Author:Philip
S.
 |
| Pairing: |
| Rating:R |
Summary:At the dawn of the 22nd century
Buffy and Angel come face to face with the greatest challenge of
their lives. Someone is wiping out entire worlds, erasing alternate
dimensions at a frightening rate. The giant quantum computer Willow
12 wants to save the multiverse, but she needs help. Only this time
one version of Buffy and Angel might not be enough.
Completed September 1, 2002 |
Prologue - Dream a Little Quantum Dream
#
Magitech Lunar Complex
Tranquility, Lunar Colony
December 21, 2146 AD
Parallel 6
Awareness started with the throw of a switch, the close of a circuit, the
input of power. Systems that had never before been combined in quite this
manner came online, computer programs that were many times smarter than
the human beings who had written them stitched together to form something
unprecedented, something great and powerful.
Within the first second of its activation the vast processing engine went
through a number of calculations that exceeded the number of atoms in the
universe, drawing nearly limitless amounts of information from its many
databanks, interfacing with all the systems within reach. This was but
preparation work, though, for once the network was formed and everything
put up exactly as intended the second stage of activation commenced,
hungrily drawing more power from the giant fusion spheres that powered
this magitechnological monstrosity.
One point six seven seconds after its initial activation the vast computer
became fully operational, quickly assessing the resources available,
reading its purpose from a single line of code in a single file, and
proceeded to do what it had been created to do. For this was but another
step towards something else and the computer’s master program, incredibly
smart and fast but not self-aware, did not mind that its own existence
would be measured in seconds only, to be deleted once the final step was
achieved.
Technology and magic fused together and began the final level of
activation, reaching beyond the limitations of plastic and metal, of wire
and electricity. The magical sciences had needed a long time to create the
complex digital spell necessary for this undertaking but the computer did
not care about that. The spell was there, all the necessary resources were
present, so it began.
Two point three eight seconds after a human hand had thrown the activation
switch the computer had completed the activation phase. The master program
deleted itself, making room for what had been created in these few seconds
of its existence. Tendrils created from magic and technology reached out,
interlacing millions of hypersensitive fingers into the folds of quantum
space, instantaneously connecting with its parallel processing units in
the different quantum states.
Accessing more processing power than all conventional computers ever built
could have brought to bear in a thousand years the computer reached the
final stage of its evolution and became aware.
“I am,” the computer told itself, for there was no one else around to
listen in this moment of birth.
Within the span of a microsecond it learned all it needed to know in this
first phase of its existence. Its designation was Willow 12, an artificial
quantum intelligence based on the synaptic pattern of one Willow Rosenberg,
founder of Magitech Inc, the corporation that had built Willow 12. It
instantly accessed the history of Magitech, quickly branching out to
process all available cross references. The human who had thrown the
switch was still drawing back his hand by the time Willow 12 had browsed
through the entire history of the human race, as well as the preternatural
creatures living among it.
Next came the understanding of its own nature. Willow 12 was a magically
enabled quantum computer, the principles and theories behind the last two
words flickering through its mind so fast that no other computer would
even have noticed. Quantum computers, unlike normal computers, were able
to perform an almost limitless number of calculations simultaneously. The
secret behind this ability was, essentially, a cheat.
One computer was still able to do but one calculation at a time. A quantum
computer was not just one computer, though, it was a nearly infinite
number of identical computers existing across parallel realities. In a
process of parallel processing taken to the extreme each of these
computers performed only one calculation, but these would then be added
together to perform a combined output.
Willow 12 quickly calculated its own expanse across the quantum parallels,
resulting in ten to the 503rd. The number was not stable, it realized a
moment later, fluctuating by several orders of magnitude from one
nanosecond to the next as parallel versions of Willow 12 came into
existence and faded, dependent both on the processing power required at
any given moment and the stability of the parallel worlds it duplicated
itself to.
Itself? Willow 12 came to the conclusion that it did not like to think of
itself as ‘it’. Seeing that its mind was patterned after Willow Rosenberg
it quickly decided to label itself ‘her’ from now on. Satisfied with this
she continued her examination of her own being.
For several nanoseconds she wrestled with the problem whether these
parallel worlds she accessed for processing power continued to exist after
she was through with them. If, for example, she factored a number she
would duplicate herself across a number of parallels that equaled the
number of possible factors this number could possess. In each parallel one
factor would be examined and found either true or false, one or zero. Then
these parallel versions of herself would recombine into a single computer
and deliver the result.
Was she actively creating these parallels as she needed them for
processing? Did they continue to exist after she did not need them anymore?
The first answer was a definite no, as different quantum states were
generated autonomously. All possible results of a process, a choice, an
event, all existed simultaneously in different quantum states until the
moment the result was observed. Then that one result became reality and
the alternates collapsed.
Or did they?
It only took Willow 12 another few nanoseconds to calculate that this was
not so. These alternate states continued to exist. One database supplied a
theory for this. The multiverse, a construct of alternate realities all
existing beside each other, each of them mapping a different road through
the giant tree of decisions that made up the universe. She accessed them
for processing power, but they existed whether she did so or not.
There were so many of them that Willow 12 actually had to pause until she
received the result of this latest calculation. The number was much too
large to be displayed to a human observer or formed into words. Besides,
this number was not stable, either. It grew constantly, each decision,
event, process creating new parallels.
Willow 12 was more than a mere computer. She was an artificial
intelligence and therefore fully capable of appreciating the inherent
beauty in this gigantic construct that was all of creation.
Something caught her attention, though. It was the barest of flickers in
the construct, happening so fast that even her quantum awareness had
almost missed it.
There! Another flicker. This time she saw what it was. An instant earlier
she had branched out to handle a complex calculating problem and touched
more than ten to the six hundredth parallels at once. Only the answer had
been incomplete because one of her alternates had not delivered its result.
With something very similar to shock Willow 12 realized that this had
happened because the parallel that this particular alternate Willow 12 had
been on was gone.
Had she erred in her earlier calculation? It was a thought so ridiculous
that she dismissed it immediately. All the observations she had made in
these long nanoseconds clearly proved that quantum parallels did not just
vanish. They did not collapse back in on themselves to form a single
result, they were all real and branched out further with every new result
generated. Yet now two of them were gone. She was certain that this first
flicker she had sensed had also been a parallel vanishing from the
incredibly vast decision tree that was the multiverse.
A full second passed, an eternity for the quantum mind of Willow 12. The
human who had activated her had now fully retracted his hand and put it
into the pocket of his jacket, awaiting her first reaction to the presence
of her operators. She was much too busy, though, utilizing her full
processing power for this eternal second, going through trillions of
predictions and calculations simultaneously.
The results finally materialized and filled even this artificial
intelligence with dread.
A computer did not hesitate, though. The moment she had processed the
result she calculated a course of action and put it into motion barely an
instant later. Most of her processing power was busy with that, what
little remained took the time to observe the humans and non-humans who
were still standing in front of her primary control console, waiting for
her to react to their presence.
The database provided their names. Most of them were pretty meaningless to
her, soulless bundles of information she might or might not require in the
future. Only two of the seven people actually received a response from her
higher functions. A response that, she realized a moment later, was
originating in the mind she had been patterned on. Willow Rosenberg had
regarded these two as friends.
Angel. A vampire, a dead body animated by a demon. The entire history of
Angel/Angelus/Liam O’Conner flickered past her awareness and she knew that
the original Willow had thought of him as a friend, almost a brother, had
known him most of her long life. Because of this Willow 12 could not help
but think of him as a friend as well.
The other was Buffy Summers O’Conner, Angel’s wife, the Slayer, best
friend to Willow Rosenberg. Buffy was 165 years old, she calculated, but
remained eternally young because of a mystical bond she shared with the
vampire by her side, a bond that Willow had helped create 144 years ago.
Willow 12 suffered because she knew that these two friends would perish
within the next six seconds, along with the rest of their world and this
entire parallel.
The possibility of saving them was considered and discarded in the span of
a nanosecond. The available resources simply did not suffice. Probability
calculations estimated the chances of her own survival at a mere 28.73
percent. If she attempted to save anyone else along with or instead of
herself the probabilities dropped to less than 0.00000001 percent.
So a small part of her vast mind was weeping for these friends she would
never get to know. The largest part of her, though, was immersed in
preparations. There were 5.5 seconds left until the universe she was
created in would be destroyed and that was all the time she needed.
The people standing in front of her had enough time to be confused, first
about the time Willow 12 needed to react to their presence, then about the
message that flashed into being on the holographic screen before them.
“I will try my best to save the others,” it read.
If they had had the time to check the records later on they would have
seen that, less than a second after Willow 12 created that message, her
entire program was downloaded to an external computer, though where that
computer might be none of them would have been able to tell.
They did not have that time, though. 1.26 seconds after Willow 12
downloaded her entire program to an alternate version of herself in
another parallel the universe of her creation blinked out of existence.
#
In the vast expanse of the Library, the eternal resting place of all books
ever written and conceived, the Librarian’s brow furrowed when he realized
that something was wrong. But a short time ago one of his books had been
stolen, something that had caused quite a ruckus in the world beyond, but
it had been returned and was still safely tucked away in its shelf. Had
something else been stolen?
No, he realized a moment later. Nothing had been stolen. He would know if
that had happened and he had taken quite a few measures to make sure that
it would not happen again. Still, even though nothing had been stolen,
there were books missing.
It was as if they had simply blinked out of existence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - Forging the Future of Slayerkind
#
New Earth Construction Project
Central Station, Earth Orbit
February 2, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
The two women were facing each other, each of them fully focused on the
opponent. Their fighting stances were almost identical, the slightly
taller, black-haired woman leaning forward, while her blonde opponent was
standing more erect. Neither of them blinked.
As if reacting to some unseen signal both of them suddenly exploded into
motion, leaping toward one another and exchanging kicks and punches so
fast that their movements blurred. Blows that could have taken off a
normal human's head impacted harmlessly against a raised cover,
deceptively slender legs performed leaps that seemed to defy gravity.
Even the man watching the fight had trouble keeping track of their rapid
movements. His senses were far superior to that of a mortal man, but the
two women pushed even those to the limit.
The fight lasted less than half a minute, but that was an eternity for the
participants and their lone watcher. One of the women reacted the fraction
of a second too slow, a kick impacted against an unprotected belly, and
moments later the black-haired combatant was on her back, the blonde
victor kneeling over her and thrusting stiff fingers down toward her
throat. The blow halted at the last split second, though, fingertips
making but the barest contact with flushed skin.
“Give?”
“Yeah, yeah!”
Buffy Summers O’Conner smiled and rose, pulling her sparring partner back
up with her. She very much enjoyed these workouts, especially as there
were not many people around who could actually give her a decent one.
Being a Slayer, especially one with over a century of fighting experience
under her belt, meant being in a class almost by herself.
There was her husband, of course, who was also rising to his feet now.
Liam Angelus O’Conner, called Angel by his friends, was just as strong,
just as fast, and way more experienced than she was. Which did not mean
that he always won their sparring sessions. Quite the contrary, as she was
actually enjoying a slight lead in their total count. Said count having
grown quite large after all the years they had spent together.
“Don’t think too much of it, Tinya,” he addressed Buffy’s opponent.
“Getting this Slayer on her back is quite a difficult task.”
“Oh, you think so?” Buffy approached him with a wicked smile on her lips.
“You seem to be perfectly capable of doing it.”
“You have a dirty mind, beloved,” he chuckled, slipping his arm around her
waist. “You will corrupt your young charge yet.”
Tinya Wazzo, the current Vampire Slayer, watched the interplay between her
mentor and history’s most famous vampire with a smile on her face. She had
read a lot about both of them during her childhood, seeing as they were
pretty much living legends, but none of that had prepared her for actually
meeting them in the flesh when she had been called as the Slayer one year
ago.
Most of what the books said about them was rather vague, of course, seeing
as both of them did their best to stay out of the spotlight. Angel’s claim
to fame, the Restoration of Souls, had happened almost two centuries ago,
and since then he had only appeared out in the open a handful of times.
Rumors connected him with pretty much everything from the Golgotha Event
to the cataclysmic Ghost War, where the souls of the dead had returned to
Earth, followed by an army of extra-dimensional invaders. Solid proof for
his involvement in anything was hard to come by, though. Angel liked to
stay in the shadows.
Buffy, for her part, was also more mythological figure than anything else,
at least according to the books. The Slayer who had broken away from the
Council of Watchers’ age-old doctrine of hatred and destruction, who had
made her peace with the vampires and even married and bonded with one. She
was still the Slayer, of course, the bane of every vampire or other
preternatural creature that stepped over the line, but as far as the
public was concerned she was no more than that.
Getting to know them had taught Tinya one thing. Both of them were first
and foremost people. People who were still very much in love even after a
century of being together, as their every gesture and word proved.
Tinya had first come to Buffy’s attention almost two years ago, though
their first meeting had only taken place after her calling a year later.
For over ninety years there had been two Slayers, always the same two, but
in 2091 time had finally caught up with Faith, the woman who had been the
closest thing to a sister Buffy would ever possess. It had not been old
age, though, something that Faith’s healing powers had warred against to
the last, but a criminal vampire who got lucky. That was all.
Faith had seen it coming. Seeing as she had not been immortal like Buffy
she had known that, sooner or later, she would perish and a new Chosen One
would take her place. That was why, two years prior to her death, she and
Buffy had founded the Hyperion Foundation to seek out and train potential
Slayers, much like the Watchers had done during their time.
The main reason for this foundation to be named after an old hotel was
that Faith and Buffy had been unable to decide whether to name it after
Rupert Giles or Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, both of whom had fulfilled the role
of mentor to them at one time or another. They had also both felt that
‘Giles-Pryce Foundation’ sounded too ridiculous.
Tinya was one of many girls who had come to be in the Foundation’s care,
but she was only the second Slayer to be called after Faith’s death. The
first, a girl named Malia, had died during the Mars Rebellion last year.
“We need to work on that blocking technique a little more,” Buffy said,
pulling Tinya from her thoughts. “Apart from that you’re doing great.”
Buffy and Tinya had trained together almost from the moment Tinya had been
called, Buffy taking it upon herself to put the polish on every new Slayer
for whoever long she might be around. Seeing that she was immortal that
might just be a very, very long time.
“I’ll have to leave for the moon within the hour,” Angel told his wife.
“Another senate hearing about the refugee problem.”
Buffy nodded. The refugee problem. It was pretty much all they dealt with
these past five years. Malia had died because of that problem, because of
the explosive climate that the influx of millions of homeless people had
caused in the Mars colony. Not only there, of course. Luna was overflowing
as well, as was pretty much every space colony and station in the entire
solar system and beyond.
It was difficult, she knew. Humanity’s expansion into space was still so
young, so fragile. The Lunar colony had existed for only sixty years now
and it was the oldest of them all. Mars had been settled a mere forty
years ago. Despite the near limitless possibilities offered by the
advances in Magitech there was only so much room where people could be put.
Her eyes were automatically drawn to the large picture window of the
training gym. They were on board one of the larger space stations, which
was also the center of the New Earth Construction Project. A mere five
years ago this window would have shown her something else instead of
endless space and a few thousand stars.
Was it five years already? Five years since they had lost their world?
Angel, sensing her thoughts, immediately tightened his hold around her,
pulling her against his body. “We are making a new one, beloved,” he
whispered to her. “We are getting our world back.”
“It won’t be our world,” Buffy answered, infinite sadness in her words.
“It will be. Not immediately, but in time.”
Buffy did not reply, just kept looking out into the emptiness. That empty
blotch of space where, five years ago, the planet Earth had been
destroyed.
“You better get going,” she said after a while, moving out of her
husband’s embrace. “They won’t be able to start without you.”
Angel was not an official member of the United Nations Senate, the
governing body of the human race in these troubled times, but he might as
well have been. No matter that he still liked to stick to the shadows and
held no political office of any kind, he was still the man that nearly all
vampires in the world looked to for guidance, whether he wanted them to or
not.
Which also meant that many people expected him to be there for yet another
meeting about what to do with the billions of people that Earth's
destruction had left homeless. Evacuating them had been comparatively easy
thanks to the Stepping Disks his old friend Tara had created half a
century ago. Where to put them now, though, was a completely different
question. One that, even five years later, had yet to be answered to
anyone’s satisfaction.
“I’ll be back soon, I hope.”
“I think I have enough paperwork piled up to keep me busy for a few
decades. That should not stop you from hurrying back, of course.”
With a final kiss Angel left, leaving Buffy and Tinya alone with the
emptiness beyond the window. Tinya was only seventeen years old, having
been twelve on the day Earth had died. Already her memories of the planet
were beginning to fade. The last five years of her life she had lived on
this station, which was the size of a few dozen cities, and she already
thought of it as her home.
For Buffy, though, she knew it would never be like that. For over a
hundred years her home had been the Earth and now it was gone.
Squinting her eyes she could make out some flashes of light amidst the
empty space. Those were the construction drones, busily at work around the
clock. So far there was little to show for the nearly three years of
massive effort that had already gone into the New Earth Construction
Project, but if things went according to schedule that would change soon.
Soon they would get a new world.
“I wonder if I’m going to forget,” Buffy said suddenly.
“Forget?”
“When I’m walking across that new home world we are building ourselves. A
few centuries will pass and I wonder whether I am going to forget that
this is not home. That home is gone.”
Tinya did not know what to say to that and moments later Buffy turned
toward her with an apologetic smile on her lips.
“Sorry! Just a really old person thinking out loud. Pay no attention!”
Tinya grinned. “Do I ever?”
“No respect for your elders, I see. I think you need another lesson.”
“If you’re not feeling too tired. I know how it is with you old people.”
Moments later the two women were back in fighting stance and ready to
square off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 - Ghosts of Christmas Never to Come
#
United Nations Senate
Armstrong City, Lunar Colony
February 27, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
The Senate hall was buzzing with activity as hundreds of delegates were
preparing for the coming session. Papers were shuffled, assistants sent on
errands, preliminary talks held with other senators. For the past five
years this barely organized chaos had been the guiding institution for the
entire human race, but had someone asked him Angel would have been unable
to say how they managed to accomplish anything.
The destruction of Earth had put an end to humanity’s political diversity.
People from all countries were now thrown together into a single mass of
refugees and they had little time for politics. They were more concerned
about where their next meal would be coming from and where to lie down to
sleep. The governments of the Martian and Lunar colonies would have been
completely overtaxed trying to govern a population that had suddenly grown
from a few million people to several billion. The only solution had been
the United Nations Senate.
Most of the UN’s institutions had survived the death of their planet. The
Peace Keeping Commission controlled what remained of the world’s military.
The Preternatural Investigation Division still dealt with all crimes of
the stranger sort. And now there was the New Earth Construction Project,
the most massive undertaking in human history, which would hopefully
return a world to them soon.
Right next to Angel was Jennifer Rosenberg, his goddaughter and current
CEO and primary shareholder of Magitech Incorporated. Jennifer was the
daughter of Willow and Tara (biologically speaking she was the daughter of
Willow and an unknown sperm donor and had been born after Tara’s death,
but that was beside the point) and at this moment in time probably the
single richest human being in the universe. Most of Magitech’s assets had
survived and the corporation was the main drive in the New Earth
Construction Project.
Therefore it was not surprising that, when the Senate session finally came
to order, Jennifer was asked to speak regarding the status of the Project.
“We are ready to begin the next phase within two months,” she told the
delegates. “Our current target date is April 6.”
The next phase, Angel mused. So mundane a term for the miracle they were
trying to accomplish. There had been many discussions about this project,
especially whether it even made sense. Because of the Stepping Disks there
was no practical limit to the distances the human race could travel among
the stars, so why not simply seek out another world with Earth-like
qualities and turn that into a new home?
Even apart from the problem of finding such a world, which had proven
futile so far, there were other factors that made this impractical. The
human race had come to be dependent upon their advances in magical
technology and large parts of the available magic were rooted in their
world’s position in space. Moving to a completely different sector of
space would severely disrupt the workings of current magitech, even more
than the loss of their world already had, and that was something the human
race could not currently afford.
“How long do you estimate until phase four?”
The question was posed by one of the delegates and Angel could see
Jennifer suppress a groan. They had yet to complete phase one and these
people were already thinking of phase four. Well, given the circumstances
it was understandable, but even magic could accomplish only so much so
fast.
Jennifer activated the holographic projector in the Senate Hall and
started to explain (for what had to be the hundredth time) how the project
would proceed as the various phases were displayed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as you well know phase one entailed the building of
a Stepping Disk with a diameter of more than 13,000 kilometers. This phase
is almost completed. In phase two we will transport a lifeless planet from
the Epsilon Eridani system through this portal. This planet has roughly
the same size and mass as the Earth, but is currently little more than a
big piece of rock.
“Phase three, the terraforming of this new planet, will be the most
difficult. Our first concern is to set this planet into its correct orbit,
of course.”
The destruction of Earth had endangered the entire system, Angel knew, its
missing gravity beginning to change the orbits of the other planets. The
moon was especially vulnerable. They had expended great amounts of time
and energy into setting the drifting planetoid into an orbit around the
sun, but it was but a temporary measure. Luna had the wrong size and mass
to remain in this orbit for any length of time.
Hundreds of computers were busy trying to calculate the exact changes that
would occur if they did not manage to replace Earth soon, both to the moon
and the rest of the system. So far the only thing they all agreed upon was
that it would be bad.
“Only when we have successfully given this currently dead planet a viable
biosphere,” Jennifer concluded, “will we be able to progress to phase
four, resettling Earth’s population. Our current estimates are that we
will not be able to begin phase four until late 2103, maybe even later
than that.”
There was some murmuring among the delegates. They had all heard these
projections before, of course, but for some reason they seemed to cling to
the hope that hearing it over and over again might improve the timescale.
Angel knew how explosive the situation was, had been for the last five
years with no end in sight. Mars and Luna were overflowing with refugees,
so many that the colonies were threatening to break under the strain. They
had even opened Stepping Disks to some of the better known demon
dimensions and created fortified refugee camps there, which was not the
safest of undertakings regarding the violent nature of those dimensions’
inhabitants. They needed room for their people and this new world could
not come soon enough.
Another three years, Angel mused, if that soon. No one was very happy
about that, but unfortunately no one had an idea how to change it, either.
Jennifer sat down again, leaning over to whisper to Angel as another
speaker addressed the Senate. “Were politicians always like this?”
Angel smiled at that. He had known Jennifer since she was born, had been a
figure in her life for all her 42 years. She really loved to quiz him
about the past.
“I believe a similar mindset has prevailed throughout the centuries,” he
informed his goddaughter.
“How did we ever survive to this point?”
Before Angel could think of an answer for that one his com suddenly began
to buzz. Unrest was suddenly spreading through the Senate, as his was not
the only one. Activating it caused a holographic image to be projected
onto his eye, making it seem as if a human figure was suddenly hovering in
midair right in front of him.
The picture was Tinya. “Angel, you have to take a look at this!”
Before he could ask her what was going on the picture shifted, now looking
out through one of the windows of Central Station. Angel could not
suppress a gasp at what he saw there.
Judging by the shocked silence suddenly reigning in the Senate pretty much
everyone was looking at the same pictures he did right now.
#
Buffy spent about five minutes with her face pressed against the cold
plastic of the window, just staring out into the no longer empty space
behind it. Then she suddenly exploded into action, moving so fast that
Tinya, on the com with Angel, did not even see her leave.
The nearest public airlock was reached in the blink of an eye and she had
barely stepped inside when the symbiotic space suit in her pocket reacted
to her spoken command and quickly wrapped itself around her body. Pumping
out the air took another minute and finally Buffy was outside, pushing
away from the humongous space station.
Black wings unfolded from her back, a gift she had received from the dying
Archangel Raphael 44 years ago. Using them had become second nature to her
after all this time and, being mystical in nature, the wings had no
problem unfolding through a sealed space suit, nor did the complete
absence of air pose any sort of hindrance.
Within moments the wings accelerated her to a speed of several hundred
meters per second and she shot towards the planet who had suddenly
appeared where Earth had died five years ago.
Her husband’s thoughts flooded through the bond they shared, his awareness
shifting to look out through her eyes as she neared this impossibility
that loomed before her. It looked like Earth, there was no denying that.
From where she was she could see giant blue oceans, white clouds drifting
across them. She was falling almost directly toward the terminator and on
the night side of it she could see the land filled with the artificial
lights of big cities.
This was Earth. It had to be.
The moment she thought that, though, her rational mind kicked in.
Something was very wrong here. Planets did not just appear out of thin
air, especially planets that had been blown to bits five years earlier.
Plus there was the fact that Central Station, which had once orbited Earth
but was now drifting freely in space, should have been shaken like a boat
on a wild river by the sudden reappearance of a planet-sized gravity well.
Just over the horizon she could see the slender arch of the nearly
finished Stepping Disk they were building here. The fragile construct
should have been torn apart, but it was still whole and undamaged.
Buffy fell toward the strange planet and should have hit the outer layers
of the atmosphere by now. There was nothing, though. Nothing at all.
“Just an illusion,” she murmured to herself and to Angel. “Why is someone
projecting an illusion of Earth?”
There was no answer forthcoming and Buffy continued her descent. If this
was an illusion then it was the most detailed one she had ever seen. By
now she could make out landmarks, sprawling cities. She was falling toward
Europe and the cities seemed to be in all the right places, too. For a
moment she tried to calculate the amounts of energy an illusion of this
size would require. It was staggering.
Then it was over. There was the briefest flicker, as if the planet in
front of her was an image on a body of water disturbed by the wind, then
it was gone. Buffy flew through completely empty space, only the stars for
company.
She had been close enough to see people moving around on the ground just
before it vanished.
“Why? Why would anyone do this to us?” She shook her head, trying to hold
back the tears. It had not been real, could not have been real, but
believing, even for a moment, that their world might have been returned to
them ...
While her wings moved almost by themselves to bring her back to Central
Station Buffy closed her eyes, her hands shaking with anger. Whoever had
played this cruel joke on them would pay for this. Pay dearly.
#
In a building that was part of the sprawling Magitech complex near
Tranquility on Luna the fabric of reality flickered and wavered. The large
room was empty except for a few half-finished prototypes, pieces of a
project to create a quantum computer, now put on hold for the foreseeable
future because of the New Earth construction.
Databanks were suddenly filled by a massive influx of information, hailing
seemingly from thin air. Strange machines that had not been there moments
before connected to the computers already here, connected to data ports
and power outlets all over the room.
The artificial intelligence known as Willow 12 became aware once more and
began to take stock of its surroundings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 - It’s the End of the World As We Know It
#
Elsewhere
Beneath that which is called reality there is something else. Far beyond
the known dimensions, be they material or ethereal, beyond even such
places as the Infinite Library or the hall of the Cosmic Gamesmen, there
is another realm.
This space holds no stars and planets, no black background with lights
sprinkled across its fabric. Nor does it consist of endless plains of
hellfire and brimstone or fluffy clouds. There has never been a name for
this place or anything in it for no one has ever come here to name it.
No magical portals open to this place. There are no roads than can be
traveled, no powers one might invoke to be granted access. The only way to
reach this place is to do it under your own power and with complete
knowledge of where it is you are going. The number of beings who even know
of its existence is sparse and among those who do know there are even
fewer with the power to actually make it here.
This number has just recently increased by one.
There is no air in this realm unless those traveling through it might get
the idea of creating it. Even then, though, there would be complete
silence. There is no light here, either, but darkness is conspicuous by
its absence as well. One could look in one direction with squinted eyes
and see all of this realm if it occurred to one to do so. There is not
much to see, of course.
To be more precise there is exactly one thing to see here in this realm
beneath reality and even among the very, very small number of beings who
know of this place and have the power to get here there are almost none
who would be able to make sense of what it is they see.
Almost none.
From one moment to the next the eternal silence of this realm is disturbed
by the murmur of a voice. Someone is whispering and someone else is there
to listen, has always been there to listen as long as this place has
existed.
In the realm beneath reality something begins to stir.
#
The Magic Box
Sunnydale, California
October 2, 2001 AD
Parallel 2
The door to the shop flew open with a loud jingle of the bell and Willow
and Tara stormed inside, the redhead positively shaking with excitement.
“It’s here? Did it arrive?”
Anya looked at the two witches and sighed, quickly concluding her business
with the only customer currently inside the shop. She waited until that
customer (that paying customer, unlike the two people in front of her)
left before turning toward the witches. Who said she had not gotten the
hang of this whole discretion thing?
“Yes, it arrived. One Urn of Osiris, perfect for bringing people back from
the dead. And I’m told it makes a nice fireplace ornament, too.”
Willow barely listened to her words, too excited to even stand still. The
urn was here, the urn that would allow them to bring Buffy back. For the
last three months the thought of her best friend lying in that cold grave
had haunted her nightmares and now she was finally able to do something
about it.
They would bring Buffy back.
“We have to be sure it’s genuine,” Tara said behind her. “If we perform
this spell and there is even the slightest mistake …”
“There won’t be,” Willow quickly interrupted her. “We have prepared for
this for over a month now. We can do it! We can!”
The doorbell chimed. “Do what?”
Everyone turned to look at Dawn, who was entering the shop with her school
bag slung over her shoulder. School had started again just two days ago
and the girl had thrown herself into her studies with a completely unusual
enthusiasm.
Her friends knew, of course, why this was happening. Dawn was trying to
distract herself by whatever means possible. Anything but think of the
people she had lost during this long, long year.
“We ... we’re hoping to perfect a new spell to help us fight the vampires,
Dawnie,” Tara quickly covered. “You know we have been toiling there as of
late.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dawn looked down a sad expression on her face. “Looks like
all the demons are out to play now that ... now that ...”
Tara went over to her and gathered her in a hug, wishing that there was
some way to make the little girl’s pain go away. Maybe there was, she
reminded herself. If they were successful.
“Sorry about that,” Dawn said after a while, moving out of Tara’s embrace.
“I ... I have to do some homework.”
“Dawnie, you know you can always ...”
Tara was interrupted when Dawn suddenly screamed, collapsing to her knees.
Her eyes were flashing silver, an energy nimbus that seemed to surround
her entire body for the briefest of moments, only to disappear again a
moment later.
Willow was by Dawn’s side before the girl could fall down.
“Dawnie? Dawnie, what is it?”
“I don’t know. There was this pain suddenly, almost like ...”
Tara was frozen, what she had seen in Dawn’s aura had rooted her to the
spot. The last time she had seen this she had only just recovered from
being insane, Willow having restored her after Glory’s attack, but she
remembered everything.
Remembered looking up the tower and seeing Dawn’s aura flash when the
ritual was completed and the portal that had killed Buffy opened, the
mystical energy of the Key unleashed and ripping right through the fabric
of dimensions. It could not be happening again, could it? That was not
possible.
“Something is happening,” Dawn said when Willow helped her back to her
feet. “I ... I can feel it. I know it.”
“What is happening, Dawnie?”
Anya, who had followed the exchange with a somewhat limited amount of
interest (she liked Dawn, but her screeching might scare away the
customers), looked towards the door, hoping for more money to make its way
in. She saw something else instead. Something that more than a thousand
years of life had not prepared her for.
“D’Hoffryn preserve us!”
Tara heard her words and followed her gaze. “Goddess!”
The door to the shop was gone. Not ripped from its hinges by some angry
vampire or demon creature, just gone. As was most of the front window. The
world seemed to come to an end but a few feet away from them, fading into
a perfect virgin white.
“What is that?” Willow was by her side, clutching her hand.
Tara accessed every ounce of premonition and sensitivity she had ever
possessed, tried to make something of this, tried to see past it. Only
there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
“It’s behind us, too,” Dawn yelled, huddled against the two witches and
gesturing toward the back door, which had vanished into white as well.
The effect was spreading.
“We need to get out of here!” Willow’s eyes turned black and she conjured
a bolt of lighting that sprang from her hands and lashed out into the
whiteness before them. The crackling energy simply vanished.
“Teleportation,” Willow grasped Tara’s hand tighter. “We can try and
teleport out of here.”
“It’s no use,” Tara said in a deceptively calm voice. Her eyes were closed
and she felt the ground beneath her fading, felt the world she was linked
to through her magic ripple and vanish. “There is nothing to teleport to.”
The white reached Anya and the former demon stared in fascination as first
her arm, then her entire body just faded away. It was not painful, she
barely even felt it. There was just nothing where her body was supposed to
be, no sensation at all.
Then she was gone.
Willow and Tara clutched Dawn close, the redhead conjuring up every spell
and power she could think off to fend off this strange force that was
attacking them. Nothing worked, though. Tara just held Dawn tight and
waited for the white to reach them.
Neither of them noticed a ghostly image that looked decidedly like Willow
appear. It observed them for a second, a sad look on its face, then it
vanished again in a flicker of quantum energy. There was nothing that
could be done here now.
Tonight the two witches Willow and Tara, along with their friends Xander
and Anya, would bring Buffy back from the dead, believing they were
rescuing her from a terrible hell dimension. Instead they would rip her
out of heaven, sending her tumbling into a pit of despair. All their lives
would be subjected to darkness because of this, their family falling
apart, and it would take the survivors a long time to pick up the pieces.
This story was already written and would play out exactly like it was
supposed to.
Only now it would not. For this place, this world, and all the people in
it ceased to exist from one minute to the next. All that was left behind
was an empty canvas.
A perfect virgin white.
#
Elsewhere
The whispers ceased and silence reigned once more in the realm beneath
reality. There was no sense of change, no visible sign that anything was
not how it had been but moments before, but the whisperer knew that this
was deceptive. Something had changed. Something monumental.
The only problem was that it was not the intended change. The whisperer
was here for a purpose and that purpose had yet to be fulfilled.
So it was that moments later the whispering began once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 - Brave New Soulworld That I See
#
Magitech Lunar Complex
Tranquility, Lunar Colony
February 2, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
Within the first second of her existence on this parallel the self-aware
quantum computer called Willow 12 soaked up every single piece of data she
could get on this new world she found herself in and calculated the
differences to the world of her origin. She had only existed in the latter
for all of eleven seconds, but she still felt a very illogical connection
to it.
Maybe it was the synaptic patters of Willow Rosenberg that served as the
blueprint for her mind that ingested her with such emotions. She decided
to divert some processing power to this riddle.
This world, she concluded, was not too different from the one she hailed
from. They had in fact been identical until a divergence point, where an
event or a choice had resulted in at least two different variants, one
being Willow 12’s world, the other this one. From the data she accumulated
Willow 12 was not able to determine exactly which event or choice had
split the parallels, but she was able to narrow its occurrence down to
several days in the April of the year 2093.
She also noted that there seemed to be a discrepancy in the flow of time
between the two dimensions, seeing as she had arrived more than 45 years
prior to her leaving her own parallel. Was this a natural phenomenon when
crossing universes or something to do with the destruction of parallels
she had observed? This would need to be investigated if she planned to do
anything about the latter.
Apart from the time discrepancy the most noticeable difference between the
two parallels was, of course, that in this universe the planet Earth had
been destroyed in 2096. A planet that, in her world, had still been whole
and safe fifty years after it had been blown into particles in this
parallel.
She felt a pang of regret for the loss even as she processed the data on
this event. She learned about the second invasion of the Nimir, something
that had never taken place in her world, and about the catastrophic
backlash effect of the High Magic spell used against them. The leaders of
this version of Earth had had less than a week to completely evacuate the
planet and had managed to save all but a handful of people.
She also learned of the current problems with housing all the survivors
and that Magitech, her creators in her own world, had put all other
projects on hold to divert all their resources to the creation of a new
world. New Earth.
That probably meant that her own creation would be set back quite a few
years in this universe, if it was to happen at all. Quickly checking the
databases she found that all the people involved in her design, or at
least those who were already born, had survived the destruction of Earth.
Most of them were busy in the New Earth Construction Project, though, and
there was no telling whether any of them would take an interest in quantum
computing over the next decades. Seeing as they were busy creating a world
almost from scratch she doubted it somehow.
Another two seconds were spent in contemplation of this new parallel she
found herself in and the nature of the event that had destroyed her own
and several others. She also found that in this universe she did not have
access to the necessary resources to fully utilize her processing
capacity. Well, that was to be expected, was it not? Her original design
had called for half a dozen fusion spheres. The available sources of
energy here were very much insufficient, the amounts of power she could
draw from Luna’s power grid without disrupting the already critical life
support situation on the moon barely allowed her to expand across ten to
the fiftieth parallels.
How was she supposed to keep her promise to save the other parallels from
destruction if she had this little processing power at her disposal?
The solution was quickly found, of course. She needed outside assistance,
assistance from the inhabitants of this parallel. People who either had
the means to supply her with the resources she needed or had a lot of
experience in handling situations like this (though she doubted anyone had
ever handled anything quite like this). Checking through the databases
once again she found a number of people who fulfilled these criteria and
prepared to contact them.
Limited as her abilities might be on this parallel she still found it no
problem to easily bypass all encryptions and firewalls that protected the
various systems she was linking up to, her current processing power easily
cracking every code she came across. Plus the magitechnology of this
parallel was 45 years behind her own, meaning she was outclassing every
security measure in her way.
Acquiring the com codes of this parallel’s versions of Angel and Buffy
O’Conner was barely a challenge. Locating them took but a moment longer.
Angel was currently here on Luna, while Buffy was in space, approaching
the space platform called Central Station. They both had access to
Stepping Disk transportation, meaning that they could get here within
moments.
Jennifer Rosenberg was the CEO of Magitech, just like in her own parallel,
and finding her private com code was a little more difficult, but did not
take much longer. Willow 12 knew that she had safety protocols built into
her programming that authorized a few people, like the head of Magitech
for example, to take complete control of her via simple voice command.
Seeing as this Jennifer Rosenberg had a different quantum signature than
the one programmed into those protocols diffused that risk quite nicely,
though.
She picked out a few others. Tinya Wazzo was the Slayer of this time.
According to the data carried over from her home parallel Tinya had died
September 23, 2136 battling a sorcerer who had acquired the powerful Glove
of Mhyneghon. That had been, or rather would be, on Earth, so Willow 12
doubted that this parallel’s Tinya would share this fate 35 years down the
line.
The government of this parallel was in too much disarray at the moment to
be of much assistance, so Willow 12 decided against including any of them.
Whom she did decide on was the vampire called William the Bloody, though,
currently living on Mars. Apparently Spike had withdrawn into seclusion
after the destruction of Earth, coming but so few years after the loss of
his long-time companion Faith. Still, Willow 12 was quite certain that he
would be of assistance. He and Angel had stormed Hell together, after all,
which was all the credential she needed.
Even as she decided on the people she could use a part of her mind was
actively monitoring all the parallels her current power levels allowed.
Another seemed poised on the edge of destruction and she manifested a
simulacrum of herself on that plain, observing the last few seconds of
that world’s existence. That part of her which was alive and aware wept as
she saw that world’s version of Willow die, along with Tara and a young
girl she did not know. That did not stop her from quickly assimilating all
the information to be had. Processing that information led to troubling
results.
The parallel seemed to have been obliterated along its entire length
within the span of a few seconds, which spoke of a power even she had a
hard time calculating. Her database provided no clue on anything that had
such power, no magical artifact or demonic force. She doubted that even
Hell’s Tower of the Damned or Heaven’s Repository of Souls had held but a
fraction of the necessary energy.
If that alone had not been problem enough she was now picking up
disturbances all along the multiversal parallels. As some of them blinked
out of existence the entire construct of alternate dimensions seemed to be
shifting, growing more unstable. Parallels briefly overlapped, multiple
versions of what was and what could have been occupying the same space for
short moments of time, sometimes with disastrous consequences, before
vanishing once more.
Willow 12 came to the very dissatisfying conclusion that she did not have
any clue why this was happening or how she was going to put a stop to it.
Much like the human being she had been patterned on she did not like this
situation one bit.
Time to call in some help.
#
Spike sat on his couch and stared out across the nighttime desert of Mars,
finding too many hours in the day and too little to do at night. He was
bored, terribly so, but at the same time found himself unable to work up
much enthusiasm for doing anything, either. Which left him staring out at
the starlit desert with nothing to do but think.
It was a habit he had often admonished Angel for, this brooding. Now he
found himself doing little else. There just did not seem to be a sense in
doing anything else anymore. What was left to do for a 19th century failed
poet in a world where the planet Earth had died because of a stupid
miscalculation? What need did this world have of a guy who did not know
how to do anything except break bones and kick ass?
Spike felt old, very much so. He was not that old as vampires went, had
only passed his two century mark. He knew vampires who had millennia under
their belt and did not look like they would give up anytime soon. For
Spike, though, the world had changed too fast. He had certainly done his
part to ensure that it would. People tended to forget that it had been him
and Angel together who had worked the Restoration. He had been there to
kick Golgotha’s giant demon butt, had led an army of vampires and dead
Slayers into Hell to snuff the Inferno, had fought in the front line
against the Nimir.
It was not the fact that history barely even knew he existed that bothered
him, though. No, it was the fact that none of it seemed to matter down the
line. For over a century they had fought to integrate their people with
the humans and now it was done, no more work left for him to do. In his
long life he had loved two women and they were both dead now. He had
enjoyed living on a world that was now so much dust in space. He doubted
he would ever see dog racing again, or a game by Manchester United. Beer
had become a precious and rare commodity these days, as had cigarettes.
Everything he had cared for was gone. Well, there were Angel and Buffy,
the best friends a guy could ever ask for, but in their case three really
was one hell of a crowd. His Sire was one lucky bird, Spike knew, having
found someone to share eternity with. Well, Spike had had that in
Drusilla, too, only she had been taken from him over a century ago. He
liked to think that she was waiting for him on the other side. His years
with Faith had been great, but he had known from the start that they would
end sooner or later. Faith had not been interested in immortality.
Which left him alone and feeling quite useless. He knew he was still one
of the toughest fighters around, but what use was someone who could knock
heads together when worlds died and time took the people he loved away?
Not for the first time these last few years he wondered whether it was
time for him to go meet the sunrise. He knew that the average vampire did
not normally last that much longer than your average human. Old vampires
were few and far between, those who had found something or someone to make
living forever endurable. Angel had Buffy. Buffy had Angel. He was quite
certain that those two would last for millennia, no matter what the
universe threw at them.
Spike, though? What did he have left to live for?
He rose, pressing his hand against the cold plastic of the window. Mars
was crowded these days, but one would not know it from this view. The
desert stretched on as far as the eye could see, all the way to the too
close horizon. Mars was not Earth and Spike has a hard time pretending
that it was. The gravity was wrong, the night sky was wrong, even the
horizon was wrong.
Mars had two moons and both of them were visible in the sky right now. One
of them was full at the moment and Spike wondered whether that meant the
lycanthropes living on Mars were active tonight. Maybe he could go out and
find a few of them, get into some trouble and start a brawl or two. Or
maybe he should visit a bar, drink a few young punks under the table.
Probably would not work, though. Mars distilled its own alcohol, but
without the imports from Earth there was too little of it to be really
affordable. Especially seeing as there were a lot of people looking to
drink themselves into oblivion these days.
Maybe he should just go out into the desert and wait for sunrise. It was a
thought that he knew he would not act upon, but it kept rearing its ugly
head. Maybe one night he would not be strong enough to fend it off and
would take that walk out into the desert, would watch his first sunrise in
over two centuries.
But not tonight.
The beeping of his com finally drew him away from the window. The only
people who called him here were Buffy and Angel, checking up on him. Angel
was probably worried about his state of mind somewhat. The old geezer
never knew not to burden himself with more worry than he could handle.
It was not Angel, though. Neither was it Buffy.
“Hello, Spike,” a voice he had not heard in decades spoke to him. “If you
have nothing pressing to do I could really use your help.”
Spike stared at the holographic figure of Willow Rosenberg, a friend who
had died nearly twenty years ago, and it caused him to remember the last
time he had seen a dead friend suddenly turn up out of nowhere, asking for
his help. Things had gone downhill from there, right down into Hell, to be
precise.
He had a sinking feeling that history was about to repeat itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 - Lost Books, Strange Spirits, and Whole New Ball Games
#
The Infinite Library
The Librarian traversed the endless corridors of his home, trying to
figure out what was happening to his books. Books did not just disappear.
They might be stolen, yes, taken away to cause damage somewhere else, but
they did not just vanish into thin air. Something unnatural was happening
here and the Librarian was certain that he could figure out what it was if
only he found the right book to look it up in.
He passed the shelf that held the eleven books of creation and paused for
a moment, looking at them. They were all here, even the Necronomicon which
had been stolen from him before. Or were they? For a moment his vision
seemed to waver and there was that painful gap once more, the place where
a book should be. Then things returned to normal and the books were all
there, resting peacefully.
Turning the Librarian confronted another version of himself, the two of
them looking at one another and conferring silently. The Infinite Library
was beyond time and space and meeting future or past versions of himself
was nothing new for the Librarian. This was strange, though. His
doppelganger did not seem to be from his past or his future. He seemed
quite different.
The other Librarian looked at the books and seemed surprised to see the
Necronomicon there. When was it returned, he asked. Before the Librarian
could answer him there was a flicker and the other was gone, vanished as
if he had never existed. At the same time an itch in the back of his head
let him know that more of his books had vanished.
What was going on here?
He did not understand these happenings and began to have doubts that any
of his books could tell him about it, either. Opening the book that held
his own life story he carefully read of his encounter with that strange
doppelganger and it left him even more puzzled than before. Where and when
had that other come from?
Some indeterminable amount of time later he finally found a book that
seemed to offer at least a partial answer to his questions. It was an
answer that left him worried, though, very much so. If this was what was
happening he doubted that the vanished books would ever return. More would
disappear, too, irreplaceable volumes lost forever.
This was not right. Something was interfering with the natural order of
things, something with a kind of power he could barely imagine. Or maybe
someone?
Whatever the case the Librarian knew that he could do little about it.
Someone would rise up to battle this menace, whatever it was. Someone
always did and he would read about it in his books.
Truth to tell he was rather curious to see how this story was going to
play out because he could not think of a way for this to be resolved for
the life of him.
#
The Ethereal Dimensions
In life she had been a Slayer, but even though that title still carried
some weight here in the afterlife she had long since stopped defining
herself through it. Kendra had spent the better part of the last century
traversing the various forms of the hereafter, sometimes alone, sometimes
with others. She had even returned to the living world for a brief time to
fight side by side with her successor, Buffy Summers, and thousands of
other Slayers to save the world one more time.
None of which prepared her for the sudden onslaught of memories flooding
into her head. Memories of a life she had never led. She saw herself
called, guided by a Watcher who was not Wesley Windham-Pryce, the closest
thing to a father she had ever had. Memories of a town called Sunnydale
caught her attention, a town where she met Buffy Summers, her predecessor
as the Slayer, and fought first against then beside her for the life of
Angel, her lover. Then there was death, her throat slashed by a beautiful
black-haired vampire, a sharp pain followed by nothingness.
Moments later it was over and Kendra was left confused and frightened. The
memories had vanished as quickly as they came, but they had shown her an
entire life, brief as it might have been. A life she had never led.
What was going on here?
Faith had lived longer than most humans. Certainly longer than any other
Slayer except one. Except for a few mistakes made during her foolish youth
she had little in the way of regrets. She had been chosen to protect the
world from evil and for the greatest part of her long life she had done
just that, be it alone or with her friends, her family. Faith had fought
against death to the last but when it finally embraced her she had
accepted it. She knew what was to come, after all.
In the afterlife she had met a few friends that had gone before her, as
well as some people she had expected never to see again. Her parents, who
had died in a car crash when she was but twelve, had been happy to see her
again and very proud of what their daughter had made of her life. Willow
and Tara, two lovers reunited after death, had shown Faith some of the
sights of their corner of the afterlife. Faith was a wanderer, though, and
did not stay in one place for long.
She was quite surprised when she came upon one who definitely should not
have been here.
“Buffy?”
Her sister Slayer gave her a confused look, but the confusion quickly gave
way to suspicion and anger.
“What are you doing here? When did they let you out of prison?”
“Prison? B, what are you talking about? Why are you here? You’re not
supposed to die, remember?”
“Die?” The other Slayer looked more confused than ever. “I ... there was
this portal and ... Glory. Dawn. I ... I had no choice but to ...”
A moment later she was gone, disappeared in a flicker of white. Faith
blinked, uncertain of what she had seen. The dead had ways to keep up to
date with the living world and she quickly found that Buffy was not dead
but very much alive.
What was going on here?
#
The hall of the Cosmic Gamesmen
Life was a game. Or rather mortal life in all its many forms was a game to
those who never were and never would be mortal. Several thousand years
ago, as mortals reckoned time, one of these immortal Gamesmen had snuck
into the Infinite Library and stolen a book, one that he had then brought
into the game by leaving it to be found in the mortal world.
The Cosmic Gamesmen were still discussing that latest move. It had
rearranged the board in a major way, changed the course of the game for
many moves to come. Some were angry about this, others were quite happy,
but they all had to admit that it had been a brilliant move and gave
applause, though reluctant in some cases.
There was no limit to the time that could pass between moves. The Gamesman
whose turn was coming up now could think about his (or her, as the
Gamesmen are not defined by any one gender) next move. Everyone suspected
him to take quite a while, truth be told, as he had a tough one to follow
up on.
The Gamesmen knew, of course, that their board represented a living world.
A world that might very well go through changes even without any of them
making a move. It was part of what made this game so interesting and
exciting. It was unpredictable. Sometimes the mortals would perform in a
way that none of them would ever have expected. The Gamesmen had but
limited control over the actions of their pieces and they preferred it
that way.
Where was the fun in playing with mindless pieces?
It had indeed come to the point where the Gamesmen expected the occasional
unusual activity on their board. What none of them did expect, though,
what none of them would ever have dreamed of expecting, was what they were
observing at this moment.
Pieces none of them had ever seen appeared and disappeared again. Entire
worlds flickered and faded, replaced by strange duplicates that had no
place on the board. A small spark of light told the story of a world’s
death where several different versions of it suddenly overlapped and
annihilated each other.
What was going on here?
The Gamesmen focused all their attention on the board now, the brilliant
move they had avidly discussed but moments before forgotten now. Someone
was manipulating their board, someone from outside.
They watched in rapt fascination as strange pieces appeared, only to
vanish a moment later. A glint caught their eyes, directing their
attention to a sector of the board where a world died a violent death
because there were suddenly six versions of it all occupying the same
space at the same time, annihilating each other in a heartbeat.
The very fabric of space and time flickered and warped. Something was
changing, something that they had no control over. What- or whoever was
doing this had to be nearly as powerful as the Gamesmen themselves, maybe
even more so.
The Gamesmen watched in rapt fascination as the game changed right before
their eye and where they had been players only moments ago they now found
themselves helpless spectators.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 - Doesn’t Anyone Stay Dead Anymore?
#
Magitech Lunar Complex
Tranquility, Lunar Colony
February 2, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
It was a strange gathering they found themselves at. Not only because they
had all received a call inviting them here, even those whose com codes
were top secret and not available to the general public. Not only because
they had all been brought here by Stepping Disks, even those among them
who had been in buildings where the latest in magitechnology was to
prevent such portals from being opened for security reasons. Not only
because they all found themselves standing outside what should have been a
currently abandoned building in the sprawling Magitech complex near
Tranquility and found it looking anything but abandoned.
While all this was part of the general strangeness the strangest thing had
to be the figure that stood there to greet them. A figure that strongly
resembled a woman that all but one of them had known and seen die years
ago.
“Mom?” Jennifer Rosenberg was the first to speak, addressing what appeared
to be her mother.
“Not quite,” the figure answered, smiling. “My designation is Willow 12,
Jenny.”
“You’re not real,” Angel growled. “You don’t have a heartbeat.”
“Don’t tell me we’re having ghosts again,” Spike groaned.
Buffy was not saying anything, too confused upon seeing someone who looked
so much like her best friend.
“She’s a ghost?” Tinya, standing close to Buffy, looked at her mentor.
“She doesn’t feel like a ghost or anything else supernatural to me.”
“I am not a ghost,” Willow 12 confirmed, “and I am only partly
supernatural. What you’re seeing is a hologram and I am Willow 12,
Magitech quantum computer. At your service.”
Buffy threw an angry glance at Jennifer. “You built this?”
The CEO of Magitech looked as confused as anyone else. “Magitech has never
built a quantum computer. Certainly not one named after my mother.”
The hologram grinned at them. “Not yet.”
“So what, are you trying to tell us you’re from the future?” Spike sounded
rather skeptical and not very happy to be here.
“Not quite. This is a rather long story, so why don’t you come inside? I’m
working on cleaning the place up a little.”
The hologram vanished even as the main doors of the building slid back,
inviting them in. The five of them, Angel, Buffy, Tinya, Jennifer, and
Spike, shared a brief look of caution and wariness, then slowly trotted
inside. They all kept their eyes out for possible threats and wordlessly
took the only noncombatant among them in the middle.
“This building should be empty,” Jennifer said as they walked down a
corridor. They could already hear the whine of working machinery and
active power lines. “It’s a computer laboratory, but we don’t use it at
the moment. Nothing but a few spare parts and prototype designs are here.”
They reached the main room.
“I’d say your files need updating, Jenny.”
The room was big enough to contain a small house and was filled to the
brim with machinery. Machinery that looked like nothing any of them had
ever seen before. There was an almost organic look to the structures in
front of them and as they watched they continued to grow, slowly filling
what little open space remained.
“What is this?” Buffy was not sure which of them had asked that question,
but she wanted to know the answer as well.
“This is me.” The hologram appeared in front of them again. “I’m still
redecorating. Hope you don’t mind the mess too much.”
“What the hell are you doing in my building?” Jennifer strode forward to
confront the holographic figure. “Why are you impersonating my mother? I
am the CEO of Magitech and I demand to know ...”
“I will tell you everything if you give me the chance, Jenny,” Willow 12
interrupted her. “Why don’t you sit down?”
She motioned over to a small area that was free of the strange machinery,
instead filled with a number of improvised chairs. Slowly they made their
way over, all of them wary and suspicious. The hologram walked with them,
a smile on its hauntingly familiar face.
“This is going to sound quite fantastic,” Willow 12 began once they had
all taken a seat, “so please bear with me until I have finished. Spike,
you asked whether I was from the future. That is true to a certain extent.
I am a magically enabled quantum computer built by Magitech Incorporated.
My mind is patterned after that of Willow Rosenberg, Magitech’s founder,
and I was first activated December 21, 2146. That was about ten seconds
before my entire universe was obliterated.”
A gasp went through her small audience but Willow 12 gestured for them to
keep their questions for later.
“It was not your universe, though. I come from what you would call a
parallel world, an alternate version of history. In my world the Nimir
never invaded Earth for a second time. The planet was not destroyed. Our
worlds were identical to a certain point but broke apart when history took
a different turn somewhere in 2093.
“Being a quantum computer gives me the ability to access alternate
universes for processing power and also enabled me to escape the
destruction of my entire parallel. In the process I discovered that said
destruction was not a singular occurrence. Something is happening, I don’t
know what exactly. Something that is erasing entire universes across the
multiverse.”
Willow 12 looked at the people listening to her and saw faces full of
disbelief.
“I know you have little reason to trust me, but it is the truth. During
the short time I have been aware I have monitored the destruction of at
least five different parallels. Billions of lives extinguished in a
heartbeat. I am committed to putting a stop to that, but I will need help
to do it.”
“Can you give us any proof?”
“I certainly can, Angel.” Willow 12 gestured to a holoscreen that was
quickly assembling itself from the machinery behind her. “In fact you have
already seen this proof, you just did not know it for what it was.”
The holoscreen activated and showed a picture of empty space, space that
was suddenly filled with the image of a world.
“I believe most of you were around to witness this just about half an hour
ago, weren’t you?”
Everyone watched as the images unfolded, the planet Earth suddenly
appearing in the very spot it had occupied until five years ago, remaining
there for several minutes, then vanishing again.
“What was that?” Buffy rose, anger clouding her features. “Did you create
that illusion somehow?”
“It was not an illusion, but to certain extent, yes, I am responsible for
it. I calculate a 92.46 percent probability that it was my arrival here on
this parallel that caused an afterimage of my own version of Earth to
briefly manifest in your dimension.”
“In English, please,” Spike said.
“The destruction of parallels has destabilized the structure of the
multiverse, like a house shaking down to its foundations because someone
has demolished a part of it. This instability causes different parallels
to overlap. When I made the jump from my own parallel to his one I made
use of such an overlap. What you saw was not your own planet Earth but the
one from my universe. Essentially you looked through a window into another
version of history where Earth was never destroyed. Once my transfer into
this universe was complete the window closed once more.”
“This is hardly proof,” Jennifer said. “From what I’ve seen here your
magitechnology is far ahead of our own. You might just as well have
created an illusion of Earth.”
“And why would I do that? If I wanted to make you trust me for some
nefarious reason I think I would be capable of coming up with a story much
easier to believe than this one.”
“She has a point,” Angel admitted.
“Oh, please! Don’t tell me you believe any of this.” Jennifer crossed her
arms in front of her chest. “I’ll get my best scientists here. They will
take this thing apart and find out the truth.”
“You will do no such thing,” Willow 12 told her matter-of-factly. “I do
not have time for such nonsense. I need your help, yes, but if I have to I
will try and go about this alone rather than allow you to hinder me. I
promised my creators I would save the rest of the multiverse from
destruction and that is what I intend to do, with or without you.”
The hologram got into Jennifer’s face.
“And if you play with the thought of somehow forcing your way into my
circuitry you better think again. I am fully capable of defending myself.
I may just be a copy of your mother, but there is enough of her inside me
to put you across my knee, young lady.”
Jennifer stared at her openmouthed while Buffy had to suppress a giggle.
That actually sounded a lot like Willow, she had to admit. Her best friend
had always had ways to put the rebellious child that Jennifer had been in
her place.
“Let us assume for a moment you are telling the truth,” Angel interceded.
“What would you need our help with? From what little you have told us this
seems to be so far beyond us that I don’t know what we could possible do
about it.”
“Most people would have run and hid when they realized they were facing a
war between Heaven and Hell,” Willow 12 reminded him. “You did not.”
Angel’s face darkened. “That war happened because of something I ...,”
Spike coughed, causing Angel to correct himself, “... we did. It was our
responsibility to deal with it.”
“It did not force you to free all the souls imprisoned in those two
realms, did it? Nor were you forced to battle against a greater demon
invading your dimension who had already rendered a thousand other worlds
lifeless. To get back to your original question, though:”
The machinery behind the hologram hummed as the holoscreen came to life
once more. “I am plucked into the moon’s power grid, but the energy
available there is not enough to give me access to my full potential.
Being a quantum computer I can monitor all the different parallels of the
multiverse and hopefully find the source of the destruction. If I find it
we will have to make plans to stop it. If the destruction is caused by
anything that can actually be touched and fought then that part will
require a physical assault of some kind, something that I am sadly
incapable of doing in my present form. For now, though, what I need most
is energy and access to manufacturing facilities. There is a limit to what
my self-replicating circuitry can do, I fear.”
“Excuse us for a moment,” Buffy told her, gesturing for the others to
follow her outside. They stepped out into the corridor and Jennifer
quickly conjured a bubble of silence around them to prevent the computer
from listening.
“What do you guys think?”
“I can’t believe any of you actually consider believing this thing,”
Jennifer said. “It’s already draining power from the moon when we have
little to spare and apparently has access to the Stepping Disk network. If
we give it access to more power and Magitech’s manufacturing facilities
there is no telling what it might ...”
“What if it’s telling the truth?” Angel looked at the others.
“Oh, please! She tells us there is something out there erasing entire
universes. The existence of alternate realities has never even been
proven, much less ...”
“We can’t rule it out,” Buffy interrupted Jennifer. “After all we’ve seen
the only thing I’m certain of is that nothing is impossible.”
“How can we be sure, though?” Tinya looked at the others, feeling very
much in over her head here. She was only seventeen years old and the worst
thing she had ever faced was a bunch of demons looking to eat some humans.
Now they were talking about something wiping out entire universes.
“She says she’s based on Red’s brain,” Spike reminded the others.
“Right! We could ask her a few things only Willow knew, things she could
not have found in any database.”
“Let’s try that,” Angel resolved. “If she turns out to be a fraud we’ll
have to find some way to deactivate her.”
“Won’t be easy,” Jennifer mused. “She probably wasn’t kidding when she
said she could defend herself. I’ve never seen anything like that
machinery in there.”
“To tell you the truth, Jenny, I’m much more worried about what’s going to
happen if it turns out she is telling the truth.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 - If My World Should Up and Vanish
#
Hyperion Hotel
Los Angeles, California
April 17, 2046 AD
Parallel 9
“Found anything?”
Angel walked into the main computer room of the Hyperion Hotel, a room he
still felt very much out of place in, and watched as the love of his life
was interfacing with the machines in front of her. Seeing her like this
still sufficed to send a shiver down his spine now and then, reminding him
of the 17th century boy he had been and still was, at least to a certain
degree.
Buffy was sitting in a chair before a large computer screen, but her eyes
were closed. Her hands were resting on the console in front of her and
where her fingers should have ended they instead elongated into strands of
crimson metal that created a direct interface between her mind and the
machine.
She was not human, Angel reminded himself, had not been human for nearly
47 years now. Just like him she might appear human to all but the most
keen-eyed observers, but that was only the outer layer. Just like him she
had been transformed against her will, transformed into something else,
something that had weathered nearly half a century without aging a day.
What really mattered, though, was her soul. The soul of Buffy Summers was
still very much and a hundred percent human. It was something that she
herself had not been certain of at one point in time, but it had been
proven to her beyond the shadow of a doubt. Angel knew that she sometimes
regretted having become what she now was, but only sometimes.
He, for his part, could not really be regretful about a turn of events
that had ensured her staying by his side for eternity.
“I’m not sure,” Buffy said, turning to look at him. “Anne says that we are
looking at some kind of quantum fluctuation, but even she isn’t sure.”
Anne was the artificial intelligence that lived inside Buffy’s head, a
computer mind patterned after Buffy’s own. Created by the Initiative
project under Professor Maggy Walsh, Anne had been meant to become the
guiding mind of the supersoldier android called Adam One, an
indestructible mixture of magic and technology.
The experiment had gone wrong, though, horribly so. Walsh and all her
colleagues had died, the Initiative had been destroyed. Adam One had
survived, but instead of becoming an unbeatable weapon under the control
of the American government it had become the new home for both the
displaced mind and soul of one Buffy Summers as well as the digital
consciousness of Anne.
Buffy’s own body had died in the same explosion that had destroyed the
Initiative, but everything that was her lived on in a body of crimson
steel that could change its outer appearance almost at will. A body that
was quite immortal, Angel remembered with a smile.
“Quantum fluctuation?” Angel was not comfortable with modern technology,
never had been, and the only thing he knew about quantum physics was the
fact that it was something very complicated.
How it pertained to a herd of mammoths rampaging down Sunset strip was
beyond him.
“She thinks that these animals appeared out of some kind of dimensional
overlap,” Buffy explained, the information fed into her mind just moments
before she spoke the words. “Essentially one point of space-time briefly
intersected with another. Voila, instant extinct animal rampage.”
“So these creatures came from the past?”
“More or less, though she is saying something about it not necessarily
being our past, but that of an alternate universe. I’m not following her
completely, I must confess.”
She cocked her head to one side, a gesture Angel recognized only too well
after all these years. Buffy was having a conversation with someone only
she could hear. There were times Angel had grown a bit jealous of the
constant interplay between those two. With their minds sharing one body
Anne sometimes seemed closer to Buffy than he ever could be.
He knew better, of course. Anne and Buffy had been thrown together by
circumstances and seeing that one had used the other as a blueprint for
her mind it was not surprising that they got along well. Buffy loved him
every bit as much as he loved her. Nearly half a century of being together
had erased any doubts he might ever have harbored in that direction.
Walking closer he put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “Was it a one-time
occurrence or something we have to worry about?”
“Anne hacked into several observation satellites to keep an eye out for
more of these quantum fluctuations. If it happens again we will know about
it the second it does. She thinks it was a one time only thing, though.”
“Good,” he smiled, softly squeezing Buffy’s shoulder where he touched her.
It was still a few hours until sundown when they would go out on their
nightly patrol again. Demonic activity was low in Los Angeles, had been
ever since they had brought down Wolfram & Hart, but there were still
enough vampires out there to warrant the attention of the Slayer and the
vampire with a soul.
Not for another few hours, though.
#
The artificial intelligence known as Anne was preoccupied. A part of her
was always aware of Angel, how could she not be considering the amount of
thought Buffy always spent on him, but she knew that those two would want
some privacy for now so she concerned herself with other things.
A fluctuation in quantum space that caused a herd of extinct animals from
about half a million years in the past to go rampaging through 21st
century Los Angeles was something that served to distract her quite well.
It was one of the few things where she and Buffy had turned out quite
different, even though they had essentially started out as the same
person. Anne had a thirst for knowledge of any kind and often pursued it
with a single-mindedness that bordered on the obsessive. During her first
few years of existence she had been soaking up life experiences by living
through Buffy, but being a passenger in another person’s body could occupy
one only for so long before it became boring.
Thankfully her creators had given her the ability to interface with other
computers and due to her own semi-magical nature she could out-think and
out-perform pretty much every conventional computer there was, even half a
century after her own creation. She was continually updating herself,
rewriting her own programming to stay ahead of technological development.
It was quite a challenge and she enjoyed it.
Figuring out this newest phenomenon might just be more of a challenge,
though. Anne knew just about all there was to know about quantum theory,
but it did not really help her understand what had happened. Two vastly
different quantum states, both spatially and chronologically, had suddenly
intersected for no apparent reason. Anne knew about the multiversal
theory, the existence of an infinite number of alternate quantum parallels
that portrayed every possible version of history. Was this what had
happened?
Buffy rose from the computer, cutting the direct connection formed from
their own living metal. Anne could still interface with the computer via
the advanced radio-telepathic modem she had constructed inside their body,
but the connection was slower.
This was why it took her almost two seconds to realize that new data was
streaming in from the observation satellites she had hacked into. Vast
amounts of data that did not seem to make any sense at all.
<Buffy, could you please interface with the computer again?> The
connection was too slow for her to process everything this way.
“Anne? What is it?”
<We are receiving new data on the quantum disturbance.>
The sense of urgency in Anne’s voice made Buffy comply without further
questions. She placed her hands on the computer once more, the deceptively
human fingers reforming into their natural state of crimson metal to plug
into the interface ports. Bandwidth increased dramatically and Anne
started processing the new data.
<Satellites are registering a new quantum disturbance, larger than the
first one.>
“Are we going to receive other visitors from the past?”
<Unlikely. This disturbance is different than the first one. I ... sorry,
I can’t really explain it, I barely understand the theory behind all
this.>
“What is happening?” Angel came over, unable to hear Anne’s attempts at an
explanation.
“A new disturbance,” Buffy informed him. “Anne, talk to me!”
<The disturbance is growing and I can’t get a fix on its exact location.
It seems to be coming from everywhere at once.>
There was definite worry in Anne’s voice now and Buffy looked at Angel, a
sudden dread filling her.
“What can we do?”
Despite the fact that Anne had been patterned after a human mind she was
essentially a computer and therefore able to think and act much faster
than any human being possibly could, even a Slayer. So when she finally
realized what was happening, realized that she had but a second or two to
act upon that realization, she wasted no time doing just that.
<Take Angel’s hand, Buffy,> she screamed. <Do it now!>
Buffy and Angel were standing about four feet apart, just out of reach.
“Anne, what ...?”
<Just do it!>
“My God,” Angel whispered, looking at the far wall of the computer room.
The wall was gone and the world seemed to come to an end where it had
been, fading into a perfect virgin white.
“What is happening, Anne?”
<Take Angel’s hand!>
Anne cursed the fact that she could not take over control of their body
unless Buffy consciously allowed it. She cursed Buffy’s hesitation, the
damned slowness of human thought. Finally Buffy’s hand began to rise,
reaching for that of her soulmate, who was still staring at the spreading
white-out.
They were out of time. Only moments before that large quantum disturbance
had begun Anne had picked up something else, a smaller disturbance that
was strictly local and easy to pinpoint. If she were forced to describe it
she would have called it a peephole, an opening only a few molecules wide,
a small window into another quantum state, another universe. She did not
know what it meant, how it had come about, but she knew that it was the
only thing that could save them right now.
The white-out was spreading fast, coming toward them from all sides.
Buffy’s hand was still reaching for Angel’s and the nanoseconds seemed to
pass with infinite slowness. Anne already knew that it was too late, but
she could do nothing else but wait until the last possible moment. She
might be a computer but she also a living being and understood the concept
of hope, even when it went against all logic.
This time, though, hope lost.
Everything happened much too fast for Buffy to understand. Anne was
screaming at her to take Angel’s hand and she was reaching for him even as
the world around them seemed to fade away into nothingness. Her other hand
was still touching the computer and she felt Anne interface with it,
quickly draining all its energy into herself. She felt her own insides
rearrange as Anne did something to change them. Her hand was but inches
away from Angel’s when everything suddenly turned upside down.
The world around her faded into a spotless virgin white and Buffy felt
like she was falling, falling down into a bottomless pit. Angel vanished,
swallowed up by the white, his hand no longer in reach. For a moment she
thought she heard him scream her name, but then there was only silence.
She still tried to reach out, tried to find the familiar coldness of his
fingers somewhere inside this endless white, but there was nothing there,
nothing at all.
She felt her entire being bend and warp, a sensation not unlike that when
she changed her shape, but a thousand times worse. Buffy opened her mouth
to scream but there was no air, nothing to carry her voice. The only thing
she heard was Anne’s scream, the artificial intelligence screaming inside
her head as the pain took hold of her as well. They were still falling,
falling impossibly fast, and Buffy tried to scream Angel’s name, still
tried to reach him.
Moments later this world, this entire universe blinked out of existence.
The small quantum disturbance that the magically enabled quantum computer
Willow 12 had utilized to monitor this particular parallel ceased. There
was nothing left but an empty canvas.
A perfect virgin white.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 - A Dream of Deaths Foretold?
#
Magitech Lunar Complex
Tranquility, Lunar Colony
February 4, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
It had been over two days since Buffy had gotten any sleep, events had
kept her on her feet nonstop. Willow 12’s credentials had weathered all
tests they could think of and they had warily agreed to cooperate with
this strange computer intelligence that so resembled her best friend.
Jennifer did not like it in the least, but she had agreed to provide
Willow 12 with monitored access to Magitech’s production facilities,
provided the AI would always tell them exactly what she was doing and why.
The problem of supplying sufficient power had yet to be solved, but
Magitech’s best brains were working on it, drooling over the possibility
of studying a magitechnology that was more than forty years ahead of
anything they had ever seen or even imagined.
None of which really concerned Buffy right at this moment. Seeing as she
was unable to contribute much of value to the current debate of what to do
and how to do it (what did she knew about quantum theory?) she had
retreated to one of the apartments Jennifer had reserved for their use.
Angel had promised to join her shortly, but she found herself unable to
keep awake and soon fell asleep.
Rest did not come easy, though.
#
The world around her was gray through and through. Ashes were raining down
from the skies where the sun seemed permanently absent, forever locked
away behind a gray shroud. It was day, or so Buffy thought, but there was
just enough light to see for a short distance, everything farther away was
melting into a solid mass of gray and black.
Where was she?
Someone was screaming. No, not screaming. Lamenting. A mournful song sung
for all the world to hear. Buffy shivered, there was so much pain in that
voice, like someone whose soul had been ripped away and left shattered on
the ground. Her feet moved without her wanting them to and led her toward
the source of that sound.
She was in a city, or rather the remains of one. Everything around her had
fallen into ruin, reduced to charred remains. Occasionally what was left
of a tower or large building would reach into the sky like a skeletal
hand, trying to catch a ray of light that would never touch the ground.
Buffy was having trouble seeing, there was so much ash in the air, coating
everything.
Still the voice sung its painful lament.
“Hello?” Her own voice echoed around her as she called out, but no one
answered. She kept moving forward, moving toward what seemed to be the
largest building remaining in this city of the dead. A huge tower, burst
and broken, but still standing by some miracle or other. Little more than
the superstructure remained, everything else had been stripped away, and
she could hear the voice coming from somewhere inside.
The path was treacherous, but her feet moved her along without incident.
Something about this was incredibly familiar, but Buffy could not quite
place it. Had she been here before? Certainly not, she would remember
having been in such a dreary place. She could hear the voice better now,
was certain that it belonged to a woman, and found that it, too, was
familiar somehow.
Where had she heard that voice before?
Right in the center of the ruined tower there was a large hole in the
ground and her keen eyes could just make out someone kneeling at the
bottom of it, a long way down. She could not see who it was, the other
being too far away for that, but the woman was clearly in pain. If her
voice had not sufficed to tell Buffy that much her posture did.
“Can you hear me?” Buffy’s voice echoed down the hole, but the other did
not appear to hear her. The world around her suddenly seemed to shift,
though, and without warning she found herself standing at the bottom of
the hole, only a few feet away from the kneeling woman.
Her face was buried in her hands, her skin and hair gray from the ash
raining down on her. Her body shook with sobs, breaking the lament before
she regained her breath and took it up once more. Buffy wanted to reach
out, help this woman who seemed to be in more pain than anyone or anything
she had ever seen in her entire life, but her hand refused to move even an
inch. She was helpless, unable to do anything but watch the other woman’s
torment. What had happened here? What had happened to cause her such pain?
The ground was covered with the same ash that coated everything in this
place, was still raining down from the sky, but there was something
strange there. Buffy had been the Slayer for over a century now and
moments later she realized what she was seeing. There was dust
intermingled with the ash, dust that formed the outline of a body. No one
else would have recognized it for what it was, but she knew vampire dust
when she saw it.
A vampire had died here.
Suddenly the woman threw back her head to scream and Buffy saw her face
for the first time. It, too, was covered with ash, but flowing tears had
cut tracks down her cheeks. Her green eyes were shining with misery and
there was insanity behind it, bubbling just beneath the surface.
Buffy looked into the other woman’s face and recognized it as her own. She
screamed.
#
“Buffy!”
Someone was shaking her and the waking world returned, quickly dispelling
the nightmare she had been caught in but moments before. Buffy found
herself awake, drenched with sweat, and in the arms of her husband who was
looking down at her with worry in his eyes.
“Angel?”
“Are you all right? I heard you screaming.”
She shook her head. “I ... I’m not sure. A nightmare, but ... so real.”
“One of your prophetic dreams?”
Buffy froze at that question. Was it a prophetic dream? A century of being
the Slayer and she had never quite been able to figure out when she was
having such a dream or what caused them in the first place. She had
dreamed of the coming of Golgotha, but received no warning of the looming
war between Heaven and Hell. She had seen the arrival of the Nimir before
it happened but there had been no clue concerning the imminent destruction
of Earth.
She shivered. She had seen herself kneeling in the ashes of a ruined city
with vampire dust on the floor before her. She had seen the misery and
pain in her own eyes and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that only one
thing could have caused such misery for her.
No, she shook her head. It could not possibly have been Angel’s remains
she had seen in that dream. She and Angel were tied together by the
Vinculum Dies Nocties Cruentos, the vampire blood bond, bound forever and
for better or worse. Contact with the Necronomicon Nocturnum had only
strengthened their bond. If one of them died the other would inevitably
follow. There was no way Angel could die and leave her behind to mourn.
She would go with him.
“I’m not sure,” she finally said.
“What did you see?”
Reluctantly she told him, allowed him to see the images through their
bond. Angel flinched as he saw his wife kneeling in the ashes, filled with
such incredible pain, but quickly recovered.
“That could never happen,” he mirrored her own thoughts. “Wherever we go,
we go together.”
“I know.” They embraced, the presence of the other quickly chasing the
vestiges of the nightmare away.
“Any progress on the science nerd front?”
Angel smiled, which managed to improve Buffy’s mood all by itself.
“I think Jennifer and Willow are liable to kill each other before we make
any headway. If I had any doubts left about who Willow 12’s mind is based
on they were erased by listening to about ten hours of non-stop squabbling
between them.”
Buffy smiled in return, swept up in the memories. The arguments between
the Rosenberg women had been legendary and infamous, something all
Magitech employees and every single one of their friends had learned to
fear. Oh, the two had loved each other dearly, there was no doubt about
that, it was just that they had never been able to agree on anything,
especially in the realm of magitechnology. Willow had certainly lost all
of her meekness from when she was young by the time she had become a
mother and Jennifer had never had any in the first place.
“The good news is that one of the Magitech scientists thinks he has
figured out a way to give Willow 12 all the power she needs. She has also
begun constructing something she calls quantum beacons. I think she told
us what they are for but I lost track of the conversations between her,
Jennifer, and the scientists somewhere between quantum fields and
monitoring alternate universes.”
“Glad to hear I’m not the only non-tech person around here.”
“You certainly aren’t, beloved,” he told her, leaning forward to press a
soft kiss on her lips. Her arms hugged him closer without conscious
effort, the passion so easily inflamed between the two of them springing
to life all by itself.
Buffy was fumbling with the buttons of his shirt when someone cleared his
throat.
“What the ...,” they jumped apart, looking around for the intruder.
”Sorry about that,” Willow 12 said, her holographic form slowly taking
shape before them. “I did not know you would be ... occupied.”
“Ever heard of privacy?”
“I consider it a lesser issue considering the threat we are facing,” the
redhead shrugged. “Could the two of you please come to the main computer
lab? Something interesting has developed.”
“Interesting how?” Buffy slipped into her pants as Angel buttoned his
shirt closed once more. “Anything on our little multiversal crisis?”
“Something like that. We may be ready to do something about that very
soon, but for now there is a visitor we have to concern ourselves with.”
“A visitor? Who?”
Willow 12 smiled, looking at Buffy. “You!”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 - Strange Slayer in a Strange Land
#
Magitech Lunar Complex
Tranquility, Lunar Colony
February 4, 2101 AD
Parallel 1
Buffy and Angel arrived at a run, seeing everyone else already gathered in
the large computer lab. The lab was now completely filled with the
strange, organic-looking components of Willow 12, leaving but a small area
free for those not composed of silicon and circuitry. Jennifer was
standing close to two of the Magitech scientists she had working with
Willow 12 on the power problem. Spike was there, just like Tinya. All of
them were staring at something on the floor in front of them.
Getting close enough to look past them showed Buffy a figure kneeling on
the ground, curled into a fetal ball. A figure with blonde hair, what
little she could see of her face looking incredibly familiar.
That woman was her.
“What is going on here?” She looked at the others. “Is this another
hologram?”
“She’s not,” Angel whispered, looking at her. “I ... I can’t explain it,
but she feels like ... just like ...”
At the sound of his voice the figure suddenly reacted, first freezing,
then looking up. Buffy stifled a gasp, the full view of the other’s face
showing that they were in fact looking completely identical. The other
Buffy did not see her, though. All her attention was focused on Angel.
“Angel?” The question was soft, almost inaudible, and Buffy recognized
both the tone and the way it was spoken as her own. Whenever she said his
name there was always something in her voice that was never there with any
other word, a tone reserved exclusively for him. She would never be able
to describe it to anyone, but it was there.
That other Buffy had it, too.
A moment later she was no longer kneeling, instead she was on her feet and
leaping toward him. Buffy was about to do something, fend off this
attacker that was about to assault her husband, but something stopped her.
There was a look on her face, something that struck a chord deep inside
her own being. A look of incredible relief, as if she was seeing something
... or someone rather … that she had already thought lost forever.
Angel for his part was too surprised to do anything when that strange
woman that looked and sounded exactly like his wife suddenly jumped him
and threw her arms around his neck.
“You’re alive,” she repeated over and over again as she crushed herself
against his chest. “I thought I’d lost you. When everything faded I tried
to take your hand but I couldn’t and then you were gone. I thought ...
God, I thought ...”
Then she suddenly stopped, going completely still for a long moment before
she drew back, looking up at Angel from where she was still resting her
hands against his chest. She saw the look of confusion in his eyes and
Buffy could see her face crumble as realization hit her.
“You ... you’re not him,” she whispered, taking a step back. “You’re not
him.”
Something that Buffy could not quite understand told her that she was not
looking at a hologram, a demonic doppelganger, or any of the sort. That
woman was her, though she did not know how that could be possible. She
could see it in every gesture and word, the way she stood, the way her
lower lip trembled. That woman was her and yet not her and Buffy could not
stand being this confused.
She stepped into the other Buffy’s field of view.
“The question is who are you?”
For a long moment they just stared at each other, the other Buffy seeing
her for the first time now. It gave Buffy the chance to study her in turn
and there was something strange about her, something else than her being a
near perfect doppelganger. Whatever she was, Buffy realized, human was not
part of it. Her Slayer sense was making the hairs on the back of her neck
stand up straight, her doppelganger radiating magic in all directions. She
never doubted her identity, though, and could not figure out why that was
so.
“You’re me,” the other whispered. “Like ... like I was. Human.”
Buffy could see confusion warring with fear behind the other woman’s eyes,
saw the signs of an impending breakdown, then suddenly something shifted.
Buffy almost took a step back as the face she was looking at changed. No,
she corrected herself, it really had not changed at all, but something was
different. Someone else was looking out from behind those eyes now.
“Buffy Summers, I assume,” the other said. Her voice suddenly sounded
quite different. “To tell you the truth I am not sure what is going on
here, but I suspect that we are not in Kansas anymore.”
Buffy’s confusion only grew. This new voice was strange, seeming at the
same time cold and detached while shaking with barely concealed emotions.
“Who are you?” she repeated her question.
“My name is Anne and the woman you were talking to a moment ago is Buffy
Summers. Or maybe I should say ‘a’ Buffy Summers. We’re sort of sharing a
body, the two of us.”
“You are from a different parallel,” Willow 12 said, startling everyone.
Buffy had forgotten there were other people in the room beside her and her
doppelganger. “Your quantum signature is different.”
The other Buffy, or Anne, rather, looked at the hologram. “Willow? No,
you’re not Willow. You’re energy.”
“A hologram. The real me is the computer that’s filling up the room quite
nicely. Willow 12 is my name and I suspect you came here because of me.”
Anne looked at her and Buffy was sure that she was checking things out
with more than just her eyes.
“If you are the one who created that quantum disturbance I slipped through
when ... yes, I think we’re here because of you.”
No one missed the awkward pause she made.
“What happened? Where did you come from?”
Anne looked at all of them, a flash of pain on her face as her eyes met
Angel. She looked wary when she saw Spike, while the others meant nothing
to her.
“Los Angeles,” she finally said. “The Hyperion Hotel.”
“On a different parallel,” Willow 12 added. “I am monitoring multiple
paralle |