10JAN3309 Carl Narragansett, Order of Primis Aseptus
People Fall In Love
How in the…
I finished my comm to Cadence and within seconds my inbox was flooded. Seventy messages from an unknown NOSCOMPROTOCOL with the subject-line “Pertaining to new operative Coral Nain*” directly from The Office; another fifteen from The Order about my cousin Oswald. Twenty from Orion calling me into the briefing room and another forty-five from Clara ordering me to stay away from the briefing room. Thirty from Dorothy in the shipyard asking about dinner plans at Mic Turner’s Base.
I needed a breather so I stepped from my desk in the barracks of Nain One (V2L-45B) and toward the airlock. Peering out the peephole toward the nebula, I worked to slow my breathing like I’d been taught during PFRC training. In. Out. In. Out. Distend the abdomen and expand upward toward the neck. Exhale in reverse. Dorothy snuck up from behind me, her hands clasping around mine as they hung at my sides.
I shivered in the cold of my own home. Dorothy’s knocking at my door muffled under the lights of the nebula, her voice growing in clarity as Nain One shifted under my feet. I turned away from the sound, looking for a match and pulling a cigarette from my pocket. Striking it against the side of my magboots, I inhaled slowly. I savored the earthen flavor of the smoke as it slowly crawled into my lungs and I held it, feeling the slight searing of my saliva on my tongue before slowly exhaling. The knock had returned and I continued to enjoy my cigarette, peering out toward the nebula, toward Coral.
The shrill scream of a tea kettle summoned me away from my window and I drew from my cigarette. Softly biting into the filter to hold it in place, I reached toward my tea leaves, measuring a spoonful into my cup. The piercing call of the tea kettle died as I grasped at the handle to pull it from the fire and I slowly poured, watching the tea leaves dance behind a veil of vapor. I exhaled another draw from my cigarette and watched as the two clouds, one a gaseous liquid and the other suspended solid particulates, fought for the same space before my eyes.
I drew again from my cigarette, noticing I’d nearly reached the filter, and I placed it into a ceramic ashtray atop the stove I’d placed alone on a shelf at eye-level. I watched the embers as they crawled closer to the filter, the orange growing dimmer and dimmer until it glowed no more. I looked down again at my cup of tea and the leaves had settled to the bottom. The deep amber color reminded me of the nebula and I walked again toward my window. The knocking had grown silent and I saw a note on the table from Dorothy that read, “SRV race around Mic Turner’s at nine o-clock.”
The zero’s were hearts and the nine inset with cross-hairs. I stared into the crosshair’s and remembered the comms about my cousin. Returning to my desk I opened the first comms message and the tea-cup slipped from my fingers. I was immediately back in my home. I stood again and returned to the stove to make another cup of tea before returning to my desk. Imperial Senator Bluecrash’s media machine published a report on Coral and The Office was pulling teeth to keep The Order from revealing my relationship to Oswald. A third cousin on my mother’s side, Oswald Narragansett Fallsworth was a member of the Imperial Intelligence Service. We’d met once or twice, mostly during my service with the organization’s test-pilot corps. He made himself useful in my work to secure my Imperial Courier Liberation, and we’d talked shopped now and again, but we’d generally stayed far afield from one another owing to our respective institutional loyalties, or so I’d surmised.
The report had focused on The Nain Project as a possible confound degrading Imperial Intelligence in the period prior to, during, and immediately following the capture and captivity of The Emperor, but shirked away from assigning blame. The Office was uncomfortable with the report’s suggestion that Coral’s name was an alias, and that it had information about her biological parents- that it contained information on Coral’s current whereabouts was the biggest concern. The Office of The Order was concerned that my relationship with Oswald might be viewed as a potential threat to the impregnability of The Office. I’d have to go home to speak to Oswald, directly. I made a note to myself, pinning it to my cork boar. I turned it around so as to face me, its tusks sharp and fierce. Another knock came to my door and with it came the vicious tearing at my focus that told me Clara was speaking, “We won’t be able to give you all the information, ok?”
I looked at her, through the door frame of my home, and she stared back at me as if awaiting a response. She snapped her fingers inches from my face.
“Carl, we have a briefing on Coral but we can’t give you all the information. What I can tell you is that she’s gone.”
The floor of my home opened up beneath me and I looked at Clara as she stood, watching me for any response. I continued to fall, she standing in front of me, and I responded, “What?”
“The Office confirmed she’s AWOL, Carl.”
“What do you mean AWOL? How the… Where is she gonna go?”
“Look, Carl, the only thing The Office is telling me and Orion is that she’s AWOL. They received a message from some lady that must have hijacked Keystone that’s claiming to have been a Novus Ordo Siderum pilot from your old test-division. Something about an experiment going awry and now she’s traveled into the past from the future.”
I stared at her without responding, feeling myself continue downward toward an inexorable fate of which I’d been deprived the knowledge. I asked again, “What?”
“They’re calling it ‘Inverse Time Dilation’, Carl. Do you know anything about it?”
“‘Inverse Time Dilation’? That’s,” I turned away, feeling the upward thrust moving past me at an accelerating rate that made me increasingly uncomfortable, “… not a thing. She’s from the future and she traveled into the past, which is now? Who?”
“Look, Carl, the only information I have is that Coral went AWOL and there’s a woman in Keystone that’s claiming to be a Novus Ordo Siderum pilot. The Office says she’s provably one of our test-pilots and that there are records of her parents being part of the organization.”
I turned my head, again, the rush upward seemingly avoiding me at all costs as it continued unabated and I managed to force out the words, “Keystone was hijacked and Coral’s gone… there’s a woman claiming to be a Novus Ordo Siderum test-pilot that achieved what the Office is calling ‘Inverse Time Dilation’ that resulted in her traveling backward in time from the future to our present?”
“The Office said she’s got access to intelligence from the future, Carl.”
I closed my eyes, muttering a curt, “What,” as the door to my home closed. I could feel the tearing of my focus as the faintest murmur from Clara continued,
“She’s from the future, Carl, she’s taken Keystone from Coral and she has access to troves of NOS intelligence reports that have been produced since now through to her time.”
People Fall In Love
How in the…
I finished my comm to Cadence and within seconds my inbox was flooded. Seventy messages from an unknown NOSCOMPROTOCOL with the subject-line “Pertaining to new operative Coral Nain*” directly from The Office; another fifteen from The Order about my cousin Oswald. Twenty from Orion calling me into the briefing room and another forty-five from Clara ordering me to stay away from the briefing room. Thirty from Dorothy in the shipyard asking about dinner plans at Mic Turner’s Base.
I needed a breather so I stepped from my desk in the barracks of Nain One (V2L-45B) and toward the airlock. Peering out the peephole toward the nebula, I worked to slow my breathing like I’d been taught during PFRC training. In. Out. In. Out. Distend the abdomen and expand upward toward the neck. Exhale in reverse. Dorothy snuck up from behind me, her hands clasping around mine as they hung at my sides.
I shivered in the cold of my own home. Dorothy’s knocking at my door muffled under the lights of the nebula, her voice growing in clarity as Nain One shifted under my feet. I turned away from the sound, looking for a match and pulling a cigarette from my pocket. Striking it against the side of my magboots, I inhaled slowly. I savored the earthen flavor of the smoke as it slowly crawled into my lungs and I held it, feeling the slight searing of my saliva on my tongue before slowly exhaling. The knock had returned and I continued to enjoy my cigarette, peering out toward the nebula, toward Coral.
The shrill scream of a tea kettle summoned me away from my window and I drew from my cigarette. Softly biting into the filter to hold it in place, I reached toward my tea leaves, measuring a spoonful into my cup. The piercing call of the tea kettle died as I grasped at the handle to pull it from the fire and I slowly poured, watching the tea leaves dance behind a veil of vapor. I exhaled another draw from my cigarette and watched as the two clouds, one a gaseous liquid and the other suspended solid particulates, fought for the same space before my eyes.
I drew again from my cigarette, noticing I’d nearly reached the filter, and I placed it into a ceramic ashtray atop the stove I’d placed alone on a shelf at eye-level. I watched the embers as they crawled closer to the filter, the orange growing dimmer and dimmer until it glowed no more. I looked down again at my cup of tea and the leaves had settled to the bottom. The deep amber color reminded me of the nebula and I walked again toward my window. The knocking had grown silent and I saw a note on the table from Dorothy that read, “SRV race around Mic Turner’s at nine o-clock.”
The zero’s were hearts and the nine inset with cross-hairs. I stared into the crosshair’s and remembered the comms about my cousin. Returning to my desk I opened the first comms message and the tea-cup slipped from my fingers. I was immediately back in my home. I stood again and returned to the stove to make another cup of tea before returning to my desk. Imperial Senator Bluecrash’s media machine published a report on Coral and The Office was pulling teeth to keep The Order from revealing my relationship to Oswald. A third cousin on my mother’s side, Oswald Narragansett Fallsworth was a member of the Imperial Intelligence Service. We’d met once or twice, mostly during my service with the organization’s test-pilot corps. He made himself useful in my work to secure my Imperial Courier Liberation, and we’d talked shopped now and again, but we’d generally stayed far afield from one another owing to our respective institutional loyalties, or so I’d surmised.
The report had focused on The Nain Project as a possible confound degrading Imperial Intelligence in the period prior to, during, and immediately following the capture and captivity of The Emperor, but shirked away from assigning blame. The Office was uncomfortable with the report’s suggestion that Coral’s name was an alias, and that it had information about her biological parents- that it contained information on Coral’s current whereabouts was the biggest concern. The Office of The Order was concerned that my relationship with Oswald might be viewed as a potential threat to the impregnability of The Office. I’d have to go home to speak to Oswald, directly. I made a note to myself, pinning it to my cork boar. I turned it around so as to face me, its tusks sharp and fierce. Another knock came to my door and with it came the vicious tearing at my focus that told me Clara was speaking, “We won’t be able to give you all the information, ok?”
I looked at her, through the door frame of my home, and she stared back at me as if awaiting a response. She snapped her fingers inches from my face.
“Carl, we have a briefing on Coral but we can’t give you all the information. What I can tell you is that she’s gone.”
The floor of my home opened up beneath me and I looked at Clara as she stood, watching me for any response. I continued to fall, she standing in front of me, and I responded, “What?”
“The Office confirmed she’s AWOL, Carl.”
“What do you mean AWOL? How the… Where is she gonna go?”
“Look, Carl, the only thing The Office is telling me and Orion is that she’s AWOL. They received a message from some lady that must have hijacked Keystone that’s claiming to have been a Novus Ordo Siderum pilot from your old test-division. Something about an experiment going awry and now she’s traveled into the past from the future.”
I stared at her without responding, feeling myself continue downward toward an inexorable fate of which I’d been deprived the knowledge. I asked again, “What?”
“They’re calling it ‘Inverse Time Dilation’, Carl. Do you know anything about it?”
“‘Inverse Time Dilation’? That’s,” I turned away, feeling the upward thrust moving past me at an accelerating rate that made me increasingly uncomfortable, “… not a thing. She’s from the future and she traveled into the past, which is now? Who?”
“Look, Carl, the only information I have is that Coral went AWOL and there’s a woman in Keystone that’s claiming to be a Novus Ordo Siderum pilot. The Office says she’s provably one of our test-pilots and that there are records of her parents being part of the organization.”
I turned my head, again, the rush upward seemingly avoiding me at all costs as it continued unabated and I managed to force out the words, “Keystone was hijacked and Coral’s gone… there’s a woman claiming to be a Novus Ordo Siderum test-pilot that achieved what the Office is calling ‘Inverse Time Dilation’ that resulted in her traveling backward in time from the future to our present?”
“The Office said she’s got access to intelligence from the future, Carl.”
I closed my eyes, muttering a curt, “What,” as the door to my home closed. I could feel the tearing of my focus as the faintest murmur from Clara continued,
“She’s from the future, Carl, she’s taken Keystone from Coral and she has access to troves of NOS intelligence reports that have been produced since now through to her time.”