Make a Circuit with Me

I'd long since gotten past the 'gee whiz' phase of these operations, no thanks to waivered memory manipulation or incipient temporal psychosis. This was just another residue sweep of the Dal-Tex building, third floor. Findings to be piped back to the pre-lead a week ago, that James Bond guy working the prime end.

"John Russell, insurance," he'd introduced himself. Rugged, competent, photogenic, all the right stuff for Preventions. Whereas I'm nothing to look at. My gadgets are too small and mostly internal. Time travel benefits from a cool prop, and I've nothing to offer. I don't even look like I'm in analysis.

The Jaffe angle is reliable; there's definitely some GSR hits in here. Not that it matters. Off my mainline, the assassination happened (or not) in any number of ways, so new information doesn't rate as definitive. Through uncountably infinite parallels, all that matters is your happiness. I send the particle and stabilizer wipe. Maybe Russell can pull another rabbit out of his hat. Maybe head back to last summer and save Miss Mortenson, for style points.

Midge force recalled to the fibers of my Cortex Semi polo, I cut my skim and await retrieval. It'd be more fun if I could hit some buttons, feel like I control the process, but it has all the excitement of sending a text. «done pmu» A quick bleat from my brain, then the blackness of mediated fugue. What's left of my sanity's safe from the transfer.

When I pop back on, it's not DebARC — so sterile you can smell the not-smell before you regain consciousness. I'm instead in a glass cube with off-white nothing outside and a riot in the middle.

It looks like a bunch of fen. FenCon, maybe. Someone in a Cyberman suit, very solid, a joke Dalek casing cobbled together from household commons near a row of folding chairs. Pretty much every incarnation of the Doctor, heavy repeats on the fourth and tenth -- at various levels of cosplay mastery -- all gathered around a buffet table with a cake and assorted party utensils. Several companions... the catsuited Zoe is drop-dead. It's a big event space in a convention hall, and you can wring the geek essence out of the air like garlic butter. Even if you're trapped in the space between two... whatever these things are. Vitreous energy barriers, time traveller Tupperware. Maybe I'm quarantined. It's a tough choice: nihility or society.

Skim back up, fog deployed, I scan around. Nothing helpful. It's a waiting room made out of algebra, and I suck at math. The sidekick in my head shrugs as well, dispiriting. If he can't figure it out, I'm sunk.

Observing the fans, my mezzanine livens up, characters winking in and out. The skinless T-800 could be another convention piece, but that's Malcolm McDowell in a natty Victorian suit. Idaho hippies, kids in Camp Tremont tees... I can see them, but they can't see me. As with the con-goers. The other time travellers seem to be navigating a maze and winking out when they approach me, turning a corner I can't detect.

"It's a chrononaut honeypot," I tell my other, smarter self. Speaking aloud rather than thinking it, still trying to prove something to us. I hammer the glass in front of me to draw attention. Zilch. It's so solid that it leap-frogs the material and goes metaphysical.

With one hand on the wall, I keep my eyes on the floor. Maze 101. No dice, it's a boring square for me. I shout and whistle a few times, just in case. Co-brain rigs the midges into a phased array of little tractor-pressor drones as I...

...step on her foot, nearly get blasted.

"Sorry, literally didn't see you there," I say, hands up for politeness. "Uh... is that thing set to stun, at least?"

I manage this much before my sensorium flips to bullet time. The skim's incorporating textured engrams with the minimal HUD I prefer for field work. Leading me to remember things I didn't know I remembered, having the connections drawn right before me. Trying to make sense of her. TOS Trek and Space Academy? Weird mashup, just my speed. Another point for a pet theory.

"Are you responsible for this?" she demands, indicating the 'maze' with a wave of her type-2 phaser. Light brown hair, blues eyes, 158 cm. Laura Gentry dressed as Yeoman Rand. Though she hadn't attempted the distinctive hairstyle.

I introduce myself, explaining my presence and suspicions.

"Ensign Anya Prater," she responds, lowering her phaser without holstering it. "Fully-armed!" She senses my skeevy aura, but my weaponlessness amuses her.

"A long way from Triacus," I venture with a smile, testing. She skewers this with a raised eyebrow. The better bit of my brain steps in with Treknobabble about a promising tricorder setting, which surprises her. She trades phaser for tricorder, per suggestion. I can already tell she's unaware of the Doctor Who shindig, which is now onto the singing and cake-cutting stage.

Anya's scan reveals, to my skim, a door there in the wall. I huff in disbelief, reach forward to push it open.

"Whoa, no Trekkies in here!" shouts the Sontaran dude, raising laughter. Anya, nonplussed, puts away her tricorder and accepts a plate of cake.

Oh, Providence! Zoe sees my shirt, gets it at once! A freakish resemblance to the '69 Wendy Padbury.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I announce, in the spirit of things as I gesture at Anya, "Camille Eon from the City on the Edge..."

There's a familiar 'vwoorpy,' and I'm under it. My ironic exit, sans cake.

My last thought is to hope it at least looked funny.

[943 Words]