4. - The Introduction
Somewhere around the Horsehead Nebula, 20 seconds out of sync with the rest of the universe.
"We made it! We're alive, oh my god, we're alive," Oblitia said, looking around the pod, which looked much better than she last remembered, all bent and flaming up.
She looked around the pod, now reinstated to its former state of monotony, a silver pod, bare, save for the sophisticated quantum system that had saved their lives.
It was then that the silver cage popped open, and Ren fell out of it. "What the-"
Oblita grinned at him. "Welcome! How was it in there?"
"Where am I?" asked Ren, bewildered by the fact that he was in a silver room with large buttons on one end. For Ren, this was something out of a futuristic space movie - not much different from the world portrayed inside the movie theater he had just walked out of. "How long have I been out, Rosa?"
"That's Oblitia to you. Also I'll need your-"she trailed off as he gave her a dirty look. "What? SO I used a fake name on you. How weird would Oblitia have sounded on the tongue of an Ancient?"
Now it was Ren's turn to look offended. "Ancient? Excuse me? And why would you use a fake name?"
Oblitia stared at him, confused. "You mean the system rules and regulations didn't register in your brain? Only the language?"
This was enough for Ren. He stood up, overcoming the waves of nausea that threatened to take over, and walked over to where Oblitia was. He looked at her, square in the eye, and said, "I don't know where I am, or what you've done to me. The only thing I know is that I don't like it, and you're going to quit playing around like an idiot, and explain everything to me, as if I don't know it. If I'm confused by the end, I'm going to be very, very angry. And people don't like me angry. Got it?"
Ren wasn't very sure what happened next, because all he saw was a fist coming up to meet his nose, and then he was on the floor. Oblitia stood tall above him, her brown hands clenched, a stark contrast against her silver suit. The contrast was too stark for Ren to take, blinding his eyes, so he stared at the floor instead.
Oblitia now spoke, her voice steely and cold. "I don't tolerate being talked to like that. You will treat me with the respect I deserve, because I just saved your damn life. As for what happened, I will explain everything to you, on my own terms. And I can get angry too, and so far, my anger hasn't suited your face. So you'll watch where that little tongue of yours runs."
Ren sat up, nodded his head once, and watched as Oblitia settled herself a few feet away from him, ready to tell a tale. He had no clue that this was the second strangest tale he'd hear in the course of his life.
"So let me start at the very beginning. This is all about the technicalities, but you're a physicist, so I expect you'll be entertained by all of this crap."
Ren looked at her very pointedly and said, "So I'm assuming you're NOT the aspiring young bread scientist you told me you were, Rosa."
"Shut up," Oblitia said. She resumed speaking, however, with a little grin.
"So, as I was saying, Mr. Physicist, here are the details. It all begins with our allure for time travel. About five decades ago, a physicist by the name of Dr. Sharma hypothesised that to time travel, you can't exist in two places at the same time. So, for someone to time travel, they could have never traveled into their past, and their future was too dangerous to consider. Sound good so far?"
"Yes, but only one problem. They'd exist, technically, in the minds of people. Don't memories have a certain weight or something? And when you travel to the future, the present becomes the past. And the future becomes the present. There's no way..."
"I know. But they found a way out. They made these people, who weren't remembered by anyone - through the process of memory wipes of course. They designed a foolproof process. And people do time travel. Only, they never interact with anyone from their present, obviously. They use fake names and appearances in the past and future. Never remembered anywhere."
"Then what's the point?"
"We wanted to fix that, you know. Make scientific advances, prevent disasters, change timelines, etc. And we noticed that the further away we got from a certain time, say, 100 years, the effect of someone remembering them was reduced. So we started bringing in people from the past, They didn't exist in the minds of the present. They were people who would randomly be remembered, but without any disastrous effects. Just the memory remembered would be taken from the traveler's mind."
"So that's where I came in? But why am I here, and not in some lab?"
It was at this point that Oblitia got up, and paced.
"We're near a blackhole," she said. "But I managed to save us. I'm better than the rest of the time travellers. I can manipulate it. I placed this pod 20 seconds out of sync with the universe. We're hanging on by a thread, 40 seconds away from never existing. But I'm good. We're still alive. Only, the damn system died, so we're stuck here until the blackhole slowly pulls us back."
"Which could take forever," Ren said
"Which could take forever," she repeated.
There was an awkward pause, and both of them shifted uncomfortably, each without any clue as to what to say or do in this situation, until Oblitia got up and faced Ren.
"So, like I said in the beginning, I'm going to need your help." Ren looked at her like she was crazy.
"And what exactly would my skills help you with? We're out of battery I assume, because 20 seconds out of sync with the universe, no one invented a power source."
"Don't baby me. This ship should be running on an emergency battery. It's an escape pod, for goodness sake. It has all kinds of energy."
"Then what's stopping it?" Ren wondered.
Suddenly a large rumbling began in the ship, and it shook uncontrollably. Ren and Oblitia tumbled about uncontrollably, until it came to a stop.
"What!" Oblitia screamed. "My watch! It jumped time! We're 25 seconds out of sync with the rest of the universe. The blackhole should be pulling us towards it, not away from it!"
Just as Ren was about to reply, the ship's engines came to life, and a hologram appeared in the centre. It was a woman, except she didn't have a face. The featureless terrain of where her face should've been made Ren horribly uncomfortable. She simply stared at them for a minute, looking at Ren and Oblitia in turn. When Ren turned to look at Oblitia, he saw nothing but terror in her face. He wondered why, until the faceless entity spoke.
"Oblitia, you have been charged with one of the most serious crimes in the history of nameless time-voyageurs. Putting yourself out of sync with the universe. Do you have a reason for doing so?"
Oblitia struggled to speak, empty air instead of words spilling out of her mouth. "I - I was trying to save us, um, er - faceless entity?"
"Horae, Mother of Time. Do you know not of your own gods?" the faceless entity questioned her. Ren knew that the faceless entity was really... faceless, but somehow he saw a shadow of an angry face in the faceless entity's ... face? upper area? He didn't really know how to describe it, but he saw her becoming angry, almost to the point where the image of a woman shaking and struggling to control her anger jumped into his mind. Horae seemed to sense that he could see her, the voice that was mostly directed towards Oblitia changing it's focus.
"You can see me?"
Ren nodded, his throat dry. He was at a loss for words too. Satisfied with his answer, the goddess' voice angled back to Oblitia. "Trying to save yourself from what? A blackhole?"
Oblitia nodded again, her head facing downwards.
Horae spoke again, her words slow and angry. "If you were telling the truth, Oblitia, then it would be perfect. Going out of sync with time to save yourself from not existing is an efficient, albeit ironic way to save yourself from never existing. Your kind has discovered this from their travels, yes? But they have never had a criminal run away from justice...with a hostage in tow."
Ren spun around to face Oblitia directly. "Hostage?"
"Ah, so she has lied to you too? What did she tell you? A little experiment on memory recall was about to take place?"
"She told me I'd be an experiment if it weren't for the blackhole but...a hostage?"
Horse's face, at least the one in his mind looked at him as if he were crazy for a second. "Then what else would constitute hostage for you?"
Ren jumped up to defend himself. "She made it sound like there were more? It sounded harmless too! I don't see any shackles!"
"Neither do you see any other test subjects. Oblitia was on an illegal chase. She was being chased. Straight into the blackhole region too. Oblitia is one of the most crafty criminals known to this time."
Oblitia neither denied nor acknowledged their little conversation. She slumped to the floor, and then spoke. "So what happens to me?"
Horae's tone was severe. "I intend to kill you. Ren shall return to tell his story but you, Oblitia, must die. Be forgotten."
Although Ren was upset with Oblitia, Horae's directness and stinging tone startled him. "Wait, but, shouldn't you give her some sort of a chance? A trial? Something?"
Horae spoke shortly. "I don't like those who meddle with time too much. The voyageurs made a pact with me when it first begun, promising never to change time apart from going back and forth, but this. Using my son to save criminals? I won't have it."
Oblitia rose suddenly to her feet. "What did you say? You made a pact with the voyageurs?"
In Ren's mind, Horae nodded, and he had a feeling the goddess wanted him to tell her. "She, uh, nodded." he said unsurely.
Oblitia looked at him, puzzled, but continued. "Was this, perhaps, the pact made in the year 2109? The one that stated I would receive a trial by you? The one part of the pact you forgot to mention, perhaps?"
At this, Horae's amorphous form began to take shape, the white mist that seemed to swirl around the faceless body changing, moving and clearing away. When Ren looked at her face, which had finally appeared, he was shocked to find it the same face as the one in his head. He looked at her quizzically, and the goddess held a finger to her lips.
"Very well then. Stand in front of the true form of Horae, Oblitia. Come and receive your trial, for it is to be this:
You shall fight. 4 times, two for the two offenses you have committed. Trying to manipulate time against the rules stated in the pact that you were well aware of, and carrying a hostage. Is that understood?"
Oblitia looked at her, bewildered. "But? Wait, how is this a trial?"
"It is a trial of your character." Horae answered. "Oh, and to make it better, I have just decided that young Ren over here, with the brilliant mind and eyes that can see my face when it is hidden must play too. Are you ready?"
Before Oblitia could say anything, Horae disappeared.
Oblitia yelled, "But who are we supposed to fight, and how? And why Ren? We don't know anything."
Horae's voice boomed over them. "With every fight, you jump 10 seconds closer to the edge of time. 3 jumps puts you precariously close, but the fourth jump takes you right over the edge. Win, and you don't make the 10 second jump. Lose however, and only one of you lives."
This time Ren yelled, "But we know nothing!"
There was an eerie silence for a minute, and they thought the goddess was contemplating a response. There was a rush of air, and then nothing.
And then the lights went out.
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