You can’t save everyone. Hypothetically, I could pass Cassie’s dad an implant, and maybe it could save his brain, but Spark had said that anyone passing through the fight with the Abominators while owning or using an implant could cause major deviations.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
Hypothetically, I could send Jaclyn back to grab Paladin, have him heal Giles from whatever damage the process of empowering him caused, but Vaughn might not even be born then. Continue reading Engine: Part 6
“I have the ability,” she said, “but I’ll need ideas from you for how to do it. I’m not allowed to change the past on my own without the command of a living being.”
“Okay,” I said, and realizing that this might take long enough that people would notice, I asked, “How hard is it to stop time?”
The instant I thought it, I knew. Using the device, it wasn’t hard at all. Everything froze around me, and I told Spark, “Tell me if I’ve got this right. Because Lee left this place hidden and abandoned, all times from the moment that he left until now are accessible if someone opened a portal here and stayed?”
She nodded. Continue reading Engine: Part 4
“Good,” Grandpa said. “I’m sure I must have told you how I met him. He’d been summoned by a Nazi sorcerer and trapped. We later came to suspect he’d allowed himself to be trapped, simply so that he could meet me. He never fully explained why.”
I nodded, “I don’t know either, but I think I’ve got enough of a picture of his long term goals that I can guess.”
Grandpa laughed. “I’m in the same position. Too bad comparing notes might have disastrous consequences for both of us.” Continue reading Engine: Part 3
Hoping that if Ray realized he’d been manipulated by telepaths, he wouldn’t decide to come back and kill me, I connected with the device and instantly understood how to send him back to his own time.
It was actually simple. Ejecting him to anywhere else would be hard and not just hard. It would also have consequences, changing the past in ways I couldn’t predict.
I hadn’t been wrong about my earlier guess about obvious subsystems to include. The GCD did include subsystems for predicting what would happen based on what someone had experienced in here and being sent back to their own time.
Using them, however, was another thing. Continue reading Engine: Part 2
As the stone touched my gauntlet, I connected with it and through it the Galaxy Core Device (GCD) itself. How did it feel to use a device that could destroy galaxies and create new ones?
You’d think it would be a moment of enlightenment or maybe ascension, since you assumed powers that you’d normally think were reserved for gods.
What surprised me is how normal it felt. I’d been absorbing knowledge from my implant on demand for years now. I’d been training with Kee to understand what Artificers could do for years and while I’d only been interfacing with Abominator and Artificer technology with those skills for a few days, it felt natural. Continue reading Engine: Part 1
It would be tempting to imagine that I was pushing a lever, but this wasn’t mechanical. As I touched it, I knew what I was really doing. I was providing power to open a portal, while simultaneously drawing power to replenish my strength from the life support systems, and equalizing pressure, momentum, temperature, and other factors through subsystems in the device.
Why? Because a pressure difference could shoot you through a portal (or backwards from it). Similarly, if the different sides of the portal were traveling at different speeds or directions, it would be like jumping on or off a moving car.
The crazy thing was that I could handle all of it at once. Kee had taught me how, something that I knew was no coincidence. Continue reading Singularity: Part 2
“Great,” I said. “How? Do you have a password or cheat code or something?”
Lee laughed. “Cheat code? Are you thinking the test Kee set up works like a video game? There are parts that might, I suppose, but no. This is real. I can tell you which parts of the control system you need to manipulate to get through the test.”
“That is kind of a like a video game,” I said. “You go to Reddit and there’s always someone who got stuck at the same point and a bunch of answers on how to get past it. Some of them even work.” Continue reading Singularity: Part 1
“You know what I showed you? If you can keep on doing it, from what they said, you can wipe yourself clean of a dominator’s commands. Also, I’ve got a device that can block Dominators’ commands—up to a point. If you’re facing more than ten or maybe five, I’d run away and throw rocks at them from a distance.”
He began to laugh. “Rocks? I think I expected something more complicated from an inventor.”
I shrugged, “If it works, it works.”
Then I reached out with what might be best imagined as a phantom limb and opened a portal to bring him to me. Continue reading The Core: Part 12
The scene froze, leaving Prentkos, Colette, and Magnus standing within the circle, caught in a moment where none of them were looking each other in the eye, a picture without much visual appeal.
Spark asked, “Do you want to see more? There’s no more conversation except for Colette giving the command. Instead, they disappear, and I’m not allowed to show you where they reappear.”
“I guess not then,” I said, “unless you’ve got anything else from his history here.” Continue reading The Core: Part 11
“You can’t tell me unless you’re in my presence? Why? Because he told you not to tell?”
The picture of Prentkos in my mind frowned. “I,” he said and paused. “I can’t say… It’s difficult. I know the Nine has me. His assistant—the blond woman who’s with him—she talked to me, and I can’t repeat anything she said.”
“His assistant,” I said. “Do you mean Colette? She’s good with a crossbow?”
He nodded. Continue reading The Core: Part 10