CHAPTER 14

In a race for time, the three volunteer scientists are lucky to avoid bounty Xavier Moth before they cross timelines. While Tuas prepared the accelerator time capsule, Xavier stalked an outpost near Yhemlen's Pangaea city barrier, preparing himself to match signals. Not far away, the starship Nemesis manages with the help of Frost across the cloud interface as the Heinemann receives updates from the Grey Order station; constant contact keeps the Heinemann crew on precise coordinates in space before they can penetrate Earth's atmosphere.

Immediate plans for their attack have changed now that Captain Gereon has shut off all communications to the outside. He wants to avoid messages from the Grey Order's Grandmaster. Handicapped by The Concord's objective to slow the strike, Gereon sees no reason to abandon his blitzkrieg on the Yhemlen city center with small talk. At the low orbit station, Frost's stoop at a railing is unchanging, he has been there for hours. And he's beginning to agree with Gereon on forwarding this battle. Ironically, Frost wants to use this moment to rekindle what he recognizes as a duty to perish along with his crew. Vengeance will not be tolerated without a fully backed attack.

Frost's prosthetic legs have durable metallic rods keeping him upright on the buffed floor. It has been over a day now since the Syndicate rebels made their surprise attack on Alon Blane's trial. The Mirai and Grey Order are making more enemies than friends, and Grandmaster Frost's indifference contributes to the problem. It's all too familiar a circumstance for Frost, and the pain in his chest is reminding him of something. Where the astral stone caves in his sternum a thought percolates throughout his senses making him tingle all over. Just then, a vision strikes his imaginings. He returns to a time of primitive war, the middle of the twentieth century when he was still part of the Third Reich. How he could continue to live for so many years is hard to believe. There must be interference in the cosmic web somewhere causing these flare-ups of memories, and there is. Those three volunteer scientists are visiting Frost before all of this ever transpired. When Frost was still human.

After the trial assembly concluded proceedings—fraught in danger from Old World vagabonds, the image spectrometry room was used as a location positioning system to keep tabs on the transport ship Syndicate pirates stole. Captain Gereon's crew is much farther away in the space-time continuum, and Frost finally commands reinforcement striker and starship fleets to be deployed. With more than a few missing fleets from previous battles, the Grey Order henchmen are on their way to finishing what the Heinemann started. Infiltrating Pangaea's dome city with loud battle cries won't deter return fire when the Yhemlen are faced by blitzkrieg, but it will help.

"This is not the time," Frost pleads to Gereon across the cloud interface. The cosmic web can be jump-circuited in the event someone shuts it down. The transmission will only last a short time.

Hearing his detestation through a speaker at the front cockpit where he sits, Jasper recognizes the danger Gereon is putting them in. Madame Ria still hasn't budged from the back fuselage area. And just as Jasper begins to respond, a rapid, wailing arm from Gereon shuts him down as he strikes his co-pilot son. Ria stands partially inert near the back lodging, where she begins rocking back and forth to the raddling chamber of the Nemesis increasing speed, cradled by loose pieces of gear hanging from her thin extremities.

"The ultimate test of wills is to face death," Gereon says, still holding onto the injustice he believes he's been dealt by living so long in unfulfillment. This is the same pride that Frost detests. Someone must suffer that perilous end.

Thinking of the consequences that will be reaped from this attack Frost walks back to the image spectrometry center, considering the expanse of space where multitudes of ships, workers, and transport material travel to and from the Fortress Shield in low orbit. He knows that Gereon is beginning to become gripped by the pull of emotion, rather than the logic Mirai are trained to accept—he's been battle-tested for this fight. Across a silver railing, the reflection of a distorted body gives Frost memories of who he used to be before mutating into a Grey like the rest.

Xavier Moth is his only solace. If he's successful in reaching the human timeline they can avert more losses and damage. The Martian colonists are with the Syndicate now, and there's no way for them to get home without the precise coordinates of the teleportation module. It's better to simply annihilate what's left of their memories back home and forget their home on Earth altogether. Like the Xavier Moth, Frost received astral stones through unconventional means. He removed from one Yhemlen Overseer a crystal the size of a palm, before killing him in battle. Left for dead in open fields near the dome, the Yhemlen lay bleeding in the prairie as the shudder of electricity poured through him.

"Everything is all-new for us," Frost, considering the emboldened Gereon, sees a change on the horizon. A danger stalking them alerts Ria who works hard to meet Frost's voice across the cosmic web who is trying furiously to contact them. Profuse buzzing is bothering her.

"Ria," he says, startling her. His voice isn't clear. Gereon is focused on the mission so much, that he disregards Madame sitting in the rear. "It looks like your father's taking a passage we warned him about. I am not enough without shapeshifting, and I'm afraid neither is he. Those Martian colonists have already activated an alternate timeline, waking our black box anchor. Our bounty hunter Moth is going back through their portal to stop them from furthering destruction."

Ria reminds herself of the slender piece of glowing crystal enervated on Frost's chest from power since wasted, his shapeshifts are thin from weakened radiation. He always closes it with an adhesive clamp that covers the scar, not quick to remember it. But she's reminded of hers. It's been a long time since she's needed to morph using the astral stone. It looks like she'll need to this time around.

"Do not become a casualty," Frost tells her.

Back on Earth, Xavier Moth tracks the humans' portal with increased perception. Outside the Pangaea city, the transparent dome encapsulating the Yhemlen ecosystem leaves Moth stranded outside. The difference here and on the inside is palpable. The plants are withering away rapidly. All he feels is sickness permeating the air.

Xavier Moth opens his facemask shield, where puffy eyelids crowd bulging pupils hidden beneath long lashes. He kneels to let a red-hued goo loose, pouring between his fingertips. The virus has spread rapidly and across miles. Moth stands tall to see the polluted biosphere.

Immediately accosted by the ground shaking, Xavier dodges a bite from a snake coming from behind, slithering toward him. The swift attack is followed by a loud ringing in his ear from an unknown source. The mission cannot be stopped by such trivialities plaguing him. In the distance, the open teleportation portal is still waiting unattended. What is on the other side leads to something peculiar within the cosmic web where Delphi Corp. scientists poured through. This quantum field is weak, very weak, primitive even. As a bounty hunter, Xavier gets emboldened knowing that the humans are easy targets once he's crossed timelines. For Ronny, Sarah, and Dimitri they are in a race for time.

The other scientists that were altered into Ravenous zombies still roam in the distance near the portal, but a sense of survival is pushing them to an opening in the city dome they can find. The zombies are fleeing for safety. Gathered around fallen arrows covered by grassland, Xavier Moth obstructs the entrance to the portal while stalking Pangaea's translucent covering, searching for threats. He initiates an invisibility cloak when he notices an infected volunteer creeping upon him. Moth moves a few paces away from the energy pulse, prepared to assault the zombie if it gets any closer.

Moth kneels to gather more sludge of the mutating virus specimen for examination, and finally uses a laser beam along his wrist to produce an exact antidote to the deadly radiation that is plaguing them all. Looking far beyond the tall brush, Xavier Moth directs a guided beam of the antidote's radioactive signature across the range, to a zombie target. He fires a laser shot first to lock on, and then sends a repaired arrow. A zipping dart slices through the air with the antidote sludge instead of poison, striking a contaminated scientist volunteer in the neck. Other zombies flee.

Steady steps lead Xavier to a scientist whose irradiated body reverts to its original form. The energy emitted from his legs reveals perforations in the skin and flesh where quantum levels of gravity had been mutating his cells. Moth's tinted helmet visor shows the reflection where the scientist finally comes back to consciousness in front of him.

"Ah, don't shoot, don't shoot!" he yells, quivering in the grass.

"Tell me how you got here," Xavier says, drawing him up with one arm. He pulls the dart out of the scientist's shoulder, where seeping blood drips down his arm.

Even though Naoto is no longer living on the other side, the scientist's neural activity is sending stronger signals to Delphi Corp.'s vital sign readers inside the closed vault they remain tethered to. Hunter Moth will return with a human ransom across alternate timelines. When Moth crosses the alternate timeline, all he will need to do is demand surrender from the humans.

"Just, that way," the lone scientist says. "We were in a computer program. The source code led us deeper until we were attacked." He presses the small wound that gushes blood. In the distance, more zombies are coming back around to attack them.

"Whoa, whoa!"

Xavier Moth isn't fazed, rotating his center of gravity in a quick pivot, he turns his neck sharply to meet the sound. Xavier Moth's anti-gravity blaster should do enough damage for an entire platoon, let alone some renegade humans unable to think straight, he's not worried. Currents of energy pounds the group. The stampede in the meadow is halted by a single burst of anti-matter rays.

"There!" the scientist says, pointing a shaky finger to the portal that has not closed, yet. It is coming in and out of view.

He leads Xavier Moth to it, who has his anti-matter cannon handy as they walk through withering brush and grassland. The electromagnetic charge in the scientist's body is magnetized to the open portal where the quantum field is fluctuating in and out of view. The researcher from Delphi Corp. is not an immediate threat, but only he knows what is on the other side of the portal and Moth needs to ensure safety.

Moth's deep voice muscles through hoarse gargles of saliva before his German words are understood. Just then, the scientist notices a change in the hunter's behavior that is holding him back from crossing the portal. They could have been on the other side by now, but Moth remains distracted. Moth shoves the volunteer's back with a nudge that forces his backside further. Even the scientist is tensing up at the engineering feats.

"I've had a change of heart," Xavier Moth says. "Ladies first," he says in jest.

As the volunteer goes back through the quantum field he walks stealthily through the lines of the grid, backtracking his digitized form from when they first crossed the wall. The farther he gets the heavier everything becomes as matter rematerializes in his mind and body in the parallel reality. The scientist is slowly coming back into his original form.

Before crossing the quantum field, Xavier Moth decides to let loose more nanobots in the open savannah, except these, are guided to the transparent dome where they'll be able to move impervious to barriers or even an electromagnetic force shield. He's got to keep their cosmic web signals connected. Right beside the scientist who is waking up from his comatose state in the vault at Delphi Corp. Headquarters, another batch of nanobots follow the scientist across the quantum field portal into a teleported beam on the floor. Moth has deactivated the nanobots, for now, so they don't cause a scene inside the Delphi Corp. HQ.

The volunteer jumps up to break the cables from his body. The electrical charge of volts sparks tiny bursts that flame out fast. An FBI agent is present in the vault where they've been connected to the cloud, frustrated by the difficulty he's had pulling the volunteers from their dream state.

The petrified scientist can't wait to remove his restraints completely, but he's already caused tons of damage. It is to his benefit that synaptic needles through his skull cavity aren't compromised. All that he's left with is a perplexed look, having just come from an alternate reality, as the FBI agent stares at him.

In a sudden discharge of energy, Xavier Moth teleports across the cosmic internet right into the vault of Delphi Corp. Headquarters after getting a view of the inside from the nanobots. For the FBI agent and the scientist, Moth is invisible.

"How long have you been across the wall?" asks the FBI agent. He assumes it has been more than a few days.

"Too long. I was sick, debilitated. You should know, yourself."

"Well, you're back now. That's all that matters."

"There's something we've got to tell you... Naoto, he's dead."

Xavier Moth has got another job to do, and this volunteer looks like the perfect specimen for being his minion, following Gereon's guidance of making the humans tremble in fear. He needs to take prisoners to hold for ransom, and now there are two people Moth can hold in return for astral stones. If he can get the human shapeshifters to surrender their power crystals, he'll be victorious.

The nanobots move under the titanium door, fast and unseen, smaller than grains of sand. There's an abandoned building full of decomposing matter that's perfect to start the grey goo off. The granules of dust crawl undetected past the federal agent and scientist and leave the closed vault door. In the meantime, Xavier Moth holds onto the bolted door, while the FBI agent hears the doors lock themselves since Moth is invisible.

Moth has successfully crossed the quantum field, and he relays a signal to the Nemesis Captain Gereon through the cosmic web. Frost's finally gotten wind of his antics from the signal, too, but this kind of determination puts everyone in the crossfires of Yhemlen prophecy as it approaches. There will be mass destruction. By the time everyone comes out of Sector 10, the quantum field will be closed, and Capricorn will be over. At the microscopic level, nanobots will relay vital information back to Frost's base in low orbit at home. Xavier Moth separates himself from the pack as a lone assailant across parallel universes. He is poised to take on what's left of his humanity since he's become a paid mercenary for the Grey Order.

The grey goo multiplies at a rapid pace.

🌌

Ellis Bartram's most pristine building, designed with fine architecture curated by a fellow business associate for a modern aesthetic, is gone. The damage is too much to repair at this stage and both the exterior as well as the interior are in disarray. His dear friend from so long ago will hardly be pleased by the sight of twisted pillars that cave the roof in. Each fold, each break crumbles until cracks in the ceiling dirty the interior's floor with the dust of crusted plastering. The riots have taken a toll from bottle rockets and small grenades, all sorts of little projectiles smashed into Delphi Corp. Headquarters. And to think people cared to look up to Bartram once, as a role model. That image is permanently tarnished.

"I've got to get back to where I belong," Bartram decides. He is restrained by a headlock from an emergency medical technician.

The peaks of veins protruding from his neck converge in tight spirals. By the looks of them, they're nearing the point of rupture. His temper, likewise, is heightened by a furious heartbeat.

Trying times such as these make him quiver with rage and excitement. Security alarms are set in place at Delphi Corp. HQ to form a system of silent alerts. Bartram gets an urgent notification of an unidentified biological threat inside the vault for total immersion. He's finally settled back into his stomping grounds since returning home from Salinas. He's been talking to investigators regularly for the past day. Yet, his scientists are still in there, and he needs to get them out. Whatever is on the other side will be the key to this operation. But the medical technician isn't loosening her grip, grappling Bartram to the floor to apprehend him as a patient—she needs his full cooperation to heal him from the astral stones forming as raised bumps of skin. This kind of physical force is usually unnecessary, and Bartram suspects that there is more to this than he anticipates.

"Let me go!" Bartram's hair flies wildly from the gel that's supposed to lock it in place. The technician ties Bartram's wrists together, behind his back.

"We can't risk another outburst. We may have to sedate you." After the technician stands up, he's proud to have restrained him.

"An outburst, what are you talking about?" Unbeknownst to Bartram, he is not alone in trying to quarantine this ailment from spreading. Others are suffering from the malady of parallel universes. Ellis is showing signs like Van Dyke, Yasmine, and Silas of metamorphosis. It is just too early to witness the critical signs. The power of the Overseers is poised to cross into the human timeline, finalizing the cosmic web's universal transformation.

Light from incandescent bulbs reveals the sparkle of crystalline material in Bartram's neck. The astral stone simply sits unresponsive, embedded beneath his skin, connected to a metaphysical power greater than they have ever experienced.

These wrist ties won't be enough, the technician thinks.

A block away from here Clyde Van Dyke managed to calm his outburst inside the clothing store. Whatever sparked the change still bothers him.

"Perhaps the hospital would be better."

"No!" Bartram snaps back.

Bartram's earned the respect of the technician by remaining calm, so much so that she's resigned herself to let everyone inside the building die if necessary, to contain the threat. They aren't alone. Since AIS Aladdin martyred itself, the rest of the federal agents have gone home, and instead of securing the building, and now it is mostly vacant with boundaries where they put police tape up, at least for the night. The cold corridors haunt them. Bartram hasn't forgotten the warning of some mutation forming within him, but the EMT is aware. Her medical crew is only a single person, herself. There is something else lurking in the air. In an instantaneous jolt of electromagnetic energy, a field of luminescent particles vaporizes the EMT into slime.

"Holy!" Bartram squirms in place, arms still tied. He cannot believe she secured him knowing the danger they are in. If anything, he and the other hybrids will be the only ones strong enough to stop what's coming. "Holy shit... get me out of here."