1. Captain Corven looks around at all the half-blinded, blinking people. "Ah. So sorry, I felt an appropriately dramatic entrance would capture your attention." Aetna cocks her head, looking completely confused. "What the *hell* is going on, Garret? And what's with the bad fashion statement?" "Ah. Er, miss, I think you may be laboring under a misconception. You see, I don't know you. Never seen you before in my life. I don't think I am *from* this universe, in fact." Astarial approaches and bows formally. "Greetings, Captain. I am named Astarial Cyprium-ac-Claves, once captain of the _Stardancer_, also delighted to meet you." Without batting an eyelash at Astarial's strange demeanor, Garrets responds, "The pleasure is mine, I assure you. You were a captain as well?" "I don't doubt that this will seem rather an odd question, but have we perhaps met somewhere before? You seem rather familiar." The Captain frowns. "That I do not doubt. We have...a small problem." A nearby scientist nods. "Ah. By 'small' I take it you mean absolutely embarrassingly huge? Past-Time travel?" "Heavens forbid! No, not quite *that* serious, but bad nonetheless. We seem to be a nexus of an anomaly that weakens the barriers between our alternate timelines." Garret nods. "We knew the other half was around here somewhere." "I may be able to help, the scientist says. My name is Martin Edison. Recently I've been watching for and investigating temporal phenomena. That was what brought me to this pub, in fact. And I believe Frederic is a Master of Time." "Indeed? Excellent. I knew my hunch to trace the crystal lattice that this universe's Garret was holding was a good one." He shakes his head. "I have little time to explain, perhaps a demonstration would speed things up." He lifts his wrist, squeezes his watch, and speaks into it. "Ensign, beam down the other Garrets, please." There is a crackle from the device. "Sir, this is Mister Hale. Running Bear refuses to use the transport device. He says his guardian spirit has forbidden him from using weaver-things." Captain Garret sighs. "Then beam down the others. Running Bear can stay shipboard and cool his heels a bit. and Mister Hale?" "Yessir?" "Take the ship back into etherspace. I'll radio for pickup." "Yessir." Two more multicolor shimmers flare into being, resolving into...you guessed it. One is wearing a silver colored jumpsuit and heavy, black steel-toe boots. The right half of him matches the Garret you know, but his left side is made of some metallic substance. A dim red spark burns in his steel-eye socket, and projecting from his left sleeve is a clawed metallic hand. You can tell from looking at him that he's asymmetrical; his left side is larger and more heavily-built than his organic right. He stands rigid, as if at attention. He shifts his head with an audible mechanical *whirrr*. A composite computerized/human voice emerges from his mouth. "TrAnSpOrT CoMpLeTe. ShIvA UnIt 101011 InTaCt. AlL SyStEmS OpErAtIoNaL." The other is also like the Garret you know, but instead of standing straight and tall like the carret you know, this one seems to unconsciously crouch, as if trying to avoid notice. A pair of thick black glasses rest on his nose, and he clutches a battered laptop to his chest. Far from moving gracefully, this one seems to cringe and scuttle. He refuses to make eye contact with anyone. He's wearing grubby jeans, a t-shirt, and a battered leather jacket with oilstains on it. He says nothing, but looks around the room with darting glances. "As you can see," says Captain Garret smoothly, "We have something of a problem..." Kao-liang says a quiet, "Pardon me," to anyone crowded in front of the door, shifts his burden mostly to one arm, and opens the door to the pub, revealing a scene showing a very large medieval cathedral across the square, a slight light suggesting that sunset was quite recently in the past. A murmured, "Whaddya know, it worked," then Kao-liang shifts Rhi so he's carrying her in both hands again, and vanishes along with who he's carrying as he leaves, the door shutting behind him. Captain Corven doesn't appear to notice his departure, being focused on Martin and Frederick. "Now, what can you tell us about..." Martin gestures vaguely to the other Garrets, "This?" "Not as much as we would like. The recent time-stream is horribly mangled, and we are still not exactly sure what caused this. We need to correct it quickly; our co-existence is very, very dangerous." "So, did you come along to 'collect' your incarnation here?" asks the albino mage. The captain exchanges a look with the Garret clutching the laptop. "We...already have. In a manner of speaking. I am not quite sure what your relationship with him was, but..." The Mechanical Garret cuts him off with a *whirr*. "SuBjEcT CoRvEn, GaRrEtT ExPiReD MaY 30th, 1997, At PrEcIsElY 14:00 HoUrS, 20 MiNuTeS, AnD ThIrTy SeCoNdS oF CoMpLiCaTiOnS ReSuLtInG FrOm MuLtIpLe GuNsHoT WoUnDs To ThE HeAd, NeCk, AnD AbDoMeN." Captain Corven gives the cyborg a glacial look. "Sir, your tact is atrocious. Have you no feelings?" "I Am InCaPaBlE oF EmOtIoN." "*That's* totally evident." He turns back to Shane. "I'm very sorry..." This time, the Garret with the Glasses cuts him off. "Actually...ur...that's...um...not entirely true. He is...clinically dead...that is to say, no heat...um, no breathing, that sort of thing. Yet his, er, higher brain functions continue. Very...strange." He offers Shane a weak, tentative smile. 2. The other is also like the Garret you know, but instead of standing straight and tall like the carret you know, this one seems to unconsciously crouch, as if trying to avoid notice. A pair of thick black glasses rest on his nose, and he clutches a battered laptop to his chest. Far from moving gracefully, this one seems to cringe and scuttle. He refuses to make eye contact with anyone. He's wearing grubby jeans, a t-shirt, and a battered leather jacket with oilstains on it. He says nothing, but looks around the room with darting glances. A look of immeasurable hurt moves over Rowans face upon seeing the third 'copy'. "As you can see," says Captain Garret smoothly, "We have something of a problem..." Rowan looks to the captain. Anguish easy to read in her voice, she says, "Heart-brother, wha' 'n Gaia's name ha' ye gotten yerself inta this time?" Captain Corven blinks in surprise and starts forward reflexively to offer comfort. "Miss, please, don't upset yourself! I'm aware this must be something of a shock for you, but I cannot discuss the situation without the others." Looking at him, frustration and pain easy to read on her face, she retorts, "So when di' th' others get here?" "Well...I think I'm *one* of the *others*, you see. I'm not native to this timeline, miss. You still haven't told me your name," he says, as he tries to guide her to a chair. "Name... oh, Rowan Silverhair, Sings-Like-A-Harp, Heart-Sister ta Garret Corven. Tell tha' ta yer Garret who will no' come down here. No' native ta this timeline?! Wha' 'n Gaia's name 're ye talkin' 'bout? I dinna ken, tha's fer damn sure." She stands still, looking at him rather bemusedly. "Heart-Sister? You're a relation of his?" He gives up trying to gently guide her to a chair, looking a bit bemused himself. "Miss Silverhair...I'm not quite sure how to explain this to you." He hesitates, then says. "I am Garret Corven. But I am not the one you know. Since every point in time has an alternate, any one person has an infinite number of other selves who could *possibly* have been him, but weren't, for whatever reason." He points at the skittish Garret. "That is Garret Corven, Professor of Mathematics. His specialty is Chaos Theory. He went to Harvard. I, on the other hand, am also Garret Corven, but while I like sums, I tend more toward the practical applications of science. I have a degree in temporal engineering, but it's not really a very advanced one. I am better at managing people and recources. That is why I was selected to Captain the _Starjammer_." He looks at her intently, searching for understanding. "I'm not doing a very good job of this, am I?" The mechanical Garret walks over. His gait is not quick, and is rather swaybacked because of the difference in size between left and right. Every step of his left foot is punctuated with a metallic *chunk*. "SugGeSsTiOn: A SiMpLe DiStReSs CaLl To UnIoN AuThoRiTiEs In ThIs TiMeLiNe. AdDiTiOnAl AiD NeCcEsSaRy." Captain Corven sighs. "Over my dead body. I will not have experimental etherite technology falling into their hands." The other Garret squeaks upon hearing the term "Union". "Nonononono! We can...that is...we are perfectly...um...capaple of..." With a *whirr* the cyborg turns and regards him impassively. Professor Garret seems to visibly shrink. He backs away slowly, stammering. "I...er...uh..." "YoUr ArGuMeNt Is SpUrIoUs. ThE InTeGrItY Of TiMe Is Of PrImArY ImPoRtAnCe. AlL OtHeR CoNsIdErAtIoNs ArE SeCoNdArY." Rowan spins on one heel. Pointing her finger at the Mech-Garret, she admonishes, "Cut tha' out. Stop bein' so rude.Ye're no' th' one makin' decisions alone here, so ye ha' ta listen ta e'eryone else." Turning to the Professor Garret, "Slow down, we'll no' let ye be hurt whilst ye're here, ye ken?" "IlLoGiCaL. RuDeNeSs Is IrReLlEvAnT." the cyborg regards her coldly with his glowing red eye. "I've ne'er been accused o' bein' logical. An' relevant 'r no', 'twill serve ye no good here, so ye might as well be polite, ye ken?" She smiles calmly, eyes glowing green, in answer to his glowing red eye. The cyborg remains coldly silent for a moment. "MaNnErS ArE a SoCiAl CoNsTrUcT FoR PrImItIvE, EmOtIvE BeInGs. I Am An AdVaNcEd LiFe-FoRm. I HaVe No NeEd FoR FeElInGs, ThErEfOrE, I HaVe No NeEd Of MaNnErS." The skittish Garret gives her a weak smile. She returns it with a warmer one, trying not to frighten or embarass him. "When di'ye find out tha' ye were a part o' this, Garret? I'm Rowan, by th' by." "Well, I, er, oh, pleased to meet you, I'm sure...um, I was the second to...arrive, as it were. I'm...quite, um, fascinated by the...entire situation." He hurredly adjusts his glasses. 3. Where did you get the other half? Frederic asks. "From the Garret Corven native to this timestream. It's aboard my ship right now, we used it to find our way here." Is Garrett's body there as well? I surmise your appearence is caused by his death? "That is entirely possible, but we have no hard data to prove such. and yes, his...remains...are aboard my ship. His end appears to have been...violent." "AnGlEs Of EnTrY InDiCaTe PrOjEcTiLeS WeRe FiReD PoInT-BlAnK. SuBjEcT EvIdEnCeD MaJoR InTeRnAl HeMmOrAgHiNg, 70% Of LoWeR InTeStInE DeStRoYeD. SeVeRe DaMaGe To ThRoAt AnD CeRvIcAl VeRtEbRaE, SpInAl CoRd CoMpLeTeLy SeVeReD. SkUlL FrAcTuReD, BuT NoT BrEaChEd, BuLlEtT DeFlEcTeD, RuPtUrInG IrIs AnD DeFaCiNg SuBjEcT's NoSe-" "Will you shut up!" explodes Captain Corven, looking horrified. The metallic cat turns its head towards SU-2B and broadcasts the "acknowledge and report" code on the Union's hailing frequencies. There is a *whirr* as the cyborg turns to face the remote. "AcKnOwLeDgEd. ThIs UnIt OpErAtInG At 80% EfFIcCiEnCy. InTeRrUpPtEd ReFiT, Re: VoIcE MoDuLaTiOn SyStEm, EnDoSkElEtAl ReInFoRcEmEnT, WeaPoNs UpGrAdE. StAnDiNg By FoR FuRtHeR InStRuCtIoNs." The cat sits by, then. Could you report on the circumstances of the present timeline mess? This remote may be used as an holographic projector if needed, use standard protocol. "PrOcCeSsInG ReQuEsT... StAnDbY FoR MeMoRy-ExTrAcTiOn HoLoTrAnSmIsSiOn..." If you want software to make your voice nic... uh, more appropriate to interact with the Masses, I have some, chimes the cat. "StAnDiNg By To ReCeIvE." This is what I have Good enough, but don't try to fake accents with it. I don't have attitude subroutines for your type of frame, sorry. "PrOcCeSsInG..." Its voice alters from a patchy hybrid into a booming, mechanical whole. "SoFTWARE INSTALLED AND ONLINE. IS THIS MORE ACCEPTIBLE?" "As you can see," says Captain Garret smoothly, "We have something of a problem..." Frederic looks at him. That's the understatement of the week, Capitain. How do you find yourself in this sore mess? I read here that you screwed up your timeline, something big. With your leave, I'd like to get more accurate readings on the situation. And maybe a little tale of your mishaps is in order? He takes a deep breath: "These are the few facts we have. We know that we are here because of an anomaly, a rip in time, if you will, that is causing different timelines to run into one another. The source of the anomaly seems to be the...er...remains...of the Garret Corven from this timeline. We are not sure how or why this happened. My chief scientist is trying to reconstruct past events in this timeline at the time of his death, but the time-stream is so messy that we are having severe problems." As I already say, time is my department. Do you have readings I could use? Gravitational state vectors? Space-time curvature measurements? "Very few, the local timestream is like muddy water to the sensors." He shows Frederick his watch-like device. "All the data we have is stored verbally on my personal communicator. If you you don't have an access device, I think I can jury-rig something." Frederic pulls his palmtop and starts looking into things, the palmtop shooting laser beams at seemingly random angles "The...um...anomaly is growing, um, larger at an...uh..geometric rate. It's um, quite a fascinating mathematical contruct..." Adds the skittish Garret helpfully. I take it it's located around you lot? "Yes...and no. We seem to...deliniate its boundaries." he becomes more confident as he speaks. "Here, let me show you a schematic." With that, he opens his laptop and pulls up a representation of the figure, along with a string of complex formulae. Martin steps closer to the others, revealing a similar pattern on the oscilloscope-style display of his scanning device. "You see that point in the centre? I suspect that's an important part of this puzzle." He turns to Frederic. "As far as I can tell, this shape exists in time much as we exist in space. If we combined knowledge of the two, couldn't we move someone into existing in the same dimension as the anomaly? He could interact with the shape directly, and take a look at whatever's in the centre." "That's..an interesting idea. Um, but I'd rather, er, reconstruct what happened to, um, cause this. Before we try to prod the lattice." says Professor Corven. "Good idea, Professor. I'll go and fetch the Timescanner." He replies, and heads off to the Eidolon, returning a couple of minutes later with a device consisting of a ring of coils, angled up slightly so that they all face a point a few feet in the air above the ring, and a control panel. He starts to set it up. "I'll need the help of someone skilled in DimSci if these events took place in the Umbra, and either exact coordinates or and object to get a magnetic resonance reading from..." "I have reasonable expertice in that area, Mr. Edison." offers Captain Corven. Are you skilled at chronological past-retreival?" "Postcognitive scanning? Yes, I can do that. What were you thinking of, looking back to the moment of our Garret's 'death'?" "We must," says the captain. "We need to know what happened to cause this, so that we can begin to come up with safe ways to contain it. If you have the neccessary equipment, I'm fully qualified to help you begin the retrieval by co-ordinating with my chief scientist." "Very well, how shall we find the location? Once that's done, we can simply rewind time to the start of the anomaly. I can't guarantee that we won't run into interference, though." "There was a crystal object we found on your Mister Corven shortly after we picked him up." "RETREIVING. STANDBY." booms the cyborg, holding out its metal claw. There's a faint shimmer, and the other half of Frederics crystal appears. 4. Faintly, across the pub, someone is talking on the phone. "Some distressin' news? Lass or boyo, Garret's right here. He looks a wee bit different, but he's here. 'Course he doesn't 'member many o' us, but that's not the first case o' amnesia in the pub.... What's the news?" The door to the pub is pulled open, showing a crowded city street at night, brightly lit with neon, with odd looking cars parked at the curb, behind him. A man a hand over 6 ft tall takes one step in, then hesitates, his eyes invisible behind the pair of dark sunglasses he's wearing, but his whole posture expressing surprise as his head turns, taking in the various unusual patrons of the pub, pausing for a long minute at the sight of the three Garrets. He shrugs, makes up his mind and lets the door close behind him, then saunters over to the bar. As he walks through the various pools of light in the pub, his appearance can be seen more clearly. He is slightly more attractive than average, with a graceful figure and regular, if only mildly good-looking, features, apparently in his early twenties. His hair is silky and hangs loosely to midback, an inky black cloud with metallic gold flecks scattered through the darkness of it, except for a wide strip over his left ear dyed sky blue in contrast. The colors show up again on his face, which have asymmetrical, abstract swirls in blue highlighted with gold over his cheeks and reaching under the glasses. His clothes are a loose tunic in blue with full-length sleeves, fastened at the waist with a narrow russet leather belt, and embroidered in gold on the tight-fitting cuffs, over a pair of sleek medium blue pants. He's sockless, and wearing moccasins in brown leather, with porcupine quill embroidery, the design definitely in the style of the Northern Amerind Plains Indians, if anyone happens to have that lore. A sleeveless vest over his tunic, also a rich russet, and decorated with an angled row of leather fringes in front, has a pocket holding something the size of a small notebook, with a thin, almost invisible golden wire connecting whatever's in the pocket to the left temple of the sunglasses he's wearing. On the back of the vest is a highly abstracted desert scene, picked out in light brown, yellow and gold. The very perceptive might note that the desert scene includes a camouflagued brown desert snake, coiled and ready to strike, although it's very well hidden in the design. He makes it to the bar and sits casually on a vacant stool, one leg crossed over the other. He turns to regard the pub's patrons, slipping his glasses off his face, folding and inserting them into his vest pocket. The eyes thus revealed are thickly lashed, with the left iris a deep sapphire blue, and the right iris a metallic gold. Another scan of the place without his sunglasses on, and he shakes his head. In a drawling, and rather familiar to most, tenor, he addresses the pub. "Well, either this place is full of 2-digit ms-coding primits, or else a Heisenberging lot less time has passed in here for allya since I left than has passed for me," he finishes, his facial features shifting to leaner and more elegantly sculptured, and his figure growing both more slender and taller as it stabilizes and reveals the rather familiar form of Kao-liang, even if the hair and the clothes are the only things remaining from the stranger who just walked in the pub, as he favors the clientele with a wicked smile of greeting. A casual look over his shoulder at the three Garrets, "Get cloned?" he asks them, before turning to the bartender. Captain Garret looks at him enviously (more specifically, looks at his *clothing* enviously), and replies, "If it were that simple, we'd have this mess cleared up already." The cyborg just stares, clearly not getting the joke. The skittish-looking Garret starts to squeak out a reply, looks at the cyborg, and thinks better of it. 5. "Will you shut up!" explodes Captain Corven, looking horrified. "Wait," Says Martin, "This is distasteful, but important. Shiva Unit, you say that the skull is intact? So there is no brain damage?" "SKULL IS FRACTURED, BUT DAMAGE TO BRAIN TISSUE APPEARS NEGLIGIBLE. INVESTIGATIONS HAMPERED BY TIME-ANOMALY." Captain Corven looks at Martin curiously. "What are you planning, sir?" "Nothing, I just wanted to rule out brain damage as a partial cause of this effect, and confirm that his higher functions are still centred in his brain." "CONFIRMED." "I think it might be a good idea to repair his body. If we collapse the anomaly while he's in this state, it could well end and kill him." "I have the ship's doctor working on it, but he's not hopeful. Cloning the replacement organs will take time, and then he has to try to actually get through the surgery without another time-disturbance." "He has half an hour until the next shift, and an unknown amount of time after that. We should either be contemplating the use of non-technological magick, which might not carry the same risks of interruption, or alternatively a rush job to get his vital functions stabilised while leaving out things like the repairs to his face, eye and digestive tract until we can ensure an extended period for surgery. Of course, he'd still require life support, but Dr Rosen here has a quite adequate medical facility on the premises." "You have another qualified medical doctor on the premises? Very well, I'll have my second in command bring him down in a shuttlecraft. We don't know what the personal transporters might do to him, so I'm not taking any chances." He lifts his watchlike device and speaks into it. "Mr. Hale, this is the Captain. Get our guest ready for shuttle transport down here, and bring Dr. Paine with you." "Yessir. I'm on my way." Captain corven looks up at Martin. "I'd by lying to you if I thought this is actually going to do any good. You haven't seen the man. If he's not actually dead, he may wish he were." Frederic speaks. To alleviate the strain on time, and facilitate our task, I suggest you bring the other Garrets here, including the body. Just somebody make sure to distract Rhiannon when she returns, and explain to her before she sees, well, them. Captain Corven replies,"I've just radioed for the body to be brought in by shuttle. The other Garret will come along." Martin nods. "Good thinking, Frederic. But surely having all the Garrets in one place would increase the stress on time? Given that they aren't even supposed to be in the same universe, let alone in the same room. Still, you're the expert..." Pub-time is extremely lenient with such events. You must not be overly weary of that. The easiest way would be for each of the conscious Garretts to ignore each other if some ill effects happen. "I shall keep that in mind, sir." says Captain Garret absently. The front door swings open, and a man in clothing similar to Captain Garret's, with an identical blaster on his belt and insignia pinned to his shirt, enters. his hair is short and blonde, and his eyes are cutting grey. "Ah, Mr. Hale," says Captain Garret. He throws a perfect salute, which Mr Hale returns. He strides across the room. "Transport completed, sir. Dr. Paine is on her way with the Mr. Corvens in tow." He's no sooner finished saying this than a futuristic stretcher is pushed through the door. lying on it is Garret...your Garret. His left eye is, of course, gone. The right side of his head, eye, and most of his nose and neck are covered with some sort of form-fitting dull grey metal. He's obviously not breathing, although one of the instruments underneath the stretcher emits a steady "blip" noise. A sheet covers his body from the neck down, along with black straps to keep the body from moving around. Pushing the stretcher is a woman with a no-nonsense bearing, rather plain, with shoulder-length brown hair tied back in a tight ponytail. She wears a blue jumpsuit and a white lab coat over that, with the insignia of the Sons and the Caudecus combined. Her face is sharp and her nose is prominent. Beside her is yet another Garret. This one is dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, with hair down to his back and done up with strips of rawhide and beadwork, along with some crow feathers. He, too has both eyes, and walks with quiet, graceful dignity. Hanging from his belt is a leather puch which rattles when he walks, and dangling from the other hip are a set or brightly-colored rattles made of tortoiseshell. "We are here," he announces in a low, sombre voice. "Captain," begins the woman briskly, "I hope you understand how objectionable it is to mave a patient in this condition. I hope there's a *very* good reason for risking this man's life." Captain Corven nods. "There is. I'm told there are medical professionals here you can co-ordinate with. Mister Hale, take the shuttle back up to the Spelljammer. The doctor and Mr Corvens will be staying." "Yessir. Sir, power levels are at 70%. We are not in danger yet, but we should think about where in this universe we can refuel." "Good point, Mister Hale. Start trying to contact known Etherite bases, at least some of them must exist in this timeline." "Yessir." With that, he marches out. Martin glances around the pub, looking for the aforementioned medical professionals. "Joe, Astarial, Paul, Rowan! Talk to Dr. Paine. See what you can do for his physical form. Shane, can you find out what's going on in his mind?" Dr Paine bustles about, setting up equipment. "It's bizarre, he's physically dead of the injuries, but I'm showing some sort of mental activity and higher brain function. He's thinking. About what, I can't tell you." Martin turns to the newest alternate, nods a greeting. "Do you know anything about the condition of his spirit?" The Garret hooks his thumbs together and spreads his fingers out like the wings of a bird. Opening and closing his hands, he makes the sign of a bird flying away. "His spirit has passed the Well of Souls. His inner self is gone." Aetna shifts uneasily in the background, watching all the technomages with wary alertness... The Garret with the native look regards her intently. Without saying anything to the others, he approaches her, stopping several feet away and looking at her out of his smouldering green eyes. This one is even more intense than the Garret you know. "I am Running Bear, of Those-Who-Speak-With-Dreams." 6. "His body is quite dead, that I can assure you," pipes up the woman in the lab coat with the caudecus insignia, as she bustles around the prone Garret, setting up equipment. "How in the name of Einstein he's maintaining his higher brain functions is beyond me." Kao-liang, who's been keeping an eye on what's going on, raises an eyebrow slowly at this information, then gives a speculative look at the rather unhealthy looking Garret on the stretcher. He takes a slow sip of blood, then gives a "what the hell" shrug. Apparently from a point half a foot away from Garret's head, a soft female voice with a strong northern Welsh accent says anxiously, "Garret? Dost still choose to be here?" Dr Paine whirls around. "Who said that?" The beeping noise from underneath the stretcher speeds up. She hurriedly stoops to check it. "We've got a burst of synaptic activity...cognition people, we've got cognition! He can hear us, wherever he is!" She looks around. "Who the hell said that?! That the first stimulus he's responded to since we found him!" Frederic makes a noise to attract the doctor's attention. She looks up from her equipment. "Yes?" Um, excuse me, doctor Paine, but are his eyes functional? Or his ears. Or is the brain locked out of all external stimuli? "A few minutes ago, I would have told you it was unlikely, but we've got response. He can hear us." Oh, good. So it'll only take minimal translation from the pattern to a series of sounds. Here, please place these headphones over his ears. Frederic extracts a pair of headphones from his pocket and hands them to the doctor. She looks at them dubiously, but puts them on Garret. "May I ask what these are supposed to do?" You see, I have some sort of a key to his mind, that I use to repair a curse he is under, and it possibly works in his state. She looks at the Captain, who frowns. "This man gave you a key to his mind?" In an abriged version, the parts of him that are able to interact allow themselves to be recorded and matched so I can filter out the perturbations in his meta-order patterns due to a curse of nephandic origin. The longer version takes a tad more words, so I dispend with it. "I see. He must trust you a great deal." "His spirit has passed the Well of Souls," cuts in the Garret with the native look. "His inner self is gone." Frederic turns sharply to the shaman You mean the Phoenix is not here anymore? Are you linked with it? "No. The phoenix has flown. To where, I know not. I saw it." "But if he's still thinking then he's not dead, says Shane. "That's what I said, but Running Bear seems to think otherwise, says Martin. Bear, how can he be thinking without his spirit? Or _a_ spirit, at least?" Running Bear looks a bit annoyed at the abridgement of his name. He replies in sonorous tones, "All men are many things. Many forces, many movements inside them. It is not natural for a man to live without a soul, but it has happened, as it is possible for a hut to stand without walls." Martin nods, respectfully. "Recommendations?" "This man is doomed to a half-life. We must release him." 7. Astarial is busily setting up SQUIDs. "Unfortunately, I only have one spare neural interface. Unless you could replicate more, but I doubt we have time for that." Captain Garret looks at the device curiously. "I've never seen anything like that. Psychotronic technology really isn't my forte. This will allow you to contact your Garret's mind?" "Yes. You'll be able to see what I see, hear what I hear, with this, and I'll be able to hear anything you say. If you see anything too untoward happening, disconnect the link ::points at a fibre leading to an as-yet unworn hairnet-device:: before the interpreter; that's probably the safest way, though it might take me a few minutes to come out of it. Latency, you know." Garrets form reacts to the mimicry of Rhiannons voice. Astarial looks pleased. "Ah! We must still have a primary, then, or something performing its function! Slight revision - if I can establish some contact with it, then it might be possible to project it and enable us to interact with it more simply... I'll try that, if everything goes well." He hands Dr. Paine the remaining 'hairnet'-device. She straightens up and takes it, turning it over in her hands. "I don't want to be interfering with your equipment too much - could you set this up for me? It should be straightforward enough." "Yes, I think I can see how it works." He sits down, clips a small device on the end of one fibre behind his ear, and punches a couple of buttons on his setup. In the background, the phone is passed to Rowan. 8. Something bends, the walls between worlds rather than the walls within, there is no warning, as if the disturbance has been standing on the other side for so long it has been taken as natural until it finally chose to step through. The air folds itself in pretty shapes barely seen, solidifying as two figures, 6'4" and grey, muscular and absent of expression, skin as grey as clothing, as grey as the wings folded against their back. Profesor Corven looks at them in awe. Captain Corven groans and sinks down into a chair. "Whu-what is it?" asks Professor Corven. "Timecops." mutters Captain Corven, looking bleak. They almost seem to glow, they almost seem glorious, aweful, but it is curiously muted, as if they have had their glory severed to permit performance of their function. One of them is blind and wears a collar. The sighted one speaks in curiously muted tone, addressing Padraic Burrough, "You are the co-owner of this establishment." It hands him a sheet of grey parchment, "You are charged with running a cross-dimensional facility without applying for a license or providing appropriate safeguards. You are charged with violating numerous temporal and spatial safety codes. You are charged with harbouring the reality deviant Bradley Johnson and failing to alert the proper authorities as to his presence. You are charged with failing to prevent damage to reality by those within your premise and are liable for repair costs. You are hereby summonsed to appear before court." Captin Corven's look of alarm jacks up several notches. Both regard the growing collection of temporal travellers and Garri. The sightless one's gaze is a little disturbing as you get the impression that he sees nothing at all and yet is looking anyway. "Warrants have yet to be levied against you. The paperwork has been filed on the charges of basic structural damage to the multiverse. You shall be served when authority is confirmed." "Shit." curses Captain Corven. 101011 buzzes. "REQUEST FORMAL DOCUMENTATION OF CHARGES, AS WELL AS PROOF OF AUTHORITY. REQUEST LEGAL INFORMATION ON DEFENDING ONESELF FROM TEMPORAL VANDALISM PROCEEDINGS." Professor Corven turns to his laptop and starts tapping keys furiously. "Uh...Captain...these, um, creatures are not showing up in any meaningful spatial or temporal sense." "I know, dammit." he replies quietly, "They're Timecops." 9. Meanwhile, on the deck of the Eidolon, the Timescanner hums into life. The green glow above it coalesces into monochrome, moving image. A view of a room, small, with a rug and several pictures on a single shelf, the walls and floor made of masonry. As the image zooms in, the pictures can be seen to be of Garret and Rhiannon, and Garret and other people, and just some other people that were presumably important to him. The door opens and Garret walks in, hale and hearty and dressed for a fight, armed to the teeth. He scoops up the crystal and dumps it in his pocket, making the scene go blank. Martin fiddles with the controls. Zooming out, Garret is revealed to be leaving what looks like a cross between a cathedral and an escher painting, people are walking on the walls, doors are on the ceiling, etcetera. once he leaves, you get a lovely view of Jackson Square in the french quarter. Garret crosses the grassy park right in front of the statue of Andrew Jackson; no-one seems to notice that he's carrying knives, swords, and guns that would probably get him arrested, even in new orleans. He leaves the park, walking down a rather narrow alley next to it, coming out in front of a street full of small shops and resturants. It's evening, and Garret slips into one of the shadows and waits. No one seems to be able to see him. A blonde woman emerges from the storefront, and Garret moves after, tailing her. His usual rather kind, friendly manner is gone, and the watchers may be chilled by the look of ruthless determination on his face. They move arond the quarter for a while, the woman seems to be wasting time, waiting for something, she keeps looking at her watch. Garret tails her expertly and patiently. Finally, she walks towards a small park located on the riverfront, full of paths and trees and benches. Garret follows. As soon as he crosses the threshold of the park, a trolleycar rolls up to the nearby station. The noise covers an ambush. Three men in dark clothing appear seemingly out of nowhere. One fires a gun at Garret, who throws himself to the right and repays him with a knife in the shoulder. Garret's good, but not good enough to fight off three skilled attackers. The battle is short and vicious, and very little visible magick is used, although some lucky moves hint at the use of probability manipulation, backed up by the appearence of the magickal symbol for Entropy, glowing green to the left of the image. Garret wins, but at the cost of a point-blank shot to the abdomen, which he doesn't seem to be able to heal. He stumbles farther into the park, obviously in pain. The blonde woman appears behind him, holding a gun, and Garret turns, seeming warned by some instinct, but his injury is slowing him down, and her shot takes him on the side of the head, throwing him to the ground. He rolls over, revealing the damage to his nose and the right side of his face. He grimaces, points at the woman, and she falls to the ground, screaming, her bones twisting and splintering. Again, a magickal symbol flickers by the image. Garret lies there, panting and cursing. He then stills. On the left, the symbol of the Time sphere materialises. "There! I was right, he does have some kind of ability with Time..." What's left of his face registers surprise. Another figure enters the park. She's familiar, dark hair, graceful moves, (Kim Vachon). She kneels next to Garret. Words are exchanged. Garret laughs at her, and she pulls a gun out of her coat and places it against his neck. Garret closes his maimed eye and waits. The body jumps and twitches, the head lolls at an unnatural angle as the gun goes off. The woman stands, then looks surprised as the local time stream tears apart. Waves of paradox radiate out, manifesting as multiple Wrinkle spirits, one of which takes each of her hands. She screams, and vanishes. Around here, the time-stream gets really messy and nothing more can be seen. Martin jumps and scrambles to shut off the scanner, terrified. The image dissolves, and the hum cuts off. "Wrinkles." He explains, "You never scan an area of Time inhabited by Wrinkles. It's the magickal equivalent of throwing a brick through the window of the local constabulary." "Still, we need to know exactly what he was trying to do with that Time effect. He was clearly lucid, so it must have had some purpose. Other than luring Ms Vachon into that paradox trap, since he seemed genuinely surprised to see her." A sigh. "Let's see what we can get from the mindscape."