Serial Fiction with Friends
After the last installment, where Ainan was bumped to the wrong time flow and ended up sending someone to the "Isle of the Forgotten in the River of Time," voters selected Choice 3: We meet a new character in his spaceship: Tucker.
Read up on previous segments (in past issues) here (in case you missed them).
Where Are You Now?
“Where are you now, when I need you?” he cried.
“Well, I’m not there, am I?” she responded. “You’ll have to figure this one out for yourself, Doctor Tucker.”
He only had a minute or two left to figure out what buttons to push on the dimly-lit console in front of him. The labels made no sense; the symbols seemed foreign. But for some reason, he knew that this was his language, his script. I'm way too old for this!
Time to pick one. He pressed the one at the top center of the console.
The ship shuddered and came to a stop.
Oh, crap!
Frantically he began punching the others in turn.
A metal-bending, scrapey noise happened.
That didn’t sound good.
Things, everything – melted in front of his eyes into a soup of madness. From bad to worse. It never fails when she's involved!
He flipped backward into the gravity-less compartment and yelled at the disembodied voice. “This is your -- fault!" his voice cracked, shifting from aged to adolescent in mere seconds. Horrified, he watched as the rest of his blurry body followed suit, shrinking fast.
“How is it my fault?” she asked. “And if it was my fault, how would you even know? You don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“I’m SHRINKING! OF COURSE it’s your fault! What is even happening here?”
“You’re about to find out,” she answered a little too smugly.
Glaring up at the ceiling as if she could see his crinkled little nose, he balled his fists. His vision began to clear. He looked down.
Yep, that WAS what happened.
“We need a god who bleeds now,” she said.
“What? What does that even mean?” He still floated, with his fists balled. He glared again at the ceiling of the ship. He could no longer reach the controls. What was he trying to do, again?
I suppose this could be a useful ship’s feature, if…
“...If what?” He could feel her smiling at his realization. “…If one wanted to live forever.”
“And you were mad at me just a minute ago. You, who get to live forever, are mad at me, and I’m long gone.”
“…if one wanted to live forever -- over and over again.”
The ship, and Tucker's ears, jolted from a concussive impact. The asteroid field!
It had no patience with his process.
Come to think of it, neither would the Tjalians chasing him. It was all starting to come back, now...
What would they do with the boy they would find, if they caught him?
Reply to this email...what's next?
- More about Tucker
- Back to the lab with Ainan
- The skin map
- Author's choice
