The traveler

The hunted hunters

"And here we go! Entering dimension number 11!"
Zarchi was seemingly playing around with all the beeping and flashing controls of the ship, which meant absolutely nothing to Isaac. He was sure Zarchi understood them all though. Just two hours ago, he and Zarchi agreed they would go look for the InstaCaust at the last place he remembered: that trapdoor in the woods, about 5300 years ago. The distance (or rather, time) he travelled involuntarily was mind-boggling to him. He just hoped that after all those years the trapdoor would still be there, but he knew as well as anybody else that he should rejoice if there was anything at all that even slightly resembled the old base he entered just before he fainted.

"So what exactly does this cult do?", Isaac asked.
" 'This cult' has a name, Isaac," Zarchi replied. "They're the CaustHunters, and they pretty simply hunt for the InstaCaust, sometimes also just known as the Caust."
"And that's it?"
"It's not that simple. Why else do you think you've met them in every single time you went?"
Isaac thought for a while. "Well, I guess if it took them that long and still didn't have result..."
"What? No, no, no," Zarchi said. "They have only been formed pretty recently... but they aren't afraid of using a lot of time travel."
"What's so bad about it then?"
"I can't believe you out of all people said that, Isaac," Zarchi laughed. "Wouldn't you do practically everything to stop travelling through time?"
"I guess, but..."
Isaac stopped for a while.
"I mean, they do it voluntarily, they have control over it. I don't."
"You can tell you haven't fully grasped the concept of time travelling yet. Time travel, especially backwards, is terribly difficult and requires a myriad of energy. Not to mention a lot of time travel can become very confusing and can cause lots of paradoxes... which is why most people tend to avoid doing it too much."
"Well, what about me?" Isaac asked. "I keep on travelling through time and it doesn't seem to require any energy at all!"
Zarchi was silent for a while.
"We're almost there already," he said. "This 11th dimension is amazing for space travel, isn't it? 500 galunis in under a nanodrondoyear!"
"What is a galuni... and what is a nanodrondoyear?"
"Never mind," said Zarchi. "There's Halfer-34C, or as you might know it, Earth."
Isaac took his time to look at it. It seemed quite different now. He remembered people used to say that all you can see from space was the Great Wall of China, but now there were quite some other things you could see. The most astonishing thing was what looked like a radio tower, but around three times higher than the earth itself. Also there was a huge lump of metal hanging on to it. Maybe that was the space elevator he's heard of back at the Technical Institute. Yes, that could make sense: the metal is the counterweight. He noticed Zarchi wasn't heading for it.
"Aren't you going to land at that tower?" Isaac asked.
"No, that's just for taking off. It's much less fuel- and time-consuming if we just land here. Besides, that tower is far from where we actually need to be. Let's just hope the heat shields are still active enough."
They slowly descended into the Earth's atmosphere. It struck Isaac once more how clean the atmosphere actually was: maybe Humanity finally saw sense and stopped polluting every single square micrometer of the only planet they could live on. Or they were conquered by aliens who took over. He didn't know whether the latter would be a good or a bad thing, but he decided not to think about it. There were more important things to care about now, which was finding that cursed InstaCaust and to end this stupid, tiring time travel thing.

Not that long after they were walking on the surface. Obviously, Zarchi did his research, and Isaac was glad he did. The ancient city of Priflart is now long destroyed, but it used to stand in the current region of Polarie (meaning 'victory to the Poli', it was the spot where the second Battle of Zimx was fought), "but," Zarchi explained, "you might know it as Angelsey, Wales."
Finally. Something Isaac understood. Well, at least he knew where Wales was. He sighed with relief.
"Now it's your turn," Zarchi said. "I understand that you will not recognize this place, but I have never been here. You have though, and although it was a long time ago, there might still be some things left unchanged.
Isaac looked around. He noticed the forest was gone. Actually he noticed the trees were gone before, but this time he noticed the entire forest was gone. There wasn't even a trace of there ever being a forest there, at least not visible to the Human eye. There weren't even any tree stumps. All he could see was a plain landscape with some hills. Yet he immediately noticed something: one hill was much, much higher than the rest. It could even be a mountain. He did indeed remember a slope not far from the trapdoor, maybe it would be the same mountain. For a moment he thought that 5300 years might have been enough for orogenesis to have occurred, but then again, mountains do not get formed that quickly. Unless Felix Baumgartner decided to jump from the stratosphere again but without a parachute. Or wouldn't that technically create a valley? Well, everything is relative, Isaac thought.
"That mountain might be a good place to look for it," he said. "I remember a somewhat steep ascent in front of the trapdoor, and you need a place to put your underground facility anyway."
"Well, let's go and see," Zarchi replied.
They walked towards it, but soon discovered it was farther than it first seemed.
"Don't you have some sort of upgrades to your body so you walk faster or so?" Isaac asked.
"Yes," said Zarchi. "But we don't need them. Besides, only the Army is allowed to use them."
"It would be pretty handy. I mean, it would get us over to that mountain quicker."
"You just think everything becomes easier with more technology, don't you?" Zarchi stopped for a while. "You think we got a cure for everything, don't you? We don't. We are not so different from you people. We also still have to move to not gain weight. We also have to care about how we will feed our families. We cannot just snap our fingers and all our wishes become granted. Maybe you think differently because you're Human and you have the wildest dreams about aliens coming to bring you the most awesome technology beyond your imagination. Well guess what? I am a Dracho. I'm rational, down-to-Drach. I can separate reality from fantasy. And if you can't... well, you'd better learn it."
There was a long silence.
"Are you angry with me just because I asked if you had invented something over the course of 4000 years?" Isaac softly said. "I just wanted to know..."
"Let's move on," Zarchi said.

After about five hours, they made it to the mountain. Isaac sat down for a while.
"Pfew, I'm tired," he said. "I really need to work out more. Or I need an acceleration suit."
Zarchi looked at him angrily.
"I'm just kidding, man," Isaac said quickly after. "Dracho, I mean. Not man."
"Anyway..." Zarchi said. "You said it could be here?"
"Yes, but you probably know more about this place than I do... and the trapdoor is probably not even here anymore."
"The trapdoor isn't," Zarchi said. Isaac noticed he wasn't standing next to him anymore, but instead he was slowly walking around. "But the tunnel may be. Come look at this."
He slowly walked on next to Zarchi. He was feeling a little tired. Indeed, there was a tunnel, and although it did not look exactly the same, it did resemble the corridor he remembered from all those years ago.
"This could be it," he said. "I remember that corner: there's a security system behind it, if I remember correctly."
"A security system?" Zarchi replied in astonishment. "What kind of system?"
"I don't exactly remember, but it was something that blew me back and made me deaf for a while."
"Ah, a BSHW. Classic, and easy to avoid."
"Mind telling me what it is?" Isaac asked.
"It's pretty much a deafening wail and a stun-wave combined. There are tougher things to avoid. Let me handle this," Zarchi said, and without discussion disappeared in the tunnel.
About 15 seconds later, the BSHW went off, but luckily Isaac was far enough to avoid being deafened. It did hurt his ears though. He immediately jumped down the tunnel, but soon after realized Zarchi was alive and kicking.
"Just some earplugs and a simple piece of armor," he said. "That thing won't do anything for the next three days. Let's move on."
Isaac was supposed to feel happy, but he wasn't. His head was hurting too much for that.
"Three days..." he muttered. "Zarchi... three days."
They were both quiet for a while. The world started to spin from Isaac's perspective.
"Uh oh," they both said.
"You go on, Zarchi. It's important that you find it."
"But I can't just leave you here! Besides, I don't know my way around here. I need you. I'll wait for those six days, it's no big deal."
"I don't know my way around either, I've never made it past this point. Go, Zarchi... I... understand..."
And for the third time on that spot already, Isaac lost his consciousness, although this time it wasn't because of the stupid BSHW.