Jacien J. Mandrake: Assignment: Infinity

Ok so with all the wonderful stories being posted left and right and I just couldn't stand it any longer. I've been working on the first chapter of my main character's bio for awhile now. Those of you familiar with classic TOS and love a good time travel story might enjoy it (at least I hope you will :unsure: ). Having said that; is this a shameless ego trip? Oh my yes. ;) But let me know if I was able to pull it off with impunity. B) You'll see what I mean in later chapters.


Part 1. Detection:
Planet Earth: Los Angeles, California. 1999 A.D. Old Gregorian Earth Calendar.
Roberta Lincoln studied the man on the screen with wry amusement. His face as young and strong as the day she had met him nearly 3 decades ago. He had a heavy brow with light brown eyebrows that almost made it look like he didn’t have any, an angular jaw that tapered to a squared chin and ice blue eyes. A small twinge of grey at his temples gave him a distinguished appearance that most people would conclude made him appear to be in his late thirties. “This must be important for them to bring an old relic like you out of mothballs,” she joked. A small smile touched the corners of Gary Seven’s mouth and his dark eyes crinkled with warmth. “He’s definitely mellowed,” she thought to herself. “I am finding my retirement acceptable, yes and you don’t look so bad yourself for a woman of”- “Don’t even think about finishing that sentence.” She warned. It was true that her employers had given her DNA a nice little upgrade so that she could better fulfill her role as the Supervisor of Earth. Like her friend and mentor, the genetic enhancements could potentially extend her life for hundreds of years while increasing vision, intellect, stamina, reflexes, strength and resistance to disease. But she was loathe to ever consider herself an “Augment.” The genetic enhancements were by leaps and bounds more sophisticated and more subtle than what a fanatical cabal of Earth’s leading geneticists and biochemists had done to create Khan and his misbegotten brood of sociopaths. Increased aggression was definitely not on the menu.


“To what to I owe the pleasure of this little call Mr. Seven?” She asked. His mien instantly sobered and a pensive expression crossed the strong features of his face. Roberta instantly sat up a little straighter as she moved closer to the view screen. Her former boss was usually as unflappable as a Vulcan Kohlinar master so if something was brewing that had the capacity to worry the great and powerful Agent Gary Seven, it must be decidedly scary. “The Aegis have begun to detect a disturbance, it’s like nothing they’ve ever encountered before.” “Animal, temporal or mineral?” asked Roberta, though after all the years working together and Gary’s vast knowledge of Earth’s history and future he still didn’t ever seem to get her jokes. Or at least he didn’t let on. “A regular Joe Friday of the stars,” she silently mused.


“Why hasn’t the Beta 6 sounded the alarm?” “If there were any temporal shenanigans going on in this solar system I’d like to think I’d be the first to know.” She glanced down at the glowing blue cube at the edge of her immaculate desk. The cube was just a voice interface for the massive supercomputer hidden behind the Crate & Barrel bookcases behind her chair. Its predecessor, the Beta 5 had been destroyed by Khan Singh in 1989 after he had stolen plans for an ozone-depleting satellite developed by Wilson Evergreen codenamed, Morningstar. Gary had made sure to make this newer incarnation bulletproof and then some but it still maintained a rather snarky attitude when interacting with Rain or Roberta.


“The disturbance isn’t something the Beta series are designed to detect.” He replied. “It appears to be a low level dissonance in the causality probabilities centered around Earth.” “What does that mean exactly?” asked Roberta, feeling a cold sense of unease start to well up within her stomach. “It means that something or someone is causing minor changes to minor events at a rather alarming rate. This could potentially impact the timeline in a very negative way. You and I both know how great achievements and even greater catastrophes can arise from even the most innocuous of decisions from the most unremarkable people.”


“So we’re looking at some kind of causal domino effect,” said Roberta. “And it appears to be multiplying. Your mission is to discover the source of this disturbance and report back to us for further instructions.” “Sure thing, Boss,” Said Roberta.” “And what will you and the higher ups be doing seeing as they’ve viewed this situation important enough to pull you out of retirement?” Gary Seven raised one of his almost imperceptible light brown eyebrows at Roberta’s teasing impertinence. “As you know, ours isn’t the only temporal power active in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we don’t know if they’ve even detected the anomaly yet as they don’t tend to monitor-“ He stopped abruptly as if choosing his words very carefully. “-Certain aspects of temporal events like we do. Suffice it to say that we don’t want to draw too much attention from any other players before the situation can be fully assessed.”


“Fair enough,” said Roberta with an exasperated sigh. Even though she was now the Supervisor of Earth the Aegis they still didn’t divulge more than They felt she needed to know. Never mind that I’ve helped save the planet, history and the future at great personal risk over and over again for the last 30-odd years! She silently vented. In all honesty she was used to this life and harbored very little resentment to her employers or Gary Seven for bringing her into this world. She was the real-life female equivalent to James Bond and Doctor Who all rolled into one and she wouldn’t trade that life for all the tea in China.


Gary could sense her frustration and did his best to adopt a less brusque, instructional tone; “I’m uploading the sensor calibrations into Beta 6’s mainframe now, Beta 6, are you receiving?” “Indeed,” said the incredibly put upon-sounding supercomputer with the sonorous male voice. The blue cube blinked steadily to indicate that the download was nearly complete. He must have been watching Days of Our Lives again, Roberta silently mused. “I should be able to triangulate the epicenter of the disturbance and extrapolate what effects, if any, this will have on the greater flow of time. It may take a few-“ Beta 6’s haughty air momentarily faltered and when it spoke again it sounded almost surprised and a little uneasy. “According to my calculations the disturbance is less than 16 kilometers due west of our current location.”

“That’s the San Gabriel Valley, right? Monterey Park?” asked Roberta. “Close Ms. Lincoln,” replied Gary Seven. “But I believe the city of Alhambra is directly west of your location.” Leave it to a genetically perfect human with an encyclopedic mind and an eidetic memory to pull that information out of his retired hat from thousands of light years away. “There’s nothing very remarkable about that place that I can think of.” said Roberta as she wracked her mind for details on the rather large yet seldom heard of suburb. It was Beta 6 that responded; “That’s because it is not. It is considered a socio-economically acceptable place to live with a low crime rate and an adequately funded school district. Moderate commercial and light industrial enterprises provide sustainable revenue for various urban and commercial development projects that put its property values into a much more desirable -““Thank you Beta 6, that that’ll do for now, the grownups are talking.” said Roberta. The vastly intelligent supercomputer huffed and fell into a sullen silence.


“Well it’s hardly worth the blue smoke to teleport over there; guess I’ll just go for a little drive. I hear that area has the best dim sum in the county.” Roberta said as she began to gather her things into her brightly colored Versace handbag. “Be careful and exercise caution, I would recommend taking Ms. Robinson with you as backup.” said Seven. Though it hadn’t even been a full year since the plucky astronomer had come to work as Roberta’s secretary, she had already proven to be an excellent and enthusiastic asset to the team. She’d even helped clean up that whole Henry Starling/Voyager fiasco last year which had brought her to the attention of the Aegis. What is it about these visits from dashing officers from the future that makes a girl want to live this kind of crazy life? She ruefully pondered.


“Beta 6, can you tell if the source of these readings is stationary or mobile?” asked Roberta. “In the 5.42 minutes I’ve been monitoring it, it does appear to be moving but at a pace that would seem to indicate that it was on foot.” said the supercomputer in a rather bored tone. “Great,” said Roberta; “so I’m looking for something small enough to be carried around but powerful enough to affect an entire planet’s destiny. It’s the Tox Uhtat all over again. “That’s assuming that the disturbance is being generated by a device and not something or someone else.” countered her mentor. Leave it to him to always make the connection that was hiding right in front of your nose, marveled Roberta. “You think this anomaly could be centered around a person, a time traveler?” she asked. “We’re not ruling out any possibilities at this time Ms. Lincoln. Get back to be when you have discovered the source of these readings, keep tabs but do not directly engage.” instructed Seven.


“Righty oh, Mr. Seven,” she said as she gave a mock salute and a smile which elicited the faintest upswing of the corners of his mouth and warm twinkle in his pale eyes. “I’ll wait to hear from you, Ms. Lincoln,” Seven signed off and her computer screen switched back to its regular flying toaster screen saver. Pressing the intercom button on her phone she said, “Rain?” “What’s up Roberta?” replied her rather laid back new assistant in a causally friendly manner. So not like the old days, but still groovy, Roberta silently said to herself. “Wanna grab some dim sum?”

Part 2. Refraction:


Planet Earth: Alhambra High School, Alhambra, California September 2nd 1999 A.D. Old Gregorian Earth Calendar. 7:45AM Pacific Standard Time.


The boy pedaled his vintage huffy beach cruiser for all he was worth. He’d just heard the bell indicating that all students needed to be in their classrooms within the next 5 minutes. The campus had few entrances due to the “closed campus” policy instituted by the school board at the beginning of his freshman year. Of course he knew one or two ways around this but nowhere that he could lock up his bike except the Court of The Moors situated between the more venerable A and B buildings.

Unfortunately his class was on the 3rd floor of the woefully distant C building at the very north end of the campus. Looping the steel wire chain through both wheels he secured his bike to the metal tire rack and dashed off to 1st period.
If I’m late again they’ll call my parents, he thought. It’ll just cause another argument between them and this time it’ll be my fault.

Normally he did his best to disassociate from the constant bickering and barely contained hostility his parents seemed to be increasingly directing at one another. If they were bound and determined to behave like children far be it from him to try and make them see that nor would he ever normally consider himself the cause. Alright so yes, he was the first born and his Birthday wasn’t exactly 9 months from his parent’s anniversary and he was no preemie and he bad at math he may be, he certainly wasn't stupid. He liked to think of himself as mature for his age but grownups would never take him seriously, not until he was one of them.

The heavy text books in his backpack bounced uncomfortably against his lower back as he scurried up the ramp to the brand new, state-of-the-art B building that had also been completed his freshman year. It’s drab cream colored halls and wide, wrap-around balconies practically pulsating with students piling into their classrooms.

Trying his best to navigate through the human maelstrom quickly he barely registered the sound of one of his backpack straps ripping free of its shoddy stitching at the top. Still moving he shucked what he hoped was the offending strap to begin to pull the backpack around his waist to examine the damage when he ran head-long into something very immovable and fell back rather unceremoniously onto his rear end.

The impact must have really knocked the wind out of him more than he realized because an explosion of rainbow colored light bloomed across his vision for the briefest of moments. Must have hit a jock, they only move for someone bigger than them. He thought to himself as he looked up. He was understandably startled to be staring into the stern, bespectacled countenance of his Humanities teacher, Ms. Brock. Ms. Brock was by all accounts a diminutive woman and her small frame and serpent-headed walking stick denoted her obvious physical frailties. So why does it feel like I just ran into Michael Clark Duncan??? he asked himself.

“Ss ssorry Ms. Brock, I was in a hurry and my backpack was breaking and I didn’t loo-“ “Mr. Mandrake,” she said in a voice that both growling and nasally shrill. “I do hope you don’t expect to arrive to your 4th period as tardy as you are obviously are to your first?” At that moment the final bell rang and Jason’s spirits sank. Maybe he could delete the message from the answering machine when he got home before his parents could hear it. “Of course not Ms. Brock, sorry Ms. Brock,” he stammered as he hastily moved past her to what would most likely be another verbal dressing down by Mr. Chow, his 1st period science teacher, of course it would embarrassingly be conducted in front of the entire class. “Why do you always have to be a screw-up all the time, Jason?” he muttered to himself. He couldn’t seem to shake those damn rainbow spots from his vision.

Collision:

Planet Earth: Alhambra High School, Alhambra, California September 2nd 1999 A.D. Old Gregorian Earth Calendar. 7:57 AM Pacific Standard Time.


The Umbral walked the halls of what these humans laughably considered a school. It strained credulity to think that in the future, as these humans would consider it, they were the biggest threat to the Devidians plans. They also happened to be the most delicious life forms its people had ever tasted. Their neural energy so alive with vibrant passion and hope yet so subtly nuanced with insecurity and doubt. Nothing sustained its people so completely yet left them craving more. Klingon’s neural energies were far too spicy with overabundant amounts of unmitigated hostility and animal rage while Vulcanoids, though secretly very passionate in their own right, had the pesky ability to resist most neural attacks by virtue of their extensive mental discipline.


How these marginally advanced primates ever came by such mental potential let alone will realize it is beyond me, it thought. Biologically inferior to most races in this part of the galaxy this odd little species had narrowly averted their own self destruction time and again and, should her mission fail, would go on to be one of the dominant powers in the quadrant and eventually beyond. To the Umbral’s non-linear point of view this was already happening. Humans, their allies and even their enemies were driving back their hunters, closing portals and laying siege to their beautiful triolic realm.


No, thought the Umbral. I know know full well how these creatures have defied the laws of probability. They are watched and guided by forces they can scarcely yet imagine. Theirs was not the first species whose development was guided, manipulated, stunted or accelerated by more powerful beings. Not to mention the continual meddling of their own time traveling descendants. The Aegis, the First Federation, the Sky Spirits and even the Q took an very annoying interest in this undistinguished little race, which made its job and the job of its fellow hunters and infiltrators all the more difficult.

It hated this realm and everything about it. The form it was forced to take had to move by putting one of leg in front of the other on the ground instead of simple and efficient levitation. The crude sensory organs picked up on only the tiniest fraction of what was going on all around them. Lost in her musings it almost didn’t see the youngling about to barrel into it until it was too late. With only a thought it channeled some of its triolic energy into a kinetic barrier directly in front of its body.

The youngling ran straight into the barrier which to its own interphasic senses appeared to flare blue and white momentarily blinding those senses before knocking him onto the ground.

Adopting a stern expression that was not entirely unfelt, the Umbral recognized the youngling male as one of its “students.” Well, one of her students and she's quite dead now, but I have nothing to teach any of these cattle that they would ever be able to understand. Still it had a part to play if it was to remain inconspicuous and accomplish its mission. The youngling’s T-shirt was the same hue as the Umbral’s own wondrous cerulean realm.

It momentarily felt a pang of longing for the peace and tranquility of that existence. After properly chastising the youngling for a failure to properly observe and account for the obvious constrains of such a ridiculously linear existence. How could these beings not be acutely aware of the passage of time in one direction when their puny existences were so incredibly finite?

The boy, yes it was boy, not youngling I must remember to take gender into account, communicated a hurried response of contrition before moving around it and running off to class. From the corner of one of its crude visual organs’ range of perception, the Umbral caught a brief flash of coruscating light very similar to the temporal oscillations of chroniton particles. The Umbral instantly switched its perceptions back into the full interphasic spectrum only to find no trace of any sort of chronal disturbance.

It must be the chaotic light spectrum of this plane, it thought. The harsh photonic, sonic and gravitic forces of this realm was enough to make it physically ill, if it had anything approaching a humanoid digestive system. The plan would soon be implemented and its people would feast on humanity for many eons to come.