Chapter Text
It took a few seconds before Kaden realised he was the right way up. Ratchet was the one standing sideways.
How he was doing that without any apparent effort was beyond Kaden. He didn’t even seem to be aware he was at a right angle to the rest of the world, silently working on a fuse box in the ceiling. Clank was on his back, watching the floor below.
“We have incoming,” he said quietly, and Ratchet turned his head slightly.
“Incoming as in I need to move, or incoming as in I might have trouble getting down?”
“They do not appear to be looking up.”
“Do they look like they’re going to move, or will I be shooting fish in a barrel in a minute?”
Raising an eyebrow at the smug tone, Kaden leaned over from his perch. Several stories below, a group of yellowish-green aliens in armour were pouring out of a doorway, obviously looking for a fight. But as Clank had said, they weren’t looking up, and Kaden began to realise he knew why. They were in what was basically a maintenance shaft – there was no way up, except for the magna-locked pathway Ratchet was currently standing on, and most people didn’t know how to use those.
Magna-boots were the stock-in-trade of the lowest of low-level technicians and mechanics – the ones who were sent after more valuable repair bots and into areas too dangerous to risk higher level personnel. From talking to Toen, Kaden had learned that most technicians ceremonially burned them as soon as they were promoted out of having to use them.
But Ratchet, he realised, had a pair strapped to his heels. And… in hindsight, he’d been wearing them in every battle Kaden had ever seen him take part in.
Probably because of moments like these, when he had to get somewhere out of the way.
Kaden sat back on his perch, dumbfounded in the way you only could be when someone pointed out the extremely obvious. How many times had he needed to get somewhere on a mission and never once looked at the maintenance shafts? The heroes in holo-vids always used ventilation shafts; how had he never once thought of magna-boots? He was a lombax! They looked at wrenches and cogs and made them into weapons! The whole universe thought of them as heroic engineers! This should have been in basic training!
“Okay, that’s the refuelling system adjusted,” Ratchet muttered, and then turned around, unholstering one of his impossibly huge guns. “Ten bolts say they don’t spot me even after I shoot the first guy.”
“We share a bank account, Ratchet,” Clank reminded him blandly, and he chuckled softly before opening fire.
He would have won, it turned out.
Those were some banged up looking hoverboots.
Kaden blinked, shaking himself out of the vague state he’d found himself in to realise he was watching Ratchet strap on an old pair of what looked very much like the hoverboots Kaden and Alister had drooled over in the sports’ store last month. In his time, they were top of the line, the kind of boot he could have justified only when he was still a professional holoball player. As it was, he would probably have to wait a year or so for the price to go down before he would be able to afford them.
Ratchet’s pair was worn and scuffed, aged like most of the lombax tools Kaden had seen him with. They were a little too big for him, but he just tightened the straps until they bent the already damaged material and held tight.
“I am certain that you could reverse engineer a new pair if you attempted it. A pair that fit,” Clank noted, looking unimpressed from where he sat on a rock nearby. “Big Al would almost definitely help you, if you are not confident.”
“These are fine,” Ratchet said, and kicked them into gear. He continually rocked his weight from one foot to the other, hinting that he had never learned to ’boot properly. Kaden could hold himself stiff and perfectly still on his hoverboots, barely aware of the shifting thrust. “You coming?”
“I would rather keep time from here,” Clank replied, and Ratchet nodded.
“On my mark. Three, two, one, mark!”
And then he took off, and Kaden blinked again. From his balance, he hadn’t expected Ratchet to be that experienced, but as the kid launched himself off ramps and around tight corners, Kaden realised he was actually pretty good. Easily on par with Alister, at least.
“I have been told that hoverbooting was something of a common lombax past time,” Clank noted, and Kaden glanced at him.
“In certain circles. I’ve been booting since I was a kid. How long’s he been at it?”
“A few months. He is determined to master them, though I suspect these time trials he insists on are less training and more play,” he said, and Kaden grinned at a particularly well-timed whoop from his boy.
He settled back on his hips with a fond smile. “It’s good to see he’s got a hobby. If there was ever anyone who deserved some fun, it’s that kid.”
“I agree; however, while he may find it enjoyable, I do not think Ratchet considers this a ‘hobby’. When not training, he does not usually wear them unless he expects to enter battle.”
“What?” he asked, jerking around to stare at him. “How the hell would you use a pair of hoverboots in battle?”
Clank tilted his head as if surprised by the question, and then shifted in that peculiar way he had to give the impression of a smile. “I believe it is called ‘lombax ingenuity’.”
Kaden woke up from the sound of Clank’s evil little giggle.
It was less than a week later that Kaden discovered you used hoverboots in battle the same way Ratchet used most of his battle tools: with extreme prejudice.
He’d barely become aware of the dream when he had to duck blaster fire, and was only given a split second to see he was surrounded by very large robotic guards shooting very large laser weapons at his boy, who was tumbling through the air.
Then there was a click, and something that sounded very much like a controlled explosion, before Ratchet actually flew fists-first into the middle of one of the bots. Kaden wasn’t even able to track it as they slammed through the wall, and apparently a few more beyond.
He hesitated as the other robots stopped firing, just as confused as he was, and they all leaned over to peer through the newly formed hole in the wall.
There were five more holes just like it, and on the far side, Ratchet was just visible stumbling to his feet.
“He supercharged the thrusters,” Kaden said as he jerked upright, already scrambling out of bed to look for his own boots to start tinkering. “You’d just need to keep yourself steady and you become your own battering ram. If I’d had that against that invincible armour last month I would’ve finished that fight in minutes…!”
“Alright you mewling brats, get back in and clean up. You’ve all got duty tomorrow. Not you, Kaden! Front and centre!”
He took a breath, closing his eyes in mild regret. He almost thought he’d gotten away with it, too. But Major Hooker was waiting, and so Kaden turned and marched back to his commanding officer, trying to keep a straight face under the man’s judging gaze.
“Creative use of resources today, Kaden,” he began. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone freeze a water stream to make a path before.”
Kaden had. Ratchet had given him the idea by doing so to create a grind rail while escaping some kind of citadel-sized space beast. He didn’t say that, however, just kept eyes forward and mouth shut.
“You know… ingenuity is a useful trait in the Avoidables. One we don’t train, because you either got it or you don’t. Never really picked you for it, though. Someone giving you ideas?” Hooker prompted. “That Azimuth politico?”
He just barely restrained his bark of laughter into a smirk. Alister was even less creative than he was. “No sir. Not Alister, sir.”
Hooker considered him for a moment, then shifted his weight back on his hips. “Between this and how you handled yourself with that break-in last month, you’d want to be careful, Kaden. Keep this up, and you’ll get promoted into a full-time protection gig.”
He blinked, forcing himself to stay otherwise still. Protection details were the dream. You dedicated your life to keeping a single piece of technology secret and safe. There was no higher honour in the Avoidables. “I… wasn’t aware there were any available, sir.”
“Not right now,” he agreed, but the tone was clear. The Supreme Court were always watching. “Go get cleaned up. You’re a disgrace.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and hurried off toward the locker rooms, forcing down his grin.
Drunken laughter almost startled Kaden out of his dream before he could realise that’s where he was, and he jerked around, completely displaced.
For the first time ever, he really recognised the place he found himself in. It was a Fongoid bar he and the other Avoidables liked to visit sometimes, to get themselves away from all the technology they were responsible for. It even took him a couple of looks before he realised the bartender wasn’t the same – but he’d be damned if it wasn’t a relative to old Gingle.
His boy wasn’t in Kaden’s preferred booth though – he was sitting at a dark table in the back with Clank, while Talwyn was at the bar ordering. Kaden wandered over to take an empty seat at the table behind Ratchet’s back, exchanging polite nods with the little robot.
“—just wonder what it was they did to mess up so bad that they’d renounce all technology,” Ratchet was saying quietly.
“The fongoids do seem to trade in extremes,” Clank pointed out. “Perhaps they thought this was the only way to avoid temptation.”
“I guess that would be why the zoni don’t mind hanging around still,” he agreed vaguely, and Kaden did a double-take.
As an Avoidable, he had to be at least relatively well-versed in zoni technology, which also meant he needed to understand what was known of their history. But for all his research into the zoni, he’d never heard of any connection with the fongoids.
“I am not convinced they have the capability of understanding the consequences of their presence here,” Clank said bluntly, making Kaden stare even more. It almost sounded like he’d—“Most zoni are simply a part of the hive.”
“Yeah, but if your dad or grandfather or whatever told them not to…”
Kaden gaped. Ratchet lived a strange life by any means, but he and Clank were speaking as if they’d not only met zoni before, but enough to know what they were like, what their hierarchal structure was, what they actually were.
But the conversation didn’t pick back up as Talwyn stepped up to the table and triumphantly planted a beer in front of Ratchet. “Congratulations!”
Both he and Clank stared at the bottle, then up at her. “What?”
“It’s a rite of passage,” she said, swinging into the seat opposite him. “The first drink you have as a legal adult should be cheap beer, skolled in one go.”
“A legal adult?” Clank repeated curiously, as Kaden shot a quick glance at Ratchet. If he actually was twenty-five, he was still short for his age, but there wouldn’t be too many indicators until his ears started growing.
“Now that Ratchet’s twenty-five, or… thereabouts,” she added in response to Ratchet’s wry glance, “the Polaris Guard considers him an adult lombax. And Dad’s research says that means he’s all ready to get his first omniwrench and go off-world on his own!”
“I’ll get right on that,” Ratchet deadpanned, while Clank tilted his head.
“I do not understand. Ratchet has –”
The girl cut him off with a fond smile and a raised hand. “Let it go, Clank. Now, drink up, Ratchet! I brought you here to get drunk and take advantage of your finally legal tail, so let’s go!”
“Wow,” Ratchet said, even as he lifted the beer. “Way to sound creepy, Tal.”
“Hey, I’ve been feeling like a creep. You could have told me you were a baby,” she said, and grinned when he glared at her over the bottle.
“No one knew?” Kaden asked, and Clank turned a little toward him. He leaned over the chair. “You’re telling me that no one even knew he was a child? That they let him fight wars without even checking his age?”
“While it does not surprise me no one recognised him as young in Solana, I find it difficult to believe that his youth was not a known issue here in Polaris. It was not that long ago that the lombaxes were quite a large presence here,” Clank agreed, but Talwyn shrugged like she was talking to him.
“I once asked my dad how he could devote an entire career to figuring out the lombaxes. It’s not like the zoni, where no one’s seen them for centuries,” she said. “Apparently they were just that secretive. Some holdover from the Great War, or something. Never told anyone anything. Never let outsiders into their citadels, except the trading posts… Tachyon was the one exception. He was some kind of social experiment, apparently.”
Ratchet slamming the now-empty bottle on the table startled Kaden out of the conversation and dream, and he stared at the ceiling, struck dumb by everything he’d heard.
While it certainly wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen in these dreams, Kaden found it remarkably difficult to adjust to being in space without an oxygen mask. Even worse was finding himself in incredibly dangerous locations that most sane people wouldn’t bother visiting. As he became aware he was on one of the minor magma moons in the inner system, he grimaced and shifted back against the closed cockpit of Ratchet’s ship. For some reason it felt safer like that.
The boy himself was just visible on the curve of the horizon, running with a strange round gun that was easily the same size as him. While it wasn’t obvious why he was using it, the gun’s purpose was quickly revealed to be a strange kind of portable water hose, as Ratchet stopped every few cubits to soak something ahead of him.
And then he abruptly put it away to snatch out his omniwrench instead, and slid into the smooth glide of a hoverbooter. Kaden couldn’t see what he was chasing, but he apparently caught it fairly quickly, holding it triumphantly overhead before stuffing it in a container by his side.
He walked much more sedately for a few steps, and then was abruptly launched into the air. Kaden flinched, jerking upright, but Ratchet had apparently been expecting it, because he only pinwheeled his arms a few times before preparing himself to land, less than a cubit from the ship.
What he apparently wasn’t expecting was a group of small but bulbous-headed creatures to burst out from the container on his back and launch themselves at the ship. Kaden yanked his limbs in close to himself, but the little creatures didn’t go anywhere near him, simply doing a few whirlwind-fast circuits around the ship before zooming back into their container.
After a few beats, Ratchet slowly relaxed out of the shocked freeze he’d stiffened into, and tapped something on his hip. As Kaden watched, the armour he was wearing flickered down into the base form of a hard-light suit, and the ship’s cockpit cracked open. He jumped up, did an impressive double-flip, and landed perfectly in the pilot’s seat.
Kaden scrambled down to sit in the other chair before the cockpit closed again, which was the only reason he heard Ratchet muttering as he removed his oxygen mask. “It’s every three. Every three zoni, I get a new upgrade. Why are they doing it? It makes no sense.”
“Zoni! Wheeee!” the voices came from the container, and both Ratchet and Kaden stared back at it for a few seconds before Ratchet slowly turned back to the front.
“Just take it. Don’t ask questions you don’t need answered,” he told himself, and started pre-flight checks.
Kaden smirked, because that was the kind of advice a lombax never, ever took.
Once again, Kaden blinked as he recognised the cliff he was standing on. The Criton Valley stretched out below, its beautiful purple foliage gently waving in the breeze. He turned to find Ratchet tinkering with what seemed like some kind of vending machine, apparently for the fongoid sitting a cubit away, watching with the wary suspicion they had for all technology. Clank was standing by Ratchet’s toolbox, staring into the distance and occasionally tapping his hands together in thought.
“You know,” the fongoid said suddenly, “it’s okay if you can’t fix it.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Ratchet replied. “It’s just a few shredded wires.”
“But if you don’t have the parts –”
“Gwynan, buddy, calm down,” he said, glancing up with a grin. “It’ll be like another half-hour. Then, if Clank’s finished on the diagnostic, we’ll be all done and you won’t have to worry about it again.”
The fongoid slumped over, obviously disappointed, and Ratchet shook his head. “Why do you guys even have GrummelNet vendors? Or those teleporters? You hate technology.”
“I don’t know,” it said wearily. “The elders say we were—snerk—told to take them on if—snarf—they were ever offered to us.”
Ratchet’s eyes flickered to Clank before coming back to the fongoid. “Told, huh? You know who by? Or why?”
“I don’t know who said we had to, but as for why—snerk—I think it’s because of the foretold heroes. So that makes me—snick—think it must’ve been the zoni.”
Kaden jerked a little, then moved around to crouch between the two of them. This was the third dream in a week to have mentioned the zoni, and the whole situation considered, he was willing to take this as a hint.
But Ratchet just considered that response quietly for a few moments, and went back to his work as he asked, “The zoni told you to give up technology too, right?”
“I don’t think so. I think we decided that on our own,” the fongoid said. “We made the mistake, whatever it—snuff—was, and so we decided to pay for it. And it doesn’t make sense; if the zoni made us—snick—give up technology, then why would they make sure—snarf—we had stuff for the foretold heroes? Wouldn’t they just provide it thems—snarf—selves?”
“That’s a good point,” he said. He narrowed his eyes, obviously thinking about something, but Kaden considered the fongoid instead.
It was a relatively well-known fact that the fongoids had done something. There were historical records of the fongoids being technological gods, and an almost omniscient race, before they abruptly stopped and reverted to almost stone-age living. They still used enough technology to mine oil and raritanium, but nowhere near the level they once had. But they’d never explained why.
Which would make sense, if the zoni were involved.
But why, then, would they talk to Ratchet about it? He turned, tilting his head at his boy, then glanced at Clank instead.
‘Is this a zoni thing?’ Ratchet had asked him once. And another time, more recently, he had said ‘But if your dad or grandfather or whatever had told them…’
Was the little robot connected to the zoni somehow? Is that how he could see him across the time streams?
What connection would the zoni have to a robot backpack that seemed to have no function beyond helping a lombax child battle armies?
“What do you think it was?” Ratchet asked, jerking him out of his thoughts. Despite the question, Ratchet still appeared solely focussed on his work, and his expression was curiously blank. Only his ears, curving downward and sweeping back toward his skull, hinted at some dark thought. “What do you think they did that was so bad it caused… everything that happened?”
“Who knows?” the fongoid didn’t look all that concerned by either the question or Ratchet’s odd expression. “Whatever it was, it’ll probably get fixed by the foretold heroes, right? Maybe we’ll—snerk—find out when they appear.”
Ratchet looked up at that, but aside from his ears quivering, it was impossible to guess at his thoughts. He just blinked a few times, then went back to work without a word.
Kaden watched him for a minute, then went back to Clank. He faded out of the dream still wondering.
Alister watched him pace with amused patience, which was aggravating in its own way. Kaden was getting very sick of feeling like people were humouring him when he talked about the dreams and what they meant for reality.
“It was a zoni artefact that started this whole thing. If I can just figure out why they would show me these dreams…” he muttered. “If I can just figure out their connection with him, I…”
“What makes you think they have any connection with this kid?” asked Alister. “Or that they meant for you to see any of it at all? One of the weird things just zapped you, didn’t it? Coincidence.”
“No. No, it’s too consistent. The dreams are always about Ratchet.”
“Who you don’t even know for sure exists,” he argued. “Doctor Albedo liked my theory about him being your inner child, right?”
He scowled. “A projection my subconscious provided to give me an anchor,” he corrected. “And I don’t buy it. I’ve seen him age. I’m not that creative.”
Alister shrugged, smiling since he apparently couldn’t argue that. So he went back to one of his other points. “The zoni are practically a myth. Aside from the artefacts your guys find sometimes, practically no one has heard from them since before the Great War!”
“And there has to be a reason for that,” he insisted. “Some – some event forced them from interacting further. I’m betting it has something to do with the fongoids.”
“The fongoids? Those anti-technology freaks?” he asked. “That seems a jump.”
“They were one of the most advanced and mysterious races in the known universe until suddenly, they gave it all up, for no apparent reason,” he said. “Just like the zoni disappeared for no reason. I would bet my wrench that they’re connected.”
“And I’d bet mine that you’re wasting your energy.” Alister sighed and sat back in his chair, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. “Even if they are connected, how do they relate to your dreams? I thought Doctor Albedo and that Avogadro guy were focussing on figuring out some new and terrifying lombax secret.”
He shook his head. Ever since Joen had dismissed Ratchet as something his subconscious had cooked up, he hadn’t exactly been hanging out for her every theory. And Toen wasn’t much better, going through every last one of their catalogued lombax inventions in search of something that could end the galaxy. Neither of them were going to help him find Ratchet, let alone find some way to save him.
The zoni were masters of time travel. Clank had some connection to the zoni. They would help Kaden find him.
He just had to figure out what had happened to them first.
“No problem. Thanks for sorting things out with the museum,” Ratchet was saying as Kaden became aware of the dream around him. He blinked himself more alert, slowly realising he was in the space station Ratchet seemed to spend time with Talwyn in, the markazian herself sitting on a couch beside Clank, while an exhausted-looking Ratchet spoke to a communication projection.
“Yes, well, you were technically under duress. And gave it back. And are a tri-galactic hero.”
Ratchet huffed out something that could have been a laugh in another life, then started reaching for the control panel. “You have the signal of my ship if you need anything else.”
“We do. For the record, you’re still suspended without pay pending a formal investigation. I’m sure you’re really torn up about it.”
“Absolutely heartbroken,” Ratchet agreed, and the projected markazian winked at him before shutting off. Ratchet turned back to Clank and Talwyn, who smirked.
“I give them a week before you’re given a full pardon with backpay.”
“Whatever,” he said, wandering over to sink down on Clank’s other side. He dropped his head against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “How long do you think it will take before the space between dimensions heals?”
“Millennia,” Clank said, pointedly ignoring Kaden’s blank stare. “The walls between space and time are not meant to be trifled with. And I do not know of any caretakers for space.”
“I can’t decide,” Ratchet said quietly, “whether it would’ve been better for her to know about the Dimensionator earlier or not. I mean… obviously it would’ve been bad no matter when it happened, but at least if she’d had it from the start, then she wouldn’t have destroyed all those people’s homes. Hurt the sector so badly. All those things.”
Talwyn shifted, pulling her legs up onto the couch and resting her cheek on her hand. “She might never have been arrested in the first place. Cronk and Zephyr…”
“It is not wise to linger on what could have been,” Clank said firmly. “Ratchet, you know that better than anyone.”
“Yeah, I do, I just…” He hesitated, then slung his arm over the back of the couch, so he could just reach Talwyn’s elbow. His fingers grazed it lightly, even as he continued watching the ceiling. “They never told anyone anything. Maybe it was for good reasons at the time. But whatever those reasons are, I sure don’t see them.”
“She was one person, Ratchet,” Talwyn murmured. “But if people thought there was a working portal to other dimensions… maybe more people would do stupid stuff.”
He turned his head a little to look at her, then dropped his gaze to Clank. Eventually he turned his head back toward the ceiling. “Maybe I should shut up about the stuff I see then.”
“I do not believe that would be a wise course of action either,” Clank advised. “By telling the universe of the marvels you encounter, you also protect them from others who may stumble across them. Think what could have occurred if anyone else had found Darkwater’s treasure.”
“Captain Slag probably wouldn’t be gracing the galaxy with his beatboxing talent, for one thing.”
There was an odd pause before Talwyn snorted. Another moment, and she lowered her head into her arm in a fit of silent giggles. Ratchet looked at her again, a smile fighting its way onto his lips until he too started snickering. That just set her off even worse, and soon all three of them were laughing at nothing much in particular.
Kaden stared at them all, not getting the joke, or most of the conversation.
Ratchet and Talwyn were again sitting in front of a communications console when Kaden next turned away from the stars. Clank was nowhere in sight, but Ratchet looked oddly vulnerable, sitting with his hands pressed together under the table, where the holoprojection couldn’t see.
“Okay, I think that’s all the questions we have for now,” the projected markazian said slowly. It was a different one from before, but still wearing the uniform of the Polaris Defence Force. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr Ratchet. I… admit to being surprised.”
“Why?” he asked dully.
“Well, you have to admit, lombaxes aren’t exactly known for being forthcoming.”
Kaden sneered. As Ratchet had said in his dream only a few nights ago, they kept their secrets for a reason. They told the rest of Polaris what they needed to know; just because that wasn’t every scrap of information they had… But Ratchet didn’t defend his species, he just paused for a few moments before saying, “Well, then I’m glad I can buck the trend for you. I’d like to go now.”
“Of course. Thank you for your time, and good luck finding your friend.”
“Thanks,” he said, and Talwyn was the one to switch off the communicator.
She smiled at him encouragingly. “They’re right, you know. Even during that final war, the lombaxes almost never told Allied Polaris anything. If someone had asked me, I would’ve been one hundred percent sure you’d keep everything that happened over the last week to yourself. I thought I’d have to sneak off to tell the Defence Force about it.”
“Yeah, well,” He pushed away from the table, setting his hands on his hips and turning his back to her. “I spent seventeen years of my life being told ‘well, you kind of look like the picture in this info-file, so you’re probably a lombax’. I’m sorry if I don’t match your species profiling.”
Whatever Talwyn had been about to say was lost on her tongue, along with her burgeoning grin, and she looked back down at the table.
Ratchet let out a soft breath, then shook his head and started walking away. “I’ll be in the docking bay.”
Kaden watched him go, startled to realise he suddenly knew why no one had recognised his boy as a child for so long.
Lombax children weren’t allowed out of lombax-only settlements. They didn’t spread information unnecessarily. There was no way the universe could have known.
No wonder Ratchet had never really been a kid.
“Oh my god, Ratchet.”
Kaden turned away from the window, only to flinch and almost turn away again before stopping himself. Once again, he’d found himself in a bedroom, though this time Ratchet was mostly dressed and Talwyn at least had a shirt on where she sat in bed. She was holding a recorder in her lap. They both looked a little ragged, explained by the empty bottles lined up by the bed. It had apparently been a fun night for them.
“I recorded a message for my dad last night,” she croaked. “I was absolutely convinced I was going to send it to him.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly clear on how,” Ratchet noted, as he went back to pulling on a work vest. “But it was real sweet of you.”
She peered at him through narrowed eyes. “I don’t remember most of last night, but I can’t imagine anything I did in a bed with you could be called sweet.”
He chuckled but didn’t otherwise respond, zipping up the vest and reaching for his boots. While he pulled them on, Talwyn took a steeling breath before pressing play.
“Hi Daddy! I have to tell you something very important. You know – know how you were always looking for a lombax? Well, I found one. All on my own. And I caught him. He got away from me for a while, but I got him back.”
On the recording, Ratchet could be heard laughing, before some unidentifiable thumping and cloth noises overtook everything for almost a minute, in which Kaden watched Talwyn’s face slowly turn red. Ratchet was grinning, standing near the door with his fists on his hips.
“Anyways. Anyways,” Talwyn’s slurred voice returned, sounding triumphant. “I wanted you to know that they’re so, so, so much better than you told me. They’re not just like heroes or whatever. Psh. Nope. My lombax… my lombax,” she sounded softer now, more distracted. “He’s amazing. The best person I’ve ever known. He’s… selfless and honest and good and… and he likes me, Daddy. I love him… I love you.”
The recording went muffled again, then beeped with the end of the message. Talwyn lowered it, still blushing bright red, and didn’t look at Ratchet. Kaden did, however, surprised to see he didn’t seem embarrassed at all. Rather, he waited a moment, then moved over to sit on the bed in front of her. She peeked up from under her brow, and he smiled, before leaning in to press their foreheads together.
“I’ve gotta go organise our apology,” he murmured, without otherwise moving. “Meet you in Luminopolis for lunch?”
“You’re buying,” she replied, and he hummed, before pulling up and away to head out.
Kaden woke up slowly, found himself wrapped up in his girlfriend, and smiled.
His bedroom wall was beginning to look suspiciously like it belonged to a conspiracy theorist, but it wasn’t like Kaden had a better place or way to do this. He taped another scrap of information to the wall and took a step back, as if distance would help him understand it better.
The fongoids gave up their advanced technology around the same time as temples to the zoni stopped being built. New legends about zoni had stopped appearing. Something had happened, causing both races to metaphorically disappear. Ratchet existed in the future, and had dealt with the zoni, so they were still around, just keeping to themselves.
So it was something about the zoni that was big enough to scare them into hiding.
The zoni were reputed to be dimensional travellers, but Kaden doubted that was it. The lombax secret had been created after the zoni disappeared – if crossing dimensions was the problem, the zoni would have interfered to have stopped them. But the only other thing the zoni were known for was time travel, and…
He slowly lowered his gaze, Ratchet’s determined smile flashing in his mind’s eye.
Ratchet, who was the last lombax in a future Kaden was able to see into because of an accident with zoni technology.
That was it.
That was all of it. The fongoids, Ratchet, Clank, the zoni’s disappearance, all of it… it was about time.
The big event that had caused them to disappear had to involve time travel.
“Oh, good, more banter! I do so enjoy banter – I wish they’d put more of it in. Such an energetic lad, your boy, you’d think he’d talk more. I suppose he conserves his breath for running, but still. The long silences make watching these things quite tiresome sometimes.”
Kaden groaned and lifted a hand to his eyes. For some reason, it felt harder than usual to bring himself fully conscious. He used the other hand to brace against the hard floor below and awkwardly lever himself upright, struggling to open his eyes.
“But I suppose my son is perhaps worse. He doesn’t even breathe, so he could chatter all day long if he so chose. You’d think he would, then. But he has spent most of his life with your boy, so perhaps there’s your explanation. Shame, really.”
Eventually, he managed to blink his eyes open and look up. He was in a huge white room, a large fainting couch behind him and what seemed to be some kind of holo-player hovering in the air above. He stared at it for a few seconds – it showed Ratchet jogging through a swampy marsh, the green hulk and tall robot loping along behind him while Clank watched them both from his back. Kaden squinted, then turned to look at the couch behind him.
There was a creature sitting on it.
It sort of looked like the creatures Ratchet had scooped up in his container on the magma planet, but different somehow. More… intelligent, perhaps. It smiled at him.
“Yes, before you ask, I can see you. Come, come, sit up here! Join me! It can be so much fun, watching our boys save the universe!”
Kaden looked around the room, feeling even more off-balance than usual. This didn’t feel like one of his normal dreams, but he didn’t have another explanation. He slowly got to his feet and moved over. “Are you a… a zoni?”
“I am! I knew you were going to be intelligent,” it said cheerfully. “You may call me Orvus. Well! You may call me anything you like, really, and I daresay I wouldn’t mind it either, as long as it’s not late for dinner! Ah hah! Not that I eat that much, but it’s the principle of the thing. You are called Kaden, yes? Yes! I’m so glad we could get those formalities out of the way!”
He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to any of that, so he looked back at the holo-player. “You’re watching Ratchet.”
“Well, to be perfectly frank with you, I am watching XJ-0461. But we are allowed to play favourites, you and I – I think it’s only fair!” it said. “What isn’t fair is that we’re doing it before it happens. But sometimes spoilers can be great fun, don’t you think? Learning just enough to know the outcome, but not how it happens. It can truly spark the imagination!”
“I don’t understand,” he admitted. “If you’re a zoni, does that mean you know why I’ve been having these dreams?”
“Of course I do! You touched the timecog. It was very foolish of you, of course, but we knew what we were doing in allowing a lombax to find it,” it said with a laugh that sounded very similar to Clank’s evil little giggle. “Ah, you lombaxes never could leave well enough alone. Well, most of you. I have a feeling your boy is going to be very good at it in time. Truly an example for all of you. A little late, but better late than never, as they say!”
“Time… cog?”
“Yes! To give you a glimpse of what you would need to see!” it said. “I suspect it will start to wear off soon, which is why I decided to open this little portal so we could have our little tete-a-tete.”
He shook his head, not following at all, so he grasped the only thing he could. “If you’re watching Ratchet, you must know about him. And you’re a zoni. You can tell me how to find him. Where—when—is he? Who is his family? Am I going to be able to meet him?”
“Answers you will learn in time, I assure you,” it said, then grinned. “But those are spoilers I will keep to myself! Just as you have your own to uncover.”
It wasn’t going to tell him anything. He rocked back on his heels, pressing a hand to his head. “Why… why am I here?”
“Well you may as well have been here as anywhere, yes?” it said. “And I did want to give you the warning that the timecog’s effects will soon start to decay. You’ve built up quite the attachment to your boy—understandably so—and I didn’t want you to develop any separation anxiety. It seems to run in your family. Quite problematic. And it wouldn’t do for you to get bogged down in something like that when you’re so close to such a breakthrough.”
“What?”
“Keep going! You’re doing very well! I have every confidence you will succeed in your endeavours. I’ll try to meet you again soon.”
He opened his eyes with a flinch, and his girlfriend raised an eyebrow at him over her magazine.
Once again, Kaden woke up in the middle of a place that felt… off-balance. He stared around at a strange blue world, interspersed with white platforms and buildings, and decided that wherever he was, it was somewhere he never wanted to find in reality. It didn’t feel right.
But maybe that was because he could tell this was one of the dreams Orvus had apparently given him, and he couldn’t see—
“Ratchet!”
He jerked around, looking up in time to see Ratchet fall from a platform high above, boneless and limp like Kaden had never seen before. On instinct, he ran to catch him, but it was no use – his hand was the only thing to reach in time, and Ratchet’s shoulder passed right through it before he crashed into the ground.
And didn’t move.
Kaden stared, breath caught in his throat.
Ratchet was… Ratchet…
He fell to his knees, shaking hand reaching out. His boy was wearing the base suit of a hard-light armour set, but it obviously hadn’t been turned on yet. If it had, then the shot might not have… There was a burn. Right over Ratchet’s heart. It had melted the suit’s nylon coating, smoothing the reflectors out into nothingness. An electric laser shot would have done that, and kept going right through.
“This… this isn’t possible,” he whispered. “This can’t be…”
He’d seen Ratchet older than this. He had. When he’d been sick, and that time with the gun, when he’d zapped himself. He’d definitely been older then, and alive, and this…!
But here and now, Ratchet wasn’t breathing. There was the burn, and even as Kaden watched, blood was beginning to pool beneath his head, from the fall. His neck was at an angle that was just wrong.
“Ratchet,” he gasped. “I didn’t… this can’t… I didn’t get to…”
There was shouting somewhere up above, and the sound of energy weapons firing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He just slumped over his knees, brought his laced fingers up to his forehead, and mourned the child he’d never known.
He was back in the strange world, surrounded by blue atmosphere and white buildings. He frowned as he shifted backwards, immediately nervous. It had been over a week since he’d had one of these dreams, and he hated the ones that happened here anyway. Especially since this was where—
Ratchet crossed his line of sight, and Kaden flinched. Not only was his boy alive and well, but he looked older than he’d been in the last dream. His ears were too large for his head, while his limbs were just edging into gangly. His final growth spurt was really kicking off. So he must have survived the fall, somehow.
Kaden hurried after him, trying to find some hint. Cybernetics, or biotechnology, maybe. But there was nothing. He looked the same as ever, walking alongside Talwyn and a few steps behind Clank, who was carrying a bulky sceptre easily twice his own height. None of them seemed aware that the last thing Kaden had seen of them was Ratchet dying.
Talwyn did look nervous though. “And it’s really okay for us to go through? I thought the whole point of this was so people didn’t go messing around with the time stream.”
Kaden did another double-take. Time stream?
“Yeah,” Ratchet agreed slowly. “This isn’t gonna, I don’t know… break everything, is it?”
“Ensuring that does not occur is why I will be staying here,” Clank said. “I will monitor all of the time fluctuations, and advise you when your actions are likely to cause problems.”
Ratchet winced. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“It is all I have,” he replied, and then stopped and turned around to look at them directly. “While I thank you both for the offer, I feel obligated to say that neither of you need to do this. It is not your responsibility.”
“Like that’s ever stopped Ratchet,” Talwyn joked, and Ratchet gave her a dirty look before fixing Clank with a more serious one.
“Your friend needs help, and that means you need help. You know I’m always here for whatever you need,” he said, but then pulled back, awkwardly rubbing at his arm. “The only thing I’m worried about is breaking the rules. How am I supposed to fix anything without causing everything to explode?”
Explode?!
Kaden hurried over, trying to catch Clank’s eye, but the robot was ignoring him completely, his tone surprisingly gentle as he reassured Ratchet.
“You will not be reversing time. You will be altering events to ensure their stability. Making things more like what they were supposed to be, prior to the original interference,” he explained. “I could do this myself, with the tools here, but…”
“But it’d be easier with the hands-on approach,” Ratchet finished for him. “I get it. We’re taking some of the stress off the quantum mechanics by doing it manually.”
“In layman’s terms, I suppose so,” Clank agreed, and adjusted his grip on the sceptre. “I… thank you. Both of you.”
Talwyn smiled warmly, and Ratchet pulled out his omniwrench, swinging it around his hand once before laying it over his shoulders. “Let’s get this party started, pal. When to first?”
Kaden hauled himself up onto his elbows, blinking dumbly at nothing.
Fixing a broken time stream…
Joen squinted, obviously struggling to follow his argument. “Time travel? You think the zoni taught the fongoids time travel?”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said, holding out a hand to stall her objections. “Think about it. For centuries, there are countless stories about the fongoids as amazing beings that seemed to know everything there was to know. They couldn’t make a mistake. Everything they did seemed perfect and planned out… because it had already been tested in a timeline that never ended up being, because they saw the outcome and adjusted their decisions to get the best future for themselves. It was the same with technology – they didn’t have to invent anything of their own, they just went far enough forward in time to take what would be useful and bring it back! That was how they could be so advanced without any technological or engineering skill. It was all time travel!”
“Alright,” she said slowly. “Putting aside the issue of paradoxes and all the complications associated with time travel theory… let’s say your theory holds water. Why aren’t they still doing it?”
“Because of those paradoxes you just put aside,” he said. “The time stream is malleable to an extent. It can handle small changes. If I had never touched that timecog, I would never have seen the dreams I have. I would have never learned about Ratchet, or the future. I would have gotten a lot better sleep, over the last three months. But so what? But just imagine if Salem Gyrosc hadn’t gotten hit over the head with Farrell Clawhaus’s wrench. Such a small event, but with five hundred years of culture to develop and change…”
“If Gyrosc hadn’t been assaulted, he might never have gotten the idea for the omniwrench,” Joen said thoughtfully. “As our military skill expanded, we may have abandoned our engineering. We may have become warriors. Our influence would have never spread across the galaxy. The Great War may have never gotten off the ground, the cragmites may have stood unopposed. That could have ramifications across the entire universe.”
“And the time stream wouldn’t be able to take it,” he said. “I think the fongoids did something like that. They took the wrench from Clawhaus, and the time stream came close to shattering.”
She nodded slowly, obviously accepting it as a hypothesis. “It’s the natural outcome of giving that kind of power to someone who didn’t understand it. And it would certainly be reason enough to give up the technology. But if the time stream broke, then how are we all still here? The universe should have collapsed in on itself.”
“The zoni did something to stop it,” he said simply. “They have technology that bends physics; we find it all the time. They built something to stabilise the cracks in time. Not enough to fix it – it couldn’t be fixed. But enough to keep things going. There’s some kind of… some kind of machine out there. A machine to keep time going. That’s what happened to the zoni. That’s where they are – maintaining the machine and keeping time stable.”
“Alright,” she said. “An interesting theory, certainly, but as you say, so what? Do you think these dreams are connected to them?”
“Absolutely. I just don’t know how,” he said.
“Well… say you’re right, and the zoni are protecting time,” she said. “They showed you these dreams to cause the same kind of outcome as Clawhaus’s hammer – inspire you to theorise, perhaps. So that… you could create a similar device?” She winced. “You, Kaden? No offence, but… you’re not the most… advanced engineer I’ve ever met.”
“Thanks for trying to soften that blow,” he deadpanned, and then looked away. “But you’re right. I’m not an inventor. I’m a Guard. Maybe it was so I could understand the principle. So I could help guard against something like that happening again?”
“Maybe,” she said. “You said the dreams are coming less often now, right? Let’s see if they start to dry up completely, now that you’re ‘aware of their purpose’.”
He blinked, then nodded, brow furrowing as he remembered what Orvus had told him. The dreams were already starting to go away. Eventually, they would leave him completely.
One of these nights… could be his last dream of Ratchet.
It was a lot more upsetting than his theory had ever been.
He was running, that was the first thing he realised. He’d never started out moving in one of these dreams before.
“Could use a little help here, Clank!”
He whipped his head around. Ratchet was right beside him, easily keeping pace with Kaden’s longer legs despite carrying one of his ridiculous guns. They were sprinting toward a cliff, but when Kaden chanced a look backward, he knew it was the better option. They were being chased by tanks. A dozen very large and heavily armoured tanks.
He faced forward and kept sprinting.
“Hey,” Ratchet said lightly, like he was responding to a joke, “take your time! I’m not going anywhere. I’m getting there very quickly, but I’m definitely not going anywhere.”
Kaden dared spare a glance at his boy. Clank wasn’t on his back, so Ratchet had to be talking to him through some kind of communication device. That was even less reassuring than the casual banter had been.
“Jump? Without knowing where?” Ratchet cried. “This is a very wide cliff I’m running toward! Your aim better be phenomenal!”
But he wasn’t given any more time to argue, and Kaden couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to. They reached the edge, and leapt.
There was a shining blue rip in the air below them, swirling with light and power in equal measures. They fell with matching shouts, and then there was a strange feeling of… almost déjà vu, before ground hit their feet and they both tucked and rolled on instinct.
It was training that made him look up before he’d even finished recovering, but he immediately wished he hadn’t.
There was something very disorienting about going from running for your life to finding yourself in the middle of someone’s living room in the space of a few breaths. Even worse to find yourself in your girlfriend’s living room. She was sitting on the couch with her mother, both of them gaping.
Ratchet had come up with gun cocked and ready, but he froze at the pair in front of him. For a moment, no one moved.
“C- C- C- Clank,” Ratchet managed finally. “This is worse. This is very much worse. Take me back to the tanks, now!”
Another rip appeared below his feet, and Ratchet dropped out of existence.
Kaden spasmed awake, and the girl beside him grumbled and rolled over in her sleep.
Now he was thinking about it… she and Ratchet had weirdly similar features. The soft forward muzzle and slightly rounded ears. He shook his head, trying to get the mental image out of his head, and fell back against the pillows. That had been a strange dream, even for him.
It was almost two weeks later before he found himself in one again.
It was… it was the strange room where he’d met Orvus, but the zoni was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Ratchet was lying on the fainting couch, staring up at the ceiling, while Talwyn leaned over the back of it to watch him.
When Ratchet finally spoke, his voice was thick, like he was trying for nonchalance while fighting a cold. “Why is this hard? I never knew him.”
“I don’t think that matters,” Talwyn said quietly. “I never knew my mother, but sometimes, it’s like I have this idea in my head. I guess it’s what I want my mother to have been like. I know the fantasy. I think I’d miss it if I lost it, somehow.”
He visibly swallowed. “Yeah, I guess.”
Kaden moved a little closer, wondering what they were talking about. For all that he saw the darker sides of Ratchet’s life, it never got easier on those rare occasions Kaden actually saw him hurting. He always wanted to comfort, and hated that he couldn’t.
“It was weird… I kind of wasn’t that surprised that he knew our names,” Talwyn said softly. “I mean, all those times we ran past him, we’ve probably been yelling at each other once or twice, but… it almost felt like he really knew you.”
“Yeah, it did,” Ratchet said, brow furrowing. “But… not who I was. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, like I said: weird,” she murmured, and then shifted further down, so she could lay her chin on her hands. “It seemed like he really cared about you, though.”
Ratchet didn’t seem have anything to say to that, just staring blindly at the ceiling. Talwyn let him absorb whatever he needed to, and then said, “I meant what I said, you know.”
He didn’t immediately react. When he did, it wasn’t with any expression, but he just pushed himself up to sitting, so his head was level with hers. For a minute, he just looked at her, as if judging the words and the meaning behind them against some checklist in his head. But, in the end, he just cupped her face with one hand and pushed their foreheads together, accepting all of it.
“Thanks, Tal. I’m glad you were there.”
She moved her hands to hold him in place, and Kaden turned away with a smile.
He didn’t understand how Ratchet could be attracted to a markazian, but that didn’t really change anything. He was just glad Ratchet had found someone he could feel safe with.
“This is the last one, you know. The timecog doesn’t have enough power to keep it going forever. I tried to make it a pleasant one. But then, I suppose I may be a little biased about what makes these interesting. I do so hope you enjoy it, all the same.”
He heard the words, but Kaden didn’t actually remembering listening to them as he became aware of the room around him. He was staring out the window at a deep cherry-red sunset, beautiful over the darkening dunes.
“Veldin,” he murmured, and slowly turned around.
Ratchet was sitting in front of one of two very large and comfortable looking leather recliners, one of which Clank was perched on the edge of. Ratchet had several of his weapons spread out on a sheet in front of him, stripped and cleaned, while Clank seemed glued to the holo-vid they were watching. It was a cheesy spy flick, with none other than Clank himself in the leading role.
“I did not come here to die, Madame Glittergem,” Clank quoted along with the movie, “I came here to dance. Will you join me?”
“I only dance with the best, Secret Agent Clank,” Ratchet replied, his mocking high pitch not matching the film’s robotic seductress at all, especially when he gave up quoting to instead poke fun, “But the script demands I give you an opening to steal my keys!”
“Be quiet, Ratchet, you will ruin the tension!” Clank insisted, and Ratchet snickered.
“Clank, pal, we rehearsed this scene eight times, and you shot it three. We’ve watched it a million times. There is no tension to ruin,” he said. “And Glittergem was a bitch. She deserves to be made fun of.”
“Then you should make fun of her, and not the script.”
“At least the script knew when it was being ridiculous,” Ratchet said, but otherwise left it there. He was fitting a grenade launcher back together with lazy, practiced movements. “D’you ever think about getting back into acting?”
“I do not think so. Robots usually only ever take on a single role, and the days of Secret Agent Clank are long gone,” Clank pointed out. “It has been years.”
“It could be a revival movie. Something bigger and flashier than the series used to have,” he suggested. “Put the entire universe at stake, instead of some diamond or damsel.”
“I believe that would cut a little close to home, Ratchet.”
Ratchet glanced at him, then shrugged and smiled, going back to his grenade launcher. He finished putting it together and then flipped it over his wrist, shoving it down into a weapons locker before picking up the parts of a shotgun. Kaden walked around, nodding to acknowledge Clank noticing him as he moved to sit beside Ratchet on the floor. He stared at his boy, trying to memorise the lines of his face and the efficient movements of his hands.
He didn’t want this to be the last time.
The dreams hadn’t always made sense. Most of them had been hard to watch. Heartbreaking, sometimes. He hated that he’d never found out who Ratchet was – where his family came from, or who they’d been. He didn’t even know when this was, or whether it would ever be possible to meet the kid.
It hurt, so much more than it should have, to know he was never going to see him again.
He wanted to see more. He wanted to see the kid finish growing up. Wanted to see him meet more girls, or properly settle down with Talwyn. He wanted to see how Ratchet had learned to drive and fly. See him retire from mercenary work and get something more stable. Make more organic friends. Find out if he could have kids, or adopt them. Eat weird food, visit exotic places, laugh at bad jokes. Grow old. Have a life. Kaden wanted to see it all.
Instead, all he’d gotten was this.
A hard life, a warrior’s life, interspersed with short, sweet moments of stillness. It didn’t seem fair.
And yet Kaden still knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his boy was a good man.
He smiled, wishing he could reach out and touch. “I’m going to miss you.”
Ratchet didn’t know he was there, or that anything had been said, and so couldn’t respond. But he did finish snapping the rifle together, and as he pushed it down into the locker, he happened to glance in Kaden’s direction.
He could almost imagine they’d met each other’s eyes.
“Goodbye, Ratchet. Good luck.”