Conflux, Pt. 3

Conflux, Pt. 3

“So let me get this straight.  You’re me…from the future?”

The elder Jessica – who, it had been decided upon by the three women, would be called “Commander” – shrugged and nodded, as if that wasn’t the best explanation.  “Future Earth, yes, but I’d wager I was from a different universe, too.  I have no idea if a ‘Paragon City’ even exists in my universe, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have living comic-book heroes in my world.”

The younger of the two – who asked to go by her hero name of “Stormscream,” but settled for “Stormy” when the other two women refused – shook her head.  “I mean, sure, we have comics too, who doesn’t?”  She ignored Ana raising her hand at this.  “But you pretty much leapt right out of the television screen of one of my favorite science fiction shows!”

Anafenza struggled to keep up with the women, who spoke of a whole different world they both knew well: Earth.  It was a planet, which she likened to her own Hydaelyn, though the majority of people there were “humans;” the Commander had called up a picture of one on the hand-held device she carried, and Ana had recognized the Hyur immediately.

Commander St. Peter had catalogued it as another similarity between the three women.  The list was, admittedly, small.  More was in common between the two Jessicas beyond their appearance, they discovered; both were orphans, both were adopted by a man named Jason, both loved the rain, they had similarly-named lovers.  It was far too fantastic to be pure coincidence.  Now they were comparing differences.

Commander St. Peter came from a future Earth, where she served in an exploratory service called “Starfleet” as a ship’s captain.  She was an alien, adopted by a human, and was currently in command of the starship Rafale, a spaceship.  Before waking in the cavern, she had been in her office on her ship, going over recent scans of a nearby system.

“Stormscream,” meanwhile, was nearly ten years younger, and already a registered hero in her home city, on a version of the same planet nearly four centuries earlier.  She was a hyur, but what they called a “mutant” in her world.  Anafenza listened with great interest and delight to discover it was this Jessica she’d dreamt of flying through the city and holding command over the weather; the girl was able to control the weather at will, and used her ability to call forth lightning to power her gauntlets and turn the energy into powerful blasts of sound.  Unfortunately, the girl had just laid down to sleep herself as well; she was dressed only in loose cotton pants and shirt, without her armor and gauntlets.

Then it was Anafenza’s turn to talk.  She swallowed hard.  “I’m Anafenza, like I explained.  My tribe is the Ejinn.  I come from a world called Hydaelyn, the continent of Eorzea.  I…am not anything really special,” she continued, and noticed both women eye each other skeptically.  “Honest, I’m not.  I bake, I clean, I love to swim, I can hold my breath for over a quarter bell, I love my friends but I can’t do anything to protect them…and for the past few weeks I’ve dreamt about both of you.”  The other two just nodded at this revelation, taking the wind from Anafenza’s sails. She looked at the two of them in confusion.  “You don’t…seem concerned by this?”

The Commander shrugged apologetically.  “Truth be told…I was having dreams as the two of you, too.”

“Same,” Stormy admitted, blushing a little.  “Which is why I thought this was still a dream.”

“Maybe it is,” Anafenza replied with a shrug.  “Maybe we’re just figments of each others’ imaginations?”

“So who’s the dreamer?” Stormy asked.

Commander St. Peter sighed and shook her head.  “Before we go in-depth in the psychological analysis of this, let’s just assume we’re all awake and here with one another…”  She tapped the device in her hand – a “scanner,” she’d explained, and frowned.  “It’s still pulling information from my ship’s computer…fascinating…”

Ana leaned towards Stormy. “Computer?”

“Yikes…you don’t have much technology where you come from?”

“Only the Garleans and ancient Allag…most of my people rely on magic and aether.”

“The computer is a piece of technology that can store, recall, and display information,” the Commander explained.  “It’s a library, but it’s all stored in…energy, basically, instead of books.”  She bit her lip, still reading her scanner, before snapping it closed.  She tapped the arrowhead on her chest, eliciting a small chirp from the gold and silver brooch.  “Oh, that’s a good sign.”

“What is,” Anafenza asked, confused.

She tapped the brooch again, and another chirp came out.  “No error sound.”

Stormy snapped her fingers. “Your ship is still close enough to be received.”  She pulled a black rectangle from the pocket of her pajama pants and tapped the front of it, making it light up.  She blinked. “I…have a signal too, on my phone. It’s roaming, but I have a connection.” She looked up in confusion.

“Curious.”  The Commander turned to Anafenza.  “You don’t…have anyway to communicate with people on your world, do you?”

Ana tapped her horn, where a small pearl was embedded in the scales.  “Linkpearls.  They let us talk over distances with one another.”  She tapped the pearl again, hearing it ring as it activated.  She shook her head quickly in surprise.  “Gods…it works!”

“How are all three of us still in range of wherever it was that we came from,” Stormy asked.

Commander St. Peter shook her head.  “The only thing I can thing is that we’re somehow trapped in some sort of…pocket dimension.  That exists simultaneously near all three of our starting points in time and space.”

Anafenza shook her head and huffed.  “Speak plainly, please?”

Stormy giggled.  “Pocket dimension, kinda like the nightclub?  The Pocket D?”

The Commander and Anafenza both stared at Stormy; she lowered her head in awkward silence.  “Apparently not…”

Commander St. Peter shook her head.  “I have no idea why or how you could build anything in a pocket dimension.  They’re highly unstable and short-lived.”

Anafenza didn’t like the sound of this.  “Meaning?”

“Meaning, we only have a few hours, if even that long, to get out of here before this dimension collapses in on itself with us still inside.”

There was a stunned silence in the cavern, until Stormy cleared her throat.  “Well, shit…”