slamming into the Transmat Machine, and out
again into Carmine's freghter.  It crackled with blue-tinged energy, as
the magical torrent wave battered it mercilessly.  Another few moments,
and it would be battered to pieces, and those inside would be dead in the
blink of an eye, reduced to ashes...
     The feedback was at critical.  There was no more time.  And the line
they were looking for, the line to the Earth, was no where in...
     *I have it, I think,* Akane said.  *I feel a very strong line,
connecting this place and time to the Earth of the far future.*  Shadebeam
saw the line, and thought she saw something slipping down it, something very
familiar.  But it was soon gone, and the feedback was ripping through the
minibus, tearing through her body as she screamed and the bus ripped through
the atmosphere through space itself moving faster and faster into the
void becoming something other than matter losing form losing shape collapsing
into herself itself--

                                    -<=*=>-

     Ranmikoto watched, from the colony ship, as it departed Californian
orbit.  No Magestrix ship moved to stop them - they had no interest in harming
civilians, only in preventing the Transcendence of The Rad and The Dar.
They wouldn't succeed, of course, though they would think they had.
     That was part of the prophecy, as well.
     A bolt of energy erupted from the planet, through the atmosphere.  A
single, thin line of compressed psychadaelia, carrying a number of important
passengers.
     There was what appeared to be an explosion, and the line disappeared.
"Like, priest dude," General Babe told him.  "That bolt thing, like, y'know,
just, like, ripped one of those, like, hole things in, like, space and, like,
time."
     Ranmikoto looked at the point that the buxom general had indicated.
Indeed, the fabric of space had been ripped, as the psychadaelic energy
forced itself through.  The power of its passage was formidable.  Ranmikoto
wondered if the vortex it created would ever die down, or if it would simply
continue to grow until it became notoriously unstable.
     "So, like, what are your orders?" General Babe asked.  "I, like, obviously
can't, like, go back to the, like, planet and enter, like, Deepsleep, y'know?"
     "Proceed on course for Earth," Ranmikoto instructed her.
     "Like, okay," General Babe replied.  "I, like, project our ETA thing,
like, at four thousand, nine hundred and, like, fifty years, y'know?"
     "Understood," Ranmikoto said.
     "So, like, what do we do until, like, then?" she asked, looking up
at him.
     Ranmikoto looked at her, and smiled.
     This was the part about being a respected religious leader he liked most
of all.

                                    -<=*=>-

     Karina opened her eyes.  She was on the couch, face down.  Carmine was
slumped over the navigational controls, while Andro' was sprawled out on the
floor.  There was some sort of commotion outside, though it certainly didn't
sound like the end of all that was.
     Rather, it sounded like a mob of young beachgoers, banging on the ship.
     She forced herself to her feet, holding her head.  Carmine was stirring
as well, though he was making no move to stop her.  She fought to remember
which button released the boarding ramp, and pressed it.  The ramp lowered
slowly, and Karina fought the impulse to run down it.
     "Like, hello?" a voice called.  "Who's, like, in there?"
     "I'm Karina Selanova," she said.  "Two others are here with me."
     A man and a woman, both wearing very revealing swim outfits, bounded
up the ramp, looking at her with a mixture of perplexion, wariness,
cheerfulness, and drunkenness.
     "I'm, like, Buffy," the woman said.  "MegaBabe Prime of Planet California.
This is Dino."
     "Whoah," Dino said.
     "You, like, just materialized in the middle of our volleyball game, like,
y'know?" Buffy asked.  "Like, what gives?"
     "Please," Karina said.  "What year is it, Earth time?"
     "Um..." Dino said.  "Ah...you could, like, ask our, like, priest.  Hey,
Ran, dude!"
     The priest walked up the ramp, in his Sacramental Speedo.  Karina
recognized him at once.
     "Ranmikoto?" she asked.
     "Two words," he told her.  "Ran Mikoto.  Do I know you?"
     "Um...I don't believe so," Karina said.  "What year is it on Earth?"
     "1994," he told her.  "Early August, I believe.  Are you from Earth?"
     "Yes," Karina said.  "Though I came just recently from Planet California
of five millenia before."
     "Did we make it?" Andro' purred, from the carpet.
     "Looks that way," Carmine grumbled.  "Though I'm not sure if my stomach
made the journey with me."
     "I've got to get back to Earth," Karina told Ran.  "It's urgent."
     "We have the coordinates of CalForce's transmat machine on Earth," Ran
told her.  "We can transmat you there anytime you're ready.  But wouldn't
you care to stay for tonight?
     "No, I..."  Karina started.  She stopped, and thought.  She was on a
planet far from Earth, a fact that no one in the M.I.B. knew.  She was
already missing for close to three months, if what Ran said was accurate.
And she hadn't had a real vacation since becoming a Secret Secret Agent.
     "I suppose I could stay a...bit longer," Karina said.
     "Like, cool!" Dino exclaimed.  "Like, c'mon, and I'll, like, introduce
you to, like, everyone and, like, find you a, like, swimsuit..."
     Karina looked back at Andro' and Carmine.  "What about you two?" she
asked.
     "I couldn't move if I tried," Carmine groaned.
     "I'll just lie here a while in pain," Andro' added.
     "Like, medical team!" Buffy called down the ramp.  "Get, like, in here,
like, y'know?"  Four buxom, Swedish-looking blondes in tight medical-white
bikinis bounded in, carrying first aid kits and beer.
     Carmine and Andro' looked up, and had the same thing to say.
     "Helllllllooooooooo, nurse!"
     Karina rolled her eyes, and went down the ramp.

                                    -<=*=>-

     Even when they emerged from linespace, and regained their dimensions,
Akane couldn't shake the feeling of the line.  It was like a fault line in
time, binding Planet California of the past to the Earth of this time.  There
were several lines she had perceived, linking California and Earth of different
times.  It was impossible to know if they had chosen the right one.
     At least they had the right planet.  That was a good sign, usually.
     Another circle was coming to a completion.  Or was one beginning?  Her
inner geometry had become a mad jumble, without form or coherency.  In less
than a year, she would be dead...or would she?
     "We have emerged," Zen Navigator said, unnecessarily.  "I am not getting
any response from the controls."  Already, Earth was looming brightly in the
front windshield of the minibus, as they began the plunge into the atmosphere.
The heat rose, and despite the shielding the minibus obviously possessed,
Akane felt the temperature rising.  The minibus shook violently as it fell
faster, but Akane could only see lines now, particle lines in her vision,
moving back and forth in time simultaneously.
     Of course, she realized.  That explained it.  That was the key...but what
was the lock?  They were falling...
     The shaking grew worse, as Zen tried desperately to restart the engine.
Shadebeam was trying to help him, and the side door of the van was buckling
again, falling open--

     --a single particle, in time--

     --Akane was falling towards the gaping opening in the door, a scream
ripping from her lungs.  Shadebeam and Zen saw her, and were reaching for her.
Akane grabbed wildly for the door handle--

     --a single particle, traveling a single line--

     --and caught it, barely.  They were in the lower atmosphere now, and
Akane could hear the engines catching, as their velocity slowed.  They
might just survive, if--

     --it all coheres--

     --Zen could get the nose up...
     Akane felt her grip slipping, even as Shadebeam was grabbing for her
wrist.  Her fingertips brushed against Shadebeam's, and then, in a violent
rip of air, she was falling, and the minibus was shooting out of control,
towards the far distant continent on the horizon.
     She couldn't fly.  Her powers weren't responding to her will.  China
and Kyoko were falling with her, screaming with terror and/or joy at
the prospect of impact.
     Falling for miles, accelerating...
     The sky she was falling away from  was the deepest blue, as pure as a
dream--

     --One particle--
     --A tape player playing forwards, while time move backwards--

     Impact in ten seconds, the logical portion of her mind told her.
     She was accelerating, and the rolling hills below were opening up to
collect her...
     It was all connected, somehow.  The Project.  The TransDemesne.  The
Songs.  The Rad.  Everything connected by a particle, travelling a single line
in time and space, everywhere and everytime at once--

                                                                      Nine.

     Damn, this was going to hurt.

                                                              Eight.

     Her shirt was ripping away, giving up its tattered ghost.  She wondered
where it would land.


                                                   Seven.

     --It all made sense, the way Zen saw the world--


                                           Six.


                                      Five.

     The air was clean, far cleaner than Akane remembered.


                               Four.

     There were no satellites in this world's sky.



                        Three.

     The land below was rushing up at her.




                   Two.





               One.

     --It was the funniest joke in the universe.--






          Impact.



(End of Stage Isis)

+-------- Gary W. Olson --------+        "All roads lead *away* from Ankh-
| swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu  |         Morpork, but sometimes people just
+----- swede@drycas.bitnet -----+         walk along them the wrong way."
                                          - Terry Pratchett, _Moving_Pictures_