Location: Earth, a house in the small country of Nourios
Year: 2432
A boy sat in the dark, frantically typing at his holo computer. Around him were wires dangling from the ruined roof. Some were intact, others were sparking, revealing a dingy room littered with scrunched-up papers and half-formed shadows.
A figure blurred into existence.
"Quite the room you have here."
The boy stopped, suddenly sitting up straight. "What do you want? What else do you want to take from me, Hairoi?"
The figure solidified and smiled. "I am not this Hairoi you were thinking of. And I do not want anything from you. In fact, I will ask you that very same question. What do you want?"
The boy turned around. His wary gaze suddenly turned to shock as he realised he could discern every detail of the holographic figure. Even the slight, enigmatic smile and the movement of hair could be picked out, which should have been impossible.
No such technology could create a precise image of a person. Not to his knowledge, at least.
The boy frowned. "Who...exactly are you?"
The figure tilted his head. "I am simply an envoy, here to relay The Inquisitor's words. You may call me Al."
The boy glanced back at the holo computer. "The...Inquisitor? I have heard of no such person."
Al nodded his head. "Few have. The Inquisitor has a vested interest in your success. We would like to help you."
The boy scoffed. "What I want is not obtainable unless you have influence over the greater members of the seven representative families." He stopped. "You don't look like anyone I know, so you are definitely not one of great influence. You can't get back what I lost. It's frankly impossible."
Al nodded once more. "That's true, but I can help you take over disputed territory in the middle of Europe." He paused and nodded at the computer. "Is that not what you were trying to do?"
"Europe? You mean to say the Karivine region?"
Al blinked and shook his head. "Ah, my apologies. I do mean the Karivine Region. I forgot that this was the Post Madness era."
The boy blinked. "To get Karivine, you need to get the capital. You need a lot of manpower to hold it. How is that achievable for someone like me?"
Al chuckled. "Oh, it's very achievable. I've taken the liberty of amassing an army and solidifying your position. In a few years, you can be the family head, Fenek. You will regain the Sekravos name."
Fenek closed his eyes. "How? My direct relatives were killed in an 'accident'. Mestiire is the only one with my back, and he's only a half-brother. So how are you going to justify my position?"
Al looked to the side, inspecting the sparking wires. "You will find that Mr IV-Sekravos will have suffered a terrible 'accident' of his own. Poetic justice, no?"
Fenek frowned.
Al smiled and continued. "Other people will be...preoccupied with other matters. Some will be waiting for you to take your rightful position. You can restore your parents' honour. All you have to do is grant me one small favour later."
"And that is?"
Al blinked. "A secret for now."
There was a moment of silence.
Al turned to Fenek and stared him in the eye. "I like hearing things directly from the person, so tell me. What do you want, Fenek Sekravos?"
...
Location: Elusyia
Year: SL 1794
Al flickered into view behind a person standing atop a grassy hill. Smoke slowly trailed into the sky, forming a dark and ominous cloud.
"I have convinced Fenek to take up the position of Family Head of the Sekravos family."
There was a moment of silence.
The person spoke. "This will really be the last time, wouldn't it? This is finally the end."
Al nodded, clenching his hands. "Yes, Inquisitor."
There was another moment of silence. Then, the winds shifted, wafting the smoke in their direction. Al crinkled his nose as the smell of burning flesh seared his receptors. However, the person before him remained unphased, staring at the sky.
"You know, this feels so surreal. I just wish-I...." The person trailed off. They looked to the side where the glow of fires was visible, even from many metres away. "We have a lot of work to do, right?"
Al swiped upwards, tracking across various data accumulated over hundreds and hundreds of iterations. "The timeline is approximately 15% complete."
"What about the end probability?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Alistor, please tell me."
"42%"
The Inquisitor sighed. "That's even lower than before. How demoralising. It makes sticking to the plan that much harder. Can you tell me the state of the Temporal Dissonance accumulated so far?"
Al scanned over the data once more. "By our previous data, I estimate it's 60% direct, 10% indirect and 30% Chaotic."
"That's pretty worrying. At least the direct data is much higher than all other iterations."
Al nodded. "It makes those sacrifices worthwhile."
The Inquisitor stared at the burning city. "I wonder if that's true. I know the fire will be an inevitable event, but being the cause before it all happens – it hits differently. I wish Lilac was here. Then she would understand. No, I am mistaken. She's different now, isn't she? She would probably hate me, and it's a well-deserved hate."
Al opened his mouth before snapping it shut. His programming, as advanced as it was, provided no hints on how to deal with this situation. The Inquisitor's voice pulled him out of his troubled thoughts.
"What of Chickadee? What is the probability of her being safe when that event happens?"
Al stared at the void in the data. "That depends on Lilac's action. There's a minor turning point when Cerella gets taken over by the Immati in the year 2456. Then, she will have to decide between staying or venturing outside the trash dwelling when the drone explosions occur."
"Ah, I forgot that was a possibility. So, it's likely this part of the timeline will happen?"
Al closed the data window. "Yes."
The Inquisitor nodded. "In that case, talk to her, but don't show yourself. Nudge her to get out of the dwelling when that happens."
"I shall."
The Inquisitor turned away from the hill and walked past him. Al watched as they walked away, scrambling through his programming for an appropriate comment on the Inquisitor's melancholy.
"Are...you alright?"
The Inquisitor stopped. After a long silence, they answered. "No, but the thought of not saving them hurts so much more. I will do what I must. I have to - for my final and meaningful end.
With that, The Inquisitor walked away, and Al followed like he always did since the very beginning. From a mere companion program salvaged from a destroyed universe to a sentient helper, he followed them to bring the desired end.
An end that did not involve the collision and destruction of two universes.
******
So it's a time travel story hehe. Oh, and anyone recognise a very familiar plot point? Hint, it was introduced in chapter 4.
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Indisposable Trash
Science FictionTime, though seemingly linear, is far from being so. Lilac Mellows thinks she knows all about the time she's spent alive. She knows most of it was spent as Trash Class, the lowest of the low. The only thing stopping her from falling to the depths o...
