Technical Support
An Ah! My Goddess / Infinite Earths Fanfic
By Roehl Sybing (indef@infinitedeferral.com)
Chapter One
Chris typed away at the keyboard, all the while eyeing the time displayed in the corner of the monitor. He had spent only three minutes punching in commands and tracking down the virus, and already he was getting bored. He predicted to himself that he would target the malicious program and inoculate the system in another four minutes.
The others in the room didn't seem so optimistic. They had been dealing with hardware problems for over four days until the agent was called in to assist. All around him, technicians were tinkering with their proprietary equipment and getting bad results from the experiences. Just after he transported in, a rather noteworthy scientist had to be stretchered away because of serious burns that he had suffered while repairing a monitoring station.
Some mysterious virus had infected the computer systems of Alternate Earth Delta 4-2-8. Among indigenous hardware - personal computers and laptops and other assorted objects of technology belonging to the natives of the parallel dimension - the problems came and went. Some people lost files and essential data was occasionally erased, but the presence of the virus was temporary in those systems.
The real dilemma was the program's interaction with the Commission mainframe. On Delta 4-2-8, two surveillance satellites and a listening post along the shores of Greenland were, within days, in serious need of repair, and in each instance Agent Davis was the point man to tackle the virus. Nothing doing for Chris, though. He had pinpointed the areas in the computer net where the virus was replicating itself. The difficulty was not in destroying the program, but to prevent it from infecting the system. In two weeks, the virus was proving to be quite persistent.
This time, Chris took a different approach to the problem. Popping in a disk from his pocket, he attempted to run a new algorithm he designed just for this case. As the computer whirred away, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms while he waited for answers.
Chris looked back at the few technicians that nervously watched over him and his work. He nodded at them all, saying, "It's all good, guys."
The computer beeped, alerting Chris to a new message flashing on the screen. An innocuous notification blinked on and off across the top line, reading, "Welcome to Yggdrasil! Press any key to continue."
He squinted at the message, pondering where it came from. "Hey," he asked the techs, "Are there any remote connections open?"
"Not since we went into safe mode," one of them replied.
"Hmm."
"Why do you ask?"
"Come over here. See this? It looks like some kind of inter-network communication."
The technician shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I've never seen it before at this station. Where did it come from?"
"I dunno," Chris said, "I ran an algorithm that I created to trace the history of the virus on the network, and whatever it did, it activated this prompt. The virus must've came through this program. Are you sure there are no communications coming out of this facility?"
"I am quite sure, Agent Davis. I have monitored every transmission made in the last seventy-two hours."
"Well, it's probably just a downloaded copy of the original. Thank you, doctor."
The tech stepped away, leaving Chris to ponder the title screen that remained on the monitor. The man had to have been wrong, Chris thought to himself. Underneath the welcome message flashed a date and time, which was identical to the system clock. Ultimately, he had to see for himself. He tapped the keyboard, and welcome message disappeared, and in its place was a file listing. Whatever Yggdrasil was, it was obviously a part of the network within the listening post.
He reached for a pad on the desk. It was rigged to display the results of the algorithm, and sure enough it led him into this new system, in a directory clearly unlike the others, for the characters were garbled and were unlike those of the other files.
Chris nodded in approval. "Three and a half minutes," he said out loud.
He commanded the computer net to jump to the infected directory. At last, the first real resistance came when the screen flashed a warning message, reading, "Access Denied. Password Protected."
"Interesting," he said, "But easily remedied." Reaching into his bag, he took out a decoder disk - also of his own design - and slipped it into one of the station's slots. At his command, the program automated all sorts of instructions meant to open the directory in spite of the protection. With the speed of the computer station and the efficiency of his programming, it would take another minute to have access to whatever was inside the protected folder.
Suddenly, though, the station sparked and the monitor flickered. Chris examined the predicament. The virus was fighting back by countering his decoding program.
"Uh oh," he said.
"Is there something wrong?" the tech asked.
Chris took a deep breath, as he helplessly watched, if only for a moment, the virus strike back with greater intensity than normal. "Uh...no! I've got it taken care of!" he said, though only one idea came to mind, and it was the type of situation that he was compelled to bring out his big guns.
Ripping open his bag, Chris fumbled around for his handheld computer. When it was in his grasp, he plugged it into the station and laid it upon the table. He flexed the muscles in his fingers for one last battle. As the virus continued to eat up the system's resources, Chris fed instructions into his computer, independent of the virus' progress. Stopping the infection at the source was his first priority, but as the virus transformed the data structure of the computer net, Chris was forced to adapt to the changing conditions. But through it all, he was in full control.
"Now you're mine," he said, pressing down hard on the Enter key. His computer sounded the confirmation, and in an instant, everything went quiet, from his equipment to the monitoring station in front of him. The monitor went black for a minute, while Chris and the other techs watched with anticipation. Only when it flickered on with the startup sequence did they all breathe a sigh of relief.
"Phew," came from Chris' lips as he collapsed back onto his chair, "Well, that was fun!"
"What did you do, if I may ask?" one tech said.
"Nothing until that last part, really," Chris replied, "Once it countered, all I did was partition off the operating system where the virus originated and sealed it off."
"And that destroyed the virus?"
"No, but it does stop the progress of the infection. That should be enough until I write a new script."
"Agent Davis, thank you so much!" the tech said, shaking Chris' hand, "You really are the most innovative engineer at this listening post!"
"It was nothing, really," he said, blushing.
"Well, I guess you'll be heading home, am I right, Agent Davis?" the tech asked without waiting for an answer as he double-checked Chris' work, leaving Chris standing there with his equipment and a smile that quickly left his face.
"Home," Chris said softly, "Yeah."
---
"He is not of this Earth. He exists beyond the great limits of our own universe."
"Yet he is the only one capable of helping us. He cracked our system and sealed off the error. Clearly, he possesses an insight that the mortals of this Earth lack. Our options are few."
"What do you suggest, then? We cannot visit him as we would an ordinary mortal in our realm."
"Then we must bring him to us. I know it is questionable at best, but it's the only way.
"Very well. I will prepare the teleportation, but I am putting you in charge of this mission, dear goddess. See to it that he steps lively among the heavens."
"Thank you, sir."
---
The end of the wormhole led Chris back to the gateway room at Headquarters. A final push threw him out of the wormhole but he remained on his feet, as Jake stood in front of him, waiting to greet him.
"Welcome back, Agent Davis," Jake said, "Good job."
"Thank you, sir," Chris replied. He lacked all spirit in his tone as he thanked his superior officer and friend.
"Agent Davis, what other duties do you have left to fulfill this week?" he asked ceremoniously.
"None whatsoever, sir."
"Very well, Agent Davis. As scheduled, I am granting you and the other Reality Jumpers ninety-six hours of liberty, effective immediately."
Chris nodded slightly. "Yes, sir," he said, "Thank you, sir."
The two exchanged salutes and Chris went for the door, with his head bowed and a look of humility on his face. Jake watched him retreat, and followed him out to the hallway.
"Chris?" he said, once outside.
The Reality Jumper turned around.
"Are you alright?"
Chris smiled weakly, sighing as though he were a defeated character. "Jake, that's, like, the seventh time someone's asked me that this week, and that's twice coming from you."
"I'm concerned, that's all."
He bit his lip, opening and closing his mouth as he searched for the words. "She's scheduled to leave today. Probably at the port right now."
Jake nodded in understanding. "I see," he said, "Is that where you're g--?"
"Absolutely not!" Chris snapped back. Then he stopped himself, and continued in a softer tone, "I-I have some paperwork to file from this excursion."
The two exchanged looks of acknowledgement, and Jake watched Chris walk down the hallway and out of sight. He clicked his tongue, not at anyone in particular but at the situation in which Chris found himself not one week ago.
---
The door sprung open, and Chris marched right through.
"What the hell is this?" he said, holding a piece of paper in his hand.
The bespectacled Nicole looked up from her labwork. "Is that--?"
"Yes, this is your email! You're dumping me by sending an email!?"
"Chris," she said, taking off her glasses, "I don't want us to end like this."
"Oh, really? 'Dear Chris, I'm going to Manila for a year to study radioactive activity in the Japanese blast area, and from there I will be taking a research assistant's job at the University of Oxford. Please don't be upset, as I hope we can still be friends. God bless you. Love, Nicole.'" he said, reading the rather short rejection message, "How did you think it was going to end!?"
"Chris..."
"Why can't you say all this to my face? Tell me, I want to know!"
Nicole sighed. She paced back and forth for a moment as Chris vented, but all this time she was gathering up the courage to tell him off.
"Really?" she said, now with an angry look on her face, "You want to know? Yes, Chris, I AM leaving. I should've told you three months ago. I was wrong, I admit that. But I hid it from you because I didn't want any arguments on what I should with my life!"
A confounded Chris looked at Nicole. "I wasn't going to...it's not like...I'm not...Nicole, you're my girlfriend!"
Nicole flung her arms into the air and threw a dagger into his heart. "No, Chris. I'm not your girlfriend. I was never yours, and you were never mine."
"What are you talking about? The last three years--"
"--Was an illusion, Chris. God! We hardly go out, you seldom take me anywhere, and not once in the last six months have you told me that you love me. So, tell me, Christopher Mark Davis, exactly why you thought I was your girlfriend!"
Chris' jaw dropped. He didn't have answers, only excuses. "I'm...I'm a very busy guy, Nicole..."
"Yeah, that's right. You were busy. You were always busy. And I have to sit around my apartment just waiting for you to get some shore leave, right?"
Silence. Chris had no comeback for that one, and Nicole, despite acting behind his back, was absolutely right.
"Look," Nicole said, this time with a more conciliatory tone, "You're twenty-one, right?"
"Yeah," Chris replied.
"How many years have you been a Reality Jumper?"
"Seven."
"What's your IQ?"
"160."
"How many missions have you been on?"
"Over three-hundred."
"And how many Alternate Earths have you saved from destruction?"
"Six."
Nicole scoffed. "Well, I'm twenty-one," she said, "I have an IQ of 155, two Ph.D's from Columbia and an honorary from MIT. And what do I have to show for it? Only two articles in the last seven technical journals, and three grant rejections on theoretical physics research. You don't need me."
Chris bowed his head, and felt like his legs were in cement. Out of nowhere, he realized now that Nicole had been waiting on him for too long.
"Look at me, Chris," Nicole said.
Chris picked his head up, and lightly pressed against his cheeks were two delicate hands belonging to a sad-smiling Nicole.
"We're a perfect match, and a piece of my heart will always belong to you," she said, "But I have a mind, too, and I want to use it."
He nodded and blinked once to keep from breaking down in tears. "How long?"
"A week. I'm leaving in a week."
"A week..." he scoffed.
"Chris! Chris, wait!" Nicole cried. But it was too late, as he was both feet out the door, slamming it shut behind him.
Chris wanted so much to be angry at her, and wanted to show it by clenching his fists and stomping his feet. But he hadn't the energy for it. Instead, he stopped after taking a number of paces out the door to find the courage to go back and apologize. Since he had none at the moment, Chris walked on, never to see Nicole again.
---
"A fine afternoon, Agent Davis," Hacker One said upon entering the computer lab, "Finish that mission report for me yet?"
Chris fixed his gaze on the computer monitor. "Afternoon, Hacker," he said.
"How're you holding up?" he innocently asked, to which Chris responded by shooting back a look with two fiery eyes. "Sorry. Scratch that, forget I asked. How was the mission?"
"It was the same as the last," Chris said, "I'm writing a system-wide algorithm right now to protect all of our systems here and on Delta 4-2-8 from the virus."
"Sounds like an aggressive sucker."
"Yeah, well, that's what bothers me. It's an industrial-contemporary Earth, no indigenous programmer should come close to the technology behind this program."
"Outside job?"
Chris shook his head, "Probably. But if so, the question is why." He then looked at Hacker, "Hey, while you're here, let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of Yegg...Yigg...hold on."
Unable to pronounce the word, he seized Hacker One's pad and stylus and wrote the word "Yggdrasil" on it.
"That," Chris said, "What do you make of it?"
Hacker One shrugged his shoulders, "I dunno. Is he related to Gilgamesh?"
Chris chuckled. "It's the name of some computer network back on Delta 4-2-8, I think. I accidentally stumbled onto it while tracking down the source of the virus. Turns out the virus was hiding in some file on Yegg-dray...that network. But the thing is there were no communications going in or out of the listening post, so it's not possible that I was connected to anything at the time."
"Interesting," Hacker said, looking at his pager, "Yeah, I don't know. Look, they're gonna need me downstairs. Drop the report in my box, alright?"
"You got it," Chris replied, returning to his work. He didn't like to leave a dangling reference about Yggdrasil in his report without a few more details, but he had none to give. When it came to computers, his philosophy was that once the problem had disappeared, it was no longer necessary to ask how or why. It was getting late in the afternoon as well, and he was expected with the rest of his team for a night on the town, presumably to cheer him up. Wanting to start it and get it over with, he picked up the pace of his typing to finish his report.
Suddenly, the monitor flashed.
"Welcome to Yggdrasil! Press any key to continue."
Chris gasped. Whatever sequence of keys he had pressed had caused a familiar welcome message to appear. He looked over the message a hundred times, trying to figure out why it stood in front of him.
"What are you?" he asked out loud.
Of course, curiosity got the better of him, and he tapped the keyboard to once again enter the phantom system.
This time, however, he didn't get a listing of files, but a blank screen and the constant whirring of the computer beside the monitor, growing louder over time and generating an unusually increasing amount of heat. Chris looked at the computer, then the monitor, which was beginning to blink all sorts of colors, slowly at first but quickening while he stared at the image.
Chris wiped the sweat from his brow. It was hot, and much of the heat was coming from the computer. Slowly, he rolled backwards on the wheels of his chair, but he remained ever fixed on the computer screen, which had him locked in a trance, even as the heat intensified and sparks began to come from the direction of the machine.
"Fire detected on the 61st floor, section fourteen," an automated voice accompanied by an alarm sounded all over the computer lab, "Evacuate immediately. Oxygen deprivation and system shutdown in twenty seconds."
Chris didn't understand what the overhead voice had said, despite the clarity of the announcement; only the sheer volume of the message had broken his hypnotic state, and in the moment that he was lucid did he recognize that he was in serious trouble. At once, he made a beeline for the door of the lab, diving into the doorway and out into the hall. An electromagnetic seal lowered in front of the door, and Chris watched through the window as the computers in the lab flickered off, one by one, as a precaution. Then he began to recall what had transpired in the moments before he blanked out. He tried to muse over the strange experience, but as there was an immediate hole in his memory, he was quite unsuccessful.
---
Chris favored his arm as he walked into the lobby of Headquarters. He had landed on it when he dove out of the computer lab, and after a while it had become quite sore.
"There he is!" Mike cried, running up to Chris, "He's set an entire room on fire just to get away from us!"
"Hey, hey, I'm here, ain't I?" Chris said, with weakness in his voice.
"Yes, you are. Trust me, my friend, we've got a whole night planned, get your mind off your worries and all!"
"Alright, but could you not wrap your arm around my neck so tightly?" he pleaded, pressing his finger against the bridge of his glasses to keep it on his face.
"C'mon, leave him alone," Kim said, taking Chris away from Mike and having her turn to hold him as the three of them, with Jake and Jackie, exited the building and out onto Sixth Avenue. "Tonight's all about you, Chris. What do you want to do?"
"Me? I want to go home," he said blankly, to the groans of the other four Reality Jumpers.
"OK, then...this night's all about me," Kim replied, "And I say we're going out to dancing!"
"Dancing? What do you mean, dancing!?" Chris protested, "No one ever said anything about--!"
---
Sure enough, they were all on the floor of some midtown club to expend whatever excess energy that was leftover from the rest of the day. The room was alight with various colors and patterns that overloaded the senses of the Reality Jumpers, and they made a night out of simply letting loose and having fun.
The first one off the floor, however, was Chris. After a half hour of improvised dancing and half-hearted attempts to mingle with women of his height and age, he could not determine if he was physically exhausted or emotionally fatigued. Either way, he wanted no more of his friends' efforts to distract him from his troubles. It wasn't that he was ungrateful. He appreciated that his fellow teammates were there for him. So he let them have their fun while he ducked into a relatively quiet corner of the club.
"Hey!" Jackie shouted from behind him.
Chris jumped right off his seat. "Oh, God!" he cried, "Jackie, what're you doing!?"
"Followed you. Anyways, what'cha doing hiding back here?"
"I'm not hiding! I'm just catching a break, that's all."
Jackie nodded, and sat down across from him. She rest her elbows on the table and her head on her hands, looking right at Chris.
"Don't you worry, C.M.," she said, "You were too good for Nicole."
Chris smiled, then shook his head, putting together the right response. "No, I'm not," he said simply.
"Oh, come on. Look at you! The brains, the outerwear, and you got this thing with your hair that's going for you..."
"Jackie..."
"I'm just saying."
"I appreciate it, Jackie," he said in a commanding tone, "But it's not meant to be. I'm no good with women."
She waved Chris off, saying, "That's not true."
"It is, and I stood by Nicole to pretend that I was. But I never took care of her. Why?"
Jackie shrugged, to which Chris took out his wallet and flashed his badge.
"Well, the job DOES grow on you, I guess."
"That's an understatement," he replied, "I'm a Reality Jumper. Nothing else can matter. I don't know how you do it, Jackie, but guys like me...we're meant to be alone."
She looked at him for a moment, and when it was clear that nothing was going to persuade him otherwise, she did what she thought was best by standing up and leaving him alone.
---
Being alone in a crowd was worse than simply being alone, and Chris was learning that the hard way as he walked up Times Square, in front of the rest of the Reality Jumpers. He could hear that the four of them mumbled amongst themselves. No doubt they talked about him, and what they should do next. But after dancing, a late dinner and a few short films at the 50th Street moviegrid, it was clear that there was nothing they could do to shake Chris from his depression.
"You know, being the team leader and Junior Director, I could just order Chris to cheer up. Ow!" Jake cried as he was punched in the stomach by Jackie. "I was kidding, don't you know?"
"Guys," Chris said, stopping and turning around to face them, "Thank you, really. I mean it. But I'll be fine. I just need a field mission or something productive."
He then paused to recall all things Nicole said that he didn't do with her in what little spare time he had away from work.
"I guess I'm just not a leisure kind of guy," he added, with his head bowed once again.
Looking at the ground, Chris was unable to see the clouds forming right on top of him. The others didn't even notice until the buildings all around them, shining bright with flashing advertisements and florescent lights, flickered on and off, as sparks of lightning danced from structure to structure just above their heads and the heads of the rest of the passersby in Times Square.
"Chris!" Jake cried.
"What?"
"Look!"
He looked up, and in the center of the largest cloud above him opened a swirling vortex. In all the panic and confusion around him and the Reality Jumpers, Chris didn't know what it meant until it sank and drew closer to him, and by then it was too late.
"Guys!" he shouted to the others, but already his feet were off the ground as he tumbled upwards, unable to combat the gravity of the wormhole that sucked him in and swallowed him whole.
The other Jumpers were low to the ground, covering their heads with their hands and arms, trying to withstand the sound and the fury of all the energy that spontaneously traversed the street.
When it was all over, there was a moment of dead quiet. The silence crescendoed into low murmurs among passersby, and then a few scattered wails of panic, increasing both in number and intensity by the second. Jake and the other three looked up. Sure enough, Chris was gone, but even if he wasn't, they wouldn't be able to see him, as they could barely see each other. Their silhouettes were difficult to discern in the pitch black darkness of an untimely power outage, induced by the phenomena that swept Chris away.
---
Chris lay flat on the ground, as several figures gathered around his motionless body. His breathing was minimal, so the talk among the growing crowd was of relief that he survived the ordeal. Finally, a woman approached and cut through the crowd. She stood over him, with her hands on her hips, and having on her face a look of relief but also of determination.
"Very well, it is done," Peorth said, "Put him in a bed. He must rest."
TO BE CONTINUED.
---
Author's notes: This was just the setup for the bulk of the fanfic in the AMG universe. Chapter Two on the way!
An Ah! My Goddess / Infinite Earths Fanfic
By Roehl Sybing (indef@infinitedeferral.com)
Chapter One
Chris typed away at the keyboard, all the while eyeing the time displayed in the corner of the monitor. He had spent only three minutes punching in commands and tracking down the virus, and already he was getting bored. He predicted to himself that he would target the malicious program and inoculate the system in another four minutes.
The others in the room didn't seem so optimistic. They had been dealing with hardware problems for over four days until the agent was called in to assist. All around him, technicians were tinkering with their proprietary equipment and getting bad results from the experiences. Just after he transported in, a rather noteworthy scientist had to be stretchered away because of serious burns that he had suffered while repairing a monitoring station.
Some mysterious virus had infected the computer systems of Alternate Earth Delta 4-2-8. Among indigenous hardware - personal computers and laptops and other assorted objects of technology belonging to the natives of the parallel dimension - the problems came and went. Some people lost files and essential data was occasionally erased, but the presence of the virus was temporary in those systems.
The real dilemma was the program's interaction with the Commission mainframe. On Delta 4-2-8, two surveillance satellites and a listening post along the shores of Greenland were, within days, in serious need of repair, and in each instance Agent Davis was the point man to tackle the virus. Nothing doing for Chris, though. He had pinpointed the areas in the computer net where the virus was replicating itself. The difficulty was not in destroying the program, but to prevent it from infecting the system. In two weeks, the virus was proving to be quite persistent.
This time, Chris took a different approach to the problem. Popping in a disk from his pocket, he attempted to run a new algorithm he designed just for this case. As the computer whirred away, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms while he waited for answers.
Chris looked back at the few technicians that nervously watched over him and his work. He nodded at them all, saying, "It's all good, guys."
The computer beeped, alerting Chris to a new message flashing on the screen. An innocuous notification blinked on and off across the top line, reading, "Welcome to Yggdrasil! Press any key to continue."
He squinted at the message, pondering where it came from. "Hey," he asked the techs, "Are there any remote connections open?"
"Not since we went into safe mode," one of them replied.
"Hmm."
"Why do you ask?"
"Come over here. See this? It looks like some kind of inter-network communication."
The technician shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I've never seen it before at this station. Where did it come from?"
"I dunno," Chris said, "I ran an algorithm that I created to trace the history of the virus on the network, and whatever it did, it activated this prompt. The virus must've came through this program. Are you sure there are no communications coming out of this facility?"
"I am quite sure, Agent Davis. I have monitored every transmission made in the last seventy-two hours."
"Well, it's probably just a downloaded copy of the original. Thank you, doctor."
The tech stepped away, leaving Chris to ponder the title screen that remained on the monitor. The man had to have been wrong, Chris thought to himself. Underneath the welcome message flashed a date and time, which was identical to the system clock. Ultimately, he had to see for himself. He tapped the keyboard, and welcome message disappeared, and in its place was a file listing. Whatever Yggdrasil was, it was obviously a part of the network within the listening post.
He reached for a pad on the desk. It was rigged to display the results of the algorithm, and sure enough it led him into this new system, in a directory clearly unlike the others, for the characters were garbled and were unlike those of the other files.
Chris nodded in approval. "Three and a half minutes," he said out loud.
He commanded the computer net to jump to the infected directory. At last, the first real resistance came when the screen flashed a warning message, reading, "Access Denied. Password Protected."
"Interesting," he said, "But easily remedied." Reaching into his bag, he took out a decoder disk - also of his own design - and slipped it into one of the station's slots. At his command, the program automated all sorts of instructions meant to open the directory in spite of the protection. With the speed of the computer station and the efficiency of his programming, it would take another minute to have access to whatever was inside the protected folder.
Suddenly, though, the station sparked and the monitor flickered. Chris examined the predicament. The virus was fighting back by countering his decoding program.
"Uh oh," he said.
"Is there something wrong?" the tech asked.
Chris took a deep breath, as he helplessly watched, if only for a moment, the virus strike back with greater intensity than normal. "Uh...no! I've got it taken care of!" he said, though only one idea came to mind, and it was the type of situation that he was compelled to bring out his big guns.
Ripping open his bag, Chris fumbled around for his handheld computer. When it was in his grasp, he plugged it into the station and laid it upon the table. He flexed the muscles in his fingers for one last battle. As the virus continued to eat up the system's resources, Chris fed instructions into his computer, independent of the virus' progress. Stopping the infection at the source was his first priority, but as the virus transformed the data structure of the computer net, Chris was forced to adapt to the changing conditions. But through it all, he was in full control.
"Now you're mine," he said, pressing down hard on the Enter key. His computer sounded the confirmation, and in an instant, everything went quiet, from his equipment to the monitoring station in front of him. The monitor went black for a minute, while Chris and the other techs watched with anticipation. Only when it flickered on with the startup sequence did they all breathe a sigh of relief.
"Phew," came from Chris' lips as he collapsed back onto his chair, "Well, that was fun!"
"What did you do, if I may ask?" one tech said.
"Nothing until that last part, really," Chris replied, "Once it countered, all I did was partition off the operating system where the virus originated and sealed it off."
"And that destroyed the virus?"
"No, but it does stop the progress of the infection. That should be enough until I write a new script."
"Agent Davis, thank you so much!" the tech said, shaking Chris' hand, "You really are the most innovative engineer at this listening post!"
"It was nothing, really," he said, blushing.
"Well, I guess you'll be heading home, am I right, Agent Davis?" the tech asked without waiting for an answer as he double-checked Chris' work, leaving Chris standing there with his equipment and a smile that quickly left his face.
"Home," Chris said softly, "Yeah."
---
"He is not of this Earth. He exists beyond the great limits of our own universe."
"Yet he is the only one capable of helping us. He cracked our system and sealed off the error. Clearly, he possesses an insight that the mortals of this Earth lack. Our options are few."
"What do you suggest, then? We cannot visit him as we would an ordinary mortal in our realm."
"Then we must bring him to us. I know it is questionable at best, but it's the only way.
"Very well. I will prepare the teleportation, but I am putting you in charge of this mission, dear goddess. See to it that he steps lively among the heavens."
"Thank you, sir."
---
The end of the wormhole led Chris back to the gateway room at Headquarters. A final push threw him out of the wormhole but he remained on his feet, as Jake stood in front of him, waiting to greet him.
"Welcome back, Agent Davis," Jake said, "Good job."
"Thank you, sir," Chris replied. He lacked all spirit in his tone as he thanked his superior officer and friend.
"Agent Davis, what other duties do you have left to fulfill this week?" he asked ceremoniously.
"None whatsoever, sir."
"Very well, Agent Davis. As scheduled, I am granting you and the other Reality Jumpers ninety-six hours of liberty, effective immediately."
Chris nodded slightly. "Yes, sir," he said, "Thank you, sir."
The two exchanged salutes and Chris went for the door, with his head bowed and a look of humility on his face. Jake watched him retreat, and followed him out to the hallway.
"Chris?" he said, once outside.
The Reality Jumper turned around.
"Are you alright?"
Chris smiled weakly, sighing as though he were a defeated character. "Jake, that's, like, the seventh time someone's asked me that this week, and that's twice coming from you."
"I'm concerned, that's all."
He bit his lip, opening and closing his mouth as he searched for the words. "She's scheduled to leave today. Probably at the port right now."
Jake nodded in understanding. "I see," he said, "Is that where you're g--?"
"Absolutely not!" Chris snapped back. Then he stopped himself, and continued in a softer tone, "I-I have some paperwork to file from this excursion."
The two exchanged looks of acknowledgement, and Jake watched Chris walk down the hallway and out of sight. He clicked his tongue, not at anyone in particular but at the situation in which Chris found himself not one week ago.
---
The door sprung open, and Chris marched right through.
"What the hell is this?" he said, holding a piece of paper in his hand.
The bespectacled Nicole looked up from her labwork. "Is that--?"
"Yes, this is your email! You're dumping me by sending an email!?"
"Chris," she said, taking off her glasses, "I don't want us to end like this."
"Oh, really? 'Dear Chris, I'm going to Manila for a year to study radioactive activity in the Japanese blast area, and from there I will be taking a research assistant's job at the University of Oxford. Please don't be upset, as I hope we can still be friends. God bless you. Love, Nicole.'" he said, reading the rather short rejection message, "How did you think it was going to end!?"
"Chris..."
"Why can't you say all this to my face? Tell me, I want to know!"
Nicole sighed. She paced back and forth for a moment as Chris vented, but all this time she was gathering up the courage to tell him off.
"Really?" she said, now with an angry look on her face, "You want to know? Yes, Chris, I AM leaving. I should've told you three months ago. I was wrong, I admit that. But I hid it from you because I didn't want any arguments on what I should with my life!"
A confounded Chris looked at Nicole. "I wasn't going to...it's not like...I'm not...Nicole, you're my girlfriend!"
Nicole flung her arms into the air and threw a dagger into his heart. "No, Chris. I'm not your girlfriend. I was never yours, and you were never mine."
"What are you talking about? The last three years--"
"--Was an illusion, Chris. God! We hardly go out, you seldom take me anywhere, and not once in the last six months have you told me that you love me. So, tell me, Christopher Mark Davis, exactly why you thought I was your girlfriend!"
Chris' jaw dropped. He didn't have answers, only excuses. "I'm...I'm a very busy guy, Nicole..."
"Yeah, that's right. You were busy. You were always busy. And I have to sit around my apartment just waiting for you to get some shore leave, right?"
Silence. Chris had no comeback for that one, and Nicole, despite acting behind his back, was absolutely right.
"Look," Nicole said, this time with a more conciliatory tone, "You're twenty-one, right?"
"Yeah," Chris replied.
"How many years have you been a Reality Jumper?"
"Seven."
"What's your IQ?"
"160."
"How many missions have you been on?"
"Over three-hundred."
"And how many Alternate Earths have you saved from destruction?"
"Six."
Nicole scoffed. "Well, I'm twenty-one," she said, "I have an IQ of 155, two Ph.D's from Columbia and an honorary from MIT. And what do I have to show for it? Only two articles in the last seven technical journals, and three grant rejections on theoretical physics research. You don't need me."
Chris bowed his head, and felt like his legs were in cement. Out of nowhere, he realized now that Nicole had been waiting on him for too long.
"Look at me, Chris," Nicole said.
Chris picked his head up, and lightly pressed against his cheeks were two delicate hands belonging to a sad-smiling Nicole.
"We're a perfect match, and a piece of my heart will always belong to you," she said, "But I have a mind, too, and I want to use it."
He nodded and blinked once to keep from breaking down in tears. "How long?"
"A week. I'm leaving in a week."
"A week..." he scoffed.
"Chris! Chris, wait!" Nicole cried. But it was too late, as he was both feet out the door, slamming it shut behind him.
Chris wanted so much to be angry at her, and wanted to show it by clenching his fists and stomping his feet. But he hadn't the energy for it. Instead, he stopped after taking a number of paces out the door to find the courage to go back and apologize. Since he had none at the moment, Chris walked on, never to see Nicole again.
---
"A fine afternoon, Agent Davis," Hacker One said upon entering the computer lab, "Finish that mission report for me yet?"
Chris fixed his gaze on the computer monitor. "Afternoon, Hacker," he said.
"How're you holding up?" he innocently asked, to which Chris responded by shooting back a look with two fiery eyes. "Sorry. Scratch that, forget I asked. How was the mission?"
"It was the same as the last," Chris said, "I'm writing a system-wide algorithm right now to protect all of our systems here and on Delta 4-2-8 from the virus."
"Sounds like an aggressive sucker."
"Yeah, well, that's what bothers me. It's an industrial-contemporary Earth, no indigenous programmer should come close to the technology behind this program."
"Outside job?"
Chris shook his head, "Probably. But if so, the question is why." He then looked at Hacker, "Hey, while you're here, let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of Yegg...Yigg...hold on."
Unable to pronounce the word, he seized Hacker One's pad and stylus and wrote the word "Yggdrasil" on it.
"That," Chris said, "What do you make of it?"
Hacker One shrugged his shoulders, "I dunno. Is he related to Gilgamesh?"
Chris chuckled. "It's the name of some computer network back on Delta 4-2-8, I think. I accidentally stumbled onto it while tracking down the source of the virus. Turns out the virus was hiding in some file on Yegg-dray...that network. But the thing is there were no communications going in or out of the listening post, so it's not possible that I was connected to anything at the time."
"Interesting," Hacker said, looking at his pager, "Yeah, I don't know. Look, they're gonna need me downstairs. Drop the report in my box, alright?"
"You got it," Chris replied, returning to his work. He didn't like to leave a dangling reference about Yggdrasil in his report without a few more details, but he had none to give. When it came to computers, his philosophy was that once the problem had disappeared, it was no longer necessary to ask how or why. It was getting late in the afternoon as well, and he was expected with the rest of his team for a night on the town, presumably to cheer him up. Wanting to start it and get it over with, he picked up the pace of his typing to finish his report.
Suddenly, the monitor flashed.
"Welcome to Yggdrasil! Press any key to continue."
Chris gasped. Whatever sequence of keys he had pressed had caused a familiar welcome message to appear. He looked over the message a hundred times, trying to figure out why it stood in front of him.
"What are you?" he asked out loud.
Of course, curiosity got the better of him, and he tapped the keyboard to once again enter the phantom system.
This time, however, he didn't get a listing of files, but a blank screen and the constant whirring of the computer beside the monitor, growing louder over time and generating an unusually increasing amount of heat. Chris looked at the computer, then the monitor, which was beginning to blink all sorts of colors, slowly at first but quickening while he stared at the image.
Chris wiped the sweat from his brow. It was hot, and much of the heat was coming from the computer. Slowly, he rolled backwards on the wheels of his chair, but he remained ever fixed on the computer screen, which had him locked in a trance, even as the heat intensified and sparks began to come from the direction of the machine.
"Fire detected on the 61st floor, section fourteen," an automated voice accompanied by an alarm sounded all over the computer lab, "Evacuate immediately. Oxygen deprivation and system shutdown in twenty seconds."
Chris didn't understand what the overhead voice had said, despite the clarity of the announcement; only the sheer volume of the message had broken his hypnotic state, and in the moment that he was lucid did he recognize that he was in serious trouble. At once, he made a beeline for the door of the lab, diving into the doorway and out into the hall. An electromagnetic seal lowered in front of the door, and Chris watched through the window as the computers in the lab flickered off, one by one, as a precaution. Then he began to recall what had transpired in the moments before he blanked out. He tried to muse over the strange experience, but as there was an immediate hole in his memory, he was quite unsuccessful.
---
Chris favored his arm as he walked into the lobby of Headquarters. He had landed on it when he dove out of the computer lab, and after a while it had become quite sore.
"There he is!" Mike cried, running up to Chris, "He's set an entire room on fire just to get away from us!"
"Hey, hey, I'm here, ain't I?" Chris said, with weakness in his voice.
"Yes, you are. Trust me, my friend, we've got a whole night planned, get your mind off your worries and all!"
"Alright, but could you not wrap your arm around my neck so tightly?" he pleaded, pressing his finger against the bridge of his glasses to keep it on his face.
"C'mon, leave him alone," Kim said, taking Chris away from Mike and having her turn to hold him as the three of them, with Jake and Jackie, exited the building and out onto Sixth Avenue. "Tonight's all about you, Chris. What do you want to do?"
"Me? I want to go home," he said blankly, to the groans of the other four Reality Jumpers.
"OK, then...this night's all about me," Kim replied, "And I say we're going out to dancing!"
"Dancing? What do you mean, dancing!?" Chris protested, "No one ever said anything about--!"
---
Sure enough, they were all on the floor of some midtown club to expend whatever excess energy that was leftover from the rest of the day. The room was alight with various colors and patterns that overloaded the senses of the Reality Jumpers, and they made a night out of simply letting loose and having fun.
The first one off the floor, however, was Chris. After a half hour of improvised dancing and half-hearted attempts to mingle with women of his height and age, he could not determine if he was physically exhausted or emotionally fatigued. Either way, he wanted no more of his friends' efforts to distract him from his troubles. It wasn't that he was ungrateful. He appreciated that his fellow teammates were there for him. So he let them have their fun while he ducked into a relatively quiet corner of the club.
"Hey!" Jackie shouted from behind him.
Chris jumped right off his seat. "Oh, God!" he cried, "Jackie, what're you doing!?"
"Followed you. Anyways, what'cha doing hiding back here?"
"I'm not hiding! I'm just catching a break, that's all."
Jackie nodded, and sat down across from him. She rest her elbows on the table and her head on her hands, looking right at Chris.
"Don't you worry, C.M.," she said, "You were too good for Nicole."
Chris smiled, then shook his head, putting together the right response. "No, I'm not," he said simply.
"Oh, come on. Look at you! The brains, the outerwear, and you got this thing with your hair that's going for you..."
"Jackie..."
"I'm just saying."
"I appreciate it, Jackie," he said in a commanding tone, "But it's not meant to be. I'm no good with women."
She waved Chris off, saying, "That's not true."
"It is, and I stood by Nicole to pretend that I was. But I never took care of her. Why?"
Jackie shrugged, to which Chris took out his wallet and flashed his badge.
"Well, the job DOES grow on you, I guess."
"That's an understatement," he replied, "I'm a Reality Jumper. Nothing else can matter. I don't know how you do it, Jackie, but guys like me...we're meant to be alone."
She looked at him for a moment, and when it was clear that nothing was going to persuade him otherwise, she did what she thought was best by standing up and leaving him alone.
---
Being alone in a crowd was worse than simply being alone, and Chris was learning that the hard way as he walked up Times Square, in front of the rest of the Reality Jumpers. He could hear that the four of them mumbled amongst themselves. No doubt they talked about him, and what they should do next. But after dancing, a late dinner and a few short films at the 50th Street moviegrid, it was clear that there was nothing they could do to shake Chris from his depression.
"You know, being the team leader and Junior Director, I could just order Chris to cheer up. Ow!" Jake cried as he was punched in the stomach by Jackie. "I was kidding, don't you know?"
"Guys," Chris said, stopping and turning around to face them, "Thank you, really. I mean it. But I'll be fine. I just need a field mission or something productive."
He then paused to recall all things Nicole said that he didn't do with her in what little spare time he had away from work.
"I guess I'm just not a leisure kind of guy," he added, with his head bowed once again.
Looking at the ground, Chris was unable to see the clouds forming right on top of him. The others didn't even notice until the buildings all around them, shining bright with flashing advertisements and florescent lights, flickered on and off, as sparks of lightning danced from structure to structure just above their heads and the heads of the rest of the passersby in Times Square.
"Chris!" Jake cried.
"What?"
"Look!"
He looked up, and in the center of the largest cloud above him opened a swirling vortex. In all the panic and confusion around him and the Reality Jumpers, Chris didn't know what it meant until it sank and drew closer to him, and by then it was too late.
"Guys!" he shouted to the others, but already his feet were off the ground as he tumbled upwards, unable to combat the gravity of the wormhole that sucked him in and swallowed him whole.
The other Jumpers were low to the ground, covering their heads with their hands and arms, trying to withstand the sound and the fury of all the energy that spontaneously traversed the street.
When it was all over, there was a moment of dead quiet. The silence crescendoed into low murmurs among passersby, and then a few scattered wails of panic, increasing both in number and intensity by the second. Jake and the other three looked up. Sure enough, Chris was gone, but even if he wasn't, they wouldn't be able to see him, as they could barely see each other. Their silhouettes were difficult to discern in the pitch black darkness of an untimely power outage, induced by the phenomena that swept Chris away.
---
Chris lay flat on the ground, as several figures gathered around his motionless body. His breathing was minimal, so the talk among the growing crowd was of relief that he survived the ordeal. Finally, a woman approached and cut through the crowd. She stood over him, with her hands on her hips, and having on her face a look of relief but also of determination.
"Very well, it is done," Peorth said, "Put him in a bed. He must rest."
TO BE CONTINUED.
---
Author's notes: This was just the setup for the bulk of the fanfic in the AMG universe. Chapter Two on the way!