January 10th
The Cave
11:42 EDT
"Jason, we're going to be late!" Donna yelled at the door.
"Five more minutes!"
"Hurry up!"
"Sheesh!" The steel door slid open to reveal a disgruntled and sunglassed Jason. "What's the big deal? It's just going to be another one of Captain Atom's stupid lectures on stealth or army protocol or whatever."
"Not today." Donna grabbed his arm and started pulling him along. The former street rat tripped over his own feet, knocked off balance by her superior strength. "I heard Black Canary say that the whole Team was supposed to be there today for a guest lecturer."
"Seriously? On what?"
"I don't know, but—"
The two of them rushed into the mission room and skidded to a halt. Usually, on class days, there would be makeshift chairs and desks lined up in front of a holographic board. The board was still there, but people were perched on a ragtag assortment of comfy chairs instead.
And Eve was standing at the board.
"About time," she said, fiddling with her watch. "You're late. There we go!" The board collapsed and a holographic interface sprung up over the floor instead.
"You're—teaching?" To say Jason was stunned would be an understatement.
"Under protest. Batman wants you educated on interdimensional travel."
"So you'll be teaching us how to cross worlds?" Troia asked.
"Hell, no. My whole damn job revolves around preventing that. I'll just be giving you a quick rundown on how the multiverse is set up, and what to do if you find yourselves sucked away. By the way, the answer is not 'shoot everything in sight.' Sit down while I figure out how to make this thing work."
Jason and Donna found spots on the floor while Eve cursed and messed around with the holographic interface. Files, larger-than-life size, flashed by until resolved into a glowing grid spread out across the floor. The grid lines disappeared, and each intersection turned into what looked like a hand-sized solar system. There were a few "oohs" and M'gann reached out to touch one, surprised when it reacted by bobbing away.
"Don't do that." Eve didn't even look up.
"Sorry!" M'gann immediately pulled her hand back and stared as the small worlds changed position from a rigid grid to far more spaced out and loose. Glowing Greek letters appeared on each one.
"Bottom up or top down?" Eve mused. "I think we'll start from the top. Welcome to the multiverse."
She gave a quick twist of her hand and the worlds started to rotate. "Each of these contains its own set of similar universes. They can be small—" She stopped the rotation to pull out a palm-sized cluster with three glowing letters. "And have only about six individual worlds, or…"
The diagram shifted and spun again, until a distinctly larger cluster drifted into her grasp, labeled with only a single letter. "As many as three thousand individual universes. Working down…"
She sent the diagram spinning, and then pulled out a medium-ish one, labeled with a Greek Delta. She tapped it twice, and the various spheres coalesced and resolved into an image of Earth. The image doubled, doubled again, and continued to multiply itself, until approximately fifty-two earths were spaced out like a solar system. One, larger earth sat dead center while the rest surrounded it. All of them were labeled with a Delta and a number.
Eve tapped one that sat a few lines away from the main Earth, labeled with a 16.
"This is you guys. Home sweet home, earth Delta-16."
"How did the name come about?" Kaldur asked, curious.
Eve shrugged. "Every metaverse is labeled by a Greek letter. The number is just the order we got to you guys in."
"So, what's the big one in the center?" Wally asked, leaning forward.
"That is New Delta. It's the original world in this metaverse, and one of the best-established ones. It's where we get most of our information, since it's set a few years ahead of you guys and they have extensive records."
"What are the differences?" Dick asked.
"Well, like I said, it's in your future, and I don't want to give spoilers. But it's pretty similar, honestly. Except for one thing, all you guys are much older. Um…well, Kal, you aren't Aqualad there. Garth is."
"Really?" Garth asked.
"Yeah. Well, you were, and then you died, and you got resurrected as a zombie, and…well, I'm going to shut up now since you're all staring at me like that."
The expressions ranged from horrified to nauseated to fascinated.
"Zombies?" Jason asked eagerly.
"I'm not talking about it."
"Please?"
"No!"
"Darn…"
"So where was I?" Eve shook her head. "Right. So the big one's New Delta. From there, the worlds are organized by similarities. So the farther away you get, the more radically different the worlds are."
"Like?" M'gann asked.
Eve spun the entire diagram, which made the rest of them dizzy, and stopped it by planting her finger on a yellow world with a number 30 on it, located fairly close to the edge. "Like, here Superman's ship came down in the Soviet Union and he fights for Communism."
"What?" Conner, perhaps not so surprisingly, spoke up.
"Yeah, I know, it's very weird. But probably the weirdest is…here." She dragged the diagram around a bit more and pointed at another one that was a mix of yellow and green. "Earth 26. Populated by anthropomorphic animals. Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew."
"Hey, I used to watch that TV show!" Artemis spoke up. "You're telling me that was real?"
"Really? Well, yeah, it's real. Herald was the one who covered that world, and he told me that he was locked in a cage while they spent two hours trying to decide what kind of monkey he was. We try and avoid that world now."
That garnered some chuckles, until Zatanna pointed at one marked Delta-3, which was red. "What about this one?"
Eve's face shuttered, and she made a twist with her hands that pulled all the worlds back into the main one. "Earth-3. Ruled by the Crime Syndicate. Evil versions of the heroes here."
"So, what, we're evil there?" Wally asked.
Eve didn't answer.
"Oh…"
"Anyway, there are all sorts of different worlds," the woman said, continuing with her lecture. "But world isn't exactly the bottom level of organization." She zoomed in on sixteen, and made it bigger. Inside, it was structured in concentric circles. "Within every world there are parallel universes, which aren't exactly the same, but they're too similar to split off on their own yet. So you've got Earth 16, Earth 16.5, Earth 16.3, et cetera, et cetera. Worlds where only one or two things are different. Like that incident with Klarion you told me about, when the worlds split, he didn't make a whole new universe, or even a singular parallel. He just made a new dimension in this universe."
"So, what's the difference between a dimension and a parallel universe?" Wally asked.
"Size, mostly. Dimensions—well, you've heard of pocket dimensions. And before you ask, I know nothing about string theory or any of the other science bits. I just put down what I observe and don't ask why. Dimensions are smaller, and sometimes…just fragmented bits, stories half-told, worlds that never grew. Parallels are distinct enough to contain an entire universe."
"Does every choice you make create a new universe where it went differently?" Kaldur inquired.
"Honestly, that theory is complete and utter BS. Sorry, but no tiny insignificant decision you make will change the course of history. There are points—a friend of mine calls them 'fixed points'—that can determine the fate of universes. If those deviate, they can and sometimes do create new universes. When time travel comes into it, though, it can seriously screw it up, because if you alter a fixed point that already happened, it destroys the world it happened in and any worlds that happened as a result. Just smushes 'em together and mixes them all up beyond utter recognition."
Donna examined one of the circles. "And do you actually go to all those other parallels?
"No. You guys are the 'Prime' earth of this universe, so I came here. Now I've got a fairly accurate barometer for info on other Earth-16's, but I'm not going to actually go to every single one of them."
"What does our being the 'Prime' earth entail?"
"Well, for one thing you guys are the center. You're also going to be the ones most affected by an extra-dimensional stuff—sorry about that—meaning that anyone invading or attacking will come here first, rather than going to one of the other 16's. For another, what happens here could potentially affect all the other parallels. All new parallels will be a direct result of events here. And if you guys ever went kablooie…you'd probably take the rest down with you."
Several stunned faces blinked back at the lecturer. Eve reminded herself that laughing would be a very bad thing, and waved one hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Relax, it's nothing you could cause. Just like…total universal erasure. Which is statistically very, very improbable. You'd need a reality bomb or something. Of course, that would also destroy this entire metaverse. Forget I said anything."
That seemed to at least snap them out of it.
"But seriously, you don't need to worry. Barring that highly improbable event, there will always be a version of you guys around somewhere. Any last questions?"
"How big is your organization, and do you work with anyone else?" Of course it would be Robin who asked that. Bats probably told him to watch me.
"Fairly small, honestly. We've got a grand total of three members and several people who contribute when time allows. Fairly large metaverses tend to have their own teams, just like we stick primarily to Delta. Mu's got the Exiles, just as an example. And believe me, they're welcome to it. Mu's a shitstorm on good days. We haul in random scientists who agree to look over some of the tech we pick up just to make sure it's safe to dismantle, blow up, or otherwise get rid of. And that's really all I can tell you without going into classified specifics."
"Who were those two that came with you during the Frost Giant incident?" Artemis asked, twirling the arrow pendant that she'd been wearing ever since New Year's.
"Herald and Hotspot. Herald's one of the other members, and Hotspot's from his home universe. He agreed to help out. Okay, part two: what happens if you wind up getting sucked away."
She banished the screens with a wave of her hands. "One: don't be conspicuous. Stay as under the radar as possible. If you wind up running into other versions of you, which is definitely possible, get the alternate-reality thing cleared up ASAP. Trust me, you really don't want to be thought of as a shapeshifter or enemy. If they ask for a designation, just tell them Earth-16. If you wind up in a parallel, then you really don't need to even say that. But since it might be a wee bit difficult to prove something like that, it really would be better to just stay out of sight. Getting back home—it really depends on how you got there. If you fell through an access point, we'll know, and we'll be able to send someone to pick you up. If it's magic—it depends on how well you know the spell. Zatanna, you need to know where and how far you're going for a teleportation spell, right?"
"Hmm?" the magician looked up from where she'd been doodling on a scrap of paper. "Oh, yeah. And even then, teleporting burns a lot of energy. I've never tried to teleport between universes before, but I've gone to pocket dimensions a few times."
Eve nodded. "So magic might be a risky option. Try and figure out where you are if you're going to hop between universes. If you got there through some kind of machine—do NOT, under any circumstances, try to operate it if you don't fucking know how it works. Trust me, that is a shitty idea. Last time we had to deal with someone screwing around with a dimension-jumping machine, they almost tore a hole straight through reality. I'd really rather avoid that. And if none of that's available…weird as it sounds, we do have a hotline. I'll get a friend to program it into your computers once the Void realigns."
"And why can't you just tell us yourself?" Jason asked.
"Because it's linked to their computer system, a part I don't have access to, and have absolutely no hope of hacking." Eve studied the diagram one last time before twisting both hands in an inward motion to shrink it back to its original size. "Any more questions? No? Class dismissed. There won't be a test."
It took about ten minutes for the room to empty, and another twenty for Eve to make the edits to the file she had originally created to include the other information that she had included in the presentation, but she was finally done.
A complete how-to on how the multiverse works plus proper etiquette on how not to get yourself killed or cause extra paperwork. O would be proud. I wonder if I can get her to put this on the website?
Do we have a website?
Note to self: make a website.
"Nightwalker."
Eve nearly jumped out of her skin. "Fucking shit!" she hissed, spinning around. "Will you quit that, you emotionally constipated asshole!"
The Bat-glare leveled at her was definitely impressive. "I assume you've finished by now."
The woman yanked the USB with the file on it out of the port she had found and held it out, resisting the urge to throw it at Batman's head. "All yours. Feel free to add it to your oh-so-extensive-files." Her voice was polite and chillingly cold. "I trust I've satisfied your request?"
"We'll see." He swept the small memory stick out of his hand, presumably to vanish into some depth of his utility belt. "For now, I'd just like to inform you that barring further events or missions, your access to the Cave's exits has been severely curtailed."
"What?" The word exploded out of her, and Eve stared at the black-clad man, bile rising in her throat. No. Nononononono, he can't do this to me, I have to get out of here, I have to go, why is this happening?
"You will be permitted to travel within a five-mile radius of the Cave as long as you are accompanied by another Team member or Leaguer. Any solo unannounced expeditions will be met with further restrictions. In addition, you will be closely monitored on missions and during training until further notice."
This can't be happening. This can't be happening. I can't be trapped, I won't be trapped, not again…why is this…wait a minute…
"And let me guess, you're banning me from the weapons room as well?" she hissed. "I cannot believe you, you fucking asshole. That was a private fucking conversation. It was a goddamned therapy session. What the absolute fuck. I am a legal fucking adult, what the fuck gives you the right to invade my privacy and breach confidentiality you fiul nelegitim de o curvă și un mincinos."
His face remained impassive. "You admitted to a history of mental illness and murder, including the counterpart of your own teammate with a distinct lack of remorse. You've demonstrated that you posess lethal training and an enormous amount of raw, uncontrolled power. If you were being tried for your crimes, you could be locked up in Belle Reve in a heartbeat. After all, you're a legal adult."
"You. Have. No. Right." Every word was dragged out from between clenched teeth`.
"We both know forgery isn't that hard. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I don't trust you. I don't trust you around my partners or any of the other juveniles here. I am going to be watching you very closely, and if you give me the slightest cause to think that you intend harm or injury to anyone you associate with, I will ensure you spend the rest of your time here in a prison cell. Watch yourself."
And with that, the intimidating figure spun and swept out of the room, leaving behind a standing figure who slumped in broken defeat.
The fists at her side unclenched as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Whoo! I didn't think I'd get this out tonight. But I did!
And it has been over a month and I am very sorry...
I don't know if anyone's still reading this, but if you are, and you made it this far, thank you so much for sticking with this story. I really, truly appreciate it.
So this chapter was basically for me to get all the multi/meta/universe stuff off my chest. If you're still confused about any of it, please let me know.
Quick clarifier: Delta=DC, Mu=Marvel. The Exiles are a real team, if not a well-known one. And the Marvel multiverse is such a mess to deal with that I didn't even want to go into it.
The Batman conversation comes back. He did indeed find out about the impromptu therapy session, and immediately jumped the wrong way and classified Eve as a major threat. Which she could be. It's not like he said anything untrue.
fiul nelegitim de o curvă și un mincinos=misbegotten son of a whore and a liar.
So anyway, I have one more setup chapter to write, and then I FINALLY get to move into the next arc. Eesanchez, you know which one that is. It really won't feature Nightwalker very much at all.
So, anyway...
REVIEW, PLEASE?