Wolf 3.0

The Exit

The Time Machine returns to its future time of origin, outside the camouflaged Moon2

The rocketing speed that I am going in the time-stream slows, and I see the enormous black spherical form of the Moon2 satellite in "Moon" camouflage mode during the approach. It recognizes my call and in an instant winks out the massive craters-and-mountains image of the camouflage , going black. Just the sunlit side is visible; the external lights are off.

Huh?

Back in wolf form, I teleport into the forest, which is deserted. In my mind I reach into the Wolf 3.0 training implant to get advanced features

I emerge from the forest and am in a dark corridor. Dim nightlights glow, but I can barely see. Inside my head. I check my internal telepathic intercom. Still nothing.

Releasing my implanted Wolf 3.0 powers , after much struggle I manage to contact Cassandra in another time-stream and set up a cross-stream transfer for her to get back.

Something's wrong at the other end, a lot of noise and violence.

She's struggling.

Joe is cutting in.

She blurts out on the telepathic line Over here we're in the Command Center. Go there. And reach out I will get through to your timestream!

I search and find a little glider shuttle with telepathic instructions. I I climb aboard the shuttle and an aural bot instructs me how to use it. It's not a hands-on interface, I have to use my thoughts in command mode and wait on the interface. I figure it out, get past the password somehow, and direct it towards the large operational bridge of Moon 2, where Cassandra is telling me the command center is.

I pass through the bridge, the immense Wolf 3.0 habitat with its artificial sky, the Wolf 3.0 support complex, including the hospital, and the innovation tech labs and cubicles, gliding slowly because it's mostly dark.

She's cutting out on the intercom inside my head.

Cassandra? Is anybody out there? Hello?

Nothing, just mental static.

I call again, Where are you Cassandra, I can't find you! Are you in another time-stream?

Then, faintly – Talleyrand?

I hear a smash and something falling.

I tell her, I am in a different time-stream. The station is empty. Something happened, I know part of it but not all. Do you know how to jump time-streams?

A blast of static and a lot of rustling and smashing comes through the link Cassandra is having trouble doing the time jump to a different scenario.

Cassandra? Are you out there?

There's a dim indication of a voice in the static. I reach out further to contact her.

It is silent—for a long time.

Then noises and shouting and movements, and then more silence.

In the past, if I concentrate I can access the latest-release Wolf 3.0 new-release brain training I received during the session after Mentor's funeral. Lucky for me the system did not notice it was a complete version install rather than an update so it didn't pick up that I was a 2.0.

I'm remembering by which I can override the out-of-consciousness default. At her end, noises and shouting and movements—and silence again, but here, it is completely silent in the expanse of the company satellite's command bridge.