Rachel, Lorent, Klezmi, Silva, and a few others in minor roles are mine.
Rated PG : language; sexuality; violence; some mature concepts.
Please review, it keeps me going.
I woke abruptly, with a jolt, feeling as if the world had snapped back into place. I was in the same apartment I had lived in for years. Nothing was different, but something seemed strange, as if everything had changed. Another life, another set of memories seemed to flit around the edges of my mind.
"Rachel..." Memory returned. I pressed my face into my hands. What had I done? How had it happened?
I remembered all of it, then, as I looked around with that haunting sense of unreality. Rachel had been here when I fell asleep. We had expected reality to change. It had, I was sure of it, yet here I was. We had expected never to wake up, but we had… I held a hand to my head, my mind whirling.
She had been here, with me. I could remember us making love, but now she was gone... There was something else, too, a darker memory, or a dream, of death and destruction, of me doing things I knew I had never done, of being someone I knew I would never be. It faded before I was fully awake, and was gone.
An hour later, I was in Time Force headquarters. My first instinct had been to find Rachel, and I had tracked her down to a meeting with Logan and a few of the temporal scientists. Now we were all listening to Dagmar, a tall blonde woman, the most brilliant of our experts on temporal mechanics.
"Reality has been altered again," she said cheerfully. "As far as I can tell, we're in a retroactive continuity." She beamed at us happily.
"And that means…" Logan prompted.
"It means another radical change has been made in history, in 2001, after our corresponding time. The change has propagated down the timeline, and the reality we're in now is the result, replacing a previously altered state." Her eyes sparkled with scientific enthusiasm. "Nothing like this has ever happened before. It's amazing. The instrument readings are fascinating. We're picking up signs of another alternate reality that left a residual impact on our timeline..."
"Could you explain that for us in terms of one syllable?" Logan asked, his voice slightly amused.
Rachel took over. "When we travel or communicate through time, we can only move in fixed jumps, like a hundred ninety-nine years, to go back to 2001. This means there is always a moment in time in 2001 that corresponds with each moment in our time. We can only interact directly with our corresponding time in the past.
"At the same time -- so to speak -- our history is influenced by everything in the past. What's happened now is that a change was made in 2001 at some point, and our reality was wiped out. Then another change was made, after our corresponding time, to set things back, probably because of our own actions. Our reality has been restored, but not perfectly. That's why there are some inconsistencies, like Alex's survival."
I was still trying to figure that one out when Logan spoke up. "When we realized history had been changed, we sent the Quantum morpher and the Q-Rex back. Do you think that's what changed things back?"
"It's certainly possible," Rachel answered. "Maybe our officers in 2001 found the morpher, and it was enough to help them stop Ransik."
Dagmar cut in enthusiastically. "And then -- when reality shifted back, the reality in which we knew our reality was going to be wiped out wasn't erased since if it was, we would never have sent the morpher back, and then they wouldn't have been able to stop Ransik."
"Exactly."
"That's probably also why Alex can remember the timeline in which he died. If he hadn't been dead, Jen wouldn't have gone back to 2001 to stop Ransik, so that timeline retains some reality. Now, it looks like still another timeline caused a change that restored ours."
"I don't know about you, but I'm getting a headache," Logan muttered.
Dagmar gave him a disgusted look. "It's perfectly simple," she said. "We're in a pocket of reality that was created when a change was made as a result of one branch of reality which is now no longer valid. It retains only a pseudo-existence because of its effect on the actuating event that brought our timeline back, therefore the causative probabilities overlap."
"Never mind. Please. The question now is, are we safe? Is this reality permanent?"
"No reality is permanent. Timestream fluctuation is a quantum phenomenon, events in the past which occur as a result of our actions or even actions originating in another branch of the timeline but influencing our common past…"
"Dagmar, can't you talk like a human being?"
"She means we don't know. Things could still change, something we do could alter history again. Possibly someone from an alternate reality could still travel to 2001 and alter history," Rachel said.
"I believe that's what I said," Dagmar said haughtily.
"Right." Logan suppressed a smile.
I interrupted. "What about Jen and the others?" I asked. "Have you contacted them yet? Are they all right? Can they come back now?"
The expression on Logan's face warned me I wouldn't like the answer. "We haven't been able to communicate with them yet," he said. "But we'll keep trying." He frowned. "The time stream is starting to settle down, but it's still too disrupted for them to communicate, or for us to go after them."
"But they stopped Ransik…"
"Maybe. For now. We don't know exactly what happened."
"Reality may change again," Rachel said gently. "We just don't know."
"Well -- what can we do?"
"Nothing." The tone of Logan's voice told me he was as frustrated as I was.
"No -- there must be something…"
"Alex, the fact that we're here indicates that they're alive, and doing their job," Logan said. "We just have to trust that they'll win out."
"Can't we send back more help? Make more morphers, more automated weapons like the Q-Rex?"
"No. Our timeline has been restored, remember. Even if we could send something back to the right time, in one piece -- if we interfere now, it could just undo whatever's supposed to happen. We could ruin everything."
"But we don't even know if they'll survive -- if they'll make it back..."
"We just have to wait, and hope."
"Damn it -- Jen…" I muttered. Then I could have kicked myself as I saw Rachel turn away and quietly leave the room. There wasn't much else for me to say to Logan and the scientists. I excused myself and went after her.
We had reached her office by the time I caught up. I followed her in. She walked behind her desk and turned to face me across it, her face cool and controlled. We just stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Rachel, I'm sorry…" I started.
"For what? I knew what the situation was. You love Jen." She smiled. "What happened between us was because we were afraid, because we thought it didn't matter anymore."
"But now it does matter."
"No, it doesn't. It didn't mean anything, not really." She rested a hand on the desk and looked down at it.
"But it did happen," I said softly.
"And we're both going to forget it." She sat behind the desk and looked at me calmly.
"I suppose you're right." I felt relief, but also an unexpected pang of disappointment. "We're still -- all right with each other, aren't we?"
"Of course." She gave me that warm smile, so familiar and reassuring. "We're friends, Alex. Nothing's going to change that."
"Good. Well…" I still felt awkward. "I guess I'd better go."
Her voice came again as I turned away. "Don't worry. Jen's a survivor. She'll beat Ransik. And she'll be back."
That was when the guilt started in earnest. No matter what the circumstances, I had cheated on Jen. She was stranded two hundred years in the past, fighting for our existence, risking her life, and I had cheated on her.
Time passed. The weeks began to stretch into months. Life returned to something approaching normal. There was the ever-present worry that the timeline would change again, but I suppose people can get used to anything. We held on. Rachel and I resumed something approaching our old friendship, only an undercurrent of discomfort remaining between us.
There was always work, and I threw myself into it. Rachel and her team were working on a new morpher for me, of the same design as my original one. Part of me still hoped to get the red morpher back some day, so I asked them to make it black this time. Testing it, and getting myself back into combat condition, kept me busy. But not busy enough to keep me from wondering every day what was happening -- had happened -- to Lucas, Trip, Katie, and most of all, Jen.
Then came the day when Logan summoned me to his office for another briefing. I recognized the woman with him, Sierra, one of our historical experts. I sat down, hoping for good news.
"As you know, we've been going through the historical records, trying to find out what's happening -- what happened -- in 2001. Sierra's ready to give a report, and I thought you'd want to hear it."
I nodded. Both of us looked at her as she ducked her head shyly, obviously embarrassed at being the focus of attention. "This is only preliminary -- and history's still in a state of flux..." she started.
"We understand."
"Well -- we find evidence of the Rangers -- your teammates -- in the past. They became quite famous in Silver Hills, despite their efforts to keep a low profile."
"I would think anything like Power Rangers would have attracted a vast amount of attention at that time," I said.
"Yes, well, Ransik and his mutants were attacking the city and a company called Bio-Lab. All but one of the Rangers managed to stay away from the news media for the most part..."
"Which one?"
She sighed. "Maybe I'd better just tell the whole story. Keep in mind that records from that time are incomplete. I'll get to why in a minute." Logan and I both nodded.
"Ransik first appeared at the beginning of 2001. He attacked a library. Another mutant who fits the description of Steelix was with him. He was apparently looking for information, newspapers, magazines, historical records. The Rangers showed up, drove him off, and freed the people Ransik had held hostage."
"So Trip did manage to unlock the morphers."
"Apparently. Soon after that, Nadira and Steelix were involved in kidnapping a group of children. The Rangers got involved again, rescued the kids." She looked at me. "We have excellent eyewitness descriptions. There were five Rangers this time. The Red Ranger was with them."
"But -- how could that be?" I asked. "Maybe it was the Quantum Ranger? The suits are similar."
"No. A couple of months later, in spring 2001, the Quantum Ranger appeared, in addition to the original five."
"The Quantum Ranger -- if it wasn't one of our team, who was it? And who was the Red Ranger?"
"We know for a fact who the Quantum Ranger was. He was Eric Myers. He worked for Bio-Lab, in a security force called the Silver Guardians. Whether Jen gave him the morpher, or he just found it, we don't know. From all accounts, however, he and the other Rangers weren't very friendly at first. We also don't know for sure who the Red Ranger was. It seems likely he was Wesley Collins, the son of Alan Collins, owner of Bio-Lab." She looked at me as if the name should mean something.
"Wesley Collins. Go on."
"Take a look." Sierra pulled a piece of paper from a folder she was holding. With a smile she held it out. It was a copy of an old photograph, showing a young man with dark blond hair and blue-green eyes, smiling at a long-gone camera. I stared at it, stunned. It was my face.
"Alex? Do you think he's a relative? Your ancestor?" Logan asked after a moment.
"I don't know... I guess it's likely, with that resemblance." I looked more closely. There were a few small differences, and of course his hair and eyes were lighter than mine. But it was still uncanny.
"Maybe that's how he could use your morpher?"
For some reason the thought annoyed me. "He wouldn't be a genetic match, no matter how much he looks like me." I gave the picture back to Sierra. "Trip must have found a way around the DNA lock. I'm surprised Jen would give the morpher to a civilian. A native of 2001."
"At least it means they had help. And they found the Quantum morpher. There were six of them against Ransik and his group. Even numbers."
"Yes. At least they had a chance." But I didn't smile. Somehow it bothered me. Jen had given my morpher away, to a stranger who looked just like me. And she thought I was dead...
"Go on," Logan said to Sierra.
"They apparently captured Steelix early on, and Brickneck when the Quantum Ranger showed up. Neither of them was seen again. Then..." She smiled. "They got the Q-Rex."
"What? How? Was it still functional after sixty-five million years?"
"There are reports of something resembling a timehole -- they must have gone back in time somehow to get it. Most of the timestream disruption is between now and 2001, they could have done it. Ransik had a timehole generator. Maybe they used that."
"And then?"
Now she frowned. "There were two major battles between the Rangers and a combat machine which was probably built by Frax. The Rangers won both times, but with a great deal of destruction to the city, especially the second time. Both Ransik's machine and the Q-Rex were destroyed. It's hard to get accurate accounts, there was a great deal of confusion. Many records were destroyed at the time, in the battle, and of course more were lost in the great earthquake a hundred years later. We do know the Red and Quantum Rangers were seen again, occasionally. There are a few reports of the other Rangers appearing, but it's impossible to tell if they're true."
"That could mean they came home, Alex," Logan said. It could also mean they had died. None of us said it.
"Afterwards, Silver Hills rebuilt, slowly. Wesley Collins joined Eric Myers as co-commander of the Silver Guardians. They apparently made a good combination, Eric was tough, Wes was likable. Together, they pulled the Guardians, and Bio-Lab, through some hard times. In another hundred years, the Guardians formed a task force to prevent the misuse of early time travel devices. Later they also took on the problem of controlling powerful mutant criminals. Eventually they changed their name to Time Force."
"So," Logan said softly. "That's what Ransik was after. Prevent Time Force from existing by destroying Bio-Lab, or perhaps killing Eric and Wes."
"But Jen prevented it, by fighting Ransik, and by giving them the morphers..." I said.
"Yes. We owe a lot to Jen, Lucas, Katie, and Trip."
"I just hope we get a chance to thank them." Logan and I stared somberly at each other.
It looked like an ordinary house, set back from the road, separated from its neighbors by fencing, trees, and bushes. Whoever lived there wasn't very social. With good reason. Logan and I looked it over from our position behind a line of trees bordering the street. I glanced back at the squads of Time Force officers behind us.
Life went on as we waited for word of our team in 2001. We had been tracking down a gang that was involved with the theft of weapons and an outdated technology that had been used to create mutants decades ago. The trail had led here, and we had read signs of mutant DNA from this house. There had also been traces of temporal distortion reported from this area before the timestream had become too disrupted for travel, so we suspected they had also been using an illegal timehole. All of it added up to serious trouble. That was why I was here.
It was my first time back in real action as a Ranger. I glanced down at my wrist, the new black morpher securely strapped on it. The memory came back, disturbingly vivid, of going up against Ransik. I was fully recovered now, at least physically.
That battle had been a year ago, a year of waiting while the timestream slowly stabilized, and had now been passable for a few months. Apparently events in the past had gone well, and nothing had interfered further with history. We had renewed our efforts to communicate with Jen and her team, so far with no results. Logan was reluctant to risk interfering with history again, but he had finally agreed to send a ship after them if we didn't hear anything in a few more weeks. Somehow knowing that it would be over soon, that Jen would be back -- or that I would know she was never coming back -- had heightened my tension.
"We read only one mutant inside," Logan said, interrupting my thoughts.
"Good. Any idea who it is?"
"No. The house is owned by a human. Lorent. No criminal record."
"They have that mutating treatment. Maybe they've used it on a human. Maybe that's the mutant we're reading."
"Possible." Logan's face became even grimmer. "It seems unlikely. Who would use that stuff, knowing what it does?"
We were talking about Muta-Chem, an old method of manipulating DNA. It was capable of transforming an ordinary human into a powerful mutant, almost as strong as Ransik or his soldiers. However, it had one big drawback. It also killed the person who used it, usually after a few weeks or months.
"I wonder why they stole it?" I murmured. "It's useless."
"Useful to anyone who could get someone else to take it," Logan answered. "Anyone who's ruthless enough to use it to make their own mutant soldiers, and doesn't care if they die." He turned to face me. "Ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." I raised my morpher and pressed the button, blinking as the light flashed over me, energy surged through me, and my uniform was replaced by the new Black Ranger suit.
As I stepped from behind the trees and walked up to the house, memory came back again of entering that laboratory, looking for Ransik. I held on to the knowledge that I had won that battle. But then in my mind I was walking out on that roof again, feeling his arm against my throat like a band of iron, feeling the blaster shots...
It wouldn't happen again, not this time. I realized I had stopped, and started for the door again, walking steadily up to it. I knocked, and tried the knob when there was no answer. To my surprise it turned. I went in.
The inside was quiet and peaceful, a normal house, nicely decorated, but somehow menacing. I knew the mutant we had detected was in here somewhere. I moved silently through the rooms, then up a narrow staircase to the second floor. That's when I heard him.
He sprang out at me with an incoherent snarl, hitting me just as I reached the top of the stairs. We fell back, I grabbed at the rail but my hand slipped, and we rolled and tumbled down to land on the floor in a heap, him on top of me, the impact driving my breath out with a jolt. He was on his feet and kicking me viciously in the ribs before I could recover. I grabbed his foot and yanked, pulling him off balance, then send a hard kick up into his stomach. He fell on his back with a thud and lay there for a moment. I scrambled up and got my first good look.
He was young, around twenty perhaps. It was hard to tell. His skin had a rough, pebbly texture and was a strange grayish color. His hair was two-toned, the outer part of each hair a normal brown, but the centimeters growing from his scalp were a bright purple. His eyes were odd, too, they also had a purple tint as he glared up at me, snarling like a wounded animal.
In fact, wounded was exactly the impression I got. He looked terrified, savage, like a cornered animal, his expression holding no sanity. I stepped back, some instinct telling me he was acting more out of fear than hostility. He got to his feet and backed away, staggering slightly, never taking his eyes off me, slightly hunched and with his arms wrapped around his middle. I started to wonder if I had hurt him more than I thought with that kick.
I got out my badge and held it up. "Time Force, you're under arrest," I announced.
He just stared, showing no sign of understanding, still backing away as I stepped closer. Then he winced, grimaced with pain, and bent over. As I hesitated, he slowly fell to his knees and then collapsed onto the floor. I summoned my blaster and cautiously nudged him a few times with my foot before calling in the troops with my communicator. Seconds later we were surrounded by TF officers. A medical tech was waving a scanner over my mystery opponent. Logan was standing at my side.
"He didn't seem very strong, for a mutant," I said. "When he kicked me, I hardly felt it. If he hadn't taken me by surprise, he never would have knocked me down in the first place." I frowned, watching. "He looks sick to me."
The medtech looked up at us. He stood and started to put his scanner away. "More than sick. He's dead," he said, looking back down at the mutant.
"What?" I gasped, unable to say anything more for a moment. "I didn't hit him that hard! Did I?"
"Not your fault," the medtech said. "He was dying when you fought him. I'm surprised he could stay on his feet."
"What killed him?" Logan asked.
"Genetic decay in every cell. Failure of every system in his body. Poor guy must have suffered." He looked at us again. "We'll have to do some testing to be sure, but it's consistent with use of the Muta-Chem treatment."
"Poor bastard," Logan muttered. "They actually used the stuff."
I felt my jaw clench. "And just abandoned him when he was dying. What kind of heartless..." I stared down at the mutant, looking vulnerable now in death, alone on the floor as the other officers stepped away from him. Whoever we were up against had used this young man and then discarded him like a piece of equipment that no longer worked. I wondered who he had been, if we would ever find out his name, if there was someone somewhere who would miss him...
I was finishing up the paperwork for my report on the incident, back in my office in Time Force HQ, when the call came. It was Logan. His voice burst from my vidphone with unaccustomed enthusiasm, his face beaming at me from the screen.
"We've gotten through! We're in communication! All of them are all right!"
There could only be one thing he was talking about. "Jen?" I asked.
"She's fine, Alex. They're coming home in a few days. She said to say hello."
TBC...