It's not a game

That's what the Regent insisted. The white tiger bristled as he pointed a claw at the machine.

"It's an emergency time shunt!"

"But it is housed in a 20th century video game cabinet!" I countered.

"That's because I have to keep it isolated from the rest of the chrono-network! I even decorated it with radiation and biohazard warnings and monster stencils to...oh."

I crossed my arms. "Are you familiar with the term 'attractive nuisance?'"

He brushed a mote of dust off of his pastel jacket. "Alright, I see your point. So Koen thought this was a video game, started fiddling with the buttons..."

"And the joystick."

"Yes, that too...and shunted himself out of the timestream."

"Koen does still exist, correct?"

"Oh yes of course! He's in that zone where the remnants of destroyed civilizations go."

"Remnants of destroyed...you mean the WASTELANDS?"

"Well yes, that's what the locals there might call it..."

I grabbed the joystick and began navigating through the interface. "Very well. I must invert the reactivity of the shunt and..." I was cut short a pulse of energy that scrambled my neuroreceptors. I fell to the ground with a loud crash.

The Regent peered into the console. "Ohhhh...It’s reading a Paradox Error. It seems you’re already in there!"

"Yes..." I rose to my feet. "I was stranded in the Wastelands before...I was fortunate that a Time Lord followed my emergency beacon and rescued me."

The Regent looked down, adjusting one of his ruffles. "A Time Lord, eh? I wonder if it’s anyone I know...So you can't go back in. Maybe that Qlippothic can rescue him."

"Hardly..." I leaned my forehead against the console. "I shut down for lack of fuel. I might still be there if someone hadn't repaired me."

I saw a reflection of a familiar blue planet in the screen. I turned and scanned the panorama of space through the observation window.

"Something is not right..."

"You mean the quantum signature differential? Yes. That will equalize eventually. A hundred years or so."

I ran the equations to calculate how much energy would be required to phase an entire planet.

"You mean to tell me you tesseracted your homeworld into this other universe?"

"Yes. Our native dimension was collapsing. I couldn't have done it without you and your...our family."

"But Regent...your Earth is out of position for this date. The orbit is stable, but it should have been...” From behind the corona of the Sun I saw the gentle curve of another planet come into view. Another Earth. “...There?”

The Regent huffed as he ambled towards the liquor cabinet. "Oh that...well I had Xavael scout nearby dimensions. I told him to send me the coordinates of the first one he found with no human life in the Sol system. We were in a race against time, you see. So that's a dead world over there." He scratched his chin. "When the Space Race hits they'll probably recolonize it. Say, where is Xavael, anyway?"

As I began calculating the chances of two Earths remaining stable in the same orbit, the deck of the Regent’s timeship flooded with light. Another voice rang out. "REGENT!"

We turned in alarm to find the angel. His white robe was torn and stained with bloody handprints. He held the body of a pale demon with shredded red wings.

“Founder!” I screamed. “What has happened to you?”

Xavael spoke, anguish souring his otherwise pure voice."Forgive me, Regent. I followed your directions too closely! The native Earth you see has no one living, but it is not uninhabited. That world has fallen to the Undead!"

"Koen..."  The demon drew a tagged breath as he lifted a trembling finger at the Regent. "You rescued your world from Oblivion only to deliver it to a fate that is far worse..." Bloodwing's body began to crumble in his beloved's arms. "I had imprisoned Darien in Steelhed... but now he is free..."

I stepped back as the full extent of his dying works sank in.

The Founder's uttered his final words before decayed into dust. "The Darien Mason of my world has made Steelhead a Necropolis...and soon your world shall fall to his insatiable hunger for flesh!"

from the planet's heart

(continued, albeit via altered sequence, here.)

We had located the Dazdi factory in a remote location in Siberia. There the coven harnessed the technology they had stolen from a lost ship centuries ago and enhanced it with their traditional enchantments. Objectively, I would describe the site as an automated facility perched on a geothermal vent, guarded by dozens of metal tripods that bore a distant resemblance to the legendary hut of the coven's founder, Baba Yaga. Bloodwing had a more colorful description, "an abomination sinking its greedy fangs into the heart of Tera herself!"

 The assault team was composed of Bloodwing, Xavael, Ash, Koen and myself. Dr. Mason coordinated the attack remotely from New Babbage. tesseracted into the heart of the facility to catch them off guard and quickly disabled the support systems. As one, the tripods keeled over and crashed into the permafrost. It seemed almost too easy. A scan of the energy readings in the site's reactor core soon confirmed this.

"This was a trap," I stated as I looked up from my scanners a second time. "They intended for us to destroy this facility. A weapon detonated far below us where the shaft meets the Earth's core. The output from the core has increased exponentially."

"Qli," Dr. Mason's communicator hissed and popped from static, "are you saying there is no way to block or divert the rise of the heat? What sort of damage are we looking at to the surface?"

"If it was only the surface!" I removed my faceplate so Dr. Mason and the rest of my family could see gloom that was gathering in my eyes. "This venting of the core will shatter the tectonic plates. The Earth's surface will soon be unrecognizable. Combined with the burning away of the atmosphere..." 

"The End of Days?" whispered Xavael.

I nodded. "We are six hours away from an extinction level event."

 "NO!" Koen stared at me with a determination that was uncharacteristic, but almost reassuring. He pointed at Dr. Mason through the view-screen we had hastily assembled.

"Dad! Remember when you blew up the Foundation building by accident when you fired up the engines on the Gygax? The only difference between an engine and a weapon is the direction of energy!"

Dr. Mason gestured frantically at the young intern holding the imaging unit for him on his side to keep still. "I don't have any invention that would consume that much power at once!"

"Yes you do, Dad...we've got two of them right here! Divert the energy to Qlippothic and Ash's Galvanic Tesseractors. Our wake won't even be felt in this dimension as we take the grand tour through hypertime!"

My brother Ash and I stared at each other, calculating the infinitesimal chance this plan would save the Earth. The chances of us actually surviving such a shift were too low to calculate. Bloodwing crossed his arms. As our living ancestor, he had the final say.

 "We are listening, Koen."

 TO BE CONTINUED

Ashfall

The Digital Knights had the situation well in hand. It was time for me to help rescue Dr. Mason from a "Mainlander" wearing the clothes stolen from me by Marcus Mason.

My weapon was bulky. It was a rocket launcher designed for dispatching Baba Yaga's ships. I had one shell left. The scope, however, was perfectly calibrated. The target was fast, but clumsy. Not using its full potential. Was Marcus not fully integrated into Ash's circuitry? Or was Ash resisting?

The target wounded Koen's darkforce with an isomorphic disc. I aimed for the Ash's strike zone. Unlike a human target, a head shot would not terminate. Only disable. Dr. Mason was helpless.

Target is preparing for a death blow. Target is open. Fire.

The target fell in an explosion of brass. The torso was still smoking as Dr. Mason and Koen rose from their defensive positions.

Koen stared at the damage and shook his head. Dr. Mason gazed back at me through his binoculars. I read his lips...

"You hit the chest. Soul-shard..."

I lowered the scope. Founder forgive me. I had to save my family. He would have done the same.

I felt the shockwave of an explosion behind me. I turned around and witnessed the city of Cala Mondrago erupt in flames.

The power plant ripped open from the inside, from which rose as nimbus of lighting in a vaguely humanoid shape. Energy arced from its hands, exploding every structure it crossed. Flames raced across the power lines, dancing from shop to shop and tent to tent. The "Genies"...their sentient power source, had rebelled, just as in the tales of the of the ancient city that preceded New Babbage.

"LYNN!"

I threw the weapon aside. I depleted too much energy to tesseract to Cala. I was too far away. I could only run.

I tripped on something in the sand and fell. I rolled over and stared up with my mechanical eyes at the stars, their pristine view obscured by smoke drifting from the city.

I did not sense him approach, but the shadow of Bloodwing loomed over me. His pale frame hovered, slightly indistinct. His eyes burned in crimson fury.

"Elder! Forgive me! I have failed! I have failed..."

reclamation

I gathered up one of my robes and some bandages and raced out of Lynn's carriage. With a bit of self-generated illumination it was simple enough to follow the bloody footprints of my doppleganger beneath the desert stars. I found her collapsed in an alleyway between the shacks of two merchants that had shuttered their gates for the evening.

She was still breathing. She groaned in protest as I turned her on her side. As I suspected, she was bleeding out from the apertures in the small of her back meant for my engine. The same precaution Dr. Mason designed to keep me alive was now imperiling the life of...me? I addressed her in hopes she retained at least some of my faculties.

"Qlippothic. I am going to tesseract with you to Dr. Mason. He needs to install..."

"I NEED NO ONE!"

The deafening crack of an Eldritch Bolt sent me sprawling. My senses reeled as I struggled to regain control of my neural net. My double crawled over me, her eyes wide and her grin twisted in madness.

"Oh how rude of me! I'm terribly sorry. I appreciate that you've taken good care of my body while I was gone, but..." She glanced up at the crescent moon, then leaned down again to whisper where my ear would be. "This form is a bit inconvenient for my plans."

She rose, taking my folded clothes from where they fell as she did so.

"You brought me a pink loincloth?" I heard muttering incantations as she fumbled with the garments. By the time I saw my attacker's face again, the voice had dropped a register. What were my features and brown hair had turned to coarser features and a 5 o'clock shadow. A strong resemblance to Dr. Mason, but thinner and without the mustache. I heard Lynn calling out my name a few blocks away.

"If you value your friend's life, you will tell no one you saw me." He stepped on my faceplate with his bare foot as he departed. "Now go save your fellow tinkertoy. And don't forget...Uncle Marcus is watching you!"

His vicious laughter echoed in my memories as Lynn helped me to my feet.

"Did you find her?" She asked.

I shook my head. "She...did not last. She is gone."

to shuffle off this mortal coil

I sat on the rug in Lynn's gypsy carriage. She watched nervously from a few paces away as I opened the chrome case and lifted a pen-sized cylinder from inside. The desert sun fell in a strong beam through the small window, illuminating dancing particles of dust that crossed its path. The light that hit the chrome reflected glowing curves across the walls.

"You said that if you take this medicine, you'll never be human again?"

I still felt the weight of the boiler unit my father fused to the small of my back. I had to be prepared for a sudden transformation at all times, he said. All it did for me in this state was ache and chafe. Was I ever completely human with this contraption attached to me?

"That is correct."

"And this is the only was to rescue your brother?"

"I'm afraid so."

She smiled gently. "It wouldn't change how I feel."

I could feel the blood rush to my face. Another human trait that I'd miss.

I pressed the tip of the cylinder to my arm. I heard a rush of air and a tingle as the nanobytes spread through to every cell...and everything went black. Was that screaming echoing from a distant mountain range?

I saw the world again through thick glass. Darkness washed away the color save for a few candles. I heard the rush of air through my boiler, and my strength slowly returned to me. I lifted my arms...articulated brass. I touched my face. A smooth metallic mask. My true face. Again.

Lynn was facing away, sobbing against the wall.

"Lynn? Do not cry. I am here. The metamorphosis..."

She turned to face me with horror in her eyes. I struggled to regain balance as I rose to my feet. Her jaw fell as she backed away.

"You're Qli? HOW? If you're really...then who...?"

She pointed towards the door, left swinging open. The bloody footprints on the carpet leading out did not escape my attention.

"Lynn? Do I even want to know...?"

frozen

A pair of metal talons ripped through a canvas tent in the deep desert, shattering poles and crushing the metal inside. Shredded rugs and fabric flew off with the wind. Dented segments off brass armor glimmered as they fell in a pile with kitchen supplies and cracked picture frames containing portraits of the Mason clan. The colossal construct pointed an acrlight down at its handiwork and began to sift meticulously through the remains.

A small wooden framed picture of an earlier Qlippothic - one of a Victorian lady in her finest garments, carefully tailored to fit the coal grate on her abdomen and the twin smokestacks looming over her back - rolled clumsily away in the rising wind, tracing a line of indentations in the sand, only inches away from the ankle of the real Qlippothic. On this night she had become completely human save for the turbine surgically fastened to the small of her back, a grim necessity should she suddenly shift to a construct form with no power source at hand. Her leather and linen dress was draped by the ever-present wind around the rioutous colors the red headed gypsy she was embracing. She held her tightly not out of love, but fear.

The gypsy clutched the silver amulet hanging below her multihued scarf, whispering an enchantment of invisibility. Qli felt her skin hardening to metal, the metallic spreading from her engine in all directions until at least her hair vanished beneath her reflective mask. The beauty of the setting crimson sun behind them was ripped away by the arclight suddenly pointed towards them. No movement by the walking behemoth. Qli and Lynn's intertwined shadows stretched across the sand.

Qli did not finish scooping Lynn into her arms in the instant the monstrosity lunged at them, claws at the ready.

with a silver whistle and a golden scale

I heard the distinct roar of Ash's jetpack engine outside my tent. I rushed to greet him, and remembered to bow as the local custom. My nanobytes were still malfunctioning, and I did not wish to accidentally damage him again through direct contact. He drew a parchment from his belt as his wings retracted behind him.

"The translation on this invitation is poor, but its essence is nonetheless disturbing."

I was taken aback by the twinge of anger in his normally measured voice.

"This Magistrate of yours," he continued, "is she a Heterodyne?"

I shook my head. "She has never made such a claim."

"It is not her place then to judge who is a 'true' Jäger."

"Ash... No one is questioning your service to the Jägerpatrol."

"I am a discrepancy, which must be rectified."

I demanded an elaboration.

"There is already a time-displaced Jäger in our family line. She is living proof that the brau is compatible with Mason DNA, which still resides in my soul-chip."

Before I could question him further, he spread his wings with a sandstorm and vanished in a sonic boom.

a haiku floating on the night's chill

Now? I feel human.
Love's warmth sifts through my fingers
like Mondrago's sands.

Next Stop: Cala Mondrago

"Are you sure this is my only chance, Father?"

"I'm afraid so, Qli. We're going to prepare you for cryogenic suspension. Keep this mask over your nose and mouth. Good. I want you count backwards from ten..."



"Qli? It's Koen. Steady now...don't get up too fast."

"Steelhead...?"

"Not anymore. We're in Cala Mondrago."



"So this is where I'll spend the rest of my days?"

"Don't make it sound like that! It's a nice little place. They've got a direct trade route with Caledon! Okay, it may not be Kittiswitch or Steelhead but it's not Babbage smog either. But you're still in the Steamlands. I've checked the place out. They've got a club and a cafe and some Spark-shops. You won't run out of oil or food."

"But my family? My friends?"

"Hey hey hey hey! You're still a little off kilter from being frozen. I told you they trade with Caledon? I've seen a lot of familiar faces here escaping the winter. I even saw Emperor Squid at the cafe!"

"Steelcobra Calamari?"

"Yes! And the folks here are real friendly. There's a...what did they call her? Well she's a princess. Her name's Bianca. You should go talk to her. Maybe she can get you a job at the club."

"Who is going to want to see me like this?"

He doubled over laughing.

"Everybody? Listen...we don't have any monsters to fight at the moment and the Revenge is still in drydock. I'm going to stay here with you. I'll be fine here. This is just like my Mom's place in Heliopolis. Except it's not a dictatorship. And I don't have a legion of servants. But that's beside the point..."

That was three weeks ago. One demonstration later, and I'm a performer at the Laughing Djinn. Please come and visit me if you would.



Best wishes for the New Year.

Sincerely,

Qlippothic

When it's cold outside am I here in vain?

I stepped out of the Consulate into Steelhead square. I heard the wet crunch of snow beneath my bare feet and felt the sting against bare skin. Flakes floated silently all around me. Everything was coated in white, amplifying the glow of the gaslamps and flickering candles in windows.

I have never felt the cold. I have never smelled the crisp winter air or the scent of pine needles. Not long ago I could have calculated the density of the snowflakes and recorded the patterns of every flake. But now, it was simply overwhelming.

"You'll catch your death of cold out here. Go inside, child."

Red wings wrapped around me like a cloak, radiating warmth. I had just enough space to turn to behold the Elder's face of alabaster, kohl and crimson.

"But...but how...?"

"Is this not the time for miracles, Sweet Qli?"

His wings grew translucent from a growing brilliance nearby.

"Beg pardon," interrupted the angel. "I have a delivery for Miss Qlippothic from Velvel's Shanghai Bazaar?"

save me from the nothing i've become

I watched the Sephiroth vanish one by one, pulled away by the angel. The mindscape of my introspection mode plunged into darkness. Were the nightmares still cutting through the lenses? No. There were no sparks from their cutting tools. I've lost fear. What part of me will dissolve next in this poison? How much more can I lose before I cease to be?

I feel? Warmth? A heartbeat?

Well, well, well. At least I won't die alone.

"Marcus?"

Yes. I am trapped inside this abomination as well.

Light again. In the lenses are irises not my own.

"You are...wearing my faceplate?"

I grabbed the first thing I could find. I didn't know you were still using it. I hope you don't mind. It is keeping my soul intact a while
longer.

"Does this mean you are possessing me?"

On the contrary. You have nothing left to possess. And my astral form can't pierce this...mess. If anything, it is you who are possessing me. Look closely. I need to show you something.

Holograms inside the orbs. Face to face across a chessboard. Crossed épées behind wire masks.

Should you survive, deliver these to my brother if you would be so kind.

"How can this be? You and he were raised separately."

So we both assumed. But only now as our psychic barriers dissolve do I remember what Father forced us to forget. We would have murdered each other. It was the the most humane choice.

"Why is there always bloodlust between you? This cannot entirely be the fault of the bloodline!"

There was...an incident.

"Show me. I will not judge you."

Shadows. Rending of lace. Hands pinning declawed paws.

"By the Founder..."

She was a catalyst, for me as well as Darien.

"Do you...regret this?"

Do you regret having a brother?

"Are you saying that Koen is...yours?"

Half a chance...

I felt his soul starting to fade.

"Hang on!"

I cannot. You have no shell, and this one is left behind. I bequeath this body to you. Use my powers to harness what's left of your healing factor. Do with it what you will. Good luck.

The double helix rose and spiraled around me. I did not even have a moment to protest. My perceptions shifted to the other side of the mask, staring through living eyes to where my image was blurring from metal to flesh. The chromosomes were damaged, but repairable. I dispatched healing nanobytes - which appeared to me as copies of my previous metallic form. A scan of the blood circulation revealed somewhere, something was dripping reanimation serum into these veins, along with more malevolent cells. This form would have become a drone had I not taken the previous owner's place. That is when I noticed the Pandoran cells, swarming through like bees searching relentlessly through the vines of a trellis.

"Stop that this instant! I do NOT need GILLS!"

the world is just illusion trying to change you

My boiler exploded from the demands of prying Ya Yimawa's sharklike maw open with all my limbs until it cracked. Nothing I have ever encountered - from the inferno of Erebus to the radioactive wastes of Earth's devastated future - could rival the horror of what I saw inside that beast. How quickly, then, did the souls of its victims fly out to the freedom of their promised afterlives! Their gratefulness whispered as they vanished was more than worth the cost to this, my shredded chassis. Ama had worked her magic and destroyed its soulcage just as Dr. Beck's spirit escaped.

My last victim, Shiny Toy!

A sickening snap. Loss of connection to body. A fraction of a second in that primordial abyss before the monster discorporated, and my elevation dropped. I landed on the wreckage that was once my own abdomen, saving me the indignity of sinking into the polluted muck. Power supply was fading quickly. Last instructions to Ama.

Closing cranial display. Adjusting to internal perception. Standby...

I perceive myself as intact, but I am not actually whole again. This spherical chamber I am in, full of damaged machinery spewing steam and smoke, with pipes spiralling around the Sephiroth that glow brightly above me like a celestial chandalier, is not literally the inside of my skull. But it does give me an accurate representation of how tenuous my existance has now become.

The gyroscope rolls wildly. I hold on tightly as the craft tumbles over itself again and again. Through the twin portholes in the outline of my eyes I see I am rolling into the water, mingling with human bones and filth. This can only mean that the boxcar is sliding into the bay. The Revenge would have no choice but to cut the air vent. There is pounding outside the chamber, from all directions.

There is...a mob outside the portals? Impossible! How can this be?

Who are they?

I see Bloodwing, cursing me as a traitor as he strikes his sword against the glass. The same sword he used to pierce my reactor core.

I see Grandfather in the black uniform from his dystopia of New Erebus, his eyes glowing beneath his goggles as he patiently grinds an energy blade into the translucent barrier.

The gentleman in the drab gray uniform with the brass buttons? An agent of the Labs. Carrying a warrant for my family's capture.

The other eye - there is Doctor Mason in his labcoat, I see from the tic in his brow and the glow behind his goggles that he demands to perform more destructive experiments on me.

Koen in his sleek ebony fur bloodied at the tips, scraping his claws down the glass, eyes burning red as coals and hissing as he displays his vampiric fangs.

Behind him, a pale Aleister in his outdated and frayed coat, gesturing for me to inspect the new porcelain skull he will place me in. Complete with fangs for extracting blood...to deliver to him.

Behind them swarms of wasp drones and Qlippothic clones.

Why would my subconscious be attempting to torment me? Especially in a survival situation such as this?

A chemical readout develops on one corroded panel. The water in this flooding chamber is polluted...from Ya Yimawa. When his body dissolved, its conents mingled with these waters.

I am stewing in the gastric juices of a soul eater. Much like the jellyfish, the death of the creature does not render its venom inert. Despite the images beyond the eyes, it know the toxins have already made contact with my soul chip. If I am not rescued it will corrode the circuitry that defines my psyche, and my identity will...dissolve.

I have never seen fit to pray for aid from undetectable sources. But now, it is my only recourse, if only a distraction.

I can hear their voices now. My voice quavers.

The Lord is my...

The Revenge on Patrol

We have come to an agreement with Steelhead's Mayor, Totallunar Eclipse. In return for supplying the Bloodwing's Revenge with sunstones from the town's mines, we are assisting in the hunt for the murderous creature known as "Steal Head." Take comfort in the knowledge that in addition to the Steelhead militia, the Wulfenbach Jagerpatrol and the religious paramilitary known as the S.W.A.T. team, you will have three armed gynoids patrolling the streets.

Koen will fly sorties over the city in the Revenge scanning for anything unusual, and also pilot the ship in submersible mode, with the hope of catching the beast off guard as Dr. Beck did earier.

Xavael will be incognito among the populace and assist in the investigation.

Jeremiah will not be joining this operation. At the request of Koen's siblings, he will accompany them to Erebus. He fully intends to return to investigate the Illuminautilus sighting, but discovering the fate of the Wasp Queen and Bloodwing takes precedence.

We also wish to point out to residents that Velvel's Shanghai Bazaar has imported several crates of high-quality firearms and ammunition for your self-defense, available for reasonable prices.

I was created in Steelhead. It is my my birthplace. We shall help rid your town of this menace, my fellow citizens. Stay alert, and carry on.

don't hold back

With a violent jolt the Bloodwing's Revenge shifted from the smoggy night over Seraph City and emerged in the late-morning sky over the ocean of the Steamlands. From the cockpit I watched Nova's ship, the Sixes and Sevens, squeeze through non-Euclidian space with her Mythos artifact to emerge on my starboard side. I was still uneasy with her devotion to the Outer Gods, the Eye would surely mangled the mind of any untrained human who watched the ship arrive, much less travel through with it.

There was a burst of static and distortion on my Marconi transmitter. I saw a flying ironclad looming in the distance, its engines and still red-hot cannons cradling it in a white shroud of smoke that trailed in the breeze.

"This is Captain Hassanov of of Battlecruiser Hassanov. Unknown ship, please identify." I recognized Iason Hassanov's accent and deep calm voice very well.

"This is Captain Sakigake of the Sixes and Sevens to Hassanov, ready to assist. Over."

"Captain Qlippothic of the Bloodwing's Revenge, I confirm Captain Sakigake is an ally, over."

"Yes, I remember you Nova. Welcome back, all of you. Misson Status: Wasp fleet destroyed. Some survivors left in field, estimate two, maybe three hundred. Wasp Queen still in field, chasing Bloodwing and...angelic companion. Wasp portal still exists, but no further movements to or from. Hassanov pulling back for refueling and rearmaments. Good luck, Over."

I pressed the communicator one last time as Koen prepared himself to jump from the ship with the Regent's staff. "Roger that, Hassanov. Thank you for your help. Over and out."

I made eye contact through her porthole as we hovered. I gave the hand signal, and her saucer craft silently raced off in a flash towards the Wasp Queen.

I engaged the engines and accelerated upwards towards the portal. "Koen! Prepare to jump in twenty seconds!"

"Gotcha, Sis!"

there's a big black sky over my town

The longer I stay in this divergent future, the more I feel that something is wrong here. As I gaze down at this version of Seraph City, the Sephiroth...I cannot calculate it. But there is disharmony.

Of course my thoughts wander to my doomed double of this world. Did you submit to Father's deranged experiments willingly? Were you coerced? Modified?

Did you feel regrets wash over you as your the shells of your spirit burst one by one? You achieved free will, and you dedicated your life selflessly to protect the Steamlands. Nearly all were grateful. Nearly.

The slap of her gloved hand across my cheek possibly broke her hand. But the damage to me, while hidden, was strong.

"Stay away from my fiance!" she screamed. But it was he who had fawned for my attention with trinkets and verses. It was he was deceptive, and not only to me. But she did not care.

"Stay away!" She sneered at the engine and twin smokestacks fastened to my back that allowed me to move. "Look at you!" She pointed with a trembling hand. "You're not even a REAL woman!"

"But at least, Lady ________, I know how to act like one."

My fists wrapped around the railing of the deck of the Revenge so tightly that I nearly bent the metal.

I have found love in the timeless oases, but as replenishing - as nurturing as it was...the infinite desert is that more punishing when your heart is iron.

I glance at Nova and Six through the portholes of their vessel. I quickly look away. I take the stairs below deck.

Of course I'll help my family. Of course I'll help my friends.

I see the glow of my eyes reflected back at me as I read the letter of marque framed on the wall.

Ash can dedicate his life to self-sacrifice if he wishes. He may just grow out of it as I have.

But a pirate takes what she needs.



*My thanks to Sheriff Fuzzball Ortega for finding this musical selection.

The briefing

Koen finally wandered back to the shipyard where Nova, Six and I were cleaning up after upgrading the Bloodwing's Revenge>. I was closing the panels on the engine core when the Time Window powered up by itself. I was ready to run a diagnostic when Koen jumped below deck. His expression was more somber than I had expected.

"Hey Qli. There's someone I want you to meet."

Clawed feet dusted with gray steadily descended by half-steps, aided by the balance of a staff. I was going to warn him about the rotten fourth stair, but he leaned his staff forward an extra step and gingerly hopped over it without my prompting. Once he reached the floorboards, he slowly spread his crimson wings. Could this really be the Koen I know? The crimson wings of his station weighed heavily upon him. Youthful impertinence was replaced by quiet sorrow. My sensors shuddered from the power radiating from him. This Koen was Regent of House Bloodwing!

"Hello Qlippothic. I like what you've done with the old bird. Please, no need to kneel."

He handed me his staff.

"I built this to destroy the hellgate. Koen has to drive the blade in the side of the portal to disperse the energy into the Void."

"Understood, Regent."

After he departed, Nova activated the Eye of Y__ S______ in the Sixes and Sevens and I connected my Galvanic Tesseractor to the Time Window and slipped between times back to the Steamlands.

Rebuilding the Bloodwing's Revenge!

It seemed a bit absurd at times. I was working as hard as possible to preserve the original elements of the ship while Nova and Six were relentlessly replacing its 17th century clockwork systems with 20th century innovations.

Luckily I found a hidden drawer in Aleister Mason's writing desk which contained a privateer's letter of marque from George Washington himself, authorizing the Bloodwing's Revenge to "assail all foes of Liberty and the Republic on the high seas and in the open skies." Another correspondence granted our former captain the land that became the Mason plantation in Baltimore. It seems the first President knew of Aleister's immortality, since both contracts have no end date.

Now where has Koen wandered off to?

yesterday's news

I looked up from the faded headline towards the alley where the little "blind" girl had escaped. In the shadows, I saw her small luminescent green eyes blinking at me as she ripped away her soiled newsgirl apron, flooding the alley with the light from her gaslamp heart.

"Wren."

Before I formulate whether I should thank her or punish her, she darted down the alley and out of view. Her glow faded and winked out with the sound of clattering manhole cover.

Do not envy the time traveler, Dear Reader. It is a terrible burden with moral dilemmas behind every turn.

Do not ask me of the details of that newspaper. I scanned it completely, then set it aflame with my furnace. As the ashes floated into the wind, I systematically erased the details from my memory.

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR BLOODWING AND JEREMIAH MASON...

STOCK MARKET PLUMMETS AS...

DR. DARIEN MASON BUILDS...

Relations between Steelhead and New Babbage continue to deteriorate as...

Except the data of immediate importance upon my return, of course.

...the weakened hive was finally repelled by the combined efforts of...

...the hydrogen-powered airships were especially vulnerable to...

I be ethical, but I'm not stupid.

In the land of steel and chrome

While Nova and Six were repairing the ship, I took the opportunity to survey Seraph City. It is a beautiful place, for certain. . Cranes thousands of feet tall constantly add to sky-scraping buildings. There is powder on the concrete. It is rapidly expanding.

Everything, including the art and the architacture, is streamlined and industrialized. I even saw a machine called an automat designed to feed laborers in the manner of an assembly line! The fashions are...more basic and much more severe than back in Caledon. But I will have to wear something to blend in on my return trip.

I was surprised to see old faces here. Dr. Oblensky's face was on a poster! My goodness, is he immortal? I ran into a friendly face as well, Sir Edward Pearse! He was managing the construction of a new club of his there called the Seraph. He said I may even have an opportunity to host there, for old times sake! Beyond inquiring as to Lady Christine's health, I avoided asking as to the fate of the Masons and the rest of the Steamlands in this timeline, nor did he volunteer such information.

On the way back to the repair dock, I was blocked by a litttle girl in urchin's rags and pigtails, wearing the black glasses reserved for the blind. She was trying to sell a yellowed, frayed newspaper in an outstretched hand while shaking her cup. It was a sad sight indeed. I dropped a few New Babbage coins I had into her cup (I have a small compartment for change) and accepted the paper. She immediately bolted into the nearby alley with far more agility than a blind girl should.

I looked down at the newspaper and opened. It was...THE STEELHEAD GAZETTE? The headlines turned my furnace cold:

BATTLE OVER STEAMLAND SKIES!

BLOODWING SLAIN BY DEMON WASPS!

end of the line

"Qli, what's our jump status?"

Koen's voice sounded weary, and perhaps a bit deeper through the horn.

"We've shifted through the paradigm barrier and completed the fateline track."

"Good. My zero chamber is starting to decay. Prepare to phase!"

With his alchemical powers running their course, we had no choice but to land in the 20th century. I called behind me to Captain Aleister.

"Prepare to phase! Sixty seconds and counting!"

The Captain flinched as arcs of electricity again spread out from my frame across the entirety of the ship. He grumbled in an obscure dialect about not being able to reach his coffin (since Koen's zero chamber could not be disturbed) as he stowed away his wooden tools and buckled himself into the chair of the weapons systems for the Bloodwing's Revenge. The chair was bedecked with and surrounded by a bewildering array of dials, pulleys, levers and plungers that looked like they were purloined from da Vinci's estate sale. (He assured however that they were once Galileo's.) He began to furiously wind a large brass crank with both arms, drawing forth the hemispheres of a wooden cupola that would encase him and protect him from sunlight. That is, until the crank seized up halfway through the process.

"ACH!"

"Thirty seconds, Captain! I cannot disrupt the phase!"

He pulled on the crank with all of his undead strength, bracing his boot against the metal column. A nut shattered and the crank came off in his hands.

"NEIN!"

He tossed the dislodged crank aside and ripped the rusted lock off a battered wooden chest. He pulled out a shredded mess of dusty black canvas surrounded by a cloud of moths.

"Mein Gott..."

"Phasing NOW!"

The swirling darkness around the ship evaporated as the midday of a cloudless sky bathed the ship in the sun's brilliance. I began powering down my Galvanic Tesseractor. I was suddenly distracted by an unexpected display of shimmering light from the cupola.

"Captain? You're...SPARKLING?!?"

With a weary and stoic expression he rubbed his pale cheek with a tattered glove. "Ja, das is vant to happen just before I..."

Before he could finish his sentence he exploded in a gout of flame.

"CAPTAIN!!!"

The primary airbag above the ship, only barely repaired during the cross-time transit, immediately disintegrated. The cables that held the balloon stretched upwards with vestigal scraps of canvas like impromptu flagpoles, indicating we had immediately begun to plummet. I only noticed the gaping hole in the deck from the explosion when an ebony-and-scarlet furred neko floated helplessly upwards from it, flailing his limbs and staring back at me with crimson eyes in shock and terror.

At the same time in the dark place known as Lost Angels the androids Nova and Six were pulled into a vortex of time and energy. The cross-time tear opened a rift into their world and pulled them in, disrupting their physical shells and memories.

Nova's short interlude as Qli-2 allowed her to retain some memory of the Bloodwing family and its many relations, but her old powers and possessions were stripped from her as the many-fold realties played havoc with her systems.

One moment she was a human girl in a far away land, the next an elf warrior serving her Queen, still in another a mechanical swordmistress beloved of a minotaur. All of the realms of possibility and timelines changed and warped her until at last she was drawn into Seraph City and part of the team: Nova and Six's Salvage.

Six tumbled through the vortex, time tearing at her like the claws of a raging beast. Years ago some deviant had modifed her, by shoe-horning the pleasure/pain center of a succubus's brain into her systems as an experiment to make her a better pleasure model. This had grown and became a soul inhabiting Six's chassis. That was now ripped from her and cast out into the endless seas of time. Nothing had prepared Six for the vortex or time shifts or the shock of losing an integral system part. Her electronic eyes flickered wildy then went black as she entered a failsafe mode shutting her down until repairs could be made, and time became her repairman...

Six awoke in a junkyard looking down at the spanner she had dropped. She swore under her breath and looked back to find Nova had just wound her key again " I can not complete my work while constantly needing to be wound!" She reached down for the spanner going back to work on a small airship she had built specially to salvage and tow larger air ships.

Nova looked up to see the Revenge plummeting towards the bay and yelled for Six to, "Crank her up and lets go save that ship!"

Both droids, changed in appearance, function and indeed reality itself soared towards the Revenge and quickly looped their towing lines around the ship. A great shuddering of gears and a few curses from Nova later, and the "Sixes and Sevens" (named after each girl's unit numbers) pulled the Revenge out of its nosedive and brought it safely to rest on the tarmac.