Chapter Text
You’re going to be fantastic.
The darkness was shattered by a pulsing red light.
Her headache throbbed to the beat of the loud ringing.
The ringing and light drifted through her awareness for a little, before suddenly clicking together.
That was an alarm. Something was wrong.
Where was she? She was sitting, reclining. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t move. She tried and tried and tried to sit upright but something held her down.
Her free arms bashed into the walls to her sides, fists clanging against the hard material. She smashed her hands into the source of light ahead of her, only about two feet away. It didn’t budge. Nothing budged. She was trapped. She was completely and totally trapped. Her breaths raced alongside her heart.
Okay, okay okayokay.
Calm down. She needed to calm down. What was going on?
She was strapped onto something.
She couldn’t pull the straps off.
Where was she? Could she remember how she got here? She couldn’t remember anything. At all.
She had no idea who she was.
Oh fuck she had absolutely no idea who she was.
How do you deal with that? What the actual hell are you supposed to do once that can of worms is open?
She didn’t know where she was, or how she got here, or who she actually was.
And she was strapped onto something and there was an alarm and a flashing red screen and she was absolutely going to die, wasn’t she?
Okay. Okay. O-kay.
There was a screen in front of her. That would have some information on it. She could learn something, at least.
She let herself focus on the screen. It was a large curved screen that had a starmap on it, along with several charts. There were several warning symbols on the screen, oscillating between a dull and bright red. The largest warnings were about having left Earthling-controlled space, having entered Kartarshi-controlled space, and having several ignored high-priority messages.
She could see some controls below the screen. Like she was in a cockpit.
She appeared to be on a small, single person spaceship.
She had no idea how to pilot a spaceship of any sort.
She didn’t know what anything on the screen meant outside of in the abstract.
How did she get here?
She couldn’t remember anything leading up to this moment. She couldn’t remember anything at all actually, from before about a minute ago. She couldn’t remember her childhood. She couldn’t remember her family. She couldn’t remember any friends she might have. She couldn’t remember anything.
Well that wasn’t completely accurate. She did, in fact, remember something. She knew what a childhood was, along with family, and friends.
She looked around for something, anything, to trigger a memory, or explain, or anything. Her eye caught on some bold black letters on her pale arm.
LISTEN TO THE VOICE
She recognized that it was her handwriting, but couldn’t fathom what she had been trying to tell herself. What voice? Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe there was supposed to be someone here to explain what was going on, but something happened to them. Maybe she was now completely alone, while her spaceship was crashing into a sun or something, and she was going to die without having any clue who she was.
She looked at the screen again.
There were several red dots on the star map that, if she was reading it right, were headed towards her location fast. Much faster than she was moving, at any rate. Fast enough that she had maybe minutes before they got to her, and probably hit her and killed her and why was she in Kartarshi space? The Kartarshi didn’t like people being in their space. And why did she know things about random aliens when she didn’t know anything about herself? Maybe she hit her head in just the wrong way. Maybe this was a sign of a concussion. She didn’t think concussions worked this way but hey, she had been wrong before. Probably. She wouldn’t fucking know, now would she?
Okay. Okay okay okay okayokayokay. Stop. Calm down. She could figure this out. She didn’t appear to be having any trouble making new memories, so she could at least figure out what was happening right at this moment. Sure, she was in a strange ship that she had no idea how to work, in hostile space, with something racing towards her, but surely with some stellar observations she could get out of here just fine. Just fine. There was probably like, a manual she could read in the next thirty seconds that had instructions for just this situation.
One thing at a time.
She should probably figure out how to listen to those messages. Maybe one of them would be the voice that she was supposed to listen to?
She prodded at the console, trying to figure out how the ship worked. There had to be some kind of mouse or something for interacting with the screen, but she couldn’t find it. There were an awful lot of buttons, toggles and touch panels, however, and she was a bit nervous about randomly messing with them lest she accidentally activate the self-destruct feature, which surely existed without any sort of safety measures preventing it from getting activated.
The darkness descended like fragile china from a cupboard; suddenly, without warning, and inducing panic in all who saw it.
Like most ships, there did not happen to be any fragile windows on board. Not that modern transparent materials were very fragile, but opaque materials could be notably stronger. Regardless, it was pitch black inside the small coffin cabin.
How much oxygen was there on a ship this small? Probably not much.
She wondered if karma was real. Maybe she was just an awful, awful person and the Universe was getting its revenge.
She’d better be like, a literal advocate of genocide to explain getting this fucked over.
The world exploded in light as the door was violently ripped from its hinges.
While her vision was still clearing, something grabbed her. It felt a bit like a clamp, and it yanked her arm like it wanted to rip it from its socket.
She stumbled out of the ship after her arm.
Her world was filled with spots, but they were slowly clearing to reveal several Kartarshians surrounding her. They were about three quarters of her height, with large frills around their oblong heads. Their bodies were covered in a brightly colored mottled pattern, and they were long and slightly pudgy, with six legs and two arms that each ended in something more like a clamp than a hand. They wore collars that she knew to be computerized. One of them was holding her arm tightly.
The room she was in was a small hangar, holding the ship she came from and a few other personal-sized ones. The walls of the hangar were a pale yellow, with navy blue writing and symbols.
Her arm was starting to tingle.
“Where is your past?” the collar on the one holding her arm said. “What are your intentions? This is not neutral or Earthling territory; why are you here?”
“I don’t know!” she said. “I can’t remember anything from before a few minutes ago.”
“Obviously. Where are you hiding your memories?”
Of course they knew that. The Kartarshi were psychic. Presumably, they were trying to trigger more useful surface thoughts than the borderline panic that filled her.
“Hiding my memories?” she cried. “You think I did this? To myself? Like, on purpose?”
“It would be the only way that someone could steal from us without an army,” said the Kartarshian.
“You think I’m a thief? I don’t want anything from you. I just want to know who I am and return to wherever it is I call home.”
“Of course you don’t know what you want from us,” the monotonous voice said. “If you let yourself keep that memory, we would be able to guard it more effectively. You clearly have some other plan for instructing yourself. Presumably something to do with what is written on your arm. But do not think that it will work. We are aware of everything you are aware of. We will know the plan as soon as you do.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“We will take you near the Allmother. She will be able to dig deep into your mind and know what even you do not. And once we know what it is you intended, we will decide what to do with you. Now come, I am going to take you to a more secure location.”
She let herself be led to what appeared to be a supply closet. She sat down on the floor and picked up a sponge from the shelf next to her. It was hard and dry, but had a nice texture to run her fingers against.
Was she a thief? She didn’t like the idea of being a thief: she considered theft a bad thing, which she probably wouldn’t if it was her chosen profession. But would she be willing to steal as means to an end? It was definitely better than killing someone, and if she could somehow prevent a war by stealing an object she felt that she would.
A war seemed a little unlikely though. The Kartarshi were on fairly good terms with Earthlings, to her limited knowledge. They had a more complicated relationship with the Vrett, but she didn’t see why she would be involved with anything between them.
Maybe they had taken something from her and she was trying to get it back?
Maybe they had been the ones to take her memories in the first place. She knew they were capable of it. Maybe she had been a brilliant engineer and they wanted her knowledge. That could explain why she had been in a ship that she was completely unfamiliar with: they just put her in some old Earthling-designed ship that they had lying around to make her think that they were just now encountering her.
Okay, that seemed just a tad conspiracy theory-ish.
She didn’t completely dismiss it as a possibility though.
She noticed that she had started picking pieces off of the sponge. She needed something else to do with her hands.
She wondered if she could make anything cool out of the things in the closet she was stuck in. She got to work on a found object sculpture as she thought.
The cleaning supply giraffe was nearing completion when the door opened again. One of the Kartarshians was watching her.
“We have arrived,” said the collar around their neck. “Come.”
They didn’t bother restraining her. What would have been the point? They knew that she had no intention of disobeying their words.
They led her off of the ship into a massive room, the size of several sports fields. The ship that she had come from took up most of the room’s copious space, although around the edges sat several single-person crafts.
They exited the hanger into a hallway that was barely high enough for her to fit in. They wound through a convoluted maze of passageways until they finally stopped at a door that looked like every other door they had passed.
“Wait here for now,” they said as they opened the door.
The room wasn’t a storage closet, at least. It wasn’t any larger, mind you, but it had a stool in it and the room wasn’t full of anything.
The room was suddenly full of person. They looked human, with pale skin and straight black hair that flared out at their shoulders. There was a long, inky smudge on their arm. They looked very, very confused, and then, suddenly, they bolted, shoving past the two Kartarshians and running down the right hall.
As they did this, a voice filled her head.
Run! Quickly, while they are confused, go left!
The voice sounded familiar, although completely unplaceable.
She didn’t have much time. She made a decision.
She ran.
What’s going on? Who are you? she thought, hoping that whatever let the voice talk to her went two ways.
I’m your grunkle. I am going to get you out of here and back home. Go straight here.
If you’re my grunkle, you must know me, right? Who am I? What happened to my memories?
You are a criminal mastermind. You wanted to steal a Kartarshi spaceship for reasons I don’t fully understand, and frankly don’t know if I want to know. Personally, I was against it, but I’m not going to let my niece get trapped on an alien world forever.
Is that… really true? I did come here to steal? Against the advice of my family? That doesn’t feel right.
That’s probably - left here - because it’s not right. I just made it up. Nah, you’re a scholar and - go right - you just wanted to learn what you could about the Kartarshi. You knew that they wouldn’t - stop, wait a minute - let you see their homeworld if they knew that that was all you wanted, so you came up with this convoluted plot to - okay now quickly go straight - see what you could see.
Knowledge at least seems like a noble enough end goal. I think there’s still something you’re not telling me, because I don’t like the way this invades their privacy, but at least going to extreme lengths for knowledge feels right.
Well, you didn’t just wake up one day and decide to cause an interstellar incident. Her grunkle continued to interrupt his words with directions. You’ve been thinking about this for years, and trying to find the information through pretty much any other channel. They’re just very secretive. And you got a little desperate.
This is an awful plan.
Pretty much. You’re a hard person to talk down though.
So, who was that person from earlier? How did they just appear like that?
Don’t worry about her. She’s here to help.
She looked so confused.
Well, she did just get her memories wiped. Apparently that’s a little disorientating.
Tell me about it.
Sure. How about I tell you about it later, though. Now doesn’t seem like the best time.
Why is this place so mazelike?
Probably because it is a maze.
Okay, why is this place a maze?
Because of the proximity to the Allmother. She can know the thoughts of anyone on the planet, so she will be able to tell where anyone is located. The maze makes it so that any intruder who doesn’t happen to have a helpful all-knowing voice guiding them won’t be able to get where they are trying to go before they’re caught.
You’re all-knowing?
Compared to you right now? Absolutely.
So they seemed to think that the Allmother would be able to read my memories even if I couldn’t. Is that going to be a problem?
It takes some time, and all reading your memories would tell them is that you wanted to see their homeworld, which they will know just by listening to me talk to you. You didn’t really have much of a plan outside of ‘get captured and then have Grunkle bail me out.’
Well that’s - Is this supposed to be a dead end?
No. It’s supposed to be a T-junction. Are you sure it terminates?
Can’t you see this? It’s clearly a wall.
No, I can’t see it. I can’t see through your eyes.
How are you guiding me then?
Shenanigans that I’m not telling the people you’re running from. Don’t worry about it.
It seems you led me to a dead end so if it’s all the same to you I am going to worry about it!
Are you sure you can’t go right here? Absolutely sure?
YES! It’s a dead end! Couldn’t be deader if it tried!
Maybe it’s just the illusion of a dead end. Try going through the wall.
She walked up to the wall and knocked on it with her hand. Her hand bounced off like normal.
Feels real.
Could just be an illusion with haptic feedback. Try going through it.
Are you suggesting that I run straight into a wall?
Basically, yes.
Basically, no, I won’t be doing that.
They’re going to catch up to you soon. And I have reason to believe that it should go through.
She heard skittering behind her. Turning around, she could see the Kartarshians, catching up fast. The voice was right; they were catching up.
You better hurry.
She ran towards the wall. Hitting it was like, well, running into a wall. She did not go through it. She did, however, fall on her ass.
Well that didn’t fucking work!
HAHAHAHA! Oh my god! I can’t believe I actually got you to do that! The Kartarshians don’t even do illusions. I mean, they’re probably capable of it technologically, but they don’t have good enough vision to make decent ones.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Holy shit you actually ran into a wall. I’m in tears right now.
“You will come with us now.” A Kartarshian grabbed her arm. “No more surprises.”
She was led back to the cell that she was originally taken to. No one appeared to save her this time. No surprises of any sort happened. Nothing of any sort at all happened. She was in a cell. There was nothing else there.
The voice didn’t say anything else.
She glared at the writing on her arm.
“Listen to the voice.” It mocked her.
Fuck the voice.
She rubbed her arm, slowly smearing the writing until there was just a dark smudge along its length.
And nothing happened.
Suddenly, after a whole lot more nothing happening, Xavia Pines remembered everything.
The darkness wasn’t shattered so much as it faded out of existence, replaced by gentle light.
“Grunkle?” she said, looking around the dim library. “Are you here?”
Shadows from all over the room drew together, forming the silhouette of a person.
“What do you need, Xavia?” said her grunkle, as the shadows faded into the colors of a normal enough person.
Xavia Pines looked her grunkle in the eyes. “I need your help. They took the secret of time travel from me. I need to get it back, before everything goes to shit.”
Alcor froze where he had been bobbing in midair. “What do you mean?”
Her arms rose as she spoke. “I mean those oh so friendly ‘ambassadors’ who ‘just wanted to see the library’ took my knowledge of how time travel works, and if I don’t get it back before they start messing around the timeline, Time Baby will…” her arms fell. “I don’t even know. It won’t be good.”
Alcor darkened. “They did what now? To my niece?”
“Can you get my memories back to me?”
“Hmm,” Alcor murmured. “I don’t think you could afford it in a deal, but…”
“But?”
“They store the memories they take in the heart of their home planet, where they’ll be read by their Allmother. If we hurried, we could probably get there and get it back before they had time to properly process it and do anything with the knowledge.”
“So we just go in guns blazing then?”
Alcor crossed his arms. “No. I shouldn’t go at all, actually. They could pick up very dangerous knowledge from me. Not to mention, they have actually developed very good anti-demon tech, so if they realize there’s a demon involved they could keep me out of the picture for long enough that the damage would be done. This is going to be a you mission.”
“How the hell am I supposed to take on who knows how many Kartarshians alone?”
“Who said anything about you being alone? You’ll bring some temporal tape along and have the help of time doubles.”
Xavia crossed her arms. “So I need to make a stable time loop out of a situation I know nothing about.”
“Yes.”
“And on top of that,” she said, “get to the Kartarshi homeworld, to what I’m assuming is the most guarded part of the Kartarshi homeworld, and steal something from out of the noses of people who can read my mind. And I’m sure they won’t find me suspicious at all, being the person they literally just stole something valuable from.”
Alcor grinned. “Oh, they won’t notice that you’re the person that they stole the memories from.”
“And why not?”
“Because A) you’re going to go back in time and steal the memories right as they bring them to their homeworld, which they probably won’t be thinking temporally enough to expect, and B) they don’t have good vision. They rely on psychic signatures for identification, and you aren’t going to have a psychic signature because we’re going to make a deal where I temporarily take your memories.”
“Oh.” Her finger rose to her chin. “So they won’t know what I’m planning because I won’t know what I’m planning. And you can use your omniscience to guide me. ”
“Correct. Shouldn’t be that hard to prevent them from being able to trace the connection back to me if I stay on Earth, since their psionics get weaker the further they are from their target.”
Xavia’s arms dropped. “That just leaves one question: how the actual fuck do I get through hostile space to their homeworld? We don’t know where their homeworld is, and a rented ship won’t leave Earth-permitted space.”
“I have an old craft that you can use. And although you don’t know where their homeworld is, I do. But even if I didn’t, it doesn’t matter, because we’re going to hitch a ride with them.”
“I beg your pardon?” She leaned forward.
Alcor floated on his belly so his head was right next to her. “You’re going to go back in time, head to Kartarshi space, purposely end up in the sights of the very ship that contains your stolen memories, get captured, and have them take you back to their homeworld.”
“And why can’t I just steal the memories while I’m on the ship that contains them?”
“You wouldn’t be able to get back. That ship’s too big for one person to pilot, and you’d be surrounded by hostile forces that I’m assuming you wouldn’t be up to killing. You need to get to the planet, recover the memory, and get to a small, one-person craft and get out.”
“A lot could go wrong,” Xavia said.
“A lot already has gone wrong,” Alcor pointed out. “You could admit to the Time Agency what happened if you wanted backup.”
“I’d probably lose my day job if I did that, on top of causing an interstellar incident. And you wouldn’t be able to help me if they were around, not overtly. I think I’d rather do it this way.”
“So, things that you’ll need to hide on your person: your temporal tape, a weapon of some sort, and this.” Alcor held out a cube of putty.
“A software installer?” she said, taking it. It lit up brightly in her hand. “What for?”
“It’s currently reading your mana signature. If you install it onto the archival computer in the Allmother’s chamber, it should find and retrieve any memories connected to you. Otherwise there’s no way you’ll be able to find what they stole.”
“Why did you already have this?”
“I’ve never really trusted the Kartarshi. I figured they would take something from someone I cared about eventually, and made this just in case.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to complain about your paranoia this time. How am I going to smuggle items with me? Aren’t they going to search me?”
“Probably not very well. They aren’t used to dealing with people hiding their memories; they don’t really know how to find anything that the person carrying it doesn’t know about. Put them all in this pouch and hide it carefully on your person and you should be good. Just make sure to move it before you do your first time hop, so if they see future you take something from it they won’t find it in the same place on past you.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan.” She stretched out. “You ready to make a deal?”
Alcor smiled. “You know it.”
You ready? Her grunkle’s voice filled her head.
That was a mean stunt you pulled with the wall earlier.
I think you mean a hilarious stunt.
We’ll talk when this is all done. How long do I need?
Two hours, six minutes and thirty seconds.
Right.
She pulled out a small pouch, about a square inch in size, from her bra. The pouch stuck neatly onto a hook on her waist, and the opening expanded to fit her wrist as she reached in, grabbed her temporal tape and set it back by the amount that her grunkle had told her.
With a flash, she was gone.
And then everything exploded.