Bec quickly scanned the log. “Bec’s last complete thought was: ‘This one’s for you, Bec!’ Damn, I was such a badass. How am I supposed to escape capture if I don’t know their Words though?” Bec heard a twig snap. “Shit, already?”

“What are you going to do?” Al said with a plain, disinterested tone.

“I-I’ve, uh, I have a plan.”

“I know, for a fact, that you don’t.” This was when Bec heard the same conversation that other Bec and Al gave her the gist of the log.

“Confidence. That worries me.” That was Bec’s cue. Bec hopped out from behind her tree with her hands up. The man in pink screamed, “Her hands are up! GET HER NOW.”

Bec tried to say, “I surrender” but was rudely interrupted by three straps constricting her legs, the wrists of the hands over her head, and, to Bec’s surprise, the pits of her elbows to her head. Bec was a tower with no foundation. She started teetering.

“Oh, Dust fuck me, she’s going down! Take cover!” One of them shouted but Bec couldn’t tell who. Everyone scattered and she fell over with a lame thud, and, once she laid there, the whole group started wailing into her. Kicks and punches rattled her ribs.

“Bec, you made them more upset than the last time.”

Thanks, I hadn’t notice. “PLEASE! I SURRENDER. I NEED TO SPEAK” Bec gasped as a hit really sank into her gut. With a shaky cry, Bec said, “I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE MAN IN—ow—please, let me finish. MAN IN BLACK.”

Without slowing down on the punches, the purple guy said with a vaguely hokey accent, “She wants to speak to the baws?”

“HAHA, Let her!” The man in pink pressed the thing to her forehead and her world blurred again. Only this time, the world had a bad habit of bumping into her as the trees flew by. Bec swore one of the guys swung her into a tree or something because her nose was broken, in a flash. Bec’s world focused again to see herself in that same seat described by other Bec.

“Lovely day we’re having, ay?” Bec said to the man in black.

“Who are you?”

“No time for small talk?” Bec tried to spit some blood out onto the floor, but her inability to move even a muscle lead her to just kind of spit it into her lap. “Urg, damn.” She muttered.

“We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“My name is Bec, I’m here because I heard you have a bomb problem.” Bec had no clue what she was going to do, but she could bullshit for the time being.

“Why would you help us?”

“Well, I’m a bored Founder looking for some adventure!”

The man laughed. “YOU, A Founder? Don’t give me that lie. Founders don’t tend to bleed so much! I know a few Founders and you don’t look like one… actually, now that I say it…” He shook his head. “Never mind… but you lack that genuine air of confidence! That’s my point!”

“Oh, mind telling me what a Founder is? Other than someone who founds. I’m assuming they’re the people who founded the colony but… yeah… I dunno anything else.”

The man was thrown off by that. “Jesus, it’s so obvious you’re some punk from the frontier hoping to cause and fix a crisis. And for what? Do you want to join us? Do you want to play frontier cop and thought the Mountain’s Border would be a cool place to join?” He was being really rude! Bec was shocked by how little cred she had in this version of the situation. “Aren’t you interested in my tablet?”

“What tablet? This piece of shit phone is all we found on you.”

Bec balked. “You mean your cronies left it?” Bec struggled against her restraint. “You stupid motherfucker, I was here to help you. You might have doomed me and doomed us all.”

This was when Al chimed in to tell Bec that he recorded her ‘plan’ to surrender to the boss as soon as she climbed down from the tree. The evidence would probably indicate that they didn’t take the Timelet. The fact that Bec could tell that Al used air quotes to describe her plan pissed her off but knowing that the timeline was secure for one more go made her breathe easier. She heard snapping. The man in black was snapping his fingers in her face.

“Hey, what are you doing? Stop that.”

Bec blinked and her brow furrowed. “I’m talking to my assistant.”

“You have an AI assistant?” He grabbed her head and his eyes flickered. “You have a SensoLink?” The man looked at her. “You’re not a Founder, but that, that is very strange.”

“You know what? Fuck it. I’m a time traveler. I come from the past and if you send your thugs to get my tablet, I might be able to save you from the bombs.”

“You’re from the past? How?”

“Oh, you believe me?” This planet must be insane if he’s taking me at face value. “Oh riiiight, the lie detector behind my head.”

“You know about that, you knew about me. Dare I say that I have nothing better to do than to gamble? Explain how you travel time.”

“Basically, when I die all my data is sent to the past as long as it’s transcribed to my tablet. I call it the Timelet.”

“Fascinating, but I can’t get your ‘Timelet’ for you. It’s too late. This whole facility will blow up in 5 minutes.”

“We could abandon it. Figure something out.”

“No. I’m sorry. This facility is far too large to carry you and I don’t trust you to walk out of here unrestrained.”

“What do you have to lose?”

“My life.”

“Fair. Am I screwed?”

“Yes, but I think you’ll be back. Save us, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

"You know that request dies with me.”

“I think many things will die with you. You’ve given me a lot to think about for the days to come. Maybe I’ll figure out the Timelet once you’re dead.”

“Maybe it’ll be inert once it activates or, maybe, when it updates the past, we are all obliterated, dust to the temporal winds,” Bec said with a shrug.

“Either way, you won’t be alive to see it.”

“If things work out, I hope to be alive long enough to watch the sun die.”

“Send me a postcard, will you?” The man in black walked out of the room.

“Hey, Al?”

“Yes, Bec.”

“Are you ready to die?”

“Not really.”

“Neither am I.” Bec laughed, then cried. “I’m scared, Al. What if this is it? What if the Timelet doesn’t update because I died too far from it.”

“Then I guess we’ll die like a normal person.”

“Normal. I don’t even know what that means anymore. A week ago, would I consider dying in an exploding mountain base on an alien planet normal?”

“I would assume not.”

“We need to have a long discussion about you answering my rhetorical questions.”

“No, we don’t.” Bec and Al died a swift and percussive death.

~~~

“I’m an idiot!” Bec whispered to herself. “I very nearly blew this whole thing!” Bec could only assume, as she read about how she got separated from the Timelet, that it detected her death from a long distance. “That was a gamble for no good reason!” She was relieved to know that the Timelet would back up at range but the revelation that she can’t update it at distances was terrifying. If she was separated from it and was captured, she could be killed as long as they waited for a checkpoint. People must not know how this works, or I’ll be very vulnerable.

Bec heard the snap of a twig and she ran. She left her bag and her blanket and booked it out of there with the Timelet. That thing is staying close by. She needed to survive this incident and couldn’t afford all these hazards. She should have just stayed in the trailer until the checkpoint.

Bec ran. She was impressed that her stamina had improved from very little actual exercise. Was this what everyone was like on Dust? More questions were interrupted by an answer to that first one. The tree near Bec shattered, blasting splinters everywhere. Bec looked back to see the men described in the Timelet, chasing her. Well, more like they’re leisurely jogging behind her. “Shit,” Bec hissed. “Hello!” She waved to the hostile group. The purple man tossed something into the air, and, without breaking his stride, cracked the air with a hit from his bat. Bec flinched uselessly as something struck her ribs and she went down. Pain shot through her body and her body seized and crumpled.

“Nice shot, P.”

“Thanks, ah’ve been practicing!” The purple man smiled as they gathered around Bec. The man with the yellow shirt laid straps on Bec and slapped them. Bec felt them worm under her and wrap her tightly. Barely able to breath from bruised or broken ribs, Bec wheezed, “Man in black. Take me. Take the tablet. He will—” The man in pink put the little thing on Bec’s forehead, and, in moments, she was being interrogated again.

The man in black leaned into to Bec’s utterly immobilized head. “Who are you?”

Bec had no idea what she was going to do. “I want to help you.”

“Help me? Do you actually think I’d believe that?”

“I understand the skepticism. How often do you have,” Bec lifted one eyebrow, “A time traveler in your midst?” Bec smiled.

“You are lying. I know you’re interfering with our technology. You’re leaking an absurd amount of radiation and wreaking havoc on our radios. Why would I believe you?”

“I can prove it! Please! Bring the tablet that they found with me to me.”

“Why, so you can set off the bombs? Please. Like I would fall for that.”

Al, can you upload data to the Timelet? Is it in range?

“No.”

Bec turned her attention to the man in black, “Can you explain how Words work? I’m new to this whole thing.”

The man’s tense demeanor softened a little and he slapped his hand to his forehead. “You’re just an idiot frontierswoman!”

“My name is Bec.”

“Whatever, I don’t care.” His laugh spilled out. “Lady, I am a firm believer that there are no such things as coincidences. I think you planted the bombs in the facility, and we caught you trying to escape our land. Someone put you up to this, I can be sure. Who do you work for?”

“I work for Lauds. I was whisked away from my home and dropped off a day or two away from here in hopes to test a tablet that allows me to pull data from alternate timelines when other versions of me die,” Bec said in one breath.

“Lauds?” The man sized Bec up. “And that trashed trailer?”

Bec really did not like how he seemed to care very little about the time travel. “It was the trailer I fell asleep in. Then I woke up in the middle of nowhere. I was given a syringe full of nanites, an AI in my brain, and a Word.”

“How long ago?”

“A week ago? 7 days, I think.”

“Where are you from, Bec?”

“I come from a sea city of Earth. C-attle. I don’t know what Lauds means to you, but to me? It was a burgeoning company with its fingers in every pot on Earth. I wanted to explore city ruins and they hired me under that premise. Now that I say all that out loud, I think I suddenly get what made Lauds Inc. so powerful on Earth. Maybe they’ve had the technology that I’m using back then.”

The man laughed. He laughed a deep throaty laugh. “Bec, I believe you. Not because the detector said you weren’t lying. It was something so stupid. So inane. Do you know what it is?”

“What? Was it the name of my city?”

“No,” the man in black laughed, holding his side. “A week on Dust is 6 days, Bec. 6 days. People rarely remember that Earth had a different week. It’s already expensive enough to find out details like city names, and Dust knows how much finding out what Lauds was like pre-colony.” He turned serious. “I could feel the sincerity in your words when you said a week was 7 days, no detector needed.” He placed that thing on Bec’s head and the world blurred. She found herself in a new room full of people in bright single tone shirts that gave Bec the sense that she’d found a pot of gold at the end of a black-eye-giving rainbow.

“Is this the bunker I’ve heard so much about? Nice to be on the inside this time around.” Bec snarked.

The man in black was unimpressed and all business. “Bec, you couldn’t escape my men. I know that if you could have, you would have just steered clear of this whole incident.”

“I may be here from the kindness of my own heart, you don’t know.”

“Sure. We’ve kept you out while we explored the wreckage. We think we know where all of the bombs were placed. Seems like they wanted to target our spacial systems and traversal. Cut the threads to our bases out west while destroying the majority of this one base.” He pulled out a slate with something that looked more like some giant machine with marks on several parts. “Can you record this?”

“It’s done, right Al?”

“Yup. I have a number of photos. Are you sure you want to help this guy?”

“Yup. Done.”

“You recorded this already? Horrifying. Bec, you’ll help us, right?”

“You’re right, I haven’t got a choice. Can you give me a message, so I don’t get beaten up before coming here?”

“Sure. Tell the men that Robert Sterling sent you.”

“Robert Sterling? Hey, are you relate—” Sterling shot Bec in the head.

~~~

Bec was starting to have trouble reading all the logs that she’s accumulated but, thankfully, Al encouraged her to read the last one first. He quickly summarized the content of the log. Al speedread what he could from the logs before she heard the snap and a group, foretold by the tablet, was revealed. If Bec learned one thing from all the interactions with this group, it was that this was the way to surrender to people on Dust:

1) Lay on the ground.

2) Place your hands to your side.

3) Do not move an inch.

Bec liked lists. She knew that concise and direct instructions are the best way to ensure future Becs don’t have to waste time reading every little detail about her adventures. Bec employed this newly developed technique to great success! “Please take me to Robert Sterling!” Like a package shipped express, Bec was wrapped and delivered to Robert Sterling’s door.

Bec was pulled from the time-warping device to be greeted by the man in black, Robert Sterling. “Who are you?”

“I’m no one. I’m just here to save you. You know of the bombs? I will point them out on a map of the facility.” Bec played it cool.

“You think we’d just trust you? How do we know you weren’t the one that placed them?”

“And I’d waltz back in here to tell you all the locations of the bombs? Look, if you don’t want to show me the map, I can try to sketch you a map, but you seem like the guy to wait ‘til the last moment to interrogate me.” Bec tried to shrug but the bindings prevented any kind of move.

“Well, I’m not. We’ve found a bomb, confirming your claims. This… was a very disturbing revelation. We have evidence to indicate that we’ve been betrayed by someone inside the Border. We… need to thank you. But first…”

“Yeah, yeah, the bomb locations. Gimme a map.”

Sterling presented a map and Al helped Bec call out all the locations of the bombs. It was pretty anti-climactic, all things considered. Bec was hoping for some big action scene where the traitor comes out of hiding and the bombs were stopped at the eleventh hour. This… was soooo lame.

“You look… bored.” Sterling pierced through Bec’s shit in a moment. “Are you disappointed that this facility was saved without a hitch? No casualties? No destruction of all our work?”

“No.” Bec stared at anything but his green eyes.

“You are!” Sterling laughed and struck his forehead with his palm. “You’re a complete idiot!” He laughed harder and harder.

Bec just sat there while the man just snorted and wheezed. He was really dashing all things considered but that laugh is… honestly starting to hurt my feelings. “Ha ha ha, very funny yes, I got bored sitting here tied to a chair while you’re probably getting ready to kill me.”

“Kill you? I should be thanking you. Most people would have shaken us down for that info, and you just gave it to us for free.” His face was had a small grin on it, but his tone sounded like he was about to laugh again.

“Hey, asshole, it’s called being a nice person. Look it up.”

“Yeah, whatever bruh. My dude.”

“Are you making fun of the way I’m talking? God, you are the worst! Samuel was really polite. You? Fuck right off.”

Robert coughed and straightened up. “You know my dad?”

“Yeah… I do know your dad… and you’ve been so, so, so,” Bec clicked her tongue trying to stall for time as she came up with a word to say, “Hmm, naughty?” Bec winced but Robert glared as emotions flared in his eyes. That was good? He thinks I know his dad?

“So, this was another one of his damn tests? Are the bombs even real?” Robert’s voice wavered. “Does he seriously not trust me, still?”

Woah, ok. She was honestly thrown back. Al, is this guy really the guy I read about?

“Hmm, seems like it.” Bec winced again.

Robert looked sort of messed up and Bec was kind of feeling bad for the guy. Not bad enough to stop pressing him for info. “This place is nice.” A light touch in this awkward moment.

“IS THAT ALL YOU CAN SAY? Is that it?” The explosive remark was followed by one oozing with despair. “You really phoned this mission in. I take it Dad isn’t investing much in me these days.”

“Oh damn,” Bec couldn’t just irrevocably fuck up this dude’s family dynamic for more info, “Hey, it’s ok. I think this place is amazing. You’ve built something, urm,” Bec bit her lip. “This place is really special. What you’re doing here is really great!” Bec tried to comfort him.

“Then why with all the tests?”

“Ok, I have no clue what you’re talking about with these tests. I just stumbled in here. I met a Samuel Sterling at a board meeting and gambled that you were related.”

“You asked for me by name!”

“Please don’t ask me how I knew it.” Bec tried to smile but just showed some teeth. “Look, I have no clue what is happening to me. I just woke up a bit over a week ago about 20 km out west and, look, I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about Dust at all. I, uh, lost my memory.” Bec covered her ass by saying, “Well, I have fragments of my life. I also have this AI talking in my head and powers I don’t understand.”

“My condolences. That being said, you figured out my name using your ‘power?’” Robert calmed down and his eyes turned blue as he stared hard at her. “All things considered, you could have lost a lot more.”

“I had this note with the header of Lauds telling me good luck. I shredded the header because I was angry and confused.” Bec continued telling him the truth. Most of it. “I was trying to get to the City to figure out what was going on. Look, do you mind if you untied me?

Robert grabbed Bec’s head. “You have a SensoLink, my god, you poor thing. What was Dad thinking sending you here? This is so fucked up.”

“Sent me? No, I woke up and walked here. It was a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences. My dad… or worse… sent you here to see how I would react. The SensoLink is a dead giveaway. What do you remember?” He poked and prodded Bec.

“Enough. Stop treating me like a guinea pig. Please don’t kill me for this.” Bec exhaled fully for the first time in what felt like forever. She relaxed her shoulders and the bindings fell loose. Robert stood back with his hands up.

“You could’ve escaped whenever you wanted?”