Excerpt: Shadowdance

From Chapter 3

Cecily jumped on the Traveler stream and let it land her at random.

It was a ship, a brand-spanking new ship that still smelled like paint and solder. Light panels covered the top half of the hexagonal walls and the ceiling. The engines made a barely-detectable hum under her feet, something she felt rather than heard. The air was clean. Fans gently whirred at intervals down the corridor.

She stood in the passageway for a moment, letting the place sink in, feeling it out. After a moment she let her head hang.

This was not good. Out of all the places in this universe, she’d managed to land on the Enemy’s ship. Lucas William wasn’t here at the moment, but his agents were--she concentrated, trying to detect without being detected herself. It felt like Azhani and Bakai.

Just great. Bakai had no sense of humor.

Azhani--well, Azhani was the closest of any of them to changing his ways and throwing in with the Allied Council. And there was no way in seven universes that he was going to do that. But he was still more likely to consider a sparring matching with her as a worthy trade, rather than make a deadly attempt on her life.

She sighed. When did they all get so serious? Just a few years back, it was pretty much a cosmic game of “Capture the Flag.” Only, you know, with a bit of a blood feud between Cecily and Lucas William.

But really, who could blame her on that score? Even David had admitted that Lucas William had dealt shabbily with her.

Was it coincidence that a rift between universes had appeared in the middle of Headquarters? Somewhere in this universe, both Lucas William and the body of Jenner existed. Add to that the fact that he hadn’t sent anyone to take advantage of their vulnerability. He was biding his time.

Something had happened, somewhere, that was more important to Lucas William than wiping out the Allied Council.

The thought stopped her cold. She’d been so focused on shoring up the Council’s defenses, and then on saving Jenner, that she hadn’t seen this before.

And that meant that whatever Lucas William was up to, here on this ship, was more important for her to discover--and thwart--than her quest to find her friend.

She shivered.

Taking a deep breath, she slipped forward, stopping cautiously when the corridor came to a T. She looked both ways. Voices came from the left, fading away. She chose the right side. The next corridor off it was to the left. She took it. Hatches punctuated the passageway to either side, some showing internal lights through their round portholes. She crept up to the first one and peeked inside.

It was full of containers in stages of unpacking. She couldn’t tell what was inside them without entering. She moved on.

The next looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory. Lights flashed on a wall computer. Fluids bubbled and dripped in clear beakers. Tubes traveled hither and yon, like a wild 3-dimensional spaghetti sculpture. In the middle of this, looking pale and haggard, was Jenner’s body. As she watched, his chest rose slowly and fell again.

She turned and leaned against the wall. He was here. She was right.

Voices floated toward her, getting louder. Two of them. She glanced around for a place to hide. One of the hatches further down the hall was partly open, yawning darkly. She shimmied through the opening and dislodged something small, which tinkled as it hit the deck. She held her breath. The voices hadn’t paused. They may not have heard her.

The owners of the voices rounded the corner and walked down the passageway toward the room where she was hiding. She recognized Bakai now. He was talking to the other man in his usual arrogant tone with a deceptive touch of laziness.

Bakai was not lazy. He was sharp as a tack, and nearly as quick as Lucas William. He was less emotional than her enemy, which made him slightly less dangerous, but he was more ruthless to make up for it.

She should probably get around to killing him sooner rather than later.

They stopped in front of Jenner’s hatch.

“See? No change,” said the voice Cecily didn’t recognize.

Bakai harrumphed. “I think it’s time to call it quits on this experiment and go to Plan B. What a shame.”

“There’s just no brain activity there,” said the other voice. “What about uploading another brain into him?”

“What, are you volunteering?” Bakai sneered. “We wanted to implant a hypnotic suggestion, not program an android. I’ll let our Leader know where we stand. You can return to your station.”

Their footsteps faded away and Cecily breathed out softly. They thought he was brain dead. They had no idea that the reason he wasn’t responding was because his consciousness was in another universe.

At that moment, Jedrick pinged one of Cecily’s internal ports. She jumped. Darn genius. Probably working with his brother. They must have found a way to manage extra-universal communication. She opened a two-way link between them.

What? she thought, with as much venom and irritation as she could convey through a mental exchange.

Umm...where are you? came back.

I’m in a movie theater watching the end of Primary Inversion, she thought back. The standoff at the end gets me every time. Want me to bring you back some popcorn?

Ha, ha, very funny, Jedrick thought back. The Council is NOT happy. Any progress report on your end?

Yeah, she thought. Do they know you’ve managed to crack the universe communication barrier?

Keeping that secret for now, thought Jedrick.

Y’all are good, she thought. Hi, Jenner!

Heya, Princess, Jenner thought into their link.

Good news, honey, she thought. I’ve found your body.

That’s great, Jedrick thought. Bag it and bring it on home before several people go nuclear over here.

Slight problem, she thought. Lucas William has it.

Uh-oh, came the thought simultaneously from both of them.

Don’t worry, she thought. I’ve got it under control. Just going to take me some time.

You don’t have much of that, thought Jedrick. The way it’s going now, your brother is going to authorize your permanent headlocking.

He is such an overreactor, she thought. Fine. I’ll make myself valuable upon my return. Can I count on you two to back me up?

Already trying to up your currency as it is, thought Jedrick. Kinda hard when you rush of half-cocked.

Not my fault they can’t appreciate me. Over and out.

She took another deep breath. She would have given just about anything to know that an alternate version of her was throttling an alternate version of her brother. Travelers didn’t work that way, more’s the pity. Although running into more than one version of herself would have gotten confusing after a while.

Step 1: determine if Lucas William’s agenda stopped with attempting to control Jenner; if not, discover the rest of it;

Step 2: bring Jenner’s body back to her universe along with any of Lucas William’s dastardly plans; and

Step 3: Repair that inter-universal rift.

Although some Travelers (like Cecily herself, and Lucas William) could travel through universes with almost as much ease as they could inside universes, most lacked that ability. A rift meant that the others could slip back and forth, but it’s inherent instability made it a dangerous path to travel, and the physical space on each side could cause gravity distortions, hallucinations and dangerous foreign radiation exposure. It was perfect if one wanted to plant an inanimate object like, say, a bomb, on the other side.

She filed that thought away for the Jesters to work on once she got back. They’d find a way to shield the new Headquarters from extra-universal rift attacks. They were good that way.

Cecily left the dark storeroom and went in search of the nearest computer. Screw subterfuge. The Council thought she went off half-cocked? She’d show them what recklessness really looked like.

The nearest computer was the one Jenner was hooked up to. It had to be networked. They were surely monitoring him from somewhere. She opened the hatch and stepped inside.

Probably tripped a dozen alarms, if the setup was worth its salt. And if the crew was halfway paying attention. She crossed the room to the computer, set her hand against the side panel, and dove in.

Her consciousness flew down fiber-optic cables, across organic memory processors. She retrieved the specs on the bomb, copied the calculations on the rift, and was out again in under a minute.

Now to get Jenner.

She turned around. In the doorway stood Bakai.

She could reach Jenner in under a second, but so could he. With the fragile state Jenner was in, Cecily wanted to Travel him back along with the various machines he was currently attached to. Generating that kind of Traveler bubble was going to take precious seconds.

“I guess our secret is out,” said Bakai.

“Guess so,” she said lightly. “You hid it really well, though. I would never have guessed you liked Jenner enough to fight to keep him alive.”

“We had plans,” said Bakai. “You’re too obvious, Cecily. Everyone knows that your friends make good hostages.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “The category makes the supposition implicit.”

He looked at her for a second. She jumped in again before he could reply.

“Anyway, isn’t this the sort of thing your Great Master likes to deal with in person?” she asked. “Where is he?”

Footfalls sounded from the corridor outside. Bakai glanced back over his shoulder. Cecily took the opportunity to reach Jenner’s bedside. She closed her eyes and threw her consciousness around him, hoping she got the important machinery in the process. She traveled them away from the ship just as she heard Bakai shout.

She held them together in the Traveler stream for the barest second. Taking him back through the rift was risky, but so was going through the membranes between universes. She’d never traveled another person between universes, let alone another person and various pieces of equipment.

She sent off a compressed message burst to Jedrick and rushed for the spacial rift. It rippled. It threatened to tear Jenner away from her as she tried to squeeze through it, then there was a purple haze, and she was through, rushing for the ship.

She and Jenner’s body arrived in the main cabin of the Nadano to find Jenner’s energy rolling around the cabin restlessly while Jedrick hurriedly cut off a comm channel.

“You did it!” Jedrick exclaimed.

“We’ve got security issues,” she said without preamble, sending her data through compressed streams to the Nadano’s console. “I need that rift closed before more bad things happen. I just sent the calculations and the bomb specs. Node 74-J.”

“Are they following you?” crackled Jenner.

“Don’t know,” she said, giving his body’s equipment a quick once-over before sliding into the seat next to Jedrick. “We’ll figure out your body situation as soon as we’re good here. I need your expertise, Jen. The rift needs to be fixed and we need to prevent this from happening again.”

Jedrick was staring at the data, scrolling down as his eyes skimmed the information. “No,” he said absently, “We certainly don’t want to deal with Lucas William tearing holes in the fabric of space. Patching up behind him would cut into our recreational time.”

“And that would be bad,” agreed Cecily. “Jen, have you looked at the data? What do we need?”

“Wow,” said Jedrick, “The specs on that bomb are amazing. But it didn’t create the rift, exactly.”

“What did?” she asked.

“Looks like they removed the localized unique particles from the space on the other side--you know, the sub-atomic substance that differentiates each universe from the others?”

“Jed, this is good, but is it going to help us close it? Jen, how are you coming?” Cecily monitored the sensors, afraid every second of seeing something horrible come through that rift.

Jenner didn’t answer. Cecily turned to look for him.

His energy signature wasn’t visible in the cabin, but his body was rubbing his eyes and tugging on the tubes jammed into his arms.

:Jen?” she said, jumping up and crossing to him. “It is you? Are you all right?”

“Sorry about that,” he rasped. “I kind of got sucked in. Not sure what happened.”

“Quantum entanglement and chaotic attractive factors,” Jedrick said by way of explanation, not turning from his console. “Great to have you back, Bub. Help me close this rift?”

Cecily helped detangle Jenner from the machines. He was pale and shaky, but when he sat down next to his brother his keystrokes were decisive.

“Just sent you the formula,” he said to Jedrick. “We can repair it with a influx of unique particles, but someone is going to have to gather them and someone else needs to hold it together.”

Jedrick looked over the file. “I’ll do the obtaining,” he said. “I’ve got the math. Ces, can you hold it together until the repair weaves in?”

“I could--” started Jenner.

“No, you couldn’t,” said Jedrick and Cecily in unison.

“I’m right behind you,” said Cecily.

They flew out to the site, their consciousnesses brushing each other. Cecily set up a bubble to encompass the rift, bowing out to cross into both universes. Jedrick shot streams of particles into the bubble where they mixed with the membranes and wove up the edges of the rift. A minute later and it was done, seamlessly, as if there had never been a problem.

They met back at the Nadano.

Jedrick clapped his brother on the back. “Way to go!” he exclaimed. “That was awesome. We saved the day again. The three of us. I didn’t think this would ever happen again.” He dashed a tear from his eye and tried to cover it with a manly harrumph. Jenner stood up and gave his brother a bear hug. He was looking more like his old self.

“Come on,” said Jenner. “Our Fearless Leader doesn’t die. Neither do we. I think it’s in the contract.” He grinned at Cecily. She gently smacked him upside the head, more for effect than anything else.

“You sure played ‘dead’ convincingly,” she said. “You’ll have a lot of ‘splaining to do, especially to your mother.”

“Oh, shoot,” said Jenner. “Mother? You told her?”

“Dude,” said Jedrick, “You’ve been gone for almost four months.”

“Oh,” said Jenner. “It doesn’t seem that long. Of course, going crazy does help the time to fly.” He watched his hand turn in front of his face. “After all that time of sensory deprivation, having a body again feels amazing.”

Cecily reached in to hug him. “Enjoy it,” she said. “Because you’re going to get grilled by the Council and probably the Tolian Parliament before too long.”

She sighed deeply and took a few steps backwards. “Speaking of,” she continued, “I’ve got a few things to straighten out, myself. Catch you boys later.”

She traveled out of the cabin.

What was coming next was not going to be pretty. Yes, she’d achieved her goal. Yes, she’d managed to thwart the plans she suspected the Enemy had for them. Yes, she’d restored a member of the Council to what was normally accepted as “life”. But there wasn’t a member of the Council--with the exception of Jenner and Jedrick, who were unabashedly biased toward her--who would congratulate her and get on with things. Oh, no. There would be remonstrations. There would be threats of reprisal. There would be conditions, going forward.

On the face of it, she had run off recklessly, gotten tunnel vision over a “pet” project to the exclusion of the larger picture, ignored political relationships and diplomacy, been unwilling to compromise with anyone, and probably disobeyed an order or two that Cirain and Fredric had thrown out in the past.

But what no one saw was that, by doing what she’d done, she had averted a great danger.

She sighed. If she were someone else, she’d probably be upset with herself, too.