Temporal Pests ONE Copyright Julie Vaux 2012
TIME OUT FOR A PAIR OF CHARACTERS OUTSIDE TIME
In Which We meet Two Rather Unusual Little People and Some of Their Many Friends and Enemies.
There are places within the Multiverse, which are both in and outside of what some call the eleven dimensions of space-time and others an infinite standing wave. In these “between” places you can move and exist beyond the normal limits of sentient perception. Some folk call them spatio-temporal nodes, other shadow knots, or shimmer points, or stranger names. If you are there, then you can be and go almost anywhere, and yet also any when, for they are the places where time-slips and trans-dimensional gates manifest in densely woven clusters, instead of as scattered anomalies.
This particular one would look to most humans, when moving towards it, like a flower of many petals with each petal being a slightly different color. The colors move through the entire spectrum of possible radiation. Imagine also that this blossom has no stem and its petals rotate around what looks like a circle made of many tangents joining, with lines formed by waves converging in and out of existence.
Some of those lines flow into the petals in a way that suggests those petals are an illusion caused by the convergence of tangents and merely areas of stillness within a pattern of waves. The lines or pistils quiver endlessly like a harp string vibrating in such a way you see one primary string and several others at the same time. Perhaps they are echoes of cosmic or quantum strings.
Look closer and you will see that the petals seem to be joined by silver wire. Come even closer and you will the silver wire is multi-stranded. Here and there structures are attached to each strand and there are objects moving around those structures. You may also see shapes that suggest doors and gates, or mirrors, round, square, sealed, and open. Through these structures a variety of beings move. Some of them are humanoid and wear coverings suggesting uniforms. Others are not remotely humanoid, occasionally biped, and probably sentient.
Two of the non humanoid beings, who were definitely not two-limbed but allegedly sentient, depending on who you asked, and what experiences they had previously with them, were being forcibly placed into an enclosure in one of these structures, being thrown within actually, to accompanying bellows of, “AND STAY IN THERE!” A force-field sealed the enclosure to the protesting yelps and argles of two peculiar beings.
The one who yelped was female and looked like a Standard Red Long haired dachshund of impeccable bloodlines and powerful elegance. She appeared to be the sort of dachshund that occupants of the darkest densest forests of central Europe, from the smallest hare up to massive wild boars, hide from, shivering, as they hear the pack sniffling after them. This variety of Terran canine, also hunts and stalks small dangerous (well to canid livers) items like chocolate Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits. They also do population control for edible pests, like rats, and their range of predation varies upwards in scale to much larger prey, like time lost dinosaurs, and those dragons of the kith and darkling kin, whose behaviour gave more honorable dragons a bad reputation, and possibly also bandersnatchi and even stranger beasts and brutes.
The other female looked like the result obtained, if someone, who really should not have been allowed near genetic engineering devices, had created a cross between a small dragonoid and a seal, with more than a dash of otter and goldfish, but no visible scales or fur. A large finned tail curved into a torso which had two front flippers and the whole body was covered with a skin that seemed to shimmer as if scaled but also had a soft satiny texture. This torso narrowed into a long slender neck topped by a head and muzzle that tapered and split into four digits at the end, giving this being a rather snaggly smile. She had “teeth” or fangs or claws at the end of each flexible "finger".
The designer or creator was apparently fixated on using pink, gold, and purple, and their creation also appeared to be wearing purple makeup outlining its mouth parts and eyes, and was currently wearing glitter covered sunglasses, that a certain Aussie dame would have adored. Or possibly someone had carefully applied make-up? Certainly several individuals had expressed a wish to find out where Goldie, a.k.a. Gilda Dragonides, bought her make-up although with the aim of having her banned from shopping from wherever that was.
Sassy the canid member of this duet, shook out her fur, and snapped and snarled.
“Honestly I so did NOT do graffiti on the Sphinx of “Sassy was here!” in gold glitter! Like practically every one else has but not moi! That poor bulge of rock has been hacked at and scribbled on by Aliens, Atlanteans, Egyptians, Greeks, and oh yes, was it Napoleon’s army who used it for target practise? BUT NOT ME! Honestly if the Sphinx really was an alien construct they should have made it a robot so it can get up and walk into the desert away from all those vandals!”
The small dragonoid by her side argled in agreement making Goullawk utterances that translated into English as, “Yes, they even blamed us for some stuff we haven’t done, as if we would do anything like that, when we were busy doing other things, like transporting Frodo and Gandalf into that producer’s office! Teehee! And then we took those Kaledian mutant cyborgs to …”
“Quiet!” hissed Sassy, “You want more reality violations added to the list! We’re just going to have to stay here and behave until Uncle Gus bails us out! He’ll understand why we couldn’t resist sooling that gene construct based on a giant mutant lizard onto the Capital of a certain evil galactic mega-corp. So a few people got probably mmm ….”
“Squashed?!” squealed Goldie gleefully, “but they were evil clone slavers!”
Sassy sighed and lay down carefully arranging herself in the infamous “I’m so elegant and innocent so how could you believe I would do that?” position of head resting on crossed forelegs and slightly raised brow ridges with relaxed ears. Goldie copied her with differing results as a Goullawk with drooping ear fins but raised eye ridges lying down looks more a pathetic abandoned bath toy.
Goullawks vary considerably in size, according to age, gender, and diet. Goldie’s size could perhaps best be described as lap dragon although other Goullawks have been mistaken for traditional Celtic monsters of sea loch and shore.
After a while Sassy, being naturally optimistic cheered up and whispered to Goldie.
“They still haven’t found out where we parked Lady Zen Shipper so we can still have more adventures once Uncle Gus gets us out of here!”
Goldie argled a question, “Why hasn’t Uncle Gus bailed us out yet?”
“Uncle Gus will come and get us!” replied Sassy, “I’m one of his favorite grand-nieces!”
Goldie hakkegled a question, “mmm he has about three hundred grand nieces?”
“But he only has one me!” replied Sassy proudly tilting her muzzle.
This display of self-esteem was interrupted by noises from outside.
Sounds of violence begun to boom, and the hiss of energy beams forcing subatomic particles to change orbits could be heard, and sonic blasters zinging against walls, along with the screams of injured or angry beings. Midst all this chaos, riot, and mayhem, a small dog came sashaying up the corridor towards them.
“Hey that’s me!” barked Sassy.
“Blahargh???” responded Goldie, stretching her head towards the door and fanning out both ear fins in bewilderment. The small figure walked over to a console, stretched up and placed its forepaws on a button, and the force field holding them back disappeared.
Sassy started towards her doppelganger.
“Don’t get too close! There’ll be temporal flashback if you do!” cried out her mirror image.
“You are me!” cried Sassy, “How?”
“Look it’s going to take you about three days to figure out why we’re both here but its not a closed temporal loop yet, but it will be a crossover if we get this right! Hurry up and escape out of here and get help! Certain forces of evil and various villians are attempting to take over this node so they can rewrite their personal histories! Make sure you ask for help BEFORE you come back here. Tara told me so! The Buddhist one! And the help has to arrive three days from now or it can’t get here! Hurry!”
Sassy’s temporal doppelganger turned and raced away from them. Sassy and Goldie looked fretfully at each other.
“Now would be a good time to go home?” burbled Goldie who proceeded to flipper walk away from Sassy.
Sassy sat there for a moment still stunned by seeing herself. What had her doppelganger meant? Get help? This wasn’t her problem. This was an opportunity to escape?
Goldie not hearing the swash of fur behind or next to her turned around and hakkergled,
“Hello is this that temporal flashie thing that being who looked like you talked about?”
She waddled back and nudged Sassy with her snout, blattering her eyelids, (a movement like fluttering but faster almost a flickering) and blurbled, “Hello Galpal Goldie to Super Sassy! Time to go, Go! GO!”
Sassy shook herself. “Yes let’s go find an active portal or a quantum tunnel and reach Lady Zen Shipper!”
They trotted down the corridor, two small figures unnoticed amidst a confusion and commocion (a lovely Spanish word overdue to be borrowed into English) of giant, medium, and small sized, killer robots, evil cyborgs of several kinds, wicked druids and fashionistas, and various hooded and caped figures, and many individuals of several genders wearing the sort of tailored clothing that says I’m rich, powerful and probably have a dubious grasp of basic ethics along with dodgy dress sense! Yes the forces of evil were partying! Some of them even wore outfits that were actually tastefully frightening!
Along the way Sassy and Goldie trotted past some of the individuals from the various Time Space Patrols and Temporal Bureaus and other such agencies, who had placed them in the holding area to await judgement. A small group of humans in a variety of uniforms and suits were kneeling behind a console firing rayguns, bazookas, energy rifles, flechette guns, and just plain bullets, at an advancing cacophonic chaos of caped figures, fiends, and their cronies, devices, lackeys and hench-folk.
Sassy cheerfully hollered as she trotted past. “Hi guys! We’re free again!”
Goldie added in Goullawk, having remembered what the other Sassy had asked them to do, “and going to get help!!!” and bobbed her head up and down in a manner that was meant to look reassuringly cute. It did if you were a younger Goullawk worried about being eaten by its elders, who seemed to be considering whether it was too stupid or dysfunctional to enjoy the continual privilege of life, but to a human it just looked weird and demented! And so not reassuring!
“Commander” asked one of the humans, “May I please shoot them too?”
“No!” stated the Commander, “they might help!”
“Help do what make things more complicated or worse!” responded the questioner, “Them? Help? They’re Teckelsteiners! You know what their idea of help is, making such a mess of things we have to go in and rearrange people’s memories or remove anomalies or or or …”
“Incoming!” screamed someone else as fireballs were launched at them and they all ducked for cover. When they looked up again Sassy and Goldie were out of sight. A team of hench-folk were approaching with large nets and lassos and other objects such as nunchakus and knuckledusters designed to deliver stunning force viciously. Barely visible to the rear were a group of older semi-retired villains sitting on a shielded antigravity platform comfortably sipping drinks and apparently marking scores on clipboards. Just as the heroes, good guys, and other relatively righteous folk, and let’s not forget honorable lady amazons, were about to run out of weapon power, and the lackeys and henchpersons closed in on them, the commander turned to his men and made a promise while manfully posing.
“Have no fear! Help is on the way! If not those dachshunds then shirley someone else will send help soon!”
“I think that’s surely sir!” replied someone as he pivoted to kick a servant of evil in what he hoped was a delicate region, and gasped, as he contacted with hidden solid metal, “but the odds are sheerly against us! However,” he croaked and gasped, mentally cursing the inventor of metal codpieces, “could tiny lil dogs poss’ly help! AAARGH!”
“Have no fear,” bellowed the commander heroically; being a graduate of that type of Shakespearian theatre training which often ends up being used in cult sci-fi shows, “Dachshunds don’t know the meaning of the word impossible. And they’re fearless and courageous!”
“They don’t know the meaning of fear so they’ll front up to any threat?” yelled someone who sensibly had thrown their empty gun away and was swinging a sledgehammer towards a pale-skinned cyborg’s head.
“No they’re dachshunds” cried the commander. “They’re fearless about most things except bath time and they really don’t know the meaning of the word impossible. They just don’t understand it!”
He was about to explain that dachshunds, especially those from Teckelstein, had an attitude about reality and life best described as a belief that if you couldn’t do it yourself you just find some nice friendly kind human to con into doing it for you, but just then a giant robot vented a cloud of sleeping gas over them. Meanwhile Sassy and Goldie had quietly slipped through a quantum tunnel off to retrieve Lady Zen Shipper.
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